Not really. Net cafes are still pretty expensive for doing any amount of work and you have no idea how much spyware (including keyloggers to catch you entering your passwords for PiSoft JavaScriptyGoodness BETA) is on the machines. For the traveling hipster who needs to upload some new pics to his Flickr account, sure, the Net cafe will remain a useful tool. For businesspeople who actually care about security, the corporate laptop with VPN client will continue to be the weapon of choice.
The same way I filter spam on a Mac OS X box, a Linux box, a BeBox, etc. Server-side filtering is the only way to go for me. Why bother with reconfiguring filters every time you install Thunderbird on another machine?
I can put the same disc in any DVD player in the US and Canada and it'll play. Your iTunes video file can't be burned to anything but CD/DVD-R, and you can only play it on a few hand-selected computers that run iTunes and QuickTime.
Frankly, I'd rather pay $15 new / $10 used to have a movie in full DVD-grade quality, with extras, playable on any of the billions of DVD-playing devices out there. $10 sounds like a better deal (it's cheaper than Best Buy's prices) until you realize that you can't play the movie on other devices and you can't resell it. If the quality is the same as iTunes video's "it looks like my crappy digital cable so it's Good Enough For Me" resolution, forget about it.
Which part of the Microsoft Office EULA gives them the ability to remotely index and serve you ads based on the documents you create with their software?
Because that same company, in its IPO filing, cited its key strength as an unflinching devotion to search. Everyone praised them as a company that WOULDN'T turn into yet another portal like Yahoo! and AltaVista had before. Since then they've thrown dozens of betas at the wall; some have stuck, some haven't, but very few are directly related to search.
Those displays already exist. The diner in my hometown has several of them. They're 16:9 displays which have two 4:3 input sources split to the left and right sides*. On the left side of the screen is a ballgame, CNN, or something else. On the right side of the screen is a PowerPoint-style slideshow of advertisements for local merchants. I'm sure the diner doesn't have to pay for the TVs, and they probably get some commission on the ads they agree to run.
* Yes, this causes the video to be stretched vertically to the point where it's very hard to watch. The ads look clean though. No, they don't use the option to display two 4:3 sources with black bars on the top and bottom to make the aspect ratios correct.
I thought the whole point of "do everything in JavaScript in a web browser" was to eliminate the need for you to be on one computer. I agree that what you suggest will work for your own computer, but the philosophy behind that pretty much eliminates the possibility of (for example) checking your Gmail on someone else's machine,* lest you be profiled there.
* unless that someone else is cool with you changing proxy settings and Firefox extensions, but many businesses and 'net cafes are not
Google Calendar is nothing like Yahoo! Calendar. For example, Yahoo! Calendar works in browsers Google doesn't support (older versions of Mozilla/Netscape/IE, any version of Safari) and has been out of beta for years now.
The reason why your post was modded "funny" was because Yahoo! Calendar doesn't use mebobytes of JavaScript to approximate the feel of a native app. For that you'll need something like Kiko which predates Google Calendar as well.
Google can already follow you around the 'net using their ad network. Blogs, photos, news sites, etc., all have Google Adsense. That same cookie builds up a wealth of data about you. If this offends you, putting your bookmarks up on Google shouldn't be any worse -- what could you possibly be telling them that they don't already know?
Used CDs regularly sell for $8-$10 and used games can be found for (usually) reasonable prices, whether at a local shop or on-line*. The best part is that when you're done with a game you can resell it again. Somehow I don't think Nintendo will allow me to copy or resell a game I downloaded onto my console. Microsoft certainly doesn't allow it for Xbox 360 Live downloads.
* Disclaimer: I work for amazon.com, which facilitates the sale of games, music, etc. on-line. This post does not represent the views of my employer.
I thought the Wii could play GameCube games without the need to download them. According to the collective wisdom of everyone who's read a Nintendo press release, "The front of the console features a self-loading media drive which is illuminated by a blue light and will accept 12 cm Wii game discs, 8 cm GameCube game discs and, with an additional purchase, DVDs."
I heard that was true so I tried it with my 12" Powerbook. I put the Powerbook to sleep, took out the battery, and popped the battery back in 3 seconds later. The whole system went dead and I had to boot up all over again.
The "SUV of notebooks" is the HUMMER(R) Laptop. "Just as tough, reliable, and go-anywhere as a HUMMER vehicle, this laptop is the perfect addition to your active lifestyle! Featuring the latest in mobile technology, it's ergonomically styled, and tough enough to survive the wear and tear of every day use whether at home, in the car, or on the go!"
Windows XP already gives you the choice* of standby and hibernate. Standby keeps the memory and other components powered at a minimal level. Hibernate writes the contents of RAM to disk and shuts the system off. The difference is in battery life. Standby consumes some small amount of power; hibernate consumes virtually none. You can't swap a fresh battery in while your laptop is on standby (unless you're plugged into AC power or you have two battery slots) but you can while your laptop is hibernating.
* as long as you've turned on Hibernation in Control Panel > System
The rest of those services are all in beta; Google Spreadsheets is in alpha. Count the number of actually released Google services and you come up with a much smaller number.
My concern is that the folks who today believe statements like "My LiveJournal is safe because I only post friends-only entries" and "The URL says HTTPS so my data must be secure here" will go into the workplace with a very badly skewed representation of how private data ought to be treated. If the future is built on JavaScriptOffice, as some in this discussion seem to believe, how will we trust JavaScript?
Man, I thought the Myspace/blog generation was careless with personal information. In 20 years, after Google's JavaScriptOffice is out of beta, we'll have a generation of people entering the workplace completely comfortable with putting all their work documents on a public server with no guarantee of privacy, security, or availability.
"But boss, why can't I use Google Office to do all my work? It's secure -- see the little padlock icon?"
In the past I've seen problems that arise when Norton, McAfee, etc., block the referer* header in the name of security. Although it provides a modest gain in privacy, many sites use the referer header to make sure you're not using their form submission interfaces, images, and other data for third-party purposes. I had to work around it by modifying my referer-checks to include a check for a NULL referer.
(Yes, referers can be spoofed and needn't be specified in HTTP, but every browser sends them by default.)
A Blackberry with a camera would be a disaster. Today if you work at a company which has a strict security policy, you can't have a camera of any kind -- including a cameraphone. Because no Blackberry phone has a camera, simply holding a Blackberry signals that no, you don't have a cameraphone. Unless they're going after the youth IM market (as Cingular has tried and failed with the Ogo) I see no value in a Blackberry cameraphone.
iTunes on a Blackberry might be cool, though iTunes for Mac/PC still doesn't support any notion of two-way sync. If you could get songs onto a Blackberry from the Internet, I don't know how you could get them off. (Apple doesn't even support copying songs off your iPod -- you have to download a third-party app to do that.)
The Newton wasn't a mobile handset since you can't use it to communicate over cellular networks.* It spawned the term "PDA" and gave rise to an industry which is now driven almost exclusively by smartphones (note how many Treos and Blackberries you see used in an average airport, versus how many Tungstens and DellAxims are in use).
If Apple wanted to get back into the handheld market, I think it would be wise to go for a smartphone instead of an ordinary PDA. The iPod lets you view some personal information on the device, but without two-way sync it's not a replacement for an organizer of any kind.
* Maybe you can now thanks to the vibrant homebrew community still flocking to the Newton, but Apple had no part in that.
I was wondering about that. Seven-point fonts are Web 1.0. Web 2.0 is all about using grossly oversized fonts, especially in input controls. How annoying.
I know, but sometimes I want to find the answer to a more specific usage-related question. $[ is mentioned all over the perldocs but most search engines simply filter it out as a search term. There are sites like Perldoc and Perlmonks that are more accommodating, though.
Google has been known to make special accommodations for programming help. Google doesn't strip the punctuation from C++ or C#, for example. It'd be nice if all punctuation were searchable.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. Net cafes are still pretty expensive for doing any amount of work and you have no idea how much spyware (including keyloggers to catch you entering your passwords for PiSoft JavaScriptyGoodness BETA) is on the machines. For the traveling hipster who needs to upload some new pics to his Flickr account, sure, the Net cafe will remain a useful tool. For businesspeople who actually care about security, the corporate laptop with VPN client will continue to be the weapon of choice.
Outlook Express doesn't have a calendar.
The same way I filter spam on a Mac OS X box, a Linux box, a BeBox, etc. Server-side filtering is the only way to go for me. Why bother with reconfiguring filters every time you install Thunderbird on another machine?
I can put the same disc in any DVD player in the US and Canada and it'll play. Your iTunes video file can't be burned to anything but CD/DVD-R, and you can only play it on a few hand-selected computers that run iTunes and QuickTime.
Frankly, I'd rather pay $15 new / $10 used to have a movie in full DVD-grade quality, with extras, playable on any of the billions of DVD-playing devices out there. $10 sounds like a better deal (it's cheaper than Best Buy's prices) until you realize that you can't play the movie on other devices and you can't resell it. If the quality is the same as iTunes video's "it looks like my crappy digital cable so it's Good Enough For Me" resolution, forget about it.
Which part of the Microsoft Office EULA gives them the ability to remotely index and serve you ads based on the documents you create with their software?
Because that same company, in its IPO filing, cited its key strength as an unflinching devotion to search. Everyone praised them as a company that WOULDN'T turn into yet another portal like Yahoo! and AltaVista had before. Since then they've thrown dozens of betas at the wall; some have stuck, some haven't, but very few are directly related to search.
Two words: Ann Coulter.
Those displays already exist. The diner in my hometown has several of them. They're 16:9 displays which have two 4:3 input sources split to the left and right sides*. On the left side of the screen is a ballgame, CNN, or something else. On the right side of the screen is a PowerPoint-style slideshow of advertisements for local merchants. I'm sure the diner doesn't have to pay for the TVs, and they probably get some commission on the ads they agree to run.
* Yes, this causes the video to be stretched vertically to the point where it's very hard to watch. The ads look clean though. No, they don't use the option to display two 4:3 sources with black bars on the top and bottom to make the aspect ratios correct.
I thought the whole point of "do everything in JavaScript in a web browser" was to eliminate the need for you to be on one computer. I agree that what you suggest will work for your own computer, but the philosophy behind that pretty much eliminates the possibility of (for example) checking your Gmail on someone else's machine,* lest you be profiled there.
* unless that someone else is cool with you changing proxy settings and Firefox extensions, but many businesses and 'net cafes are not
Google Calendar is nothing like Yahoo! Calendar. For example, Yahoo! Calendar works in browsers Google doesn't support (older versions of Mozilla/Netscape/IE, any version of Safari) and has been out of beta for years now.
The reason why your post was modded "funny" was because Yahoo! Calendar doesn't use mebobytes of JavaScript to approximate the feel of a native app. For that you'll need something like Kiko which predates Google Calendar as well.
Google can already follow you around the 'net using their ad network. Blogs, photos, news sites, etc., all have Google Adsense. That same cookie builds up a wealth of data about you. If this offends you, putting your bookmarks up on Google shouldn't be any worse -- what could you possibly be telling them that they don't already know?
(Besides your passwords to other sites...)
Used CDs regularly sell for $8-$10 and used games can be found for (usually) reasonable prices, whether at a local shop or on-line*. The best part is that when you're done with a game you can resell it again. Somehow I don't think Nintendo will allow me to copy or resell a game I downloaded onto my console. Microsoft certainly doesn't allow it for Xbox 360 Live downloads.
* Disclaimer: I work for amazon.com, which facilitates the sale of games, music, etc. on-line. This post does not represent the views of my employer.
I thought the Wii could play GameCube games without the need to download them. According to the collective wisdom of everyone who's read a Nintendo press release, "The front of the console features a self-loading media drive which is illuminated by a blue light and will accept 12 cm Wii game discs, 8 cm GameCube game discs and, with an additional purchase, DVDs."
I heard that was true so I tried it with my 12" Powerbook. I put the Powerbook to sleep, took out the battery, and popped the battery back in 3 seconds later. The whole system went dead and I had to boot up all over again.
Apparently the newer Mac laptops hibernate by deafult and you can mess with the standby/hibernate configuration with command-line tools. Do so at your own peril.
*ahem*
The "SUV of notebooks" is the HUMMER(R) Laptop. "Just as tough, reliable, and go-anywhere as a HUMMER vehicle, this laptop is the perfect addition to your active lifestyle! Featuring the latest in mobile technology, it's ergonomically styled, and tough enough to survive the wear and tear of every day use whether at home, in the car, or on the go!"
Windows XP already gives you the choice* of standby and hibernate. Standby keeps the memory and other components powered at a minimal level. Hibernate writes the contents of RAM to disk and shuts the system off. The difference is in battery life. Standby consumes some small amount of power; hibernate consumes virtually none. You can't swap a fresh battery in while your laptop is on standby (unless you're plugged into AC power or you have two battery slots) but you can while your laptop is hibernating.
* as long as you've turned on Hibernation in Control Panel > System
The rest of those services are all in beta; Google Spreadsheets is in alpha. Count the number of actually released Google services and you come up with a much smaller number.
My concern is that the folks who today believe statements like "My LiveJournal is safe because I only post friends-only entries" and "The URL says HTTPS so my data must be secure here" will go into the workplace with a very badly skewed representation of how private data ought to be treated. If the future is built on JavaScriptOffice, as some in this discussion seem to believe, how will we trust JavaScript?
Man, I thought the Myspace/blog generation was careless with personal information. In 20 years, after Google's JavaScriptOffice is out of beta, we'll have a generation of people entering the workplace completely comfortable with putting all their work documents on a public server with no guarantee of privacy, security, or availability.
"But boss, why can't I use Google Office to do all my work? It's secure -- see the little padlock icon?"
In the past I've seen problems that arise when Norton, McAfee, etc., block the referer* header in the name of security. Although it provides a modest gain in privacy, many sites use the referer header to make sure you're not using their form submission interfaces, images, and other data for third-party purposes. I had to work around it by modifying my referer-checks to include a check for a NULL referer.
(Yes, referers can be spoofed and needn't be specified in HTTP, but every browser sends them by default.)
* "Referrer" in English, but "referer" in HTTP.
A Blackberry with a camera would be a disaster. Today if you work at a company which has a strict security policy, you can't have a camera of any kind -- including a cameraphone. Because no Blackberry phone has a camera, simply holding a Blackberry signals that no, you don't have a cameraphone. Unless they're going after the youth IM market (as Cingular has tried and failed with the Ogo) I see no value in a Blackberry cameraphone.
iTunes on a Blackberry might be cool, though iTunes for Mac/PC still doesn't support any notion of two-way sync. If you could get songs onto a Blackberry from the Internet, I don't know how you could get them off. (Apple doesn't even support copying songs off your iPod -- you have to download a third-party app to do that.)
The Newton wasn't a mobile handset since you can't use it to communicate over cellular networks.* It spawned the term "PDA" and gave rise to an industry which is now driven almost exclusively by smartphones (note how many Treos and Blackberries you see used in an average airport, versus how many Tungstens and DellAxims are in use).
If Apple wanted to get back into the handheld market, I think it would be wise to go for a smartphone instead of an ordinary PDA. The iPod lets you view some personal information on the device, but without two-way sync it's not a replacement for an organizer of any kind.
* Maybe you can now thanks to the vibrant homebrew community still flocking to the Newton, but Apple had no part in that.
I was wondering about that. Seven-point fonts are Web 1.0. Web 2.0 is all about using grossly oversized fonts, especially in input controls. How annoying.
I know, but sometimes I want to find the answer to a more specific usage-related question. $[ is mentioned all over the perldocs but most search engines simply filter it out as a search term. There are sites like Perldoc and Perlmonks that are more accommodating, though.
Google has been known to make special accommodations for programming help. Google doesn't strip the punctuation from C++ or C#, for example. It'd be nice if all punctuation were searchable.