I like Jack in the Box commercials. I find McDonald's commercials to be highly annoying. When I'm deciding where to have lunch, this may not be the most important factor in my decision, but I feel much better about eating at Jack in the Box. All other things being equal (rare), the advertising determines who gets my money.
I don't smoke, never have. If I suddenly decided to take up smoking on my own, I'd probably start with Marlboro, then try something else if I didn't like it. Why? Entirely due to advertising.
The Mac's had serious virus issues ten years ago -- before Windows went through it's current spate of issues. It was so bad at our university Mac network that we'd watch it go down in minutes.
The fact that a virus can take a network down does not mean the code is deliberately malicious. Melissa took down many mail servers, but was not malicious code - all it did was propagate, nothing more.
It was extremely malicious code and took a few years to resolve most of the issues. The Mac did move beyond that level of insecurity.
I'm not aware of any changes that have been made to the Mac OS that would affect the "level of insecurity" regarding viruses. Could you please explain what you're talking about? Obviously it's a good idea (especially in a school or corporate setting) to run antivirus software and keep it updated; if your university failed to do that it's hardly the fault of the Mac platform.
If you truly believe that Mac users will never write viruses and you won't have any script kiddies then you are indeed naive.
I believe I explicitly said that I do believe Mac users will write viruses (and obviously they have in the past). However, I believe a smaller percentage of Mac users than Windows users are likely to write viruses, and there are vastly more Windows users out there.
the Macintosh is fairly free from virii mainly due to the obscurity argument
As a Mac user, I'll confirm this. There aren't many Mac viruses, and the ones that do exist aren't usually very malicious. Two primary reasons for this:
A) Mac users are usually generally good people, and don't want to inflict harm upon others needlessly. The handful of people that decide they want to write a virus usually write one that does minimal damage. Mac users love Macs, and don't like to hurt Macs. (Buggy code may cause unintended damage, of course.)
B) People who write malicious viruses for Windows wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac long enough to learn how to actually code a virus for that platform. Disdain for all things Apple runs even deeper than the desire to cause harm.
Mac OS X will begin to change things. As more users move to the platform, it's inevitable that one or two of them will write some malicious code. Also, as the platform becomes more attractive, more malicious coders will start playing with ProjectBuilder.
By the way, the only case I know of where the desire to cause harm overrode the disdain for all things Apple was an exploit in AOL's servers that allowed Mac users using a hacked version of America Online software to steal or suspend AIM screen names. The Windows script kiddies actually ran Mac emulators to allow them to do this. Many thousands of screen names have been stolen (mine included, although it was eventually given back to me). Three-letter screen names are especially prized, and are traded back and forth. As far as I know, AOL still hasn't patched the hole - they did one patch that prevents it from working with AOL for Windows, but the Mac version apparently works slightly differently, and they didn't bother patching for that too (or fixing the root of the problem).
Windows users always try to convince themselves that Windows is easy, because if they admitted that Windows wasn't easy, they might have to look at easier alternatives, and they're not willing to admit that there are alternatives. It's a form of denial.
Mac OS 9: select Chooser from the Apple menu, click the AppleShare icon, double-click the name of the server, enter your username and password. Check the box to save the password in your Keychain. You can also check the box to mount automatically at boot time. If you need to mount it manually again, there's an alias in Recent Servers under the Apple menu.
Now, get this: drag your MP3 folder on the mounted network share into iTunes. Quit iTunes. Unmount the share (by dragging it to the Trash). Launch iTunes again. Double-click on a song in your playlist. The share is automatically remounted, after prompting for authentication if needed (if you saved the username and password in your Keychain, and your Keychain is unlocked, the song just starts playing; if the Keychain is locked it prompts for your Keychain password to unlock it).
And THAT's why Mac OS is better. Sorry for drifting off-topic.;-)
You are so right, and I'm really proud of both my parents - my mom successfully taught my dad HTML after learning from me. No WYSIWYG editors for them! That's no small feat.
I'd rather have Microsoft be forced to completely specify the Microsoft file formats for Office applications.
From what I understand, contrary to popular belief, the file formats are all documented, and the documentation is available to anyone who goes digging, or at least to any registered developer. There are two problems:
First, a.doc file is not a document format. It's an object container, which can contain (among other things) Word documents.
Second, Office applications are amazingly buggy, and those bugs are not publicly documented. Without 100% bug-for-bug compatibility, some documents simply will not behave the same way in any other application. In fact, some documents don't behave the same way in Microsoft Office on different computers, but they're usually close enough.
Um, d00d, Microsoft is a monopoly. Not only that, but they abused their monopoly power, which is illegal. This is a legal fact. It was declared a fact by a judge, and upheld as a fact by an appeals court. The only higher authority is the Supreme Court, and if they get involved, I'm sure they'll agree as well.
The cost is a major factor. Like many people I can't drop more than maybe $50 at the drop of a hat, so the lower the price the better. The fact that for the lower price, you get 2x the storage is great also.
Cost is an issue. However, the higher transfer rates, better interface, smaller size etc. definitely make the iPod more appealing.
The Treo is 2.5 cents per meg, while the iPod is 8 cents.
Ah, but how much data can you transfer to the device in half an hour?
That plus the fact that it works with Windows out of the box will probably give it very good sales.
It would be nice if the iPod had at least limited Windows support. However, since most PCs don't have FireWire anyway, the software support isn't a really high priority.
This is also good because USB is quite ubiqutous, unlike FireWire.
FireWire is quite ubiquitous on Macs and Sony Vaios.
The last good point that I'd like to touch on is the fact that it only has enough memory for 8 minutes of continuous playback. I have to say that I can't think of any way to use a MP3 player that would be so abusive that it would not be able to read a few megs off of a hard drive every few minutes. Are people planning on settings their MP3 players on those paint mixer things at hardware stores that shake paint cans like mad?
No, but if you load 20 minutes of music into RAM and spin down the hard drive, I bet you can really save on batteries.
Also, it's a serious bonus not to have to buy a Mac or some piece of software to be able to use my new MP3 player; of course if you already have a Mac, that's not a problem.
Exactly. And, you should buy a Mac anyway, not just because of the iPod.;-)
I think that while USB is good, they should have included USB 2.0 for a number of reasons:
USB 2.0 would have been more expensive to use, probably run hotter and use more battery power (just a guess) compared to USB 1.1. Since nobody has USB 2.0 support right now (I remember hearing Windows XP doesn't have USB 2.0 support), there is no benefit to anyone right now, a possible benefit to a handful of people later, and obvious drawbacks.
USB 2.0 is backwards compatible, so as more computers get USB 2, more people will get faster transfer rates. Let's face it, transfering 10 gigs at USB 1.x speeds would be mind-numbingly slow
Yes, and that's exactly what the Treó does.
FireWire is just too rare (in the wintel arena anyway) to be able to ship and expect good sales without bundeling a FireWire card with the product, IMHO
FireWire is less rare than USB 2.0.
USB 2.0 is supposed to be faster than FireWire (or at least the current implementation of FireWire as seen on a Mac I could go out and buy today, correct?), so if USB 2 was availible you could transfer files to the Treo faster than the iPod
I don't recall what USB 2.0 is supposed to run at, but I think it's comparable to FireWire. That's why they're working on GigaWire or whatever it's called, which might be available before USB 2 (I really haven't been paying attention).
for the money this is a LOT cheaper (if slower -- til USB 2)...
Not the first time I've heard USB 2 mentioned like that. This device is not USB 2, and when (if?) everyone starts using USB 2, this device will still be plugging along at (theoretical peak) 12Mbps. Of course, an updated version of this device may support USB 2 (or, more likely, FireWire) eventually. By that time the updated iPod will probably have 20GB of storage capacity at 800Mbps.
The power grid (lines, transformers, substations), which needs to be managed on at least a county level for security and continuity reasons, should be owned and managed by the county or state, leased to the utilities. This is the arrangement for water, sewer and phone.
It's my understanding that phone lines are actually owned by the phone companies, who are granted monopolies on providing local phone service by the FCC, with a whole tangle of regulations. Power works the same way.
Re:Wanna see something completely fscked?
on
This is IT?
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· Score: 2
Somebody saved the source to MSIE's error page as index.html, that's my guess. Why would they do this? I haven't the slightest idea. Take a look at www.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com, or since that site appears to be down at the moment, http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:IGBjSBHBafg:w ww.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com/+&hl=en
Somebody mod that up. I couldn't agree more. I thought I was against new weird TLDs, but the movie thing is actually a major problem, and a TLD is the perfect solution.
FWIW, I've had no problems with Qwest providing my DSL circuit. Obviously, don't choose an ISP that sucks, but that's the nice thing about DSL (compared to cable) - you have a choice.
I don't routinely save HTML receipts in a directory under public_html, and if I did, it wouldn't be in a directory with an index (i.e., a directory without an index.html file so the server returns a list of every file in the directory).
It occurs to me that the only thing the Better Business Bureau requires is that a company respond to every complaint. Not that they resolve the issue or that they respond favorably, but simply that they respond. Since NSI is infamous for not responding to complaints, perhaps alerting the BBB would be a good idea?
If you can get them to transfer you to a level two technician, you'll probably get your problem solved. Level one is pretty incompetent though, and they seem to have trouble speaking English clearly.
This is really irresponsible. I mean, you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else, but most of my friends have domains registered through joker.com, so when you find that you can't communicate with those of us who have found joker.com to be a very reliable registrar over the last few years with good support and no distateful commercial flavor, don't be surprised.
But what I am asking is why is.US going to be a *top level* domain... shouldn't the US be like the others, and get.co.us,.org.us and.net.us?
It's up to each country what to do with their TLD. Until now,.us domains were almost entirely divided into states, and further divided for schools, government agencies, libraries, etc. Example: gladstone.k12.or.us is my school district, and clackamas.cc.or.us is the local community college, and linas.lincc.lib.or.us is the county library system's online card catalog (with telnet access, w00t). Try going to http://www.state.XX.us/ where XX is any state's two-letter postal code.
The US Department of Commerce (the agency responsible for the.us domain) has decided to open up the domain to additional registrations, and it looks like they're not going to require.com.us,.org.us etc. Personally, I'd rather they did, but it's up to them.
By the way, most countries don't require.co.uk or.co.jp - take a look at the.to,.tv,.nu and.cx domains for a few examples.
In theory, com/net/org/edu/info/biz are generic TLDs not reserved for the US or any other country. There are.com registrars in other countries. As far as I know,.gov and.mil are reserved for the US government and military, and.int is only for organizations established by international treaty.
Why does the US get its own Top Level Domain? We do;.us is it. It's a country code TLD just like.fr or.au, and each country is free to subdivide however they please.
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I like Jack in the Box commercials. I find McDonald's commercials to be highly annoying. When I'm deciding where to have lunch, this may not be the most important factor in my decision, but I feel much better about eating at Jack in the Box. All other things being equal (rare), the advertising determines who gets my money.
I don't smoke, never have. If I suddenly decided to take up smoking on my own, I'd probably start with Marlboro, then try something else if I didn't like it. Why? Entirely due to advertising.
The Mac's had serious virus issues ten years ago -- before Windows went through it's current spate of issues. It was so bad at our university Mac network that we'd watch it go down in minutes.
The fact that a virus can take a network down does not mean the code is deliberately malicious. Melissa took down many mail servers, but was not malicious code - all it did was propagate, nothing more.
It was extremely malicious code and took a few years to resolve most of the issues. The Mac did move beyond that level of insecurity.
I'm not aware of any changes that have been made to the Mac OS that would affect the "level of insecurity" regarding viruses. Could you please explain what you're talking about? Obviously it's a good idea (especially in a school or corporate setting) to run antivirus software and keep it updated; if your university failed to do that it's hardly the fault of the Mac platform.
If you truly believe that Mac users will never write viruses and you won't have any script kiddies then you are indeed naive.
I believe I explicitly said that I do believe Mac users will write viruses (and obviously they have in the past). However, I believe a smaller percentage of Mac users than Windows users are likely to write viruses, and there are vastly more Windows users out there.
the Macintosh is fairly free from virii mainly due to the obscurity argument
As a Mac user, I'll confirm this. There aren't many Mac viruses, and the ones that do exist aren't usually very malicious. Two primary reasons for this:
A) Mac users are usually generally good people, and don't want to inflict harm upon others needlessly. The handful of people that decide they want to write a virus usually write one that does minimal damage. Mac users love Macs, and don't like to hurt Macs. (Buggy code may cause unintended damage, of course.)
B) People who write malicious viruses for Windows wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac long enough to learn how to actually code a virus for that platform. Disdain for all things Apple runs even deeper than the desire to cause harm.
Mac OS X will begin to change things. As more users move to the platform, it's inevitable that one or two of them will write some malicious code. Also, as the platform becomes more attractive, more malicious coders will start playing with ProjectBuilder.
By the way, the only case I know of where the desire to cause harm overrode the disdain for all things Apple was an exploit in AOL's servers that allowed Mac users using a hacked version of America Online software to steal or suspend AIM screen names. The Windows script kiddies actually ran Mac emulators to allow them to do this. Many thousands of screen names have been stolen (mine included, although it was eventually given back to me). Three-letter screen names are especially prized, and are traded back and forth. As far as I know, AOL still hasn't patched the hole - they did one patch that prevents it from working with AOL for Windows, but the Mac version apparently works slightly differently, and they didn't bother patching for that too (or fixing the root of the problem).
Windows users always try to convince themselves that Windows is easy, because if they admitted that Windows wasn't easy, they might have to look at easier alternatives, and they're not willing to admit that there are alternatives. It's a form of denial.
;-)
Mac OS 9: select Chooser from the Apple menu, click the AppleShare icon, double-click the name of the server, enter your username and password. Check the box to save the password in your Keychain. You can also check the box to mount automatically at boot time. If you need to mount it manually again, there's an alias in Recent Servers under the Apple menu.
Now, get this: drag your MP3 folder on the mounted network share into iTunes. Quit iTunes. Unmount the share (by dragging it to the Trash). Launch iTunes again. Double-click on a song in your playlist. The share is automatically remounted, after prompting for authentication if needed (if you saved the username and password in your Keychain, and your Keychain is unlocked, the song just starts playing; if the Keychain is locked it prompts for your Keychain password to unlock it).
And THAT's why Mac OS is better. Sorry for drifting off-topic.
You are so right, and I'm really proud of both my parents - my mom successfully taught my dad HTML after learning from me. No WYSIWYG editors for them! That's no small feat.
The GPL is specifically written to apply only to software. You're looking for the Open Publication License (OPL).
I'd rather have Microsoft be forced to completely specify the Microsoft file formats for Office applications.
.doc file is not a document format. It's an object container, which can contain (among other things) Word documents.
From what I understand, contrary to popular belief, the file formats are all documented, and the documentation is available to anyone who goes digging, or at least to any registered developer. There are two problems:
First, a
Second, Office applications are amazingly buggy, and those bugs are not publicly documented. Without 100% bug-for-bug compatibility, some documents simply will not behave the same way in any other application. In fact, some documents don't behave the same way in Microsoft Office on different computers, but they're usually close enough.
Um, d00d, Microsoft is a monopoly. Not only that, but they abused their monopoly power, which is illegal. This is a legal fact. It was declared a fact by a judge, and upheld as a fact by an appeals court. The only higher authority is the Supreme Court, and if they get involved, I'm sure they'll agree as well.
The cost is a major factor. Like many people I can't drop more than maybe $50 at the drop of a hat, so the lower the price the better. The fact that for the lower price, you get 2x the storage is great also.
;-)
Cost is an issue. However, the higher transfer rates, better interface, smaller size etc. definitely make the iPod more appealing.
The Treo is 2.5 cents per meg, while the iPod is 8 cents.
Ah, but how much data can you transfer to the device in half an hour?
That plus the fact that it works with Windows out of the box will probably give it very good sales.
It would be nice if the iPod had at least limited Windows support. However, since most PCs don't have FireWire anyway, the software support isn't a really high priority.
This is also good because USB is quite ubiqutous, unlike FireWire.
FireWire is quite ubiquitous on Macs and Sony Vaios.
The last good point that I'd like to touch on is the fact that it only has enough memory for 8 minutes of continuous playback. I have to say that I can't think of any way to use a MP3 player that would be so abusive that it would not be able to read a few megs off of a hard drive every few minutes. Are people planning on settings their MP3 players on those paint mixer things at hardware stores that shake paint cans like mad?
No, but if you load 20 minutes of music into RAM and spin down the hard drive, I bet you can really save on batteries.
Also, it's a serious bonus not to have to buy a Mac or some piece of software to be able to use my new MP3 player; of course if you already have a Mac, that's not a problem.
Exactly. And, you should buy a Mac anyway, not just because of the iPod.
I think that while USB is good, they should have included USB 2.0 for a number of reasons:
USB 2.0 would have been more expensive to use, probably run hotter and use more battery power (just a guess) compared to USB 1.1. Since nobody has USB 2.0 support right now (I remember hearing Windows XP doesn't have USB 2.0 support), there is no benefit to anyone right now, a possible benefit to a handful of people later, and obvious drawbacks.
USB 2.0 is backwards compatible, so as more computers get USB 2, more people will get faster transfer rates. Let's face it, transfering 10 gigs at USB 1.x speeds would be mind-numbingly slow
Yes, and that's exactly what the Treó does.
FireWire is just too rare (in the wintel arena anyway) to be able to ship and expect good sales without bundeling a FireWire card with the product, IMHO
FireWire is less rare than USB 2.0.
USB 2.0 is supposed to be faster than FireWire (or at least the current implementation of FireWire as seen on a Mac I could go out and buy today, correct?), so if USB 2 was availible you could transfer files to the Treo faster than the iPod
I don't recall what USB 2.0 is supposed to run at, but I think it's comparable to FireWire. That's why they're working on GigaWire or whatever it's called, which might be available before USB 2 (I really haven't been paying attention).
blah, that's enough from me.
for the money this is a LOT cheaper (if slower -- til USB 2)...
Not the first time I've heard USB 2 mentioned like that. This device is not USB 2, and when (if?) everyone starts using USB 2, this device will still be plugging along at (theoretical peak) 12Mbps. Of course, an updated version of this device may support USB 2 (or, more likely, FireWire) eventually. By that time the updated iPod will probably have 20GB of storage capacity at 800Mbps.
The power grid (lines, transformers, substations), which needs to be managed on at least a county level for security and continuity reasons, should be owned and managed by the county or state, leased to the utilities. This is the arrangement for water, sewer and phone.
It's my understanding that phone lines are actually owned by the phone companies, who are granted monopolies on providing local phone service by the FCC, with a whole tangle of regulations. Power works the same way.
Somebody saved the source to MSIE's error page as index.html, that's my guess. Why would they do this? I haven't the slightest idea. Take a look at www.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com, or since that site appears to be down at the moment, http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:IGBjSBHBafg:w ww.thispagecannotbedisplayed.com/+&hl=en
Somebody mod that up. I couldn't agree more. I thought I was against new weird TLDs, but the movie thing is actually a major problem, and a TLD is the perfect solution.
If Apple's legal department decrypts that, can you sue them for circumventing your encryption?
FWIW, I've had no problems with Qwest providing my DSL circuit. Obviously, don't choose an ISP that sucks, but that's the nice thing about DSL (compared to cable) - you have a choice.
good lord, that's hysterical.
(yeah, I'm an Oregonian)
I don't routinely save HTML receipts in a directory under public_html, and if I did, it wouldn't be in a directory with an index (i.e., a directory without an index.html file so the server returns a list of every file in the directory).
It occurs to me that the only thing the Better Business Bureau requires is that a company respond to every complaint. Not that they resolve the issue or that they respond favorably, but simply that they respond. Since NSI is infamous for not responding to complaints, perhaps alerting the BBB would be a good idea?
If you can get them to transfer you to a level two technician, you'll probably get your problem solved. Level one is pretty incompetent though, and they seem to have trouble speaking English clearly.
This is really irresponsible. I mean, you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't affect anyone else, but most of my friends have domains registered through joker.com, so when you find that you can't communicate with those of us who have found joker.com to be a very reliable registrar over the last few years with good support and no distateful commercial flavor, don't be surprised.
Same here. I do get spam from Verisign, not from Joker.
But what I am asking is why is .US going to be a *top level* domain... shouldn't the US be like the others, and get .co.us, .org.us and .net.us?
.us domains were almost entirely divided into states, and further divided for schools, government agencies, libraries, etc. Example: gladstone.k12.or.us is my school district, and clackamas.cc.or.us is the local community college, and linas.lincc.lib.or.us is the county library system's online card catalog (with telnet access, w00t). Try going to http://www.state.XX.us/ where XX is any state's two-letter postal code.
.us domain) has decided to open up the domain to additional registrations, and it looks like they're not going to require .com.us, .org.us etc. Personally, I'd rather they did, but it's up to them.
.co.uk or .co.jp - take a look at the .to, .tv, .nu and .cx domains for a few examples.
It's up to each country what to do with their TLD. Until now,
The US Department of Commerce (the agency responsible for the
By the way, most countries don't require
In theory, com/net/org/edu/info/biz are generic TLDs not reserved for the US or any other country. There are .com registrars in other countries. As far as I know, .gov and .mil are reserved for the US government and military, and .int is only for organizations established by international treaty.
.us is it. It's a country code TLD just like .fr or .au, and each country is free to subdivide however they please.
Why does the US get its own Top Level Domain? We do;
The Linux kernel, and XFree86. They've just lost two of the cool things about BeOS. Does this thing run on ext2? If so, that's three things.
Applications are not exactly BeOS' strong suit.