The iPhone is available with any of Cingular/AT&T's current plans in addition to the iPhone-only plans, many of which do not include data. 100% of iPhone users will not have data plans, and unlimited data is nothing even resembling mandatory. My mistake.
The system does not record who voted which way. The only way to link a vote with the voter is via the index number and private key printed on the voter's slip, which he is free to shred, eat, burn, whatever. I think it may even be possible to validate that the votes match by comparing the encrypted votes, without ever looking at the plaintext vote. It's been a while since I did the RSA key pair stuff. If you vote for my candidate, then bring me your slip with the private key so I can verify it online, I'll pay you $20.
Designing an intuitive user interface that your grandmother can use without assistance requires a LOT of attention to detail and is much more complicated than what you've described.
My favorite Pentium bug was the "F00F" bug: create a file containing four bytes, F0 0F C7 C8 in hex, and save it with a.com extension. Double-click, and the whole thing just immediately stops. No error message, no blue screen of death, nothing.
Linux has a workaround for this (I think it'll just segfault or something), but NT doesn't. Never tried it on 2000, and of course later CPUs aren't susceptible.
90% of the people 90% of the time can't get 3G access speeds, even assuming 100% of cell phone users had data plans, which of course they don't. I think you need to re-assess what "people do 90% of the time." 100% of iPhone users will have data plans, AT&T is working on rolling out 3G to more areas, and part of the whole point of the iPhone is that existing phones make it too obnoxiously difficult to do anything that 3G would be useful for - people who wouldn't have used the Internet very much in the past will use it a lot more on the iPhone just because it's pleasant to do so (and because the unlimited data plan is mandatory anyway).
Librarians need to go out and play Halo 2 so, what, they can understand what book a client wants? No - librarians need to go out and play Halo 2, so they can understand what video games a client (or the usual term is "patron") wants. Public libraries don't just have books - they have magazines, newspapers, audiobooks, CDs, movies, TV shows, anime, video games, and other media, in addition to providing free Internet access. Public libraries exist to serve the public, and librarians want to keep up with what the public wants. Libraries aren't all about books anymore, because we as a society aren't all about books anymore.
This isn't a new thing; I remember that my local library offered video games at least 15 years ago (mostly DOS-based), and the movies were all on VHS back then, and of course there was no Internet access (although about 15 years ago they upgraded to a new card catalog system that was accessible via telnet or direct dial-up). But video games have changed a lot since then, and librarians need to be aware of the changes.
y hope is that since Apple was successfully able to keep the music industry from charging more than.99 per song the iTunes Music Store, that maybe Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T came with a clause that also limits what AT&T can charge for the rate plans on the phone in order to keep that exclusivity. Your optimism here mirrors mine - not just with pricing, but various other evil things cell phone companies like to do.
Apple wants to control the whole widget, but that simply isn't practical at this time. AT&T has the network infrastructure and a huge customer base (Apple wants people who aren't already Apple fans to buy the iPhone too). Apple had to make certain concessions when they entered into this agreement - I'm sure Apple doesn't want the iPhone to be tied to a 2-year contract; Apple wants iPhone customers to be able to switch networks whenever they want - but to a large degree, Apple will be running the show here. One of the things Steve Jobs mentioned is that they approached other providers (Verizon, Sprint, etc.) and nobody else was willing to strike a deal. I read this as, nobody else was willing to give in to Apple's demands.
If the iPhone is successful during the next five years, you can be damned sure that Apple will turn the industry upside-down.
AJAX is simply DHTML (another acronym I never liked) that uses XMLHTTPRequest to query the server, instead of reloading the whole page. A great example of AJAX is Google Suggest - every time you type a letter in the search box, it retrieves a list of suggestions.
XMLHTTP was originally created by Microsoft so they could use it for Outlook Web Access in Internet Explorer 5. Mozilla imitated it with the non-proprietary XMLHTTPRequest, which everyone else quickly adopted.
According to Wikipedia, the name "Podcast" was first suggested in this article in February 2004.
By the way, anyone who blames Apple for the name "Podcast" should note that Apple didn't get on board the Podcasting bandwagon until over a year later. Of course Apple is happy with the name, and Microsoft hates it.
He wasn't trying to make the point that Mac OS X is expensive compared to Ubuntu, he was trying to make the point that both Mac OS X and Ubuntu are cheap (and less complicated) compared to Windows Vista. Not including server versions (Mac OS X Server, and Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008), there's only one "edition", with one feature set (for each OS), available for one price ($129 or free, respectively). There is no "Ubuntu Ultimate Edition" which has more features and costs more than "Ubuntu Home Basic Edition".
Yep, that looks exactly like what I just suggested. I'm glad someone's working on it, but it's not an SSH client. However, it's definitely better than nothing.
Fairly sure, yep. Atlas is a project to "assess the feasibility of such an app"; I'll be pretty surprised if it turns out to be feasible.
There are various hacks you could do with AJAX, requiring server-side support, which could simulate having an SSH client on your phone. Essentially, have the phone present the UI of an SSH client, but just send AJAX queries to a web server, which would in turn operate a real SSH session on your behalf. This would be better than nothing, but it's not the same as being able to run an SSH client on the iPhone.
Not only that, but Jesus hated the religious right. The Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons of that day were called Pharisees; read what Jesus had to say about them.
People are all excited about this thing, and I don't understand why. Is it the iPrefix somehow making people think this will be as big a deal as the iPod? No. I don't care about the iPod. I've never owned one, and don't plan to buy one. If I get an iPhone, I don't expect to use its iPod capabilities very much (although, who knows, I guess that could change when I have it).
The difference here is that the iPod came in at the beginning of a new market, while the iPhone is trying to crack an existing and highly-competitive one. Yes, that is one difference. That probably explains why the iPod has something like 85% market share while Apple's stated goal is for the iPhone to capture 1%.
And I'm just not seeing anything special. Then you're really not looking. Forget about the technical specifications for a moment; nobody cares about that. Look at how the user interface works. Go to www.apple.com/iphone and view the Flash walkthroughs. All of them. See how easy it is to e-mail a photo to somebody, how to browse your voicemail messages, how to use Google Maps while a call is on speakerphone. My current phone has all of these features (except for using Google Maps during a call), but the interface is painful and it takes forever to do anything. I would never think of e-mailing someone a photo I've just taken with the built-in camera, because it takes too much time and effort on my phone. I use it to check my e-mail sometimes, but it takes forever, I can only access one e-mail account at a time, and even though I'm using IMAP, it will only show me new messages; I get no access to existing messages or other folders. Apple hasn't stated that the iPhone will definitely support multiple servers and IMAP folders, but I expect that it will, and it will be as easy to set up and use as it is on my iBook.
Let's see.
It's expensive. It only works on one provider. And it's closed platform. It is expensive, but I support Apple's efforts to wrest control of the American mobile phone market out of the hands of cell phone carriers. It's an uphill battle, and Cingular was the only company willing to allow Apple to do this; everyone else refused. That's the reason it only works on one provider. Hopefully, if the iPhone proves successful and customers on other networks start demanding it, the other carriers will back down.
I am concerned about the iPhone being a closed platform. AJAX widgets are great, and completely appropriate for a lot of the things I would want a phone to do, but they can't be the only solution. I want an SSH client, for example, and that just can't be done in AJAX. A VNC client that I could tunnel through SSH would be a nice bonus. Hopefully in the future, Apple will begin to support third-party development of real native applications for the iPhone. In the mean time, the iPhone can do just about everything my current phone can do, plus a whole bunch.
If it used a SIM card, and had an open API, I'd be a lot more impressed. As someone else already said, it does use a SIM card.
As it stands, I'll wait for the Openmoko. Openmoko does sound promising, but maybe by the time that's ready, Apple will have addressed your other concerns in the next version of the iPhone. Don't buy one yet, but understand that your needs are not the same as the needs of a lot of other people, and the iPhone does everything most people want just fine. This is the first release, and the next one will be even better. Don't write it off.
I am an American, and I'd say you're completely wrong. "Fahrenheit 9/11" did not help Bush get re-elected. The Republican supporters who rallied together were people who would all have voted for Bush anyway, and the rest of the population mostly ignored them.
The main reason Bush won is that the Democratic party couldn't offer a good alternative. Nobody liked Kerry, including the people who voted for him. Kerry was a mediocre candidate. So many people hate Bush that Kerry almost won anyway, but the people who didn't hate Bush didn't feel compelled to vote for Kerry.
A bigger reason is the ties between the GOP and the "religious right"; a lot of Christians somehow got the idea that the Republican party is the party that God supports, while the Democrats are Godless heathens. I'm not sure if this idea originated with the GOP trying to attract Christian voters, or if it originated with religious leaders who aligned themselves with the GOP in an effort to influence public policy, or some combination of both. Fortunately, it looks like people are starting to wake up, and the Democrats stand a good chance of convincing Christians that voting for a Democrat isn't a sin.
Of course you're right that they're all crooks, but that's OK - our government was brilliantly structured deliberately with this idea in mind. As long as everybody in politics is an evil greedy bastard who thinks only of himself, everything generally works out OK. The problem is that this system doesn't take political parties into account at all, and party loyalty messes everything up. The last mid-term elections helped to straighten this out a little bit - on November 8th 2006, there was a sudden massive attitude shift in the White House. I don't expect things to get any worse for awhile; the downward spiral has stopped. Of course this attitude shift came far too late to actually help anything in Iraq, but it may help with other issues like global warming and healthcare.
The keys on most non-laptop keyboards can be popped off easily (be extra careful with the spacebar, tab, enter, backslash, and the three large keys on the numeric keypad). If the silverware holder in your dishwasher has a lid, put the keys in there, otherwise there are containers you can get for the top rack that are designed for washing small things without losing them. While the dishwasher is running, clean the rest of the keyboard with a damp washcloth. Use soap if necessary. If it's really gross, use rubbing alcohol.
When you pop the keys back on, consider teaching yourself the Dvorak layout. Just a thought.
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Designing an intuitive user interface that your grandmother can use without assistance requires a LOT of attention to detail and is much more complicated than what you've described.
My favorite Pentium bug was the "F00F" bug: create a file containing four bytes, F0 0F C7 C8 in hex, and save it with a .com extension. Double-click, and the whole thing just immediately stops. No error message, no blue screen of death, nothing.
Linux has a workaround for this (I think it'll just segfault or something), but NT doesn't. Never tried it on 2000, and of course later CPUs aren't susceptible.
Why should we settle for only meeting the needs of average end users?
I remember figuring out when I was a kid that "741.5 DAV" is where they kept the Garfield comic books. ;-)
This isn't a new thing; I remember that my local library offered video games at least 15 years ago (mostly DOS-based), and the movies were all on VHS back then, and of course there was no Internet access (although about 15 years ago they upgraded to a new card catalog system that was accessible via telnet or direct dial-up). But video games have changed a lot since then, and librarians need to be aware of the changes.
Apple wants to control the whole widget, but that simply isn't practical at this time. AT&T has the network infrastructure and a huge customer base (Apple wants people who aren't already Apple fans to buy the iPhone too). Apple had to make certain concessions when they entered into this agreement - I'm sure Apple doesn't want the iPhone to be tied to a 2-year contract; Apple wants iPhone customers to be able to switch networks whenever they want - but to a large degree, Apple will be running the show here. One of the things Steve Jobs mentioned is that they approached other providers (Verizon, Sprint, etc.) and nobody else was willing to strike a deal. I read this as, nobody else was willing to give in to Apple's demands.
If the iPhone is successful during the next five years, you can be damned sure that Apple will turn the industry upside-down.
AJAX is simply DHTML (another acronym I never liked) that uses XMLHTTPRequest to query the server, instead of reloading the whole page. A great example of AJAX is Google Suggest - every time you type a letter in the search box, it retrieves a list of suggestions.
XMLHTTP was originally created by Microsoft so they could use it for Outlook Web Access in Internet Explorer 5. Mozilla imitated it with the non-proprietary XMLHTTPRequest, which everyone else quickly adopted.
According to Wikipedia, the name "Podcast" was first suggested in this article in February 2004.
By the way, anyone who blames Apple for the name "Podcast" should note that Apple didn't get on board the Podcasting bandwagon until over a year later. Of course Apple is happy with the name, and Microsoft hates it.
He wasn't trying to make the point that Mac OS X is expensive compared to Ubuntu, he was trying to make the point that both Mac OS X and Ubuntu are cheap (and less complicated) compared to Windows Vista. Not including server versions (Mac OS X Server, and Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008), there's only one "edition", with one feature set (for each OS), available for one price ($129 or free, respectively). There is no "Ubuntu Ultimate Edition" which has more features and costs more than "Ubuntu Home Basic Edition".
Yep, that looks exactly like what I just suggested. I'm glad someone's working on it, but it's not an SSH client. However, it's definitely better than nothing.
OK, He didn't really hate them, as people. He just hated what they did. You're right. Still, you get my point.
I want an SSH client, for example, and that just can't be done in AJAX.
Are you sure about that?
Fairly sure, yep. Atlas is a project to "assess the feasibility of such an app"; I'll be pretty surprised if it turns out to be feasible.There are various hacks you could do with AJAX, requiring server-side support, which could simulate having an SSH client on your phone. Essentially, have the phone present the UI of an SSH client, but just send AJAX queries to a web server, which would in turn operate a real SSH session on your behalf. This would be better than nothing, but it's not the same as being able to run an SSH client on the iPhone.
I would like to be surprised, though.
You should never just blindly click the "I Agree" button on your lease! You should at least scroll through it first.
Not only that, but Jesus hated the religious right. The Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons of that day were called Pharisees; read what Jesus had to say about them.
Perhaps he already has? And perhaps people haven't bothered to read it?
Something must be done! This is something, therefore it must be done!
It's expensive. It only works on one provider. And it's closed platform. It is expensive, but I support Apple's efforts to wrest control of the American mobile phone market out of the hands of cell phone carriers. It's an uphill battle, and Cingular was the only company willing to allow Apple to do this; everyone else refused. That's the reason it only works on one provider. Hopefully, if the iPhone proves successful and customers on other networks start demanding it, the other carriers will back down.
I am concerned about the iPhone being a closed platform. AJAX widgets are great, and completely appropriate for a lot of the things I would want a phone to do, but they can't be the only solution. I want an SSH client, for example, and that just can't be done in AJAX. A VNC client that I could tunnel through SSH would be a nice bonus. Hopefully in the future, Apple will begin to support third-party development of real native applications for the iPhone. In the mean time, the iPhone can do just about everything my current phone can do, plus a whole bunch. If it used a SIM card, and had an open API, I'd be a lot more impressed. As someone else already said, it does use a SIM card. As it stands, I'll wait for the Openmoko. Openmoko does sound promising, but maybe by the time that's ready, Apple will have addressed your other concerns in the next version of the iPhone. Don't buy one yet, but understand that your needs are not the same as the needs of a lot of other people, and the iPhone does everything most people want just fine. This is the first release, and the next one will be even better. Don't write it off.
I am an American, and I'd say you're completely wrong. "Fahrenheit 9/11" did not help Bush get re-elected. The Republican supporters who rallied together were people who would all have voted for Bush anyway, and the rest of the population mostly ignored them.
The main reason Bush won is that the Democratic party couldn't offer a good alternative. Nobody liked Kerry, including the people who voted for him. Kerry was a mediocre candidate. So many people hate Bush that Kerry almost won anyway, but the people who didn't hate Bush didn't feel compelled to vote for Kerry.
A bigger reason is the ties between the GOP and the "religious right"; a lot of Christians somehow got the idea that the Republican party is the party that God supports, while the Democrats are Godless heathens. I'm not sure if this idea originated with the GOP trying to attract Christian voters, or if it originated with religious leaders who aligned themselves with the GOP in an effort to influence public policy, or some combination of both. Fortunately, it looks like people are starting to wake up, and the Democrats stand a good chance of convincing Christians that voting for a Democrat isn't a sin.
Of course you're right that they're all crooks, but that's OK - our government was brilliantly structured deliberately with this idea in mind. As long as everybody in politics is an evil greedy bastard who thinks only of himself, everything generally works out OK. The problem is that this system doesn't take political parties into account at all, and party loyalty messes everything up. The last mid-term elections helped to straighten this out a little bit - on November 8th 2006, there was a sudden massive attitude shift in the White House. I don't expect things to get any worse for awhile; the downward spiral has stopped. Of course this attitude shift came far too late to actually help anything in Iraq, but it may help with other issues like global warming and healthcare.
I've seen keyboards so full of grease/hair/crumbs/etc. that they stop functioning properly until you clean them. Killing the bacteria won't help.
The keys on most non-laptop keyboards can be popped off easily (be extra careful with the spacebar, tab, enter, backslash, and the three large keys on the numeric keypad). If the silverware holder in your dishwasher has a lid, put the keys in there, otherwise there are containers you can get for the top rack that are designed for washing small things without losing them. While the dishwasher is running, clean the rest of the keyboard with a damp washcloth. Use soap if necessary. If it's really gross, use rubbing alcohol.
When you pop the keys back on, consider teaching yourself the Dvorak layout. Just a thought.