Right. This Mac OS X box, which lets me run Photoshop, Illustrator, BBEdit and Dreamweaver alongside Apache, Perl and MySQL is just a totally useless status symbol. Certainly not useful for web development, or anything.
The California energy crisis is the result of a horribly botched deregulation plan at the state level. The Bush and Clinton administrations have just about nothing to do with it.
What the Bush administration is doing is pushing the idea that's there's a nation-wide energy crisis, or the threat of one. This is nonsense, but Bush wants to let his Big Oil buddies drill wherever the hell they want, and hopes the threat of $3/gal gas will do a lot to put the public on his side.
Back on topic, I doubt that Bush would be interested in satellite power. First, there wouldn't be any significant progress made before the next election. Second, it doesn't help his big campaign contributors. Bush has shown no interest in alternative energy sources.
Gore, on the other hand, had a set of measures designed to encourage such things, such as money for research and tax breaks for people who drive ultra-low or zero emission vehicles.
Believe it or not Microsoft has got to actually SELL copies of Windows XP. If Windows XP is chuck full of stupid "features" that are actually disincentives to the upgrade then people will stick with what they have.
No they won't. Microsoft puts major pressure on OEMs to ship the latest version of Windows. Prices on older versions are typically not cut, and sometimes pricing it set so that older versions actually cost more. 6 months after XP is introduced, it will be virtually impossible to buy a computer from a major OEM that doesn't have it pre-installed. Most people won't know enough to go somewhere else. And it won't even really be a viable option for those few who do; new hardware and software won't support the old OS after a while.
Actually, iMacs all have Firewire now too. And other Apple machines have been shipping with Firewire on board for years, as have some PCs from Sony and Compaq. There's quite a bit of Firewire stuff out there already, and absolutely no USB 2.0 stuff.
Original USB has it's place; a Firewire keyboard or mouse is clearly absurd. But you've got to understand USB 2.0. It's an inferior standard cooked up by Intel because Firewire's peer-to-peer design makes Intel nervous; it means you'll be able to hook lots of 'smart' devices together without a computer. Intel clearly doesn't like that idea.
Because USB 2.0 isn't peer-to-peer, it's next to useless in the consumer electronics industry. That means that even if computers start showing up with USB 2.0, they'll still need Firewire to talk to all your other devices. And because USB 2.0 chipsets will never be made in anywhere near the same volume as Firewire chipsets (which will eventually be in every camcorder, TV, DVD player, stereo, etc.), it will probably cost more.
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Re:This could be bad news for manned space travel.
on
Life On Mars: ALH84001
·
· Score: 3
What are the chances that an extraterrestrial bacteria could wipe out our civilization?
About as close to zero as anything can get. Seriously, humans can't even share diseases with most other mammals. You think we'll make good hosts for something that hasn't even evolved on the same planet? I doubt these things would even survive in our hot, wet, dense atmosphere. Chances are that these things never adapted to infect any host of any kind, since they were probably the most complex life on Mars. And as if that wasn't enough to protect us, life on Mars is almost certainly very long dead.
Microsoft could probably still make lots of money giving Windows away to consumers but still making OEMs pay for it. It's not like OEMs have the option of not including an OS in today's PC market.
How does this undermine anything? Ultimately, most people see computers as tools. They'll pick the best product for the job without regard to license (at least in markets with open competition). If you want to win the "war" with proprietary software, just build the best stuff and this kind of thing won't be any threat to you.
There's nothing wrong with a product that dominates the market because it's just better than everything else. There are no artificial barriers to entry in this market; a competitor just needs to build a better card.
For a nice example of something similar, take a look at Photoshop. It totally owns its market, but only because nobody else can make anything as good.
Mac OS X is based on BSD - a completely free and open OS. If you were to put an Aqua skin on BSD, you are damn close to having a copy of Mac OS X.
No, you're not. Mac OS X is far more than BSD with a skin. BSD doesn't have the Cocoa APIs, the PDF-based graphics engine, NetInfo, Bundles, or any of the many other things that Mac OS X interesting.
Apple has far more to offer than just slick design. The problem is that the clueless think if two things look the same, they are the same. This means that people will use Windows or Linux or whatever with an Aqua skin, and they'll think what they've got is just as good as OS X, when the reality is very different.
In other words, Apple needs to protect design so rabidly because so many people can't see past it.
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Sorenson Broadcaster + Darwin Streaming Server
on
Live Streaming Video?
·
· Score: 2
Darwin Streaming Server is the free and open source version of QuickTime Streaming Server. It runs on FreeBSD, WinNT, Solaris, RedHat and Mac OS X Server. To do real-time encoding, add Sorenson Broadcaster. It's not free, but it's only $199 no matter how many streams you want to serve. You'll need a fast Mac to run it.
The OS X beta will run on some G3-upgraded machines. I've got a friend who installed it on a 7500 with a 300MHz G3 upgrade. There's a good reason Apple won't support that hardware; it's dog slow. A video card would probably make a big difference though.
Personally, I plan on buying OS X and installing it the very day it comes out, 1.0 bugs and all!
Wimp! I've already replaced OS 9 and Linux with the OS X public beta. Having one OS that can run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Perl and Apache is really a dream for anyone who does web development.
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.Net on non-Microsoft platforms?
on
Perl and .NET
·
· Score: 2
.Net looks pretty interesting to me, and Perl support gets me even more interested. But I Don't Do Windows(TM). I'm a Mac OS and Unix guy, currently using the OS X beta quite a bit. Am I going to be able to do serious.Net development? Is there even going to be a.Net implementation for non-MS OSes? All of this.Net stuff is rather irrelevant to me and I imagine to most of the open source community if.Net is going to be just another way to write Windows apps.
I would like to be able to automate operations involving GUI-based applications in much the same way as I can automate command-line-based ones by using "here documents" in shell scripts. Given a few simple conventions for identifying GUI elements such as menu entries, buttons of various types, list boxes, and so on it shouldn't be hard to come up with a simple language for redirecting events into an event queue to start programs, issue commands to them, and pipe I/O between them.
What you're asking for sounds a lot like AppleScript. AppleScript will still be supported in OS X, and there will probably be a way to integrate it with the CLI too, from either from Apple or from some 3rd party.
The big difference is that it's from Microsoft, which means it will gain serious developer support, if MS doesn't screw up really badly.
It could be a huge boon to alternative OSes if all that nice Windows software was ported to a cross-platform environment. And why should MS care? They get to collect.NET subscription fees from everyone.
The Earth should be a bit more friendly for SETI now that Iridium is being deorbited. And it's certainly much cheaper than constructing huge arrays on the back side of the moon. There are all kinds of problems with that, not the least of which is getting data back to Earth. You'd need a relay satellite or two in lunar orbit to bounce the signals around the moon. You'd have lots of points of failure and it would be even expensive as hell to fix the system if anything broke.
Perhaps in 20-50 years once cheap energy and good old capitalist competition have made access to space nice and affordable.
Slashdot Mirror
Drive letters in Unix? Thanks a lot. Now I'll have to sleep with the light on tonight. Oh, the horror!
--
Right. This Mac OS X box, which lets me run Photoshop, Illustrator, BBEdit and Dreamweaver alongside Apache, Perl and MySQL is just a totally useless status symbol. Certainly not useful for web development, or anything.
--
The California energy crisis is the result of a horribly botched deregulation plan at the state level. The Bush and Clinton administrations have just about nothing to do with it.
What the Bush administration is doing is pushing the idea that's there's a nation-wide energy crisis, or the threat of one. This is nonsense, but Bush wants to let his Big Oil buddies drill wherever the hell they want, and hopes the threat of $3/gal gas will do a lot to put the public on his side.
Back on topic, I doubt that Bush would be interested in satellite power. First, there wouldn't be any significant progress made before the next election. Second, it doesn't help his big campaign contributors. Bush has shown no interest in alternative energy sources.
Gore, on the other hand, had a set of measures designed to encourage such things, such as money for research and tax breaks for people who drive ultra-low or zero emission vehicles.
--
Believe it or not Microsoft has got to actually SELL copies of Windows XP. If Windows XP is chuck full of stupid "features" that are actually disincentives to the upgrade then people will stick with what they have.
No they won't. Microsoft puts major pressure on OEMs to ship the latest version of Windows. Prices on older versions are typically not cut, and sometimes pricing it set so that older versions actually cost more. 6 months after XP is introduced, it will be virtually impossible to buy a computer from a major OEM that doesn't have it pre-installed. Most people won't know enough to go somewhere else. And it won't even really be a viable option for those few who do; new hardware and software won't support the old OS after a while.
--
We're you paying attention? It's not free -- it's included in the cost of the car.
--
Actually, iMacs all have Firewire now too. And other Apple machines have been shipping with Firewire on board for years, as have some PCs from Sony and Compaq. There's quite a bit of Firewire stuff out there already, and absolutely no USB 2.0 stuff.
Original USB has it's place; a Firewire keyboard or mouse is clearly absurd. But you've got to understand USB 2.0. It's an inferior standard cooked up by Intel because Firewire's peer-to-peer design makes Intel nervous; it means you'll be able to hook lots of 'smart' devices together without a computer. Intel clearly doesn't like that idea.
Because USB 2.0 isn't peer-to-peer, it's next to useless in the consumer electronics industry. That means that even if computers start showing up with USB 2.0, they'll still need Firewire to talk to all your other devices. And because USB 2.0 chipsets will never be made in anywhere near the same volume as Firewire chipsets (which will eventually be in every camcorder, TV, DVD player, stereo, etc.), it will probably cost more.
--
What are the chances that an extraterrestrial bacteria could wipe out our civilization?
About as close to zero as anything can get. Seriously, humans can't even share diseases with most other mammals. You think we'll make good hosts for something that hasn't even evolved on the same planet? I doubt these things would even survive in our hot, wet, dense atmosphere. Chances are that these things never adapted to infect any host of any kind, since they were probably the most complex life on Mars. And as if that wasn't enough to protect us, life on Mars is almost certainly very long dead.
--
Microsoft could probably still make lots of money giving Windows away to consumers but still making OEMs pay for it. It's not like OEMs have the option of not including an OS in today's PC market.
--
How does this undermine anything? Ultimately, most people see computers as tools. They'll pick the best product for the job without regard to license (at least in markets with open competition). If you want to win the "war" with proprietary software, just build the best stuff and this kind of thing won't be any threat to you.
--
It's only an extra $350 to replace a GeForce2MX when you spec a G4 at the Apple store.
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There's nothing wrong with a product that dominates the market because it's just better than everything else. There are no artificial barriers to entry in this market; a competitor just needs to build a better card.
For a nice example of something similar, take a look at Photoshop. It totally owns its market, but only because nobody else can make anything as good.
--
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Amazon actually paid Apple to license 1-click in order to give the patent some credibility....
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Mac OS X is based on BSD - a completely free and open OS. If you were to put an Aqua skin on BSD, you are damn close to having a copy of Mac OS X.
No, you're not. Mac OS X is far more than BSD with a skin. BSD doesn't have the Cocoa APIs, the PDF-based graphics engine, NetInfo, Bundles, or any of the many other things that Mac OS X interesting.
Apple has far more to offer than just slick design. The problem is that the clueless think if two things look the same, they are the same. This means that people will use Windows or Linux or whatever with an Aqua skin, and they'll think what they've got is just as good as OS X, when the reality is very different.
In other words, Apple needs to protect design so rabidly because so many people can't see past it.
--
Darwin Streaming Server is the free and open source version of QuickTime Streaming Server. It runs on FreeBSD, WinNT, Solaris, RedHat and Mac OS X Server. To do real-time encoding, add Sorenson Broadcaster. It's not free, but it's only $199 no matter how many streams you want to serve. You'll need a fast Mac to run it.
--
It looks like you're mixing version numbers. OS X is a variation of BSD 4.4 Lite on a heavily modified Mach 3 kernel.
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The guy who writes FinderPop, another shareware program that does something like this, apparently works at Apple.
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The OS X beta will run on some G3-upgraded machines. I've got a friend who installed it on a 7500 with a 300MHz G3 upgrade. There's a good reason Apple won't support that hardware; it's dog slow. A video card would probably make a big difference though.
--
Personally, I plan on buying OS X and installing it the very day it comes out, 1.0 bugs and all!
Wimp! I've already replaced OS 9 and Linux with the OS X public beta. Having one OS that can run Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Perl and Apache is really a dream for anyone who does web development.
--
.Net looks pretty interesting to me, and Perl support gets me even more interested. But I Don't Do Windows(TM). I'm a Mac OS and Unix guy, currently using the OS X beta quite a bit. Am I going to be able to do serious .Net development? Is there even going to be a .Net implementation for non-MS OSes? All of this .Net stuff is rather irrelevant to me and I imagine to most of the open source community if .Net is going to be just another way to write Windows apps.
--
Which Linux developers would sell out to Microsoft?
Any of them that are publicly traded, if the price is right. They won't have a choice.
--
I would like to be able to automate operations involving GUI-based applications in much the same way as I can automate command-line-based ones by using "here documents" in shell scripts. Given a few simple conventions for identifying GUI elements such as menu entries, buttons of various types, list boxes, and so on it shouldn't be hard to come up with a simple language for redirecting events into an event queue to start programs, issue commands to them, and pipe I/O between them.
What you're asking for sounds a lot like AppleScript. AppleScript will still be supported in OS X, and there will probably be a way to integrate it with the CLI too, from either from Apple or from some 3rd party.
--
Is Solaris an OS? Yes. Is Mac OS X an OS? Yes. Is FreeBSD an OS? Yes. Is Linux an OS? Yes.
Is Unix an OS? This is like asking 'Is the x86 hardware architecture a computer?' No. It's a standard that defines functionality.
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The big difference is that it's from Microsoft, which means it will gain serious developer support, if MS doesn't screw up really badly.
.NET subscription fees from everyone.
It could be a huge boon to alternative OSes if all that nice Windows software was ported to a cross-platform environment. And why should MS care? They get to collect
--
Among other differences, .NET supports multiple languages. The Java VM only supports uh... Java.
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The Earth should be a bit more friendly for SETI now that Iridium is being deorbited. And it's certainly much cheaper than constructing huge arrays on the back side of the moon. There are all kinds of problems with that, not the least of which is getting data back to Earth. You'd need a relay satellite or two in lunar orbit to bounce the signals around the moon. You'd have lots of points of failure and it would be even expensive as hell to fix the system if anything broke.
Perhaps in 20-50 years once cheap energy and good old capitalist competition have made access to space nice and affordable.
--