...If you know ANYTHING of the US military, you know that if Bush's term came to an end and he didn't get his ass out of the office, the military would pick his ass up and kick it out of the military for him...
...unless a leader in the civilian government refused to get his ass out of office...
...even if the military did turn on the civilian government for the purpose of dragging Bush's ass out of office...
You certainly seem to have a "thing" for Bush's ass, don't you...
This is one of my biggest issues with OS X. I don't understand why Apple doesn't incorporate built-in sftp and ftp read/write protocol support into finder. Heck, even Microsoft lets me mount a read/write ftp server in Windows XP.
Even the 3rd party graphical ftp tools are their own applications and don't incorporate into the Finder like I, at least, think they should. Like others have said here, this is why I occasionally fire up KDE via X11. Heck, on Windows I at least have Webdrive, a slick program for mounting ftp/sftp/etc. servers with drive letters. This seems like it might be one of the places in OS X-land where a small shareware developer might be able to make some profit.
That said, you could transcode to 192 kbps AAC or something else that's totally transparent in a noisy (outdoor or motor-vehicle) playing environment when copying songs to your portable player.
You could do this, but it depends on how you use your iPod. Right now I'm fairly transient, so my iPod is my "home stereo". I listen to my iPod on reasonably good Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones, usually in fairly quiet environments like work (fortunately for me work isn't usually too noisy).
Plus, if I maintained a separate library for iTunes and iPod, metadata like my ratings and number of times played wouldn't sync up. It would be cool if Apple offered this as a feature in iTunes, although I suppose there might be a way to script it using Applescript if I really wanted that feature bad enough, which I don't;-)
Or it's awesome, depending on how you look at it and what your idea is. The mount of code and open projects out there with which to start can really help too.
For instance, even just think of the costs of setting up an office with a firewall, router, mail server, web server, database server, file server, telephone system, office suite, operating systems, etc. if no Free/OS options were available. Or consider how you can take some of these packages and build on them or mix them together to offer a product combination nobody else is doing.
Thanks for your contributions to a package I use every day. Oh look, a Mozilla tab open right now that says "SquirrelMail 1.4.1". I think the interface could use an optional rich DHTML version which would make it really cool. It's one of those "gee wouldn't it be neat to do" sorts of projects that someone else will likely get to before me, unfortunately.
But even without that it's an awesome package, so thanks for whatever contributions you made!
Do I correctly understand that you expect American English to become the dominant grammar pattern for English worldwide? This certainly goes against my experience of seeing the traditional "British" spelling of words vs. the American revisions when I travel around the world. If I pick up a book, I can usually quickly tell whether it was published in the United States or... anywhere else.
Perhaps this is changing, so if you have evidence or anecdotes to show this, I'd be interested in hearing them.
While you're right in that there's no direct reason for Apple to release this phone, you have to realize that this is a compromise between Apple, Motorola and Cingular. Apple can't (realistically, right now) release a mobile phone without Motorola or some other manufacturing partner. Apple and Motorola could release a phone, but without a carrier offering it, they'd have to rely on selling it on the retail market. I can't think offhand of one mobile phone in the US market that has commercial success that isn't offered by at least one mobile phone company. 99% of mobile phone customers don't even really consider that they don't HAVE to get their phone from their mobile service provider with a 2 year contract and a $100 discount.
So... I'm sure Apple would love to release a product that looks like an iPod, functions great as a mobile phone, has high-speed EV-DO or EDGE, lets you sync to your computer with bluetooth, has a clickwheel and lets you buy and download songs directly from iTunes and use them as ringtons.
Let's say they have a meeting with Motorola and tell them all this. Motorola has a vested interest in maintaining their brand and feels that they have a form factor and UI they want to push. They balk at Apple's initial product design but offer a better deal if Apple goes with Motorola's industrial design. Apple realizes they can't afford the financial risk of providing their version from the beginning so they are forced (essentially) to dilute their initial product design. This is reality. Now they have a phone that looks like the current ROKR but still offers bluetooth, high speed data access and lets people download iTunes songs directly and use them as ringtones. These are features that I'm sure both Apple and Motorola would love to offer in a phone.
THEN they shop this phone to the major carriers. You can bet that Verizon was immediately written off due to their extreme stance against technologies that are good for the customer, like bluetooth. That leaves GSM as the option, with Cingular or T-Moble really. I guess Cingular offered the best terms, but you can bet that they're going to nix features like downloading mp3s to use as ringtones. Other features maybe just didn't make the cut due to cost or time-to-market considerations.
The real "bad guy" here is Cingular. They are the ones who have the final say in getting a phone in front of customers. Cingular makes a LOT more money in selling ringtones and charging you when you go over your minutes than they do selling phone hardware. So they'll do what they think they need to do in order to protect their current cash cows. So yeah, Apple executives I'm sure would LOVE to offer a phone with more features, but until they control the mobile network themselves or have significantly more leverage with Cingular or another carrier (not likely) this is the best they can do.
Thanks, I'll take a look at that. I hadn't really considered that this is what might be happening - I just use the lossless encoder and figured I have pretty much the same thing then as what's on the CD.
You're right about that. If I'm answering questions inline I'll respond below the question. Usually I'll still write something like "answers written in-line" at the top of the email though. My comment was more that this:
Overall I've been very happy with my third generation 15GB iPod's sound quality, AS LONG AS I don't use any post-processing. If I use the equalizer settings or turn on the sound check, the sound quality goes way downhill to the point where it's annoying to listen to using my Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones.
If I turn up the bass booster in the equalizer, I get overdriven bass which seems to become even worse with music encoded at a lower bit rate (most of my music is encoded with Apple's lossless encoder). The sound check (which is supposed to equalize the volume of all the songs) really seems to flatten the dynamic response of the music. I use it in the car since I'm just hooking the iPod to my stereo with a cassette adapter anyway, but I can tell if it's on when I'm using my headpones.
Another semi-unrelated problem with the iPod is that it seems to not quite have enough processing power to play some of the lossless-encoded music. These songs can clock in at over 1000kbps which can result in the iPod halting play for a few ms while it rebuffers. This is while it's sitting on the desk, too, not while I'm jogging or something.
All in all I LOVE my iPod and am very happy with it. I just wish it maybe had a little more processing power so it could do a better job maintaining its audio quality while playing high bitrate music and/or running it through its post-processor.
Hmm, I dunno. I've been using email for, ohh, 14 or so years now so I'm hardly a newcomer to the concept. I think it makes a lot more sense to reply to a message at the top. After all, that's where you start when you read. Why not have the most recent message there instead of having to scroll to the bottom, only to find that the latest response was long and you need to scroll back up again? No thanks.
At least one of my friends tries to make this a Unix versus Microsoft Windows holy war, but I set my mail client to reply at the top no matter which one I'm using, because it makes sense to me and apparently to almost everyone else who uses email too.
Sometimes people have ideas and improve how things are done. Just because it's new and different doesn't mean it's worse. I think this is one of those occasions.
My sister and her husband operate a commercial lodge on Vancouver Island (Canada). They use their satellite connection for internet access and voice for their business lines. Unless there's a heavy storm it works very well, and then they have radio phones for backup.
Anyway, my point is that you can use your satellite service for voice as well, if you set it up right. It's certainly not as good as a landline, but where they live that's not an option. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than radio phone service.
It seems to me that it's easy to make blanket comments about how coding should be done, and I agree with your statement that prototyping can often be a valid development methodology. However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that prototype code should never go into production. For instance, if you're a Java developer and as a result you prototype most efficiently in Java, and your final environment is going to be Java-based, then reusing some of those classes or methods in production isn't necessarily a bad idea. You have the opportunity as you need to to rewrite certain methods as you need to improve performance.
There's always the balance between "getting it done" and "getting it done right". If "getting it done" is the highest priority, as it often is in the real world, sometimes it's best to do whatever you need to do to get it done. Including using your prototype code in v.1 of production.
I have a 3G 15GB iPod and get around this by having a cover on it. The cover has holes for the various buttons and as a result I can quickly find the button I'm looking for without looking and without pressing the wrong one.
Yeah that doesn't excuse the slight design faux pas on Apple's part, but at least it mitigates the issue you brought up.
I look at the Apple mouse kind of like I look at pedals for a high-end mountain or road bike. A number of very expensive bicycles don't come with pedals. While this may sound bizarre, the reason is that the manufacturer knows that whatever type they spec will likely be replaced by the owner anyway due to the cyclist's individual preferences. So why spec $150+ pedals on a bike when the owner's just going to replace them anyway?
The one-button mouse for the Mac was great for first-time users. Those of us who actually CARE about having more than one button probably already have a mouse we like and wouldn't use the one that came with our Mac regardless of how many buttons it had. This new mouse, at least, provides the simple one-button experience for newbies but allows the rest of us to use it as a multi-button mouse. It seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
"If you want a home machine, a Mac is ok. But for business, you need a PC"
Interesting. What seems more common in my circles is, "For business, you need UNIX." It's likely that many of the people who are answering the question in this manner are using OS X now. But that's hardly news.
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This is just further proof that Microsoft can't come up with anything original...
You certainly seem to have a "thing" for Bush's ass, don't you...
Yes thank you. That was one of the dumbest phrases I've heard in a while. And I've heard some dumb things...
Even the 3rd party graphical ftp tools are their own applications and don't incorporate into the Finder like I, at least, think they should. Like others have said here, this is why I occasionally fire up KDE via X11. Heck, on Windows I at least have Webdrive, a slick program for mounting ftp/sftp/etc. servers with drive letters. This seems like it might be one of the places in OS X-land where a small shareware developer might be able to make some profit.
You could do this, but it depends on how you use your iPod. Right now I'm fairly transient, so my iPod is my "home stereo". I listen to my iPod on reasonably good Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones, usually in fairly quiet environments like work (fortunately for me work isn't usually too noisy).
Plus, if I maintained a separate library for iTunes and iPod, metadata like my ratings and number of times played wouldn't sync up. It would be cool if Apple offered this as a feature in iTunes, although I suppose there might be a way to script it using Applescript if I really wanted that feature bad enough, which I don't ;-)
For instance, even just think of the costs of setting up an office with a firewall, router, mail server, web server, database server, file server, telephone system, office suite, operating systems, etc. if no Free/OS options were available. Or consider how you can take some of these packages and build on them or mix them together to offer a product combination nobody else is doing.
But even without that it's an awesome package, so thanks for whatever contributions you made!
Perhaps this is changing, so if you have evidence or anecdotes to show this, I'd be interested in hearing them.
Yeah, my dad says something is "as useless as tits on a boar pig".
So ... I'm sure Apple would love to release a product that looks like an iPod, functions great as a mobile phone, has high-speed EV-DO or EDGE, lets you sync to your computer with bluetooth, has a clickwheel and lets you buy and download songs directly from iTunes and use them as ringtons.
Let's say they have a meeting with Motorola and tell them all this. Motorola has a vested interest in maintaining their brand and feels that they have a form factor and UI they want to push. They balk at Apple's initial product design but offer a better deal if Apple goes with Motorola's industrial design. Apple realizes they can't afford the financial risk of providing their version from the beginning so they are forced (essentially) to dilute their initial product design. This is reality. Now they have a phone that looks like the current ROKR but still offers bluetooth, high speed data access and lets people download iTunes songs directly and use them as ringtones. These are features that I'm sure both Apple and Motorola would love to offer in a phone.
THEN they shop this phone to the major carriers. You can bet that Verizon was immediately written off due to their extreme stance against technologies that are good for the customer, like bluetooth. That leaves GSM as the option, with Cingular or T-Moble really. I guess Cingular offered the best terms, but you can bet that they're going to nix features like downloading mp3s to use as ringtones. Other features maybe just didn't make the cut due to cost or time-to-market considerations.
The real "bad guy" here is Cingular. They are the ones who have the final say in getting a phone in front of customers. Cingular makes a LOT more money in selling ringtones and charging you when you go over your minutes than they do selling phone hardware. So they'll do what they think they need to do in order to protect their current cash cows. So yeah, Apple executives I'm sure would LOVE to offer a phone with more features, but until they control the mobile network themselves or have significantly more leverage with Cingular or another carrier (not likely) this is the best they can do.
Thanks, I'll take a look at that. I hadn't really considered that this is what might be happening - I just use the lossless encoder and figured I have pretty much the same thing then as what's on the CD.
Comment 4
> Comment 3
>> Comment 2
>>> Comment 1
Is more convenient than this:
>>> Comment 1
>> Comment 2
> Comment 3
Comment 4
If I turn up the bass booster in the equalizer, I get overdriven bass which seems to become even worse with music encoded at a lower bit rate (most of my music is encoded with Apple's lossless encoder). The sound check (which is supposed to equalize the volume of all the songs) really seems to flatten the dynamic response of the music. I use it in the car since I'm just hooking the iPod to my stereo with a cassette adapter anyway, but I can tell if it's on when I'm using my headpones.
Another semi-unrelated problem with the iPod is that it seems to not quite have enough processing power to play some of the lossless-encoded music. These songs can clock in at over 1000kbps which can result in the iPod halting play for a few ms while it rebuffers. This is while it's sitting on the desk, too, not while I'm jogging or something.
All in all I LOVE my iPod and am very happy with it. I just wish it maybe had a little more processing power so it could do a better job maintaining its audio quality while playing high bitrate music and/or running it through its post-processor.
At least one of my friends tries to make this a Unix versus Microsoft Windows holy war, but I set my mail client to reply at the top no matter which one I'm using, because it makes sense to me and apparently to almost everyone else who uses email too.
Sometimes people have ideas and improve how things are done. Just because it's new and different doesn't mean it's worse. I think this is one of those occasions.
OK thanks I'm done now ;-)
Your dad's lucky he didn't electrocute himself, peeing on the monitor like that.
Interesting post, but I dare you to go to Dublin and start proclaiming loudly about how it's a "UK town". :-)
- Andrew.
Anyway, my point is that you can use your satellite service for voice as well, if you set it up right. It's certainly not as good as a landline, but where they live that's not an option. Plus, it's a lot cheaper than radio phone service.
There's always the balance between "getting it done" and "getting it done right". If "getting it done" is the highest priority, as it often is in the real world, sometimes it's best to do whatever you need to do to get it done. Including using your prototype code in v.1 of production.
You must be GNU around here...
Hella
Also try VLC.
I look at the Apple mouse kind of like I look at pedals for a BMW.
Yeah that doesn't excuse the slight design faux pas on Apple's part, but at least it mitigates the issue you brought up.
The one-button mouse for the Mac was great for first-time users. Those of us who actually CARE about having more than one button probably already have a mouse we like and wouldn't use the one that came with our Mac regardless of how many buttons it had. This new mouse, at least, provides the simple one-button experience for newbies but allows the rest of us to use it as a multi-button mouse. It seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
Interesting. What seems more common in my circles is, "For business, you need UNIX." It's likely that many of the people who are answering the question in this manner are using OS X now. But that's hardly news.