I'd rather have a smartphone with the option to block all 3G/EDGE traffic at the phone level, relying on wi-fi except in emergencies. I've been waiting since the Treo 600 was hot news. Its retail launch was in mid 2003, so... eight years or so?
It's not an option out of the box, but you can accomplish this with software on Android devices. They work by changing the "APN" to invalid values - e.g. "APNdroid" as a simple toggle or "JuiceDefender" to do it based on a schedule.
Technically you could on iPhone, too, (same general process) but I'm not sure if you can do it on the fly (a profile which changes the configuration will accomplish disabling data).
The problem is getting a carrier which doesn't require you pay for "unlimited" data. Android has an advantage there since it's easier to buy an Android phone that's entirely unlocked and then bring it to a GSM provider without the provider knowing what you are using.
Soon, the Nokia N900 will be available under similar terms. It runs Maemo Linux, which is "more open":) (It is also more mature than Android)
Older, maybe, but I'm not sure you can assume it's more mature. I haven't used Android, but Maemo, at least with the N810, seemed to be a good ways away from being "mature". The mail client was horrible and still evolving to be slightly less horrible. The UI was not responsive. The browser was horribly inadequate and often unusable with weird scrolling issues (tap and drag not working unless you happened to try to tap on an element that it wouldn't interpret for other purposes - like a link).
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I want Nokia to come out on top simply because of their slightly more open phone policy and nicer hardware, but just because Maemo is older doesn't mean it's mature.
What was wrong with the UI shown in the videos linked that the iPhone does so much better?
I haven't watched the videos (and I wouldn't trust them if I did), but I owned an N810 and used an N770, both previous generations of that line of product. The main problem I've had with that line has been responsiveness. The touch screen doesn't register touches as often and as cleanly. User actions often lag behind a little. Scrolling in the web browser was painful at times. Clicking and dragging in the web browser sometimes didn't work for whatever reason or would click a link instead of dragging.
Nokia does some amazingly good hardware. The N95 should be way more capable than the iPhone with a great screen, fast processor, and a phenomenal (for a cell phone) camera. The UI is such a step backwards from the iPhone, however.
There's one thing Apple got really well with the iphone, and that's responsiveness. This, more than the app store, is what makes me like it so much. I REALLY want Nokia to triumph (or Android), but in the months I've had the iphone (3gs), I've never once been frustrated by how it *responded* to a simple task. The design for many things is backwards (largely due to their focus on control), but the UI is really smoothly implemented.
Nokia might get it right on the N900. I'm just skeptical. Maybe it will be a phone that lets me answer the phone regardless of what I'm doing (S60 failed on that). Maybe it will feel like it has enough processor for the apps it's running (N810 feels like it's struggling to run the browser). Nokia just hasn't proven themselves capable of making a complete package yet to me.
This written by someone who had an N95 for longer than I had any other phone in my history of having cellphones. I still am more fond of it than the iPhone, although the iPhone is more generally useful to me.
(In fact, the worst part was stripping the DRM from Amazon's ebooks before I left, so that I could read them on Stanza rather than on Amazon's shockingly bad Kindle app...)
I find that interesting. I went the opposite way when I downloaded some books through Stanza and didn't like the interface at all (I found it to be rather laggy), so I converted them to a format the Kindle app could read.
What do you dislike about the Kindle app? For me, it's focused, quick loading, and very legible.
I generally agree with your post. But this comment shows that you aren't very clear on how Kindle works. It's all wireless magic. I briefly used Kindle on iPhone. You "buy" a book and it just appears. If you have multiple devices they all know what page you're on. If you drop your Kindle in the tub, presumably you buy another one and all of the content reappears.
My understanding is that the "real" Kindles do allow you to access the files you've downloaded over Whispernet by connecting the device to your computer via a USB connection. The iPhone Kindle application does not allow you to see those files, but that is a limitation of the iPhone's design, not of the Kindle application. You can't access any application files on the iPhone without the application explicitly providing a way (through a web sync or by running, say, a http service inside the app).
A Jailbroken does expose the Kindle eBook files.
Once you have the files, though, there's the question of how to deal with them. I would imagine you need to remove the DRM before putting them back on the Kindle once they've been revoked.
It works fine for backup and saves the emails and attachments to.eml format (one per email), so even if the restore functionality fails you'll at least have the emails backed up in a usable format.
I have not tested the restore yet, since I know at least I can access the emails from the filesystem.
Have you actually looked into OSM? It's data attribution scheme is significantly more flexible than 'regular' GIS. It is not only able to distinguish between a bike path and a highway but also able to specify that the bike path is private, goes uphill, that horses are allowed and that the pub halfway is closed on sunday.
That doesn't even make sense. GIS doesn't define any data structures (excepting in the general sense that spatial data is involved somewhere). There are some standard and common structures for storing transportation data, sure, but those aren't "GIS" any more than saying any given contact data structure is "database". The big vendors (Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ) actually include a good bit of useful information if you pay for it and more stuff is being collected all the time. They might not have the esoteric information about which pubs serve horses on Tuesdays before 2pm, though, but there's nothing about "GIS" that is stopping them from supplying that if they wanted to.
I've not seen the path data that either of the vendors supply (I work with road data more), but it'd surprise me if they didn't have classes of trails as well as use limitations. Elevation and grade is likely stored as well (and can be calculated or approximated from the elevation data if present).
As for hours of operation, the POI information I have from NAVTEQ doesn't have that information, but we didn't pay for detailed info. There's definitely nothing stopping them from providing it if they have it.
But I shut my laptop down and take it home with me every day.
I just suspend and then resume it and everything is still running. Taken that way, it's no different than leaving it running throughout the day, I guess. Technically, it takes longer to get a full "week" of leaving it running. If I stopped and started everything I use throughout the day ever night/morning, I'd probably lose an hour a week just on the "rebooting" of the applications. Oracle, Firefox, Eclipse, Outlook - and those are just the big ones.
I also run a lot of extensions in Firefox - I'm sure if I didn't I'd be more inclined to start it on demand.
I've run my computer like this since my first really multitasking capable OS (either Linux or Windows on a 486; I forget which). I still say nothing should be being wasted here, unless you leave the computer on instead of suspending it.
I have to restart Firefox every few days due to memory and/or CPU usage. I don't blame the browser because I have too many extensions installed for me to accurately place the blame.
Do all of you keep the radio and TV on all the time, too? The shower running so it's ready at any time to jump in?
No. Do you shower hundreds of times every day? I leave my browser and media players both open because they are applications I use constantly. When I walk away from the computer, pressing pause on the player and leaving the browser as is make perfect sense. I do close out infrequently used applications like my word processor. If my job required a lot of word processing, however, I'd leave it open.
Unlike your unrealistic shower analogy, a browser shouldn't use any additional resources while doing nothing. Obviously the TV and shower require energy to keep functioning. I'm surprised you didn't throw a car analogy in there as well.
Who the f- leaves their browser open and running for weeks?!?
Apparently the grandparent and I are two of these f-s. I'm constantly accessing various websites; why wouldn't I keep the browser open? I also typically have several pages I haven't gotten around to reading yet queued as tabs. I also have a web interface to my mail and RSS feeds open pretty much constantly.
My counter question is, "Who the f- closes their browser when they are going to use it again soon?!?".
How many signatures did they get on their little petition thing? 50,000? Out of at least 50,000,000 members?
I didn't sign the petition but I cared. I can't possibly be the only one. Perhaps the overlap between people who do care about this sort of thing and people who don't like to sign online petitions or join random Facebook groups is pretty large...
The commentary mentions that HL2 EP2 does use some of the features that are supposed to be limited to DirectX10 through some "back door" calls in DX9. I don't know enough about the architecture to know exactly what's going on, but it did sound like they use some of the DX10 features on the graphics cards, without requiring the DX10 API it (and thus Vista).
Sure, I just don't think they are really that rare. Definitely not rare enough that people shouldn't consider it. We are a fairly non-vocal group, though, so the perception of rarity is probably a lot higher than reality.
All in all, I really don't care unless I'm trying to figure out if my camera battery is charged or not.
a) It is really hard for me to look at an altered image and see if it really looks to you like it looks to me (if that makes sense). You might be interested in some pictures and links from here:
http://ydant.com/colorblindness/index.html
Definitely check out the first link "Colorfilter".
b) I've never done one - can you even change color in a plug-in?
c) I'd thank you, but it's not really going to change my life much.
Cool idea, and I'm sure someone would get benefit from it, but not me.:)
Bad policy: first you just excluded all the non-javascript browsers, and those who disable javascript. Second, the client side parsing can be intensive on the CPU of the machine, and hence the used can feel slowness. Third, you do not solve the database backend issue.
You may want to check AHAH, which is basically AJAX without the XML parsing part. Straight HTML to the browser.
I'm not sure you intended to say it does, but that doesn't really solve any of the problems you list for AJAX. It might solve the client-side processing speed, but that really just depends on how quickly the browser injects the new HTML into the DOM (not always a fast process).
AJAX is a tool that can definitely make pages faster, but it requires coding on top of your regular site unless you want to lose the non-javascript crowd. It's possible to transparently use AJAX in a way that doesn't inconvenience non-javascript users, but it certainly takes extra effort.
I don't use AJAX, anyway. AJP (Async-Javascript Processing) or something would be more accurate.
Like I said, most color problems are due to plain ignorance as to how common the problem really is. I don't blame people for not considering it, as long as they really didn't realize.
I've been that color blind person who spoke up in many a design meeting. Fairly often it's followed by someone else saying "hey, I'm color blind, too." It's also often followed by people constantly asking if stupid combinations are going to cause problems, so I don't often say anything unless it's really an issue. I imagine most of my fellow pastel-shy people don't bring it up for that same reason.
So, yeah, I don't think it's a huge problem, the image from TFA isn't a big deal, and I'm not sure the original complainer really cared. I do disagree with not considering colors in design because color-blind people are "rare" - that's just faulty data.
The frequency of colour-blindness varies with race. Amongst males of Asian descent, the incidence is as high as 30%. It's rarest for Africans, with Europeans somewhere in between. There is also variation in degree (as well as different kinds, with different colours affected).
Ah, I had forgotten about that. I wonder if that helps explain why so many electronics use multi-color LEDs. I imagine price is a bigger factor, though.
I had a friend to whom the grass was brown - he had very few green cones. Another friend had it so mildly that he only got confused with a few pastel shades. I'm somewhere in between.
Colors are pretty much always what they are unless I can't distinguish them. For the most part interactions are where the problem comes in. Colors disappear, or I can't tell two colors apart. However, given a single item I can usually name the color. The blue-purple-black scale is hard. Grays and pinks can be identical. Pastels are annoying. Green, red, and grey shirts can all three look grey to me depending on the shade.
Still, my point is that I learned what blue looks like to me, so I call things blue. So many people ask me, "what color does this look like?" as if they expect my world to be some weird psychedelic mixture of colors. It's really more a matter of minor shifts in color than anything.
Colour-blind people have an evolutionary advantage - most forms of camouflage are ineffective. This works for natural and artificial camouflage, so I'll be a better hunter in the post apocalyptic hunter/gatherer society. In times of famine I'll provide more food for my family. Conversely, my family is much more likely to be injured due to my failure to see a big hailstorm coming.
I don't care how accurate that is, we obviously think alike in this respect. I shall proudly tout my post-apocalyptic Darwinian advantage to all who care to hear. Perhaps we should keep quiet about it, though - maybe they will adapt and use those colored dots for camouflage instead... The camouflage not working thing is really real, though - I remember seeing hunting catalogs where ads had pictures of a person in camouflage hiding in the woods and I could always spot them immediately.
Right, but the transformation itself should be pretty simple, right? Just a rotation/inversion/dilation of the color wheel. And since Firefox has a really easy process for writing plugins...
That's a good question. I can't think of a case where it's been enough of an issue on the web that I've felt a need for such a plug-in. For the most part, things tend to be slightly more confusing than they have to be, but they aren't unusable. The real kicker for me is buying clothes and multi-colored LEDs. I also have a hard time at the local rock gym distinguishing the color tapes they use on the bouldering problems.
I actually might be bothered more online than I really realize - I just probably tend to forget the annoyances fairly quickly. I imagine people with more severe color-vision problems are more in need of such a plug-in.
I also don't know what color manipulation algorithms would provide reasonable results. I'd need some images I couldn't decipher clearly and start manipulating, I imagine. Maybe those color dot pictures with hidden messages.:)
Now, I'd normally think this should be 'effect', but I wonder if you might be doing this.
Sadly, I was simply distracted by a conference call. I do know better than to make that mistake. Still, I loved that particular instance of xkcd. Thanks for the correction.
Yes, but at the same time, isn't it just as easy for a differently color-sighted person to have a web browser capable of doing color transformations that make it legible for them?
For text, sure. Usually all it takes is selecting the offending text. I'm not aware of any product that will "fix" images, though.
The main similarity being, of course, that both color blindedness and.. blindedness.. are rare enough that the designers of the image hadn't even thought of it.
Stats vary (and you can look them up easily enough), but the general idea is that 1/12 males are color-blind to some degree. That means most groups are fairly likely to have at least one color-blind person in them. Now the severity of color-blindness as well as the affect that has varies significantly from one color-blind person the next.
I, for example, am color-blind, but didn't find the chart to be horribly difficult to use. Different colors might have made things easier, but it doesn't bother me in this case. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered when designing. Like I said, most color problems are due to plain ignorance as to how common the problem really is. I don't blame people for not considering it, as long as they really didn't realize.
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It's not an option out of the box, but you can accomplish this with software on Android devices. They work by changing the "APN" to invalid values - e.g. "APNdroid" as a simple toggle or "JuiceDefender" to do it based on a schedule.
Technically you could on iPhone, too, (same general process) but I'm not sure if you can do it on the fly (a profile which changes the configuration will accomplish disabling data).
The problem is getting a carrier which doesn't require you pay for "unlimited" data. Android has an advantage there since it's easier to buy an Android phone that's entirely unlocked and then bring it to a GSM provider without the provider knowing what you are using.
Older, maybe, but I'm not sure you can assume it's more mature. I haven't used Android, but Maemo, at least with the N810, seemed to be a good ways away from being "mature". The mail client was horrible and still evolving to be slightly less horrible. The UI was not responsive. The browser was horribly inadequate and often unusable with weird scrolling issues (tap and drag not working unless you happened to try to tap on an element that it wouldn't interpret for other purposes - like a link).
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I want Nokia to come out on top simply because of their slightly more open phone policy and nicer hardware, but just because Maemo is older doesn't mean it's mature.
I haven't watched the videos (and I wouldn't trust them if I did), but I owned an N810 and used an N770, both previous generations of that line of product. The main problem I've had with that line has been responsiveness. The touch screen doesn't register touches as often and as cleanly. User actions often lag behind a little. Scrolling in the web browser was painful at times. Clicking and dragging in the web browser sometimes didn't work for whatever reason or would click a link instead of dragging.
Nokia does some amazingly good hardware. The N95 should be way more capable than the iPhone with a great screen, fast processor, and a phenomenal (for a cell phone) camera. The UI is such a step backwards from the iPhone, however.
There's one thing Apple got really well with the iphone, and that's responsiveness. This, more than the app store, is what makes me like it so much. I REALLY want Nokia to triumph (or Android), but in the months I've had the iphone (3gs), I've never once been frustrated by how it *responded* to a simple task. The design for many things is backwards (largely due to their focus on control), but the UI is really smoothly implemented.
Nokia might get it right on the N900. I'm just skeptical. Maybe it will be a phone that lets me answer the phone regardless of what I'm doing (S60 failed on that). Maybe it will feel like it has enough processor for the apps it's running (N810 feels like it's struggling to run the browser). Nokia just hasn't proven themselves capable of making a complete package yet to me.
This written by someone who had an N95 for longer than I had any other phone in my history of having cellphones. I still am more fond of it than the iPhone, although the iPhone is more generally useful to me.
I find that interesting. I went the opposite way when I downloaded some books through Stanza and didn't like the interface at all (I found it to be rather laggy), so I converted them to a format the Kindle app could read.
What do you dislike about the Kindle app? For me, it's focused, quick loading, and very legible.
My understanding is that the "real" Kindles do allow you to access the files you've downloaded over Whispernet by connecting the device to your computer via a USB connection. The iPhone Kindle application does not allow you to see those files, but that is a limitation of the iPhone's design, not of the Kindle application. You can't access any application files on the iPhone without the application explicitly providing a way (through a web sync or by running, say, a http service inside the app).
A Jailbroken does expose the Kindle eBook files.
Once you have the files, though, there's the question of how to deal with them. I would imagine you need to remove the DRM before putting them back on the Kindle once they've been revoked.
It works fine for backup and saves the emails and attachments to .eml format (one per email), so even if the restore functionality fails you'll at least have the emails backed up in a usable format.
I have not tested the restore yet, since I know at least I can access the emails from the filesystem.
I can't mod, but thanks for bringing attention to this.
That doesn't even make sense. GIS doesn't define any data structures (excepting in the general sense that spatial data is involved somewhere). There are some standard and common structures for storing transportation data, sure, but those aren't "GIS" any more than saying any given contact data structure is "database". The big vendors (Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ) actually include a good bit of useful information if you pay for it and more stuff is being collected all the time. They might not have the esoteric information about which pubs serve horses on Tuesdays before 2pm, though, but there's nothing about "GIS" that is stopping them from supplying that if they wanted to.
I've not seen the path data that either of the vendors supply (I work with road data more), but it'd surprise me if they didn't have classes of trails as well as use limitations. Elevation and grade is likely stored as well (and can be calculated or approximated from the elevation data if present).
As for hours of operation, the POI information I have from NAVTEQ doesn't have that information, but we didn't pay for detailed info. There's definitely nothing stopping them from providing it if they have it.
I just suspend and then resume it and everything is still running. Taken that way, it's no different than leaving it running throughout the day, I guess. Technically, it takes longer to get a full "week" of leaving it running. If I stopped and started everything I use throughout the day ever night/morning, I'd probably lose an hour a week just on the "rebooting" of the applications. Oracle, Firefox, Eclipse, Outlook - and those are just the big ones.
I also run a lot of extensions in Firefox - I'm sure if I didn't I'd be more inclined to start it on demand.
I've run my computer like this since my first really multitasking capable OS (either Linux or Windows on a 486; I forget which). I still say nothing should be being wasted here, unless you leave the computer on instead of suspending it.
I have to restart Firefox every few days due to memory and/or CPU usage. I don't blame the browser because I have too many extensions installed for me to accurately place the blame.
No. Do you shower hundreds of times every day? I leave my browser and media players both open because they are applications I use constantly. When I walk away from the computer, pressing pause on the player and leaving the browser as is make perfect sense. I do close out infrequently used applications like my word processor. If my job required a lot of word processing, however, I'd leave it open.
Unlike your unrealistic shower analogy, a browser shouldn't use any additional resources while doing nothing. Obviously the TV and shower require energy to keep functioning. I'm surprised you didn't throw a car analogy in there as well.
Apparently the grandparent and I are two of these f-s. I'm constantly accessing various websites; why wouldn't I keep the browser open? I also typically have several pages I haven't gotten around to reading yet queued as tabs. I also have a web interface to my mail and RSS feeds open pretty much constantly.
My counter question is, "Who the f- closes their browser when they are going to use it again soon?!?".
Or an F1 motor? For example, Renault:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eoe8hEzdZ8
I didn't sign the petition but I cared. I can't possibly be the only one. Perhaps the overlap between people who do care about this sort of thing and people who don't like to sign online petitions or join random Facebook groups is pretty large...
Except it's not hard to find at all. Privacy->External Web Sites->Check the box for "disallow".
The commentary mentions that HL2 EP2 does use some of the features that are supposed to be limited to DirectX10 through some "back door" calls in DX9. I don't know enough about the architecture to know exactly what's going on, but it did sound like they use some of the DX10 features on the graphics cards, without requiring the DX10 API it (and thus Vista).
Sure, I just don't think they are really that rare. Definitely not rare enough that people shouldn't consider it. We are a fairly non-vocal group, though, so the perception of rarity is probably a lot higher than reality.
All in all, I really don't care unless I'm trying to figure out if my camera battery is charged or not.
Cheers.
a) It is really hard for me to look at an altered image and see if it really looks to you like it looks to me (if that makes sense). You might be interested in some pictures and links from here: http://ydant.com/colorblindness/index.html Definitely check out the first link "Colorfilter". b) I've never done one - can you even change color in a plug-in? c) I'd thank you, but it's not really going to change my life much. Cool idea, and I'm sure someone would get benefit from it, but not me. :)
I'm not sure you intended to say it does, but that doesn't really solve any of the problems you list for AJAX. It might solve the client-side processing speed, but that really just depends on how quickly the browser injects the new HTML into the DOM (not always a fast process).
AJAX is a tool that can definitely make pages faster, but it requires coding on top of your regular site unless you want to lose the non-javascript crowd. It's possible to transparently use AJAX in a way that doesn't inconvenience non-javascript users, but it certainly takes extra effort.
I don't use AJAX, anyway. AJP (Async-Javascript Processing) or something would be more accurate.
I've been that color blind person who spoke up in many a design meeting. Fairly often it's followed by someone else saying "hey, I'm color blind, too." It's also often followed by people constantly asking if stupid combinations are going to cause problems, so I don't often say anything unless it's really an issue. I imagine most of my fellow pastel-shy people don't bring it up for that same reason.
So, yeah, I don't think it's a huge problem, the image from TFA isn't a big deal, and I'm not sure the original complainer really cared. I do disagree with not considering colors in design because color-blind people are "rare" - that's just faulty data.
Ah, I had forgotten about that. I wonder if that helps explain why so many electronics use multi-color LEDs. I imagine price is a bigger factor, though.
Colors are pretty much always what they are unless I can't distinguish them. For the most part interactions are where the problem comes in. Colors disappear, or I can't tell two colors apart. However, given a single item I can usually name the color. The blue-purple-black scale is hard. Grays and pinks can be identical. Pastels are annoying. Green, red, and grey shirts can all three look grey to me depending on the shade.
Still, my point is that I learned what blue looks like to me, so I call things blue. So many people ask me, "what color does this look like?" as if they expect my world to be some weird psychedelic mixture of colors. It's really more a matter of minor shifts in color than anything.
I don't care how accurate that is, we obviously think alike in this respect. I shall proudly tout my post-apocalyptic Darwinian advantage to all who care to hear. Perhaps we should keep quiet about it, though - maybe they will adapt and use those colored dots for camouflage instead... The camouflage not working thing is really real, though - I remember seeing hunting catalogs where ads had pictures of a person in camouflage hiding in the woods and I could always spot them immediately.
That's a good question. I can't think of a case where it's been enough of an issue on the web that I've felt a need for such a plug-in. For the most part, things tend to be slightly more confusing than they have to be, but they aren't unusable. The real kicker for me is buying clothes and multi-colored LEDs. I also have a hard time at the local rock gym distinguishing the color tapes they use on the bouldering problems.
I actually might be bothered more online than I really realize - I just probably tend to forget the annoyances fairly quickly. I imagine people with more severe color-vision problems are more in need of such a plug-in.
I also don't know what color manipulation algorithms would provide reasonable results. I'd need some images I couldn't decipher clearly and start manipulating, I imagine. Maybe those color dot pictures with hidden messages.
All in all, it's just not a very itchy itch.
Sadly, I was simply distracted by a conference call. I do know better than to make that mistake. Still, I loved that particular instance of xkcd. Thanks for the correction.
For text, sure. Usually all it takes is selecting the offending text. I'm not aware of any product that will "fix" images, though.
Stats vary (and you can look them up easily enough), but the general idea is that 1/12 males are color-blind to some degree. That means most groups are fairly likely to have at least one color-blind person in them. Now the severity of color-blindness as well as the affect that has varies significantly from one color-blind person the next.
I, for example, am color-blind, but didn't find the chart to be horribly difficult to use. Different colors might have made things easier, but it doesn't bother me in this case. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered when designing. Like I said, most color problems are due to plain ignorance as to how common the problem really is. I don't blame people for not considering it, as long as they really didn't realize.