heads are rolling over having standardized on IBM (from Dell)
Does it really have anything to do with service? We've been switching from ThinkPads to Dells mostly because you can get the equivalent Dell laptop for (say) $500 cheaper. You sure it's not just the up-front cost (as opposed to after-market service) that's driving things?
Re:Memory leaps need to be overcome..
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Cooking With Linux
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This isn't unreasonable if you're a user who just wants to use the tools you know. I installed OpenOffice for someone for a similar reason, who needed to edit PowerPoint documents. He wasn't thrilled because OpenOffice didn't look exactly like office. It also kept asking him when she was saving his files if he really wanted to use the old Office format instead of the 'better' OpenOffice format. He needed the standard format because she was displaying the presentations with PowerPoint on machines where I couldn't go and install OpenOffice. The kicker for him, though, was that the presentations he edited with OpenOffice did not look the same when he ran them in PowerPoint. Sure, that's a bug that will probably (or may already have been) fixed, but that didn't help him get his job done.
In the end, he bought the version of Office that included PowerPoint and now he's happy.
Not everyone wants to be on the leading edge or to try out new things. You sometimes have to think of this from their viewpoint. Some people just don't care -- they've learned one tool and they don't want to learn another.
It's not that big a deal, really. I wrote a custom web application framework for an iAnywhere product that did exactly what Rails is doing, but in Java. Basically it mapped the path in a request to a set of classes. The mapping was determined at runtime through reflection. Worked well, you could do some neat stuff using inner/nested classes. The parent always got first crack at a request, so it could do filtering before the child was called and also of the child's results.
The disadvantage of doing this stuff dynamically, of course, is that it takes more time to execute, so you have to do caching to simplify things.
For the curious, the details of what I did are available online in the product documentation.
Eric
I have to agree. It's the same reason why the TV/VCR or TV/DVD combos aren't a great idea for most people. Do you really want to lose your TV when you send the player out be repaired? I don't think so. Those kinds of devices appeal to a niche market.
Doesn't seem to stop anyone else from becoming a "recording artist"! If her sister wasn't famous, she'd be nowhere. Not sure why her sister got famous, though. It's certainly not her brains.
Ashlee Simpson will never make a lip-sync gaffe again
I suspect it's more likely that she'll never do a live show again. From now on, all you'll see at her concerts are video screens. Actually, she'd probably love holographic projection (with a time delay for editing) if it ever gets invented.
This is also a problem for impression-based advertising, but it's magnified with pay-per-click advertising. I'm sure Google is working hard to minimize it. I don't think it will ever go away completely.
But then who polices the advertisers? Is Google supposed to trust you to tell them when a visitor who reaches your landing page converts into a sale? What if you're not selling anything, at least not directly? I can see all kinds of problems at that end, too.
Really, you're paying Google for traffic. Qualified traffic, yes, but traffic just the same. How you convert that traffic into sales is not Google's worry.
Given that the majority of Google's revenues come from advertising, I think it's safe to say that they're devoting resources (and brainpower) to fixing this problem. The nice thing about AdSense is that it lets small website owners like myself get rewarded for putting up free content with no real hassle on anyone's part. It complements the open source model in my mind.
Most AdSense sites don't earn a lot of money, but it can easily pay your hosting costs if you get enough traffic. Sometimes you hit a lucky jackpot and make more. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of Google's advertising revenues to see how many clicks come through AdSense versus through sponsored links on the search results pages, but I doubt we'll ever see that kind of detail.
I would sure hesitate to buy one of Tivo's lifetime subscriptions right about now.
That's the problem with lifetime subscriptions... most people assume such a subscription is valid for their lifetime when in fact it's valid for the company's lifetime.
But yeah, an annual subscription looks like the better deal right now...
There's a tactile aspect to reading a newspaper or a book that the electronic versions still can't duplicate. I still like my morning paper, what can I say? I can't be the only one, otherwise it would have folded a long time ago...
Which is kind of funny, considering that most newspapers are full of ads. Actually, you normally pay for the paper and get ads, kind of like the same way you (in a theatre) pay for a movie and get ads. At least on the Web you just get ads.
... the owners are responsible for the actions of their companies, even if they're not legally accountable.
There are different levels of legal accountability, actually. Courts will "pierce the corporate veil" when necessary to get at the people who are ultimately responsible for things. Regulatory bodies are getting more aggressive about this kind of stuff -- look at all the fuss over Nortel, where a bunch of board members have just quit and former senior executives are going to pay back millions in bonuses. You have to think carefully before being a company director these days.
That said, I'm sure that these spyware companies are doing things in a legal manner and getting end users to agree to being spied on. Whether this is ethical is another matter, but I don't think VCs are generally out looking for the most ethical investments, they're looking for the ones that make them the most money.
I'm not even sure how this bug could exist in any normal computing system.
It happens the same way that many (most?) bugs happen -- the human programmer forgot to check for boundary conditions in the data interpretation. As the old saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" -- if you don't validate your data, you may be surprised at the results you'll get. Here the result is that it's exposing someone else's message to you. But it's not that surprising.
These things usually boil down to human error and incorrect assumptions. Nothing new here.
P.S.: Interesting experiment: put a Linux system on a key like this with a Windows-like desktop scheme, boot someone's PC with it when they're not looking, and see if they can tell if there's any difference.
4) The Recording Industries Association of America will continue to sue customers while their business slowly dissolves. The big threat here isn't file swapping, but affiliate programs like Apple's iTunes Affiliate Program that I am sure will be shortly copied by all the online music stores. These affiliate programs turn bloggers into shills and blogs into record stores, with the result that record company's last source of power -- marketing clout -- is taken away. This will take time, but it is the beginning of the end for old-style record companies.
I didn't realize iTunes had an affiliate program, but it seems like a logical step. Amazon's been doing this for a long time with music CDs, of course, as have other vendors. While viral marketing is definitely a good way to promote things, I don't see it reducing the record companies' marketing clout. I've posted before about how they used viral marketing to promote Christina Aguilera when she was new. This is just another marketing avenue for them. But really, you still need to reach people who don't read blogs. People still watch TV. Still listen to the radio. Still read magazines and newspapers.
how could I implement that in such a way that the user will only have to click through a single "okay to access the internet?" confirmation dialog
This depends on the device, but in general with MIDP 2.0 you can use the permissions mechanism to basically have the user prompted only once instead of each time. See Understanding MIDP 2.0's Security Architecture.
Is there any J2ME forum you could recommend, by the way?
The hardcore J2ME types hang around on the KVM-INTEREST list run by Sun. See J2ME Mailing Lists.
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heads are rolling over having standardized on IBM (from Dell)
Does it really have anything to do with service? We've been switching from ThinkPads to Dells mostly because you can get the equivalent Dell laptop for (say) $500 cheaper. You sure it's not just the up-front cost (as opposed to after-market service) that's driving things?
EricView your HTTP headers using this page
people who had the most accurate self-perception were depressed people
Maybe you're thinking of this paper: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Good reading. Not that it applies to me, or anything.
EricWhy Vioxx is like Prozac for lawyers
This isn't unreasonable if you're a user who just wants to use the tools you know. I installed OpenOffice for someone for a similar reason, who needed to edit PowerPoint documents. He wasn't thrilled because OpenOffice didn't look exactly like office. It also kept asking him when she was saving his files if he really wanted to use the old Office format instead of the 'better' OpenOffice format. He needed the standard format because she was displaying the presentations with PowerPoint on machines where I couldn't go and install OpenOffice. The kicker for him, though, was that the presentations he edited with OpenOffice did not look the same when he ran them in PowerPoint. Sure, that's a bug that will probably (or may already have been) fixed, but that didn't help him get his job done.
In the end, he bought the version of Office that included PowerPoint and now he's happy.
Not everyone wants to be on the leading edge or to try out new things. You sometimes have to think of this from their viewpoint. Some people just don't care -- they've learned one tool and they don't want to learn another.
EricHow to detect Internet Explorer
It's not that big a deal, really. I wrote a custom web application framework for an iAnywhere product that did exactly what Rails is doing, but in Java. Basically it mapped the path in a request to a set of classes. The mapping was determined at runtime through reflection. Worked well, you could do some neat stuff using inner/nested classes. The parent always got first crack at a request, so it could do filtering before the child was called and also of the child's results.
The disadvantage of doing this stuff dynamically, of course, is that it takes more time to execute, so you have to do caching to simplify things.
For the curious, the details of what I did are available online in the product documentation. Eric
You want to really learn about a topic? Try writing a book about it! Nothing like putting what you know down on paper to make you think about it.
EricI was referring to TV + VCR or TV + DVD combos, not VCR + DVD combos.
And yes, I do realize that these things are disposable nowadays.
EricI have to agree. It's the same reason why the TV/VCR or TV/DVD combos aren't a great idea for most people. Do you really want to lose your TV when you send the player out be repaired? I don't think so. Those kinds of devices appeal to a niche market.
EricWhy the Vioxx recall reduced spam
she still can't sing
Doesn't seem to stop anyone else from becoming a "recording artist"! If her sister wasn't famous, she'd be nowhere. Not sure why her sister got famous, though. It's certainly not her brains.
EricArticles and stuff about Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)
Ashlee Simpson will never make a lip-sync gaffe again
I suspect it's more likely that she'll never do a live show again. From now on, all you'll see at her concerts are video screens. Actually, she'd probably love holographic projection (with a time delay for editing) if it ever gets invented.
EricCheck your HTTP headers here
This is also a problem for impression-based advertising, but it's magnified with pay-per-click advertising. I'm sure Google is working hard to minimize it. I don't think it will ever go away completely.
More fodder for Dan Brown: The Hipparchus Map, coming soon.
EricMore humo(u)r: Why the Vioxx recall reduced spam
But then who polices the advertisers? Is Google supposed to trust you to tell them when a visitor who reaches your landing page converts into a sale? What if you're not selling anything, at least not directly? I can see all kinds of problems at that end, too.
Really, you're paying Google for traffic. Qualified traffic, yes, but traffic just the same. How you convert that traffic into sales is not Google's worry.
EricListen, people: JavaScript is not Java
Given that the majority of Google's revenues come from advertising, I think it's safe to say that they're devoting resources (and brainpower) to fixing this problem. The nice thing about AdSense is that it lets small website owners like myself get rewarded for putting up free content with no real hassle on anyone's part. It complements the open source model in my mind.
Most AdSense sites don't earn a lot of money, but it can easily pay your hosting costs if you get enough traffic. Sometimes you hit a lucky jackpot and make more. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of Google's advertising revenues to see how many clicks come through AdSense versus through sponsored links on the search results pages, but I doubt we'll ever see that kind of detail.
EricWho is writing a book about AdSense
I would sure hesitate to buy one of Tivo's lifetime subscriptions right about now.
That's the problem with lifetime subscriptions... most people assume such a subscription is valid for their lifetime when in fact it's valid for the company's lifetime.
But yeah, an annual subscription looks like the better deal right now...
EricSee your HTTP headers here
There's a tactile aspect to reading a newspaper or a book that the electronic versions still can't duplicate. I still like my morning paper, what can I say? I can't be the only one, otherwise it would have folded a long time ago...
EricWhy is William Shatner on my cereal box?
people will draft back to newspapers
Which is kind of funny, considering that most newspapers are full of ads. Actually, you normally pay for the paper and get ads, kind of like the same way you (in a theatre) pay for a movie and get ads. At least on the Web you just get ads.
EricListen, people: JavaScript is not Java
it's index is actually peer-reviewed and moderated
Which guarantees that no one will read it. Next thing you know, they'll be charging us for it. That model will never work, trust me.
Well, maybe if you sell ads or something.
EricWhy Vioxx is like Prozac for laywers
Yet another misinterpretation Richard Stallman's manifesto! It must drive him bonkers.
EricJavaScript is not Java
There are different levels of legal accountability, actually. Courts will "pierce the corporate veil" when necessary to get at the people who are ultimately responsible for things. Regulatory bodies are getting more aggressive about this kind of stuff -- look at all the fuss over Nortel, where a bunch of board members have just quit and former senior executives are going to pay back millions in bonuses. You have to think carefully before being a company director these days.
That said, I'm sure that these spyware companies are doing things in a legal manner and getting end users to agree to being spied on. Whether this is ethical is another matter, but I don't think VCs are generally out looking for the most ethical investments, they're looking for the ones that make them the most money.
EricOn the lighter side: How the Vioxx recall reduced spam
I'm not even sure how this bug could exist in any normal computing system.
It happens the same way that many (most?) bugs happen -- the human programmer forgot to check for boundary conditions in the data interpretation. As the old saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" -- if you don't validate your data, you may be surprised at the results you'll get. Here the result is that it's exposing someone else's message to you. But it's not that surprising.
These things usually boil down to human error and incorrect assumptions. Nothing new here.
EricWhy is William Shatner on my box of All-Bran?
Put a copy of Puppy on a USB flash drive and have it put up the Blue Screen of Death on bootup. Share the key with your friends.
EricHow to detect Internet Explorer
P.S.: Interesting experiment: put a Linux system on a key like this with a Windows-like desktop scheme, boot someone's PC with it when they're not looking, and see if they can tell if there's any difference.
Should they excrete?
It'd be better if they'd extrude.
EricJavaScript is not Java
4) The Recording Industries Association of America will continue to sue customers while their business slowly dissolves. The big threat here isn't file swapping, but affiliate programs like Apple's iTunes Affiliate Program that I am sure will be shortly copied by all the online music stores. These affiliate programs turn bloggers into shills and blogs into record stores, with the result that record company's last source of power -- marketing clout -- is taken away. This will take time, but it is the beginning of the end for old-style record companies.
I didn't realize iTunes had an affiliate program, but it seems like a logical step. Amazon's been doing this for a long time with music CDs, of course, as have other vendors. While viral marketing is definitely a good way to promote things, I don't see it reducing the record companies' marketing clout. I've posted before about how they used viral marketing to promote Christina Aguilera when she was new. This is just another marketing avenue for them. But really, you still need to reach people who don't read blogs. People still watch TV. Still listen to the radio. Still read magazines and newspapers.
EricWhy is William Shatner's face on my All-Bran?
If one of Linus' kids takes over from his father then that could be considered a kind of tuning of the kernel using genetic algorithms!
EricWhy the Vioxx recall reduced spam (well, maybe temporarily) (see also my William Shatner All-Bran humor
Hmmm... I assume the classes are sufficiently independent from one another? In that case, there might indeed be hope yet.
I was able to extract the encryption classes I needed. See my tech tip Data Encryption for J2ME Profiles for details.
how could I implement that in such a way that the user will only have to click through a single "okay to access the internet?" confirmation dialog
This depends on the device, but in general with MIDP 2.0 you can use the permissions mechanism to basically have the user prompted only once instead of each time. See Understanding MIDP 2.0's Security Architecture.
Is there any J2ME forum you could recommend, by the way?
The hardcore J2ME types hang around on the KVM-INTEREST list run by Sun. See J2ME Mailing Lists.
Eric