Microsoft locked down Word so that it only uses Word dictionaries. Firefox only uses Firefox plugins. Palm Desktop only syncs with Palm products. I'm not sure you understand the requirements of the definitions of anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior.
I'll give you the Palm only syncs with Palm devices (I've never had one so I don't know), but Firefox - actually works with Netscape plugins as well - not just Firefox plugins, also you can download and use 3rd party Word dictionaries (search google - plenty out there). Firefox also doesn't have special api's only Firefox inc. can access - unlike itunes.
Also Microsoft does have a fully documented interface to sync with Exchange/Outlook and Office - one of the reasons the iphone works so well with it ironically, because Apple certainly doesn't allow access to there tools.
Conversely my brother in law works at a wireless lab where they have a copper clad cage, and when he closed the door my cellphone lost its network signal within a few seconds.
Strangely enough the government transmissions didn't stop infiltrating my brain:(.
So Nokia's app store probably hasn't served up 2 billion apps, but it has the same functionality. You click one button and it installs - no questions.
But, the thing is - if I want to install an app outside of the app store my S60r5 device will let me. To me its about choice. Yes its convenient to use the app store, but there's a lot of stuff to play with that will never be on there like an emulator for the Commodore Amiga, or Super Nintendo or a mod replayer that some guy wrote for fun, but didn't want to publish anywhere.
I work in IT - I have been building images for a number of lab machines, and I know for a fact that its been on the default install list (in the Apple updater) for several weeks now (because it pops up just after installing Quicktime), even though I don't even have an iphone.
Linux does too - who honestly takes a machine from the factory and deploys it without patching it? Or say you install Linux from CD or an image on the network - who puts that into production without patching it regularly?
Same with Windows - any admin worth anything is up to date on Windows patches. Yes it comes out of the box with loads of vulnerabilities, but most of these are fixable.
And yes I have fully patched network installs for Windows - go directly onto the machine without any major issues.
I talked to one of the guys who maintains warden at last years blizzcon - he said its main purpose is to detect people using well known hacks/cheats (its not even a rootkit). That the vast majority of their policing effort is based off server side reports, user reports and gm efforts.
I was told by someone at blizzard that they essentially implemented a fix across all battlegroups (which for those who don't know is a collection of realms at one data center) so you shouldn't see the error anymore. The problem was that each realm had a set amount of blades (something like 14?) for instances. Lower population realms didn't use hardly any of that capacity - whereas high population realms there wasn't enough. Well any good server admin knows you never can tell if a low population realm becomes a high population realm or visa versa so clearly you can't build these realms based off that alone - the app needs to scale accordingly.
The fix was that now all instances belong to a pool of servers now - which will eventually allow instance sharing across realms (that is - a party of players on different realms) once its switched on.
Having run Vista it really only prompts me for admin privileges doing things like:
Setting the clock Installing software Uninstalling software Bringing up "Computer Management" - which allows me to partition disks, look at the system log, install/uninstall drivers.
I never get UAC prompts just running apps, unless Firefox or some other app wants to install an update, but I categorize that under installing software.
Guess what though - my Mac asks me for the admin password doing the same exact tasks. Granted it doesn't always ask me for the password to install programs, but isn't that less secure?
I tried to recently secure a Windows XP box after coming from a background of unix(including OS X) and Linux, and I just could not believe how insanely obfuscated Microsoft made everything. What is insanely simple to do in the Unix world takes massive effort to even attempt in the Windows world, if it will even work at all.
I'm sure you'd find a windows centric admin saying the same thing about Unix sadly - where there is no one central place to set security. Most modern distro's have gotten much better about this, but in the past it wasn't always enforced that all settings sit under/etc or all logs sit under/var/log - in my own experience Linux seems more organized over more commercial/proprietary OS's like Solaris or Tru-64.
On policies btw - its really quite simple. There's two really - one for the machine, one for the user. Machine policies are applied to anyone who logs in, user policies are like it implies only for that user session. Policies set by server are for machines being managed by a domain controller in active directory and set at a central location. All its doing is writing settings to the registry (hkcu\software\policies\ if its a user policy and hklm\software\policies if its a machine policy).
All it is is simply an api to change settings on windows and other 3rd party apps (yes - plenty of non ms stuff can be set via group policies).
Let's just face the facts: If you venture out of the basement to attend a convention, then you're not sufficiently introverted.
I went to the PAX convention, and oddly enough there were slobs there who didn't shower. Every now and then you'd walk down the hall and get a wiff of bad BO. Seriously (rant not aimed at the parent;)) if any of you are reading this and you go to a public place without being clean what kind of slob are you?
Same thing at Blizzcon - and it happened in the hotel nearby where there were plenty of showers placed conveniently in the room where you are staying.
If the app violates some network based term of use (I heard tethering on iphone is bad as an example) then fine, if the app doesn't pass quality assurance tests (which causes a crash on the phone) - fine, but if the app does something Apple doesn't like - and it doesn't have any network functionality - wtf?
I actually have a S60 device (n97) - it lets me run whatever I can download for it (assuming its compatible).
I don't recall ever when Microsoft denied an application from running on their desktop (sans viruses). In fact I used to work for a 3rd party (Adobe) and they always went out of their way to make sure everything we made (even stuff that was end of lifed 8 years ago - example: there are shims for vista for Acrobat 5...) ran perfectly fine on their supported OS's. Granted we were the largest 3rd party, but they were always very helpful with everything when there were platform problems.
They use their monopoly to bundle a browser with the OS, when you had to download Netscape over a modem, and got mad when OEM's bundled Netscape with Windows. There are other examples, but that's the one the government took them to court over.
Same with Windows Mobile - never seen a case where they flat out denied an app from running on that platform - especially something as arcane as a c64 emulator. You can download a c64 emulator for Windows Mobile and it runs just fine on any smart phone with the resources.
Iphone is just as bad as a console manufacturer - which I guess is why it drives some people nuts - its the only phone I'm aware of that is like this though.
S60 r5 has a lot of the same functionality as the iPhone these days - and guess what - I can run any app I like on it including C64 emulators. Yeah the n97 is kinda expensive (599$) but 32 gigs, expandable to another 48 gigs, user serviceable battery, and freedom to use the device on ANY network I have a sim card for, and run any app I want is really quite cool.
I've been playing with a full c64 emulator on my Nokia nseries which runs Symbian for the last couple years:). I can even emulate a Commodore Amiga on it.
I really don't understand Apple, and maybe someone can explain - what can you possibly write on the C64 that would constitute an actual platform like Java or Flash (both of which also run on my Nokia)? In other words: what threat does the Commodore 64, a machine that is 27 years old represent to the iPhone's already existing dev kit?
2.4GHz signals can only carry so much information.
Says who? Seriously read up on what makes something broadband vs. what isn't. Hint: it has nothing to do with the frequency you are on...
I'll explain: The big advantage with using bandwidth around 13cm (where wifi devices live) is there is way more of it where as the lower in frequency you go there is far less. Example - the *entire* HF spectrum (30 mhz to 2 mhz) is only 28 MHz, where is the 13cm band alone is more than 150 MHz wide. Its the same reason they moved all the TV stations in the USA to UHF. They were gobbling up precious bandwidth (7 MHz per channel!) in a place there really wasn't much to begin with.
Some people on here sit around and act like Comcast/AT&T etc are doing the best they can, but I have to laugh as when I was living in Scotland of all places I could purchase 30 megabits (cable internet) for about the same as my crappy 768k Verizon connection costs and it came with tv and phone. I was playing WoW on US servers with lower ping too than my Verizon connection.
I think the problem is a bit more deep. Having sat in on interview boards for hiring high level technicians in India (basically hiring my replacement) I thought it was a major plus if they showed up to the interview, and another major plus if they seemed to understand our questions and answer back - never mind analyzing what they told us (since I couldn't understand it).
So you may have to hire like 5 people in the hopes you get someone who is technical - which is what they did. They hired 10 people at 60,000 Rupee's a month (thats like 1200 usd) to replace essentially 2 technicians here in the US. It may not sound like a lot, but the company provided meals, free room and board and had a lot of other perks I've never seen here in the US.
I found the hiring process there to be so scary that I really don't understand the cost savings from hiring in India that everyone is clamoring still to get on board with.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll give you the Palm only syncs with Palm devices (I've never had one so I don't know), but Firefox - actually works with Netscape plugins as well - not just Firefox plugins, also you can download and use 3rd party Word dictionaries (search google - plenty out there). Firefox also doesn't have special api's only Firefox inc. can access - unlike itunes.
Also Microsoft does have a fully documented interface to sync with Exchange/Outlook and Office - one of the reasons the iphone works so well with it ironically, because Apple certainly doesn't allow access to there tools.
It doesn't even support Flash/Javascript like the browser on my Nokia does :/.
How is Palm supposed to compete with Apple when they have a pretty good monopoly on online music sales?
Don't forget mobile homes.
Conversely my brother in law works at a wireless lab where they have a copper clad cage, and when he closed the door my cellphone lost its network signal within a few seconds.
Strangely enough the government transmissions didn't stop infiltrating my brain :(.
So Nokia's app store probably hasn't served up 2 billion apps, but it has the same functionality. You click one button and it installs - no questions.
But, the thing is - if I want to install an app outside of the app store my S60r5 device will let me. To me its about choice. Yes its convenient to use the app store, but there's a lot of stuff to play with that will never be on there like an emulator for the Commodore Amiga, or Super Nintendo or a mod replayer that some guy wrote for fun, but didn't want to publish anywhere.
True - I think most pc's back then were somewhat ugly though.
I work in IT - I have been building images for a number of lab machines, and I know for a fact that its been on the default install list (in the Apple updater) for several weeks now (because it pops up just after installing Quicktime), even though I don't even have an iphone.
http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos.asp?t=1&c=1077&st=1
I can see where your coming from, but its really not the same thing.
I want to cast magic missile!
The SUV would probably roll over (seriously).
Linux does too - who honestly takes a machine from the factory and deploys it without patching it? Or say you install Linux from CD or an image on the network - who puts that into production without patching it regularly?
Same with Windows - any admin worth anything is up to date on Windows patches. Yes it comes out of the box with loads of vulnerabilities, but most of these are fixable.
And yes I have fully patched network installs for Windows - go directly onto the machine without any major issues.
I talked to one of the guys who maintains warden at last years blizzcon - he said its main purpose is to detect people using well known hacks/cheats (its not even a rootkit). That the vast majority of their policing effort is based off server side reports, user reports and gm efforts.
I was told by someone at blizzard that they essentially implemented a fix across all battlegroups (which for those who don't know is a collection of realms at one data center) so you shouldn't see the error anymore. The problem was that each realm had a set amount of blades (something like 14?) for instances. Lower population realms didn't use hardly any of that capacity - whereas high population realms there wasn't enough. Well any good server admin knows you never can tell if a low population realm becomes a high population realm or visa versa so clearly you can't build these realms based off that alone - the app needs to scale accordingly.
The fix was that now all instances belong to a pool of servers now - which will eventually allow instance sharing across realms (that is - a party of players on different realms) once its switched on.
Having run Vista it really only prompts me for admin privileges doing things like:
Setting the clock
Installing software
Uninstalling software
Bringing up "Computer Management" - which allows me to partition disks, look at the system log, install/uninstall drivers.
I never get UAC prompts just running apps, unless Firefox or some other app wants to install an update, but I categorize that under installing software.
Guess what though - my Mac asks me for the admin password doing the same exact tasks. Granted it doesn't always ask me for the password to install programs, but isn't that less secure?
I'm sure you'd find a windows centric admin saying the same thing about Unix sadly - where there is no one central place to set security. Most modern distro's have gotten much better about this, but in the past it wasn't always enforced that all settings sit under /etc or all logs sit under /var/log - in my own experience Linux seems more organized over more commercial/proprietary OS's like Solaris or Tru-64.
On policies btw - its really quite simple. There's two really - one for the machine, one for the user. Machine policies are applied to anyone who logs in, user policies are like it implies only for that user session. Policies set by server are for machines being managed by a domain controller in active directory and set at a central location. All its doing is writing settings to the registry (hkcu\software\policies\ if its a user policy and hklm\software\policies if its a machine policy).
All it is is simply an api to change settings on windows and other 3rd party apps (yes - plenty of non ms stuff can be set via group policies).
Let's just face the facts: If you venture out of the basement to attend a convention, then you're not sufficiently introverted.
I went to the PAX convention, and oddly enough there were slobs there who didn't shower. Every now and then you'd walk down the hall and get a wiff of bad BO. Seriously (rant not aimed at the parent ;)) if any of you are reading this and you go to a public place without being clean what kind of slob are you?
Same thing at Blizzcon - and it happened in the hotel nearby where there were plenty of showers placed conveniently in the room where you are staying.
Why deny anything based on functionality?
If the app violates some network based term of use (I heard tethering on iphone is bad as an example) then fine, if the app doesn't pass quality assurance tests (which causes a crash on the phone) - fine, but if the app does something Apple doesn't like - and it doesn't have any network functionality - wtf?
I actually have a S60 device (n97) - it lets me run whatever I can download for it (assuming its compatible).
I don't recall ever when Microsoft denied an application from running on their desktop (sans viruses). In fact I used to work for a 3rd party (Adobe) and they always went out of their way to make sure everything we made (even stuff that was end of lifed 8 years ago - example: there are shims for vista for Acrobat 5...) ran perfectly fine on their supported OS's. Granted we were the largest 3rd party, but they were always very helpful with everything when there were platform problems.
They use their monopoly to bundle a browser with the OS, when you had to download Netscape over a modem, and got mad when OEM's bundled Netscape with Windows. There are other examples, but that's the one the government took them to court over.
Same with Windows Mobile - never seen a case where they flat out denied an app from running on that platform - especially something as arcane as a c64 emulator. You can download a c64 emulator for Windows Mobile and it runs just fine on any smart phone with the resources.
Iphone is just as bad as a console manufacturer - which I guess is why it drives some people nuts - its the only phone I'm aware of that is like this though.
Its the same with S60 (also open source) - there's really nothing the iphone can do that my nokia can't - and it doesn't care what apps I run on it.
Most games boot from Basic - so probably not without a lot of re-working the interpreter itself.
Of course if you could boot games, you could always boot normal basic as well ;).
I honestly think they don't like it because its a program that lets you run ad-hoc games from whoever for free, not because its a software platform.
S60 r5 has a lot of the same functionality as the iPhone these days - and guess what - I can run any app I like on it including C64 emulators. Yeah the n97 is kinda expensive (599$) but 32 gigs, expandable to another 48 gigs, user serviceable battery, and freedom to use the device on ANY network I have a sim card for, and run any app I want is really quite cool.
Oh and Symbian has always had copy/paste ;).
I've been playing with a full c64 emulator on my Nokia nseries which runs Symbian for the last couple years :). I can even emulate a Commodore Amiga on it.
I really don't understand Apple, and maybe someone can explain - what can you possibly write on the C64 that would constitute an actual platform like Java or Flash (both of which also run on my Nokia)? In other words: what threat does the Commodore 64, a machine that is 27 years old represent to the iPhone's already existing dev kit?
3 Washington 9
Lies - I used to live in freaking Seattle, and I never could get any package over 2 megabit DSL - and it rarely if ever went that fast.
2.4GHz signals can only carry so much information.
Says who? Seriously read up on what makes something broadband vs. what isn't. Hint: it has nothing to do with the frequency you are on...
I'll explain: The big advantage with using bandwidth around 13cm (where wifi devices live) is there is way more of it where as the lower in frequency you go there is far less. Example - the *entire* HF spectrum (30 mhz to 2 mhz) is only 28 MHz, where is the 13cm band alone is more than 150 MHz wide. Its the same reason they moved all the TV stations in the USA to UHF. They were gobbling up precious bandwidth (7 MHz per channel!) in a place there really wasn't much to begin with.
Some people on here sit around and act like Comcast/AT&T etc are doing the best they can, but I have to laugh as when I was living in Scotland of all places I could purchase 30 megabits (cable internet) for about the same as my crappy 768k Verizon connection costs and it came with tv and phone. I was playing WoW on US servers with lower ping too than my Verizon connection.
I think the problem is a bit more deep. Having sat in on interview boards for hiring high level technicians in India (basically hiring my replacement) I thought it was a major plus if they showed up to the interview, and another major plus if they seemed to understand our questions and answer back - never mind analyzing what they told us (since I couldn't understand it).
So you may have to hire like 5 people in the hopes you get someone who is technical - which is what they did. They hired 10 people at 60,000 Rupee's a month (thats like 1200 usd) to replace essentially 2 technicians here in the US. It may not sound like a lot, but the company provided meals, free room and board and had a lot of other perks I've never seen here in the US.
I found the hiring process there to be so scary that I really don't understand the cost savings from hiring in India that everyone is clamoring still to get on board with.