I had an iPhone before my N900, and frankly I adore the N900. It's fast, responsive, and it's easy to understand what's going on. If the music's skipping (which happened on both devices), I pull up top, then renice my music player. If I want a nice note-taking program, I just run emacs & org-mode on it. Then I'll 'git push' those notes for my other machines. I use citrix to run an app at work (note: despite what the website says, it doesn't actually require motif). The map program (not the stock one, but one you can download a package for) is utterly fantastic. I even have a subway map for my city.
Really, advanced users of the iPhone really just want a mobile computer, with a phone tacked on. The UI on the N900 is pretty good, and it does what I want with few problems, and many, many wonderful plusses over the iPhone platform.
Also, it has a keyboard, replaceable battery, and flash:-) I can stream full-screen flash videos in a cab.
They're working too hard for Windows lockin. If they would just let that go, and let all their smart people develop a *good OS* for *just* *mobile*, with no ball & chain to Windows, it'd be competitive.
Sadly, I think that such an activity is against their DNA at this point.
I wholeheartedly agree. IMHO the real issue here is that the GPL was satisfied as far as any developer cares -- the source. Users trying to hack up their devices weren't satisfied. I'm fine with that arrangement. I think most dev's understand the business side of software, and the mix of closed/open to make it work out well.
I don't see any part of the GPL requiring that you open up hardware using GPL'd software, which appears to be the logical jump the poster's trying to make. Quite a terrible jump! Who'd want to use GPL software in their products? Who'd want to use products with crap closed-source hacked-together system software? IMHO most shops that ship Linux kernels on their hardware do it b/c they don't have the resources or motivation to make an equivalent-quality version themselves. If they couldn't use Linux, they'd shove complete crap in there instead.
It is generally "elitist professions" like government/politics and media where the *unpaid* internships are prevalent, and they are definitely a "paying your dues" process. And as is touched on briefly in the article, this system gives the wealthier kids a distinct edge in these fields, as they are far more likely to be in a position to be able to afford working for no pay.
How much of it is due to the fact that tech builds an innate hierarchy ordered by skill level, while some other professions only have social means to establish order?
Well, there's the matter of actually telling the *truth*, as the current base-2 values are flat-out, numerically, mathematically *wrong* values for KB, MB, GB. It's literally bad sloppy programming that's caused a habit that's stuck around for far too long. When a HDD says it has 40 GB, it actually has 40 GB. When most modern OSs say a file is 40 GB, it literally *is* *not* 40 GB. It's 40 GiB. The underlying byte counts are really different.
This was introduced with Java 1.6 update 10. If the compiler notices that the object isn't passed outside of a function (called escape analysis), it'll be allocated on its stack.
The point is that a good tablet with more functionality than the iPad requires a good amount of research into how to do tablet UIs. The WIMP system is pretty terrible for tablet computing. That's why the iPad's an overgrown ipod touch, to avoid having to either do the research or be sucky.
Frankly, I'd love to see something designed for a stylus that also can take a few gestures usable for the hand holding that stylus.
A lot of people want good supported Unix servers with a bit more vendor-support (e.g. you want the guy who wrote the code to fix your kernel) than what most linux-server shops can provide.
Sun's had years with the right products, with some huge gaps, to do well here. But they've had their heads up their asses.
Those bits you generally use STL for. But: (1) if an applicant can't do that, they usually can't do much else. (2) custom data structures are pretty common (and required).
Without that threshold, you end up with programmers who only know how to look up API documentation and call it.
I'm finishing my PhD now, while working. I just got hired a year ago, and make about as much mentioned (+/-, if you want to count guaranteed bonuses, etc.). Great benefits. The software developer market, for people who actually know what they're doing (e.g. C++, not PHP), is *hot*. Recruiters are calling everyone (even at work), and I'm going on my second recruiting trip next month. Anyone who can remember any specifics from the last 3 years of their undergrad CS degree would be nice. My employer hires non-CS and trains them how to program (for *months*, paid at full salary the entire time), if we can determine they're smart enough to learn.
The real issue is that most people calling themselves programmers can't even write a linked list or binary tree *TYPE*DECLARATION* without spending a half hour on google. They don't get hired, because they're not very good. But they're happy to complain that they don't need it in real life -- which is true, for the lower-paying jobs they'll get hired for.
Mach was written out of BSD (modifying's easier than rewriting!), but the final kernel was clearly no longer a unix kernel. For Nextstep, the microkernel was recombined monolithically.
The research required for something better hasn't had funding for decades. Modern UNIX has been good 'nuff. It's got plenty of problems, but none big enough to justify a research budget big enough to rethink the OS.
Actually, it's only really been Sun pushing things forward recently, and it's mostly incremental.
I've heard some pretty amazing government fraud stories. The best so far is a guy just making a bill in Excel and sending it to the Navy. They ended up paying $3 mil before catching him.
I've been looking at hp c3000 chassis office-size blade servers, which may serve as your production+backup+testing setup, and scale up moderately for what you need. Compact, easily manageable remotely, and if you're good about looking around, not terribly overpriced. Identical blades make a nice starting point for hosting identical VM images.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out mappero: http://www.mardy.it/mappero
The UI's a little strange, but it treats me reasonably well!
Ahem.
I had an iPhone before my N900, and frankly I adore the N900. It's fast, responsive, and it's easy to understand what's going on. If the music's skipping (which happened on both devices), I pull up top, then renice my music player. If I want a nice note-taking program, I just run emacs & org-mode on it. Then I'll 'git push' those notes for my other machines. I use citrix to run an app at work (note: despite what the website says, it doesn't actually require motif). The map program (not the stock one, but one you can download a package for) is utterly fantastic. I even have a subway map for my city.
Really, advanced users of the iPhone really just want a mobile computer, with a phone tacked on. The UI on the N900 is pretty good, and it does what I want with few problems, and many, many wonderful plusses over the iPhone platform.
Also, it has a keyboard, replaceable battery, and flash :-) I can stream full-screen flash videos in a cab.
They're working too hard for Windows lockin. If they would just let that go, and let all their smart people develop a *good OS* for *just* *mobile*, with no ball & chain to Windows, it'd be competitive.
Sadly, I think that such an activity is against their DNA at this point.
I wholeheartedly agree. IMHO the real issue here is that the GPL was satisfied as far as any developer cares -- the source. Users trying to hack up their devices weren't satisfied. I'm fine with that arrangement. I think most dev's understand the business side of software, and the mix of closed/open to make it work out well.
I don't see any part of the GPL requiring that you open up hardware using GPL'd software, which appears to be the logical jump the poster's trying to make. Quite a terrible jump! Who'd want to use GPL software in their products? Who'd want to use products with crap closed-source hacked-together system software? IMHO most shops that ship Linux kernels on their hardware do it b/c they don't have the resources or motivation to make an equivalent-quality version themselves. If they couldn't use Linux, they'd shove complete crap in there instead.
.. False dichotomy. Warn only the first time.
You'd be surprised at how many humans walk like that too.
How much of it is due to the fact that tech builds an innate hierarchy ordered by skill level, while some other professions only have social means to establish order?
Well, there's the matter of actually telling the *truth*, as the current base-2 values are flat-out, numerically, mathematically *wrong* values for KB, MB, GB. It's literally bad sloppy programming that's caused a habit that's stuck around for far too long. When a HDD says it has 40 GB, it actually has 40 GB. When most modern OSs say a file is 40 GB, it literally *is* *not* 40 GB. It's 40 GiB. The underlying byte counts are really different.
This was introduced with Java 1.6 update 10. If the compiler notices that the object isn't passed outside of a function (called escape analysis), it'll be allocated on its stack.
Mod Parent Up
The point is that a good tablet with more functionality than the iPad requires a good amount of research into how to do tablet UIs. The WIMP system is pretty terrible for tablet computing. That's why the iPad's an overgrown ipod touch, to avoid having to either do the research or be sucky.
Frankly, I'd love to see something designed for a stylus that also can take a few gestures usable for the hand holding that stylus.
It'd be nice to reduce the ping times between tokyo & dc.
Hey, if you know a better one, I'm listening.
A lot of people want good supported Unix servers with a bit more vendor-support (e.g. you want the guy who wrote the code to fix your kernel) than what most linux-server shops can provide.
Sun's had years with the right products, with some huge gaps, to do well here. But they've had their heads up their asses.
Or (now) Oracle DB threads.
Those bits you generally use STL for. But: (1) if an applicant can't do that, they usually can't do much else. (2) custom data structures are pretty common (and required).
Without that threshold, you end up with programmers who only know how to look up API documentation and call it.
I'm finishing my PhD now, while working. I just got hired a year ago, and make about as much mentioned (+/-, if you want to count guaranteed bonuses, etc.). Great benefits. The software developer market, for people who actually know what they're doing (e.g. C++, not PHP), is *hot*. Recruiters are calling everyone (even at work), and I'm going on my second recruiting trip next month. Anyone who can remember any specifics from the last 3 years of their undergrad CS degree would be nice. My employer hires non-CS and trains them how to program (for *months*, paid at full salary the entire time), if we can determine they're smart enough to learn.
The real issue is that most people calling themselves programmers can't even write a linked list or binary tree *TYPE*DECLARATION* without spending a half hour on google. They don't get hired, because they're not very good. But they're happy to complain that they don't need it in real life -- which is true, for the lower-paying jobs they'll get hired for.
God forbid vendors actually start testing their software *before* it's in the field.
IANAL, but after the 7min mark, is considered a crime against humanity in most civilized nations.
'based upon' is trueish, but in a funny way,
Mach was written out of BSD (modifying's easier than rewriting!), but the final kernel was clearly no longer a unix kernel. For Nextstep, the microkernel was recombined monolithically.
The research required for something better hasn't had funding for decades. Modern UNIX has been good 'nuff. It's got plenty of problems, but none big enough to justify a research budget big enough to rethink the OS.
Actually, it's only really been Sun pushing things forward recently, and it's mostly incremental.
Unix first. It was rewritten in C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
Unix came out in '69, C in '72.
I've heard some pretty amazing government fraud stories. The best so far is a guy just making a bill in Excel and sending it to the Navy. They ended up paying $3 mil before catching him.
I've been looking at hp c3000 chassis office-size blade servers, which may serve as your production+backup+testing setup, and scale up moderately for what you need. Compact, easily manageable remotely, and if you're good about looking around, not terribly overpriced. Identical blades make a nice starting point for hosting identical VM images.
How's Nexenta vs the latest opensol? Most of the gnu commands are already the first in my PATH. Is there anything else different?
Not in the patent, but MS is happy to give Prof. Tufte credit in their blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/07/17/sparklines-in-excel.aspx
Now, how that helps their patent application in terms of obviously admitting prior art....