Sci-Fi would expand out, the way it's normally pronounced, into 'Science Feye-kshun' -- 'Fi' in 'fiction' sounds more like 'fee.' So as I understand it, 'skiffy' is an attempt to point out that 'Skee-Fee' is an equally valid reading as 'Sigh-Feye.' Yes, it's faintly pointless.
Really, the objection I generally hear these days is not that 'Sci-Fi' is a bad term to use, but that you have SF/Fantasy/supernormal-horror generally all grouped together in a bookstore; it has sort of become a fusion genre, referred to as speculative fiction, and thus SF is a more inclusive term to use. (As it means 'speculative fiction' rather than 'science fiction.')
There were already lots of LiveJournal users who were upset and confused and unhappy with the idea that LJ and Danga (the company which made LJ) had been bought by SixApart. No doubt, as there have been no downtimes of this magnitude at LJ before, doomsayers will be claiming that it's SixApart's fault.
Never mind common sense; it won't matter that if SixApart can be held responsible for failures at InterNAP's colocation facilities, they're a much bigger -- and more powerful -- company than most people have ever given them credit for...
Thank you for the comment! And no, we're not designing exclusively for the average user -- as you note, the plugin architecture exists, and has been expanded on for this release -- but the average user is still a major consideration in everything.:)
Like I said, periodically we re-examine the possibility of ports, but in all honesty, it's not that likely to happen. Even starting from scratch wouldn't help that much; it's still a small team, and maintaining a Mac OS X tree, a Linux tree and a Windows tree would be a huge headache.
It's likely that one or all would suffer; you'll notice most cross-platform projects tend to aim for a common denominator. Take, for instance, Thunderbird; Thunderbird is a great app (and under Windows, my first choice in mail clients), but most Mac users I know don't use Thunderbird. Why? Because Thunderbird doesn't do things Mac-ishly. Thunderbird doesn't integrate with the system spellchecker framework. It doesn't integrate with the system Address Book framework.
It's really hard to design a cross-platform product of any kind and have it actually feel/right/ for every platform it runs on. A lot of Linux apps ported to Mac OS X or Windows still feel like Linux apps, for instance. To do an IM client/right/ for OS X, we'd want to integrate into the Address Book, replace our notification system with Growl, support the system-wide spellchecker, and so on.
Of course, there already/is/ an OS X application which integrates with the Address Book, uses Growl for notifications, and integrates with the system-wide spellchecker. It's called Adium X.;)
Seriously, if you're really stuck right now for a multi-network option under OS X, I strongly recommend checking out Adium; Adam Iser and his team have built a really good client that integrates well with OS X, and it's worth at least looking at.
It's not even so much that we're uninterested, it's that we know Trillian isn't really as well-suited to the model of MacOS X or Linux applications. (FWIW, at least two Trillian developers -- including me -- have Macs as well as windows boxes. I'm posting this from Safari, in fact.)
I develop Mac OS X software in my spare time, and I can tell you flat out that Trillian would violate the Aqua Design Guidelines six ways from Sunday unless completely reworked, just for starters. (Of course, a depressing number of Macintosh applications also do, but still.) And for a small development team, trying to keep a single code tree in sync across multiple platforms without making it suffer overall, would be hard; that's something far easier for an OSS project. We/do/ periodically re-examine the possibility, but...
Honestly, Trillian's designed not for the power-users who want to get down and dirty with every little aspect of an IM protocol, or for OSS activists. It's designed, as has been noted, more for Joe Average; this is why Trillian 3.0 is made to look and feel more like a Windows XP application in the preferences system and whatnot. And to some extent, that userbase tends to be more prominent on Windows.
For those who are really into OSS or are on Linux, Sean and the others who work on it have made a great app in Gaim. And for those who are on Mac OS X, Adium X is pretty kickass. Heck, even the new iChat in Tiger is pretty straightforward for Joe Average Mac User.
It's not like there's some Highlander-esque 'there can be only one!' situation with instant messaging clients. You'll even notice we at Cerulean are on good terms with the Gaim team; when Yahoo locked everyone out last time, we deciphered the new login protocol and donated it to Gaim (and to Adium as a result). You can find other instances in the Gaim changelog of code donated from Trillian; it's certainly not like we're out to kill open source and crush all opposition or something. ("I am Trillian MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, and I've come to take your head developer!")
Gaim and Trillian are made to fill a different niches. If one's right for you, great! Doesn't mean the other one isn't right for other people.:)
'In a country where the average monthly salary is about $240, buying the latest album for $15 is a grotesque luxury, let alone spending $600 on Adobe Photoshop or a similar computer program.'
I have a friend in mainland China, who says that much the same situation is true there. It's always bewildered me that prices don't get adjusted for local economies even when they have local publishers and redistributors...
Apple's already released updates for the iPod firmwares multiple times; if the DRM changed, they'd just release a new firmware for the existing iPod owners. They already released the new 'Apple lossless' codec in an iPod firmware update.
It's not quite that simple, though. There will always be a certain level of education needed for/anything/.
To use your analogy of the lightbulb, I may not need to read up on emission spectra and the effect of induction on power phase lag in order to change a lightbulb, but it's still important to have certain understandings; it's good for the person changing the lightbulb to know that sticking their finger into the light socket with the switch turned on is 'not advised,' for instance. Sure, that seems like common sense, but that's simply because the education about things such as that/is/ widespread. Some of the computer security issues -- don't click on attachments blindly, etc. -- are ones which should be spread and educated until they're common sense, like 'don't stick your finger in the light socket.';)
Yes, MacOS X is more secure than Windows in a number of ways; the Keychain is so, so much better than storing passwords in the registry, to do anything system-wide even as an administrator you have to enter your password, and the default configuration is more secure right out-of-box, with far fewer open ports. But the fact remains that writing malware for Mac will hit a far, far smaller percentage of the total users; we're secure in no part simply because we Mac users/are/ a minority. This is why we can get away with the truly abysmal state of antivirus software on the Mac (witness the travesty that was Virex 7.5).
Some of it will/always/ be education. If someone wrote malware for MacOS X -- and it could definitely be done -- and distributed it as a Trojan, an uneducated Mac user who trustingly runs the program is going to get just as screwed as a Windows user who trustingly runs the executable sent to them. How many Mac users out there simply enter their password when prompted by the system to authorize something using administrator privileges, for instance?:)
Yes, at present the combination of ease-of-development to make malware for Windows and the sheer number of viable targets make it more attractive than writing for Mac. But it's hubris -- and a dangerous hubris, at that -- to assume that just because an OS is 'more secure' that educating the users is redundant!
The second-generation TiBook (the old Titanium Powerbooks, not the newer aluminum ones) has an optical audio out plug on the back panel, right between the SVideo out and the internal modem jack -- my bad for referring to it generically as a 'digital' audio out, but still definitely a far sight better than a mini headphone jack.
I wasn't the one who made the 'Dull' comments, FWIW; please don't make it sound like I was the one being condescending earlier. My point was just that the best platform for an individual varies depending on their needs and preferences, and that whether something is 'too expensive' or not depends on what someone's needs and preferences are. Which you seem to agree with. Yay, agreement! And on Slashdot, who'd think it?;)
You find InDesign works better for you; hey, great, I admit I haven't tried that one. I have Sony's Foundry stuff on my desktop, and I find Garage Band works better for me because I need better MIDI than Foundry has. We each found what worked well for us. As you said, to each his (or her) own.
You misunderstand; I wasn't trying to point fingers as such. I, as a developer, know that the responsibility for drivers rests in other areas than just the kernel developer, or the distribution packager.
But a generic end-user is not going to necessarily know the difference; they don't think 'gosh, it's nice that Microsoft packaged these Canon printer drivers with the base Windows install,' they just think 'cool, my printer works.' Conversely, if it doesn't, they think, 'dammit, stupid Windows, my printer doesn't work' and go looking for a driver CD in their printer box. The same is true for Linux; a non-techy user is not going to think about who's responsible for the kernel, who's responsible for the packaged drivers, and who's responsible for the installer tools. All they're going to want to know is if it will find their peripherals and set them all up. If it doesn't, then they're not going to blame, say, Canon for not writing a driver for their printer or scanner. They're not going to blame Intel for not writing a driver for their onboard sound card. All they're going to see is 'dammit, Linux didn't work.'
To rephrase, there's nothing wrong with Linux; it's a great desktop OS if you/are/ willing to tweak config files, to research hardware support carefully before buying something, and so on. And I won't even argue that things like looking into hardware extensively before you buy it are good practices, and should be encouraged! But a lot of people out there don't do that level of research, and don't/want/ to. They just want the tech at Best Buy or Future Shop to tell them 'this one's nice, and less expensive than that one.'
And yes, the driver support problem is something which is not solely the problem of the kernel developers; it's a pain to write software for undocumented hardware, and I know, I've been there. But the average non-techy end user doesn't care about that.
Why Windows works for some folks is that they/can/ just go to Best Buy and buy whichever printer looks nifty and the salesguy says is quiet; it has Windows drivers, so it'll probably work. Sure, the manufacturer made those Windows drivers and it's the manufacturer's fault if they didn't make Linux drivers, but grandma or Aunt Ethel isn't going to care about that.
Similarly, if they want to get online, they can go pick up an AOL or MSN disk, or an Earthlink dialup CD or whatever at the checkout line of Target or Wal*Mart; sure AOL and MSN aren't the greatest ISPs, but they're easy for grandma or Aunt Ethel to get online with. They dial up, find the local ISP access numbers, and configure themselves just fine.
I'm willing to say that it sounds like it's come a long way since my RH7 desktop died a bit more than a year ago, and maybe it/is/ at a point where my father could now use it for a desktop machine. If so, hallelujah!
I'd actually be willing to try an experiment with that, to go over to my folks' house with a RedHat 9 CD -- I have one here for my headless server boxes -- and give it to dad to try and install. He can install Windows on his own and get MSN up and running, so it'd make an interesting test. If he can get it installed, get his printer working, get online with dialup as easily as with MSN, and be reading his e-mail and reading/editing.doc files without any more confusion or complaint than he usually gives about Windows, I'll be pretty happy; god knows I want dad on a system where he's/not/ constantly going to be turning off his virus software because it 'makes the computer slow' and thus gets the system infected, necessitating a cleanup or reinstall.;)
I wasn't trying to say MacOS X is the 'enemy'; I'm posting this reply from a Powerbook G4, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me.;)
You have a point in saying that the original poster wasn't suggesting that Linux would conquer the desktop world, but remember that this particular thread was in response to an article about the weaknesses of Linux as a desktop OS. I was more or less trying to say that given the premise that it is desirable for Linux to gain market share as a desktop OS, then the attitude 'who gives a shit about mom + pop users' is detrimental to this goal, and that the attitude/does/ tend to make Linux more centered on developer-mindsets, rather than non-technical end-users.
If the goal is to keep it server-centric, Linux can really rule there. If the goal/is/, as many say it is, to take the desktop market, then the mom + pop sorts who don't want to muck about with any sort of.conf file, or know what 'root' is, or anything like that do need to be addressed.
It sounds like the updating methodology has gotten better since my Linux desktop died and I stuck to it for servers; that's excellent news, and it's definitely about time.:)
I admit to some skepticism about the printer situation, however. Let's say that my parents go and buy an HP PSC-series All-in-One printer; it's a color scanner, an inkjet, a fax, and a SD/CF USB drive. Plug the printer in... even if the inkjet portion works immediately, can they use it as a scanner from in Linux? As a fax? If not -- if they have to download various, varied drivers or tweak config files -- then it's not as immediately easy for them to use as it is under Windows.
I may be willing to sit there for a couple hours to tweak drivers and get everything working, but my parents are far less likely to... nor should they have to. And if the answer is anything more difficult than 'click on Find Drivers' or 'insert the driver CD,' then Linux is not, in at least one area, as easy-to-use as Windows for a desktop OS.
Like I've said, I don't think Linux is a bad desktop OS. And it sounds like some things/have/ definitely improved in the past little while! But I still don't think Linux is at a level of non-technical usability where I'd be able to hand my parents a Lindo(w)s or Debian install CD and have them be off and running.:)
True, but the RedHat RPM updaters only work for if you/are/ using an RPM for a package. Speaking as a sysadmin, I often end up having to roll my own installs, and sometimes it can be a pain trying to get RPMs built of stuff. I don't want to build an RPM every time I'm going to tweak an option in my PHP./configure call, for instance. Similarly, a lot of stuff like drivers (which Windows/does/ check for updates on automatically) is not in RPM, so doesn't get caught by it.
I suppose another way of putting it would be that Linux puts the burden of doing app updates on the packaging tool (which can be a hassle if you install anything under a different packaging tool or whatnot), and Windows puts the burden of doing app updates on the application (with the exception of system-critical updates). Neither's perfect, but if I have to install specialized CUPS drivers or whatever outside of RPM, it's less likely security updates for those will get noticed automatically, since Linux software doesn't tend to do 'new version available' checks itself. Hopefully that clarifies.
As for the rest, you're absolutely right about OOo and other stuff needing to be fleshed out for business desktop use before it can conquer the desktop more fully. I addressed the home-user standpoint because that seems to be where the 'conquer the desktop' argument was being taken in this thread.:)
This is assuming we give a shit about average mom + pop situations. Personally, I use Linux for development and my servers. If you want an OS for a mom + pop situation, get Mac OS X.
But you can't have it both ways; you can't say 'Linux will conquer the desktop world' as many people seem to do, and then simultaneously say '...but we don't give a shit about average mom + pop situations.'
Linux as a server environment is great; I run two fairly high-load Linux servers in a colocation center, and -- despite my periodic grumbling about RPM dependency nightmares -- I am more than happy with the performance I get out of them.
But Linux as a desktop environment? I would not want to try and introduce my parents to Linux as a desktop environment in the state any of the current distributions are in. Yah, getting printing working under Linux is certainly doable; install CUPS and the appropriate driver, configure it all, poke at the CUPS internal webserver if you need to check things out, etc. I'm more than willing to take the plunge on that. But I don't want to have to explain CUPS to my parents; they're used to a Windows box where they can go to Best Buy, buy a printer, plug it in, and put in a driver CD. Or the new digicam they just bought; they want to be able to plug the camera into their computer and get their images out into a graphical program where they can e-mail it. They don't want to have to go looking for drivers for digicams for Linux or whatever, they want to just plug it in and put in the CD.
And for another one, let's go into security updates. Sure, Linux (and open source in general) have a much better track record than Windows of fixing security problems! That's great for sysadmins like myself, but it's not going to do a whit of good in some cases; my parents aren't going to want to stay on Bugtraq to discover that their print daemon has a remote-root exploit they'll need to download a patch for and recompile. They're used to Windows Update, where it'll find the critical updates and download them, then prompt them to install. They don't have to worry about it.
This isn't to say 'Linux sux!' or anything like that; I happen to think it's a great UNIX server and dev environment, and am happy with my own Linux boxes. BUT, that notwithstanding, it's not a desktop environment I would like to introduce my father to. The investment in user education is more than I want to get into; my father doesn't want to have to learn about autoconf and make, or patch and diff, or worry about watching Bugtraq or whatever. He just wants to be able to surf the web, print things, and use Word and Excel. And my mother, a former AIX user, would feel at home in Linux userland, but doesn't want to muck about with security fixes and upgrades, and/really/ doesn't want to teach my dad how to use UNIX. We've had this discussion, believe me.
And my situation isn't completely different than a lot of people's; there are some success stories with teaching parents or relatives enough to encourage Linux adoption, but there are also lots of failure stories. And 'well, I can't use my new digicam because I'm running Debian' is not good sales pitch to other potential Linux users.
If the Linux world is fine with that, then that's great; Linux is great in the server arena, and within that area it does what it does very well. But if Linux wants to take over the desktop world, right now, it's not as approachable as it needs to be in order to be an effective desktop OS for 'mom + pop' situations...and it needs to approach those situations if Linux is to 'conquer the desktop world.' I'd love to see Linux become a solution that I could give to my parents and know they'd be on a stable OS; in the meantime, as you say, the desktop UNIX variant of choice for non-techy end users seems to be MacOS X.
There's my $0.02. (Or more like $0.20, since this post was a little on the long side...)
I really hate trying to compare Mac and PC CPU speeds, since -- as you correctly note -- the differing architecture makes the speeds comparitively meaningless; my 1Ghz Powerbook runs as fast or faster than my 1.8Ghz Pentium 4 desktop, so I gave up on trying to make the clock speeds map in comparison in any meaningful way.
What really makes more sense is to compare what you're trying to do with the computer, and what will work best for you.
For instance, I find my Powerbook is much easier to write on; for whatever reason, Microsoft Office X for the Mac seems cleaner and less clunky than Office XP on my desktop. I also find my Mac is generally easier to do my UNIX development on since I have X11 and gcc right there, and it's a BSD system under the hood. Similarly, playing with music composition and digital editing seem to be easier on my Mac. With the digital audio output, my Powerbook makes a better stereo/DVD player for me in my room as well. I also like that it has great battery life, so I can pop it onto 802.11b mode, and wander around the house with it; it's nice to be able to have the Mac there to look up recipes on wirelessly, or to work on my writing (stored on a network file share) in the kitchen while cooking.
On the other hand, 3D gaming is definitely easier on my Windows box. And I find, for whatever reason, that my Windows box works better for me when I'm doing website dev; probably because I have Opera, IE and Mozilla installed, because I tend to work best in JASC Paint Shop Pro for doing web graphics, and because I find Evrsoft's 1stPage the best 'notepad on steroids' solution for HTML editing, even if it's defunct and no longer supported. And obviously, doing any sort of Windows development is way easier on my PC desktop than my Powerbook!
Does this make one or the other of them better? Not really. I admit I tend to prefer my Mac lately simply because it seems to run faster/smoother for me, and I've been doing a lot of writing. But my PC gets a lot of daily use as well.
Sure, I could've gotten a 'faster' Windows laptop than my Powerbook. But a six-pound little slim thing with 1 gig of RAM, built-in wireless and firewire, and suchnot is not to be sneezed at. I find the large, crisp screen works well for me when I'm traveling and when I'm writing. To/me/, the money I spent on the Powerbook was worth it and it's a better solution than a laptop PC would've been.
That doesn't mean that's true for everyone else.:)
This is partly true, and partly not. My Powerbook G4 is, hands-down, the most expensive piece of computer equipment I have ever bought. I really can't get around that fact in any way, shape or form; it cost as much as my last two desktop PCs put together, and cost more than the Sony Vaio laptop I had gotten some years ago. I can't really cushion that reality.:)
However, my Powerbook is buff enough to work as a desktop if I want it to, and what I've found is that overall I've had a lot less to spend on software for the Mac. For instance, I wanted to get into doing some experimenting with hobbyist moviemaking. Apple's iLife provided me a movie capture and editing tool (iMovie), a DVD authoring tool (iDVD) which works with my Powerbook's DVD drive, and a very nice musical composition program (Garage Band) for $40. Now, none of those programs are the best-of-breed; just within the Mac world, iMovie is flattened features-wise by Apple's own Final Cut Pro, iDVD is flattened by Apple's DVD Studio Pro, and Garage Band is basically Soundtrack's little brother.
However, all of them are more than sufficient for a home user's needs, and pricing comparitive packages for my PC got really expensive really quickly; to find a decent musical composition program which had Garage Band's features for the PC, I had to go up to $90. Which, no, is not that expensive as composition software goes... but does seem a bit pricy compared to $40 for the entire iLife package.
I could give other examples, but suffice it to say that/in general/ I've found that software -- especially writing, media composition or digital editing software -- has been cheaper on my Mac than my PC. As a result, I've personally found that now that I own the Mac, it's been cheaper to keep it running.
As an addendum, everything I've ever read -- including the PlayFair website linked to in this article -- says that FairPlay was licensed from Veridisc. So before anyone points fingers to tell me that Apple didn't write FairPlay, yes, I'm aware of that; they took an open standard and a publicly licensed DRM technology which can wrap digital files, and put the two together.
In theory, anyone who wanted could use the FairPlay DRM and thus play Apple iTunes Music Store music. However, AAC not having an inherent DRM seems to have discouraged everyone but Apple from using it commercially, whereas WMA has the DRM right there so if you're using WMA you don't have to go shopping for separate DRM solutions.
That was the point I attempted to make in the earlier post.:)
Not to further fuel the flames, but it's not quite that straightforward.
I think part of the problem is that folks are looking at AAC as 'Apple's format.' It's not. AAC -- Advanced Audio Coding -- is an open standard; there's an ISO number for it, and it was come up with by the MPEG standards group. AAC is to MPEG4 what MP3 (MPEG1 Audio Layer 3) was to the original MPEG. AAC itself is quite widely played by software players -- more than just iTunes -- and is more or less the intended successor to MP3. (NOTE: Intended. I make no predictions about whether or not it will actually happen.)
Where you can point the finger at Apple is on their DRM implementation on top of AAC; that's not part of the AAC specification, and so means that while an un-protected AAC file can play on iTunes, WinAmp, etc., a protected iTunes Music Store one cannot. THIS is a little unfortunate; I'd love to be able to load protected AAC onto my NetMD minidisc player without having to burn it to CD first.
WMA makes me more nervous as a format, because as far as I know it's controlled by a single entity (Microsoft) instead of an open group (MPEG standards group). However, it can't be discounted that WMA's integration of DRM has made it the more attractive commercial option for folks, since it's possible to make differing players handle the same DRM-protected files.
Whether or not AAC with some form of DRM will catch on remains to be seen, I guess.
But with games...what's the motive?? I just don't see any good reason to stop us from playing games we bought legally from or in another country.
I don't know if the reason is a/good/ one, but the logic goes something like this.
Let's say a company, called 'DevHouse,' makes a game over in Japan called 'CoolGame.' A publisher, 'Shoten,' puts this game out. It gets rave reviews, and players in the US start slavering over it. But due to contract stuff, and then localization and all, it takes a long time before the game is picked up by a US publisher, call them 'Electronic Crafts.' Now, especially if the game is something like a fighting game where translation is not really required, a lot of the diehard gamers that Electronic Crafts would like to sell CoolGame to have already bought the imported copy. The profits for the game sales go to Shoten, not EC, because the gamers -- having already played CoolGame and owning the import -- are not inclined to buy the US release. EC is unhappy.
The same thing is more or less true for DVDs/movies as well, not just the theater example you give. For instance, look at anime fans. A lot of the diehard ones can read or speak Japanese... and for that matter, a surprising number of Japanese anime DVDs (though still nowhere near a majority) have English subtitles as an option these days. For the diehard fan who doesn't really care about the dub, they go buy the import DVDs. As a result, when some US company picks up the rights two or three years later, lots of folks have already watched the DVD and go 'nah, got it.'
Doesn't mean region lockout is necessarily a good or bad thing -- personally, I dislike it, because some of my favorite games are never brought over here -- but the logic behind it is to protect publisher rights in different regions, since the publisher of something in one country is not necessarily the same publisher as in another country.
As a female gamer, I admit I think this is a bit of a broad generalization.;)
That said, you'll notice that games like Everquest, Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies/are/ popular with female players.
The theory I've heard bandied about, and one which seems to ring true for me, is that in general female players want a game where they can form communities and relationships, and tell a story.
For instance, I play Star Wars Galaxies a couple times a week, and in the city I'm a resident of one other woman and I are turning into the 'civic event organizers,' as it were. Sure, it can be fun to go hike out across the plains and blow away random hostile wildlife, or run missions for my faction, but I'm also having a real blast organizing events like an in-game play in our city's theater, speederbike races for a city gathering, and so on.
As a result of this, I've met new players in-game who are interested in the events we're putting on and want to help out or attend, and even gotten into IM correspondence with them outside of the game. This is where I'm getting a lot of my enjoyment from the game from... not random combat or wandering the world alone, but when I get to interact with other people.
Anyway, just my $0.02... or is that two standard Galactic Credits? Anyway.;)
All the rest of the comment aside, since I don't feel like getting into an OS jihad -- every OS has its strong and weak points, and will have people who argue against it solely on emotional reasons -- you nonetheless make a mistake which has been made very often lately.
You ask 'where are open standards when you need them?' The answer is, right where you're pointing.:)
AAC is/not/ propriety. It stands for 'Advanced Audio Coding,' and is part of the MPEG-4 specification. It is an open standard, with an ISO document and everything; it's basically the successor to MP3, from the MPEG working group. AAC is no more 'associated with Quicktime' simply because Quicktime can play it than MP3 is 'associated with Nullsoft' simply because WinAmp plays MP3. (For that matter, Quicktime plays MP3s, and WinAmp can play AAC.)
Now, admittedly, the DRM which Apple uses is/not/ an open standard, but it/is/ licensed from somewhere else, part of a suite called Fairplay and Veridisc, which about 5 minutes of poking around on the web informed me could be licensed from Circle Group Internet, Veridisc's parent company. It looks like Fairplay is designed to wrap/any/ digital audio -- be it AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, whatever -- and as if anyone who wants can license it.
The reason some folks (including me) happen to like Apple is that they've been very supportive of open standards. Their nifty 'Rendezvous' discovery protocol is simply an implementation of the open 'zeroconf' protocol. Their iChat video and audio chat are based all on completely open standards which anyone can implement if they wish (though it does use AIM for the initial negotiation, alas). Etc.
AAC ('Advanced Audio Coding') is the MPEG-4 audio standard, a.k.a. ISO 14496-3 -- it's hardly obscure or non-standard.
Several of the digital and satellite radio systems use AAC, and a number of software music players support it; Apple's use of AAC to hold higher-quality-than-MP3 digital audio on the iTunes Music Store and for playback on the iPod is just the most-visible example of it.
You can check http://www.tnt.uni-hannover.de/project/mpeg/audio/ documents/w2670.html out for the ISO 14496-3 draft, if you're curious, or just search for ISO 14496-3 on Google.:)
I have a Powerbook G4, and a Sony Vaio laptop. The Sony is an absolute pain to get online onto any WEP-based network I've not been on before. The Powerbook, in general, will find networks and connect to them (and prompt me if they need a WEP key). The problem I have had is with networks that use non-standard WEP password-to-key generation (a certain 802.11g router at my sister-in-law's family's house being the particular offender here), they won't play nice with my Powerbook. (Of course, the Vaio couldn't get online on that network either, but at least the Powerbook actually/found/ the network before choking.)
That said, most laptops contain wireless these days. Most college students have laptops, as do many business-folk. Maybe it's just Seattle -- where almost every cafe, coffee-shop and bookstore seems to have wireless access these days -- but I know plenty of people who don't know a lot about computers, but expect to be able to sit down at a restaurant, cafe, or whatever and have their laptop find the wireless net. Sure, some computers (like the Powerbook) can handle WEP quite easily, but for your average user, it's much easier to sit down, open your browser, and have it take you to a page that says basically 'here are the terms for local Internet access, click here to accept' and then boom, you're online.
A very good point... it's interesting that many of the same people who argue against Extreme Programming being sloppy are also the sort who are die-hard supporters of the Open Source/hacker methodology of development. If it's so bad to adapt the code as requirements change, how many Open Source projects follow a large formalized design document as opposed to accepting useful patches as they come up?
However, there's a lot more to XP, and there are some definite weaknesses in it...I say this as an XP supporter. I'm also going to make the same argument I've made in most of the previous XP articles on here; XP is absolutely great/when it works/, but it's very easy for it to fall apart, and then it is more harmful than helpful.
I was part of an Extreme Programming team that saw both ends of the spectrum. We had internal support, we met with our customer every two weeks and had an iteration planning meeting, and we were productive beyond all reason. When the requirements for part of the project changed, we were able to adapt quickly; our code was small, reusable and modular, so we were able to quickly make adaptations when the end-goal target changed. The code was largely bug-free because of pair programming, where one would work on design while the other coded, and we caught errors much more easily. Meetings were held standing up so that no one wanted them to go on for too long, and it kept them short. Our team was responsible for our own hires, which meant we picked folks who could fit into the pair-programming model well. We took a break every two hours to keep from burning out, we had separate 'personal' spaces as opposed to the pair programming computers...
It was one of the most rewarding development experiences I have ever been part of. Every bit of glowing, golden praise I had heard about XP working well seemed to be true.
But things changed inside the company when management changed hands. We lost the support for two-week iteration planning meetings, and had to work in six-month intervals. We lost the ability to hold stand-up meetings and were stuck in long conference calls. Our team got too large and fragmented into smaller bits, and the pair programming model broke down. Trying to stick to XP became an exercise in frustration and warfare with management. And as we let go of bits and pieces of XP, under pressure, the remaining pieces were weakened. Iteration planning only works if you can actually interact with the customer at an iteration-level, for instance... and so our targets became less easily defined since they were set out months in advance. Made it easier and easier for specific people to concentrate on tasks than having to swap around per-session... which ended up meaning instead of knowing all the code as we had before, anyone able to take over any area, we became specialized in specific areas of the project. And so on...watching XP collapse around us. And it was depressing, really, to see what had been a productive, active environment be stifled.
So that's my first-hand experience. When XP works...it/really/ works. But if you throw the balance off slightly, if you can't have all the prerequisites for XP, it rapidly becomes more frustrating and damaging than normal development methods are.
And more and more, it's harder to find the support for the XP procedures in a corporate environment. Bits and pieces that are in XP -- such as making modifications as they're needed rather than trying to plan overly far ahead for goals that might change, or writing test-suites for your code, and making clearly-understood code -- are of course sensible procedures. But the overall conglomerate only works if you have certain things...support within the/whole/ company being the big one.
Slashdot Mirror
Sci-Fi would expand out, the way it's normally pronounced, into 'Science Feye-kshun' -- 'Fi' in 'fiction' sounds more like 'fee.' So as I understand it, 'skiffy' is an attempt to point out that 'Skee-Fee' is an equally valid reading as 'Sigh-Feye.' Yes, it's faintly pointless.
Really, the objection I generally hear these days is not that 'Sci-Fi' is a bad term to use, but that you have SF/Fantasy/supernormal-horror generally all grouped together in a bookstore; it has sort of become a fusion genre, referred to as speculative fiction, and thus SF is a more inclusive term to use. (As it means 'speculative fiction' rather than 'science fiction.')
There were already lots of LiveJournal users who were upset and confused and unhappy with the idea that LJ and Danga (the company which made LJ) had been bought by SixApart. No doubt, as there have been no downtimes of this magnitude at LJ before, doomsayers will be claiming that it's SixApart's fault.
Never mind common sense; it won't matter that if SixApart can be held responsible for failures at InterNAP's colocation facilities, they're a much bigger -- and more powerful -- company than most people have ever given them credit for...
Thank you for the comment! And no, we're not designing exclusively for the average user -- as you note, the plugin architecture exists, and has been expanded on for this release -- but the average user is still a major consideration in everything. :)
/right/ for every platform it runs on. A lot of Linux apps ported to Mac OS X or Windows still feel like Linux apps, for instance. To do an IM client /right/ for OS X, we'd want to integrate into the Address Book, replace our notification system with Growl, support the system-wide spellchecker, and so on.
/is/ an OS X application which integrates with the Address Book, uses Growl for notifications, and integrates with the system-wide spellchecker. It's called Adium X. ;)
Like I said, periodically we re-examine the possibility of ports, but in all honesty, it's not that likely to happen. Even starting from scratch wouldn't help that much; it's still a small team, and maintaining a Mac OS X tree, a Linux tree and a Windows tree would be a huge headache.
It's likely that one or all would suffer; you'll notice most cross-platform projects tend to aim for a common denominator. Take, for instance, Thunderbird; Thunderbird is a great app (and under Windows, my first choice in mail clients), but most Mac users I know don't use Thunderbird. Why? Because Thunderbird doesn't do things Mac-ishly. Thunderbird doesn't integrate with the system spellchecker framework. It doesn't integrate with the system Address Book framework.
It's really hard to design a cross-platform product of any kind and have it actually feel
Of course, there already
Seriously, if you're really stuck right now for a multi-network option under OS X, I strongly recommend checking out Adium; Adam Iser and his team have built a really good client that integrates well with OS X, and it's worth at least looking at.
It's not even so much that we're uninterested, it's that we know Trillian isn't really as well-suited to the model of MacOS X or Linux applications. (FWIW, at least two Trillian developers -- including me -- have Macs as well as windows boxes. I'm posting this from Safari, in fact.)
/do/ periodically re-examine the possibility, but...
:)
I develop Mac OS X software in my spare time, and I can tell you flat out that Trillian would violate the Aqua Design Guidelines six ways from Sunday unless completely reworked, just for starters. (Of course, a depressing number of Macintosh applications also do, but still.) And for a small development team, trying to keep a single code tree in sync across multiple platforms without making it suffer overall, would be hard; that's something far easier for an OSS project. We
Honestly, Trillian's designed not for the power-users who want to get down and dirty with every little aspect of an IM protocol, or for OSS activists. It's designed, as has been noted, more for Joe Average; this is why Trillian 3.0 is made to look and feel more like a Windows XP application in the preferences system and whatnot. And to some extent, that userbase tends to be more prominent on Windows.
For those who are really into OSS or are on Linux, Sean and the others who work on it have made a great app in Gaim. And for those who are on Mac OS X, Adium X is pretty kickass. Heck, even the new iChat in Tiger is pretty straightforward for Joe Average Mac User.
It's not like there's some Highlander-esque 'there can be only one!' situation with instant messaging clients. You'll even notice we at Cerulean are on good terms with the Gaim team; when Yahoo locked everyone out last time, we deciphered the new login protocol and donated it to Gaim (and to Adium as a result). You can find other instances in the Gaim changelog of code donated from Trillian; it's certainly not like we're out to kill open source and crush all opposition or something. ("I am Trillian MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, and I've come to take your head developer!")
Gaim and Trillian are made to fill a different niches. If one's right for you, great! Doesn't mean the other one isn't right for other people.
'In a country where the average monthly salary is about $240, buying the latest album for $15 is a grotesque luxury, let alone spending $600 on Adobe Photoshop or a similar computer program.'
I have a friend in mainland China, who says that much the same situation is true there. It's always bewildered me that prices don't get adjusted for local economies even when they have local publishers and redistributors...
Apple's already released updates for the iPod firmwares multiple times; if the DRM changed, they'd just release a new firmware for the existing iPod owners. They already released the new 'Apple lossless' codec in an iPod firmware update.
It's not quite that simple, though. There will always be a certain level of education needed for /anything/.
/is/ widespread. Some of the computer security issues -- don't click on attachments blindly, etc. -- are ones which should be spread and educated until they're common sense, like 'don't stick your finger in the light socket.' ;)
/are/ a minority. This is why we can get away with the truly abysmal state of antivirus software on the Mac (witness the travesty that was Virex 7.5).
/always/ be education. If someone wrote malware for MacOS X -- and it could definitely be done -- and distributed it as a Trojan, an uneducated Mac user who trustingly runs the program is going to get just as screwed as a Windows user who trustingly runs the executable sent to them. How many Mac users out there simply enter their password when prompted by the system to authorize something using administrator privileges, for instance? :)
:)
To use your analogy of the lightbulb, I may not need to read up on emission spectra and the effect of induction on power phase lag in order to change a lightbulb, but it's still important to have certain understandings; it's good for the person changing the lightbulb to know that sticking their finger into the light socket with the switch turned on is 'not advised,' for instance. Sure, that seems like common sense, but that's simply because the education about things such as that
Yes, MacOS X is more secure than Windows in a number of ways; the Keychain is so, so much better than storing passwords in the registry, to do anything system-wide even as an administrator you have to enter your password, and the default configuration is more secure right out-of-box, with far fewer open ports. But the fact remains that writing malware for Mac will hit a far, far smaller percentage of the total users; we're secure in no part simply because we Mac users
Some of it will
Yes, at present the combination of ease-of-development to make malware for Windows and the sheer number of viable targets make it more attractive than writing for Mac. But it's hubris -- and a dangerous hubris, at that -- to assume that just because an OS is 'more secure' that educating the users is redundant!
Just my $0.02.
The second-generation TiBook (the old Titanium Powerbooks, not the newer aluminum ones) has an optical audio out plug on the back panel, right between the SVideo out and the internal modem jack -- my bad for referring to it generically as a 'digital' audio out, but still definitely a far sight better than a mini headphone jack.
Fair 'nuff.
/are/ all too frequent in threads like this. :)
And agreed that comments like that
I wasn't the one who made the 'Dull' comments, FWIW; please don't make it sound like I was the one being condescending earlier. My point was just that the best platform for an individual varies depending on their needs and preferences, and that whether something is 'too expensive' or not depends on what someone's needs and preferences are. Which you seem to agree with. Yay, agreement! And on Slashdot, who'd think it? ;)
You find InDesign works better for you; hey, great, I admit I haven't tried that one. I have Sony's Foundry stuff on my desktop, and I find Garage Band works better for me because I need better MIDI than Foundry has. We each found what worked well for us. As you said, to each his (or her) own.
You misunderstand; I wasn't trying to point fingers as such. I, as a developer, know that the responsibility for drivers rests in other areas than just the kernel developer, or the distribution packager.
/are/ willing to tweak config files, to research hardware support carefully before buying something, and so on. And I won't even argue that things like looking into hardware extensively before you buy it are good practices, and should be encouraged! But a lot of people out there don't do that level of research, and don't /want/ to. They just want the tech at Best Buy or Future Shop to tell them 'this one's nice, and less expensive than that one.'
/can/ just go to Best Buy and buy whichever printer looks nifty and the salesguy says is quiet; it has Windows drivers, so it'll probably work. Sure, the manufacturer made those Windows drivers and it's the manufacturer's fault if they didn't make Linux drivers, but grandma or Aunt Ethel isn't going to care about that.
/is/ at a point where my father could now use it for a desktop machine. If so, hallelujah!
.doc files without any more confusion or complaint than he usually gives about Windows, I'll be pretty happy; god knows I want dad on a system where he's /not/ constantly going to be turning off his virus software because it 'makes the computer slow' and thus gets the system infected, necessitating a cleanup or reinstall. ;)
But a generic end-user is not going to necessarily know the difference; they don't think 'gosh, it's nice that Microsoft packaged these Canon printer drivers with the base Windows install,' they just think 'cool, my printer works.' Conversely, if it doesn't, they think, 'dammit, stupid Windows, my printer doesn't work' and go looking for a driver CD in their printer box. The same is true for Linux; a non-techy user is not going to think about who's responsible for the kernel, who's responsible for the packaged drivers, and who's responsible for the installer tools. All they're going to want to know is if it will find their peripherals and set them all up. If it doesn't, then they're not going to blame, say, Canon for not writing a driver for their printer or scanner. They're not going to blame Intel for not writing a driver for their onboard sound card. All they're going to see is 'dammit, Linux didn't work.'
To rephrase, there's nothing wrong with Linux; it's a great desktop OS if you
And yes, the driver support problem is something which is not solely the problem of the kernel developers; it's a pain to write software for undocumented hardware, and I know, I've been there. But the average non-techy end user doesn't care about that.
Why Windows works for some folks is that they
Similarly, if they want to get online, they can go pick up an AOL or MSN disk, or an Earthlink dialup CD or whatever at the checkout line of Target or Wal*Mart; sure AOL and MSN aren't the greatest ISPs, but they're easy for grandma or Aunt Ethel to get online with. They dial up, find the local ISP access numbers, and configure themselves just fine.
I'm willing to say that it sounds like it's come a long way since my RH7 desktop died a bit more than a year ago, and maybe it
I'd actually be willing to try an experiment with that, to go over to my folks' house with a RedHat 9 CD -- I have one here for my headless server boxes -- and give it to dad to try and install. He can install Windows on his own and get MSN up and running, so it'd make an interesting test. If he can get it installed, get his printer working, get online with dialup as easily as with MSN, and be reading his e-mail and reading/editing
I wasn't trying to say MacOS X is the 'enemy'; I'm posting this reply from a Powerbook G4, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me. ;)
/does/ tend to make Linux more centered on developer-mindsets, rather than non-technical end-users.
/is/, as many say it is, to take the desktop market, then the mom + pop sorts who don't want to muck about with any sort of .conf file, or know what 'root' is, or anything like that do need to be addressed.
You have a point in saying that the original poster wasn't suggesting that Linux would conquer the desktop world, but remember that this particular thread was in response to an article about the weaknesses of Linux as a desktop OS. I was more or less trying to say that given the premise that it is desirable for Linux to gain market share as a desktop OS, then the attitude 'who gives a shit about mom + pop users' is detrimental to this goal, and that the attitude
If the goal is to keep it server-centric, Linux can really rule there. If the goal
Again, that's my $0.02.
It sounds like the updating methodology has gotten better since my Linux desktop died and I stuck to it for servers; that's excellent news, and it's definitely about time. :)
/have/ definitely improved in the past little while! But I still don't think Linux is at a level of non-technical usability where I'd be able to hand my parents a Lindo(w)s or Debian install CD and have them be off and running. :)
I admit to some skepticism about the printer situation, however. Let's say that my parents go and buy an HP PSC-series All-in-One printer; it's a color scanner, an inkjet, a fax, and a SD/CF USB drive. Plug the printer in... even if the inkjet portion works immediately, can they use it as a scanner from in Linux? As a fax? If not -- if they have to download various, varied drivers or tweak config files -- then it's not as immediately easy for them to use as it is under Windows.
I may be willing to sit there for a couple hours to tweak drivers and get everything working, but my parents are far less likely to... nor should they have to. And if the answer is anything more difficult than 'click on Find Drivers' or 'insert the driver CD,' then Linux is not, in at least one area, as easy-to-use as Windows for a desktop OS.
Like I've said, I don't think Linux is a bad desktop OS. And it sounds like some things
True, but the RedHat RPM updaters only work for if you /are/ using an RPM for a package. Speaking as a sysadmin, I often end up having to roll my own installs, and sometimes it can be a pain trying to get RPMs built of stuff. I don't want to build an RPM every time I'm going to tweak an option in my PHP ./configure call, for instance. Similarly, a lot of stuff like drivers (which Windows /does/ check for updates on automatically) is not in RPM, so doesn't get caught by it.
:)
I suppose another way of putting it would be that Linux puts the burden of doing app updates on the packaging tool (which can be a hassle if you install anything under a different packaging tool or whatnot), and Windows puts the burden of doing app updates on the application (with the exception of system-critical updates). Neither's perfect, but if I have to install specialized CUPS drivers or whatever outside of RPM, it's less likely security updates for those will get noticed automatically, since Linux software doesn't tend to do 'new version available' checks itself. Hopefully that clarifies.
As for the rest, you're absolutely right about OOo and other stuff needing to be fleshed out for business desktop use before it can conquer the desktop more fully. I addressed the home-user standpoint because that seems to be where the 'conquer the desktop' argument was being taken in this thread.
This is assuming we give a shit about average mom + pop situations. Personally, I use Linux for development and my servers. If you want an OS for a mom + pop situation, get Mac OS X.
/really/ doesn't want to teach my dad how to use UNIX. We've had this discussion, believe me.
But you can't have it both ways; you can't say 'Linux will conquer the desktop world' as many people seem to do, and then simultaneously say '...but we don't give a shit about average mom + pop situations.'
Linux as a server environment is great; I run two fairly high-load Linux servers in a colocation center, and -- despite my periodic grumbling about RPM dependency nightmares -- I am more than happy with the performance I get out of them.
But Linux as a desktop environment? I would not want to try and introduce my parents to Linux as a desktop environment in the state any of the current distributions are in. Yah, getting printing working under Linux is certainly doable; install CUPS and the appropriate driver, configure it all, poke at the CUPS internal webserver if you need to check things out, etc. I'm more than willing to take the plunge on that. But I don't want to have to explain CUPS to my parents; they're used to a Windows box where they can go to Best Buy, buy a printer, plug it in, and put in a driver CD. Or the new digicam they just bought; they want to be able to plug the camera into their computer and get their images out into a graphical program where they can e-mail it. They don't want to have to go looking for drivers for digicams for Linux or whatever, they want to just plug it in and put in the CD.
And for another one, let's go into security updates. Sure, Linux (and open source in general) have a much better track record than Windows of fixing security problems! That's great for sysadmins like myself, but it's not going to do a whit of good in some cases; my parents aren't going to want to stay on Bugtraq to discover that their print daemon has a remote-root exploit they'll need to download a patch for and recompile. They're used to Windows Update, where it'll find the critical updates and download them, then prompt them to install. They don't have to worry about it.
This isn't to say 'Linux sux!' or anything like that; I happen to think it's a great UNIX server and dev environment, and am happy with my own Linux boxes. BUT, that notwithstanding, it's not a desktop environment I would like to introduce my father to. The investment in user education is more than I want to get into; my father doesn't want to have to learn about autoconf and make, or patch and diff, or worry about watching Bugtraq or whatever. He just wants to be able to surf the web, print things, and use Word and Excel. And my mother, a former AIX user, would feel at home in Linux userland, but doesn't want to muck about with security fixes and upgrades, and
And my situation isn't completely different than a lot of people's; there are some success stories with teaching parents or relatives enough to encourage Linux adoption, but there are also lots of failure stories. And 'well, I can't use my new digicam because I'm running Debian' is not good sales pitch to other potential Linux users.
If the Linux world is fine with that, then that's great; Linux is great in the server arena, and within that area it does what it does very well. But if Linux wants to take over the desktop world, right now, it's not as approachable as it needs to be in order to be an effective desktop OS for 'mom + pop' situations...and it needs to approach those situations if Linux is to 'conquer the desktop world.' I'd love to see Linux become a solution that I could give to my parents and know they'd be on a stable OS; in the meantime, as you say, the desktop UNIX variant of choice for non-techy end users seems to be MacOS X.
There's my $0.02. (Or more like $0.20, since this post was a little on the long side...)
I really hate trying to compare Mac and PC CPU speeds, since -- as you correctly note -- the differing architecture makes the speeds comparitively meaningless; my 1Ghz Powerbook runs as fast or faster than my 1.8Ghz Pentium 4 desktop, so I gave up on trying to make the clock speeds map in comparison in any meaningful way.
/me/, the money I spent on the Powerbook was worth it and it's a better solution than a laptop PC would've been.
:)
What really makes more sense is to compare what you're trying to do with the computer, and what will work best for you.
For instance, I find my Powerbook is much easier to write on; for whatever reason, Microsoft Office X for the Mac seems cleaner and less clunky than Office XP on my desktop. I also find my Mac is generally easier to do my UNIX development on since I have X11 and gcc right there, and it's a BSD system under the hood. Similarly, playing with music composition and digital editing seem to be easier on my Mac. With the digital audio output, my Powerbook makes a better stereo/DVD player for me in my room as well. I also like that it has great battery life, so I can pop it onto 802.11b mode, and wander around the house with it; it's nice to be able to have the Mac there to look up recipes on wirelessly, or to work on my writing (stored on a network file share) in the kitchen while cooking.
On the other hand, 3D gaming is definitely easier on my Windows box. And I find, for whatever reason, that my Windows box works better for me when I'm doing website dev; probably because I have Opera, IE and Mozilla installed, because I tend to work best in JASC Paint Shop Pro for doing web graphics, and because I find Evrsoft's 1stPage the best 'notepad on steroids' solution for HTML editing, even if it's defunct and no longer supported. And obviously, doing any sort of Windows development is way easier on my PC desktop than my Powerbook!
Does this make one or the other of them better? Not really. I admit I tend to prefer my Mac lately simply because it seems to run faster/smoother for me, and I've been doing a lot of writing. But my PC gets a lot of daily use as well.
Sure, I could've gotten a 'faster' Windows laptop than my Powerbook. But a six-pound little slim thing with 1 gig of RAM, built-in wireless and firewire, and suchnot is not to be sneezed at. I find the large, crisp screen works well for me when I'm traveling and when I'm writing. To
That doesn't mean that's true for everyone else.
This is partly true, and partly not. My Powerbook G4 is, hands-down, the most expensive piece of computer equipment I have ever bought. I really can't get around that fact in any way, shape or form; it cost as much as my last two desktop PCs put together, and cost more than the Sony Vaio laptop I had gotten some years ago. I can't really cushion that reality. :)
/in general/ I've found that software -- especially writing, media composition or digital editing software -- has been cheaper on my Mac than my PC. As a result, I've personally found that now that I own the Mac, it's been cheaper to keep it running.
However, my Powerbook is buff enough to work as a desktop if I want it to, and what I've found is that overall I've had a lot less to spend on software for the Mac. For instance, I wanted to get into doing some experimenting with hobbyist moviemaking. Apple's iLife provided me a movie capture and editing tool (iMovie), a DVD authoring tool (iDVD) which works with my Powerbook's DVD drive, and a very nice musical composition program (Garage Band) for $40. Now, none of those programs are the best-of-breed; just within the Mac world, iMovie is flattened features-wise by Apple's own Final Cut Pro, iDVD is flattened by Apple's DVD Studio Pro, and Garage Band is basically Soundtrack's little brother.
However, all of them are more than sufficient for a home user's needs, and pricing comparitive packages for my PC got really expensive really quickly; to find a decent musical composition program which had Garage Band's features for the PC, I had to go up to $90. Which, no, is not that expensive as composition software goes... but does seem a bit pricy compared to $40 for the entire iLife package.
I could give other examples, but suffice it to say that
As an addendum, everything I've ever read -- including the PlayFair website linked to in this article -- says that FairPlay was licensed from Veridisc. So before anyone points fingers to tell me that Apple didn't write FairPlay, yes, I'm aware of that; they took an open standard and a publicly licensed DRM technology which can wrap digital files, and put the two together.
:)
In theory, anyone who wanted could use the FairPlay DRM and thus play Apple iTunes Music Store music. However, AAC not having an inherent DRM seems to have discouraged everyone but Apple from using it commercially, whereas WMA has the DRM right there so if you're using WMA you don't have to go shopping for separate DRM solutions.
That was the point I attempted to make in the earlier post.
Not to further fuel the flames, but it's not quite that straightforward.
I think part of the problem is that folks are looking at AAC as 'Apple's format.' It's not. AAC -- Advanced Audio Coding -- is an open standard; there's an ISO number for it, and it was come up with by the MPEG standards group. AAC is to MPEG4 what MP3 (MPEG1 Audio Layer 3) was to the original MPEG. AAC itself is quite widely played by software players -- more than just iTunes -- and is more or less the intended successor to MP3. (NOTE: Intended. I make no predictions about whether or not it will actually happen.)
Where you can point the finger at Apple is on their DRM implementation on top of AAC; that's not part of the AAC specification, and so means that while an un-protected AAC file can play on iTunes, WinAmp, etc., a protected iTunes Music Store one cannot. THIS is a little unfortunate; I'd love to be able to load protected AAC onto my NetMD minidisc player without having to burn it to CD first.
WMA makes me more nervous as a format, because as far as I know it's controlled by a single entity (Microsoft) instead of an open group (MPEG standards group). However, it can't be discounted that WMA's integration of DRM has made it the more attractive commercial option for folks, since it's possible to make differing players handle the same DRM-protected files.
Whether or not AAC with some form of DRM will catch on remains to be seen, I guess.
But with games...what's the motive?? I just don't see any good reason to stop us from playing games we bought legally from or in another country.
/good/ one, but the logic goes something like this.
I don't know if the reason is a
Let's say a company, called 'DevHouse,' makes a game over in Japan called 'CoolGame.' A publisher, 'Shoten,' puts this game out. It gets rave reviews, and players in the US start slavering over it. But due to contract stuff, and then localization and all, it takes a long time before the game is picked up by a US publisher, call them 'Electronic Crafts.' Now, especially if the game is something like a fighting game where translation is not really required, a lot of the diehard gamers that Electronic Crafts would like to sell CoolGame to have already bought the imported copy. The profits for the game sales go to Shoten, not EC, because the gamers -- having already played CoolGame and owning the import -- are not inclined to buy the US release. EC is unhappy.
The same thing is more or less true for DVDs/movies as well, not just the theater example you give. For instance, look at anime fans. A lot of the diehard ones can read or speak Japanese... and for that matter, a surprising number of Japanese anime DVDs (though still nowhere near a majority) have English subtitles as an option these days. For the diehard fan who doesn't really care about the dub, they go buy the import DVDs. As a result, when some US company picks up the rights two or three years later, lots of folks have already watched the DVD and go 'nah, got it.'
Doesn't mean region lockout is necessarily a good or bad thing -- personally, I dislike it, because some of my favorite games are never brought over here -- but the logic behind it is to protect publisher rights in different regions, since the publisher of something in one country is not necessarily the same publisher as in another country.
As a female gamer, I admit I think this is a bit of a broad generalization. ;)
/are/ popular with female players.
;)
That said, you'll notice that games like Everquest, Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies
The theory I've heard bandied about, and one which seems to ring true for me, is that in general female players want a game where they can form communities and relationships, and tell a story.
For instance, I play Star Wars Galaxies a couple times a week, and in the city I'm a resident of one other woman and I are turning into the 'civic event organizers,' as it were. Sure, it can be fun to go hike out across the plains and blow away random hostile wildlife, or run missions for my faction, but I'm also having a real blast organizing events like an in-game play in our city's theater, speederbike races for a city gathering, and so on.
As a result of this, I've met new players in-game who are interested in the events we're putting on and want to help out or attend, and even gotten into IM correspondence with them outside of the game. This is where I'm getting a lot of my enjoyment from the game from... not random combat or wandering the world alone, but when I get to interact with other people.
Anyway, just my $0.02... or is that two standard Galactic Credits? Anyway.
All the rest of the comment aside, since I don't feel like getting into an OS jihad -- every OS has its strong and weak points, and will have people who argue against it solely on emotional reasons -- you nonetheless make a mistake which has been made very often lately.
:)
/not/ propriety. It stands for 'Advanced Audio Coding,' and is part of the MPEG-4 specification. It is an open standard, with an ISO document and everything; it's basically the successor to MP3, from the MPEG working group. AAC is no more 'associated with Quicktime' simply because Quicktime can play it than MP3 is 'associated with Nullsoft' simply because WinAmp plays MP3. (For that matter, Quicktime plays MP3s, and WinAmp can play AAC.)
/not/ an open standard, but it /is/ licensed from somewhere else, part of a suite called Fairplay and Veridisc, which about 5 minutes of poking around on the web informed me could be licensed from Circle Group Internet, Veridisc's parent company. It looks like Fairplay is designed to wrap /any/ digital audio -- be it AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, whatever -- and as if anyone who wants can license it.
You ask 'where are open standards when you need them?' The answer is, right where you're pointing.
AAC is
Now, admittedly, the DRM which Apple uses is
The reason some folks (including me) happen to like Apple is that they've been very supportive of open standards. Their nifty 'Rendezvous' discovery protocol is simply an implementation of the open 'zeroconf' protocol. Their iChat video and audio chat are based all on completely open standards which anyone can implement if they wish (though it does use AIM for the initial negotiation, alas). Etc.
AAC ('Advanced Audio Coding') is the MPEG-4 audio standard, a.k.a. ISO 14496-3 -- it's hardly obscure or non-standard.
/ documents/w2670.html out for the ISO 14496-3 draft, if you're curious, or just search for ISO 14496-3 on Google. :)
Several of the digital and satellite radio systems use AAC, and a number of software music players support it; Apple's use of AAC to hold higher-quality-than-MP3 digital audio on the iTunes Music Store and for playback on the iPod is just the most-visible example of it.
You can check http://www.tnt.uni-hannover.de/project/mpeg/audio
I have a Powerbook G4, and a Sony Vaio laptop. The Sony is an absolute pain to get online onto any WEP-based network I've not been on before. The Powerbook, in general, will find networks and connect to them (and prompt me if they need a WEP key). The problem I have had is with networks that use non-standard WEP password-to-key generation (a certain 802.11g router at my sister-in-law's family's house being the particular offender here), they won't play nice with my Powerbook. (Of course, the Vaio couldn't get online on that network either, but at least the Powerbook actually /found/ the network before choking.)
That said, most laptops contain wireless these days. Most college students have laptops, as do many business-folk. Maybe it's just Seattle -- where almost every cafe, coffee-shop and bookstore seems to have wireless access these days -- but I know plenty of people who don't know a lot about computers, but expect to be able to sit down at a restaurant, cafe, or whatever and have their laptop find the wireless net. Sure, some computers (like the Powerbook) can handle WEP quite easily, but for your average user, it's much easier to sit down, open your browser, and have it take you to a page that says basically 'here are the terms for local Internet access, click here to accept' and then boom, you're online.
A very good point... it's interesting that many of the same people who argue against Extreme Programming being sloppy are also the sort who are die-hard supporters of the Open Source/hacker methodology of development. If it's so bad to adapt the code as requirements change, how many Open Source projects follow a large formalized design document as opposed to accepting useful patches as they come up?
/when it works/, but it's very easy for it to fall apart, and then it is more harmful than helpful.
/really/ works. But if you throw the balance off slightly, if you can't have all the prerequisites for XP, it rapidly becomes more frustrating and damaging than normal development methods are.
/whole/ company being the big one.
However, there's a lot more to XP, and there are some definite weaknesses in it...I say this as an XP supporter. I'm also going to make the same argument I've made in most of the previous XP articles on here; XP is absolutely great
I was part of an Extreme Programming team that saw both ends of the spectrum. We had internal support, we met with our customer every two weeks and had an iteration planning meeting, and we were productive beyond all reason. When the requirements for part of the project changed, we were able to adapt quickly; our code was small, reusable and modular, so we were able to quickly make adaptations when the end-goal target changed. The code was largely bug-free because of pair programming, where one would work on design while the other coded, and we caught errors much more easily. Meetings were held standing up so that no one wanted them to go on for too long, and it kept them short. Our team was responsible for our own hires, which meant we picked folks who could fit into the pair-programming model well. We took a break every two hours to keep from burning out, we had separate 'personal' spaces as opposed to the pair programming computers...
It was one of the most rewarding development experiences I have ever been part of. Every bit of glowing, golden praise I had heard about XP working well seemed to be true.
But things changed inside the company when management changed hands. We lost the support for two-week iteration planning meetings, and had to work in six-month intervals. We lost the ability to hold stand-up meetings and were stuck in long conference calls. Our team got too large and fragmented into smaller bits, and the pair programming model broke down. Trying to stick to XP became an exercise in frustration and warfare with management. And as we let go of bits and pieces of XP, under pressure, the remaining pieces were weakened. Iteration planning only works if you can actually interact with the customer at an iteration-level, for instance... and so our targets became less easily defined since they were set out months in advance. Made it easier and easier for specific people to concentrate on tasks than having to swap around per-session... which ended up meaning instead of knowing all the code as we had before, anyone able to take over any area, we became specialized in specific areas of the project. And so on...watching XP collapse around us. And it was depressing, really, to see what had been a productive, active environment be stifled.
So that's my first-hand experience. When XP works...it
And more and more, it's harder to find the support for the XP procedures in a corporate environment. Bits and pieces that are in XP -- such as making modifications as they're needed rather than trying to plan overly far ahead for goals that might change, or writing test-suites for your code, and making clearly-understood code -- are of course sensible procedures. But the overall conglomerate only works if you have certain things...support within the