These aren't quite the same, and I think that the addition of spotlight will only make them better. Spotlight is actually technology that will provide the whole indexed metadata system and how to access. Apple just came up with the desktop search stuff to make sure that everyone knew about it.
Quicksilver is pretty excellent, but once it's Spotlight enabled, I'm seriously going to give up on organizing anything. I'm going to dump it all into one huge, unsorted mess. With smart folders and QS, why should I bother?
Just like every other time a website has gone down. Everyone flocks to the newsgroups and grabs what they need from there. I'll bet that the torrent newsgroups suddenly explode with traffic.
Apple has never promised that their hardware would work with another music store. When Harmony was announced, Apple SAID that they would do what they had to do. Surely you didn't expect them to leave it alone.
Someone pointed out that the change in the firmware could have done something as innocuous as invalidated some memory offsets that Harmony was relying on. We don't know.
But in any case, Apple's story has ALWAYS been that their player ONLY works with the iTMS. That's the way they market it and sell it. If you don't like it, don't buy it in the first place. After that, if it starts working with another music store, but Apple somehow 'breaks' it, all they've done is make the player do EXACTLY what they sold it to you to do. Play music, and work ONLY with the iTMS.
I think Apple's been pretty up front about how their hardware works. They say, "Our iPod works with the iTunes music store, and ONLY the iTunes music store. Like it or lump it."
If you then go out and buy an iPod and expect it to work with other music stores, you're a fool.
If someone then goes and hacks it so that it DOES work with another music store, but Apple changes it so that it works EXACTLY THE WAY THEY SOLD IT TO YOU, there's nothing unethical going on, especially if YOU'RE the one that ended up making the change to your device so it didn't work. They haven't changed the iPod, as I said before. They've left it up to you do actually modify the device. If you do, that's your problem.
Apple hasn't changed the iPod, YOU have. By downloading the firmware and installing it, you've given tacit approval to Apple to modify your firmware in whatever way they please. They haven't come in and changed the firmware chip, nor have they actually made the software update to the firmware themselves - that was all you.
It's not unethical, either. You should know the risks involved with updating your firmware, whether it removes functionality or not.
Incidentally, the new features on most iPods aren't really worth downloading in any case. (And they usually stop updating the firmware of iPods that aren't the current generation. My 3G iPod no longer gets useful firmware updates.)
I have one of those assemble-yourself wooden utility shelves that I keep my computers and routers and stuff on. On the bottom shelf is my mail server and UPS. I went to the hardware store, bought some of that board with the holes in it (I can never remember what it's called) measured it, and enclosed the bottom of the shelf. I put a hinge on the front part and a little latch.
I've got almost no handyman skills at all, but this was easy, and the computer still gets enough airflow to stay cool.
I didn't have to install any special software to use my iPod as a hard drive. I'm using it on a Mac, though.
The downside to dragging and dropping MP3s as opposed to using something like iTunes is I bet my playlist creation is somewhat easier than yours is. I couldn't live without smart playlists anymore.
Arguably, they're not overpriced. Not only did you pay for them, you seem really happy with them. Isn't that satisfaction and productivity worth the price?
Interestingly, I don't think I've ever had your problem. Every application that I use that outputs a file asks me where I want to save it. I may just not be using the same applications as you, though.
At this point, I'm intentionally just dumping files arbritrarily in a couple of directories. I COULD arrange them, but I'm actively not doing that.
It seems rather odd that Steve Jobs isn't on that list, considering how much the stock price of Apple has gone up this year. The iPod is big news, and the company seems to be coming back into relevance in the Scientific, educational and home desktop markets. Instead, Michael Dell is on there, and all he's done is put a lot of machines together and put out a copy-cat MP3 player. (He's done a good job at it and made a lot of money, don't get me wrong. He's no innovator, though.)
For the moment, I'm just letting everything go to pot. I just throw things in whatever directory is convenient, and hope that I remember where I put it later. I'm really looking forward to Spotlight on OS X.
Personally, I think that in a few years time, heirarchical filesystems will be on their way out. With the current state of computing, there's little reason to have such a system when you can have a filesystem that does all the work for you. I've heard that the same functionality will be coming to Linux through ReiserFS (though I admit to not following that very closely since I'm obviously an OS X user).
So, that probably doesn't help you much, but then again, it might. Just look around for a system that allows fast indexed searching of your machine so you don't have to keep track of this crap yourself.
(Incidentally, it isn't only you. In one of the ACM's recent quarterly journals on Human-Computer Interaction, it found that most users are unable to keep track of where their files are because there are just too many of them. Also, it found that the search facilities currently in place in Windows and Mac (OS 9?) systems are entirely inadequate for the task.)
I'm not really trying to imply anything about you as a professional. I'm just complaining that using the word 'bemoan' in that manner gives the misleading impression that security pros wish that they didn't have to focus and get the job done. I think whoever wrote the headline didn't really know how to use 'bemoan', but heard it somewhere and thought it sounded good.:P
Ah yes, correct on a technicality. However, I'm not sure it really matters. Common vernacular is sufficiently well established at this point that 'they' is not only commonly used, but not considered incorrect. Besides, while the definition says that English lacks one, it also clearly goes on to say that people use - and not incorrectly - the plural pronoun in its place. Reading more than the first line seems to indicate that there should be no issue.
As for 'he' or 'she' not implying an exclusion, that's a ridiculous statement. If you refer to a group with a male pronoun, I've suddenly lost the ability to tell whether it's composed of only men or both men and women. There's no reason for me to assume a mixed group in particular, so I would say that the usage of that language is implicitly exclusionary.
I don't know why I get argument about this. It's entirely proper. Shakespeare used it, for heaven's sake. Are you going to tell me that his English isn't proper? He's the basis of a significant amount of our grammar, as near as I can tell.:P
Here's a relevant entry from Mirriam-Webster:
usage: They used as an indefinite subject (sense 2) is sometimes objected to on the grounds that it does not have an antecedent. Not every pronoun requires an antecedent, however. The indefinite they is used in all varieties of contexts and is standard. usage: They, their, them, themselves: English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as everyone, anyone, someone). Writers and speakers have supplied this lack by using the plural pronouns [and every one to rest themselves betake -- Shakespeare] [I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly -- Jane Austen] [it is too hideous for anyone in their senses to buy -- W. H. Auden]. The plural pronouns have also been put to use as pronouns of indefinite number to refer to singular nouns that stand for many persons ['tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech -- Shakespeare] [a person can't help their birth -- W. M. Thackeray] [no man goes to battle to be killed. -- But they do get killed -- G. B. Shaw]. The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound best.
In English, it's perfectly acceptable to use 'they' as the pronoun for indeterminate gender. Most people don't, for whatever reason, but it fits in quite easily.
Your argument about the female pronoun excluding males is true, but the same holds true in the other direction. While it's accepted common practice to use the male pronoun to refer to groups of people or to someone of indeterminate gender, you're now unable to determine whether or not the person or people on the other side are all men, or a mixed group.
Neither is reasonable. You can use 'they' or 'them' with no loss of specificity OR generality.
Y'see, and the watch on the beach argument is something that I find really sad. I'd LOVE to think that it just appeared on the beach, or was somehow the product of a weird series of natural events. Creationism is so dull. The thought that there's someone pulling strings and making things is much less interesting to me than everything happening 'naturally'. Where's the wonder? Where's the discovery?
(I also believe in evolution and a natural universe because it makes more sense scientifically, and I think that all the arguments that Creationists have are bunk. But that's just me.)
Chalk it up to me being a Canadian in a non-baseball city. I thought the World Series encompassed the whole playoffs - the whole series, if you will. The Stanley Cup playoffs refer to the entire thing, not jut the finals, even though there're division playoffs being done during the whole series.
You can't apply them to an individual case in an attempt to predict the future.
For example, the divorce rate in North America is very high. Pretend that it's an even 50% of marriages that end in divorce.
If you get married, you are not beholden to that statistic. Whether or not you get divorced cannot be predicted by the statistic. You do not have a 50/50 chance of breaking it off with your partner. The conditions may exist that cause a 50% divorce rate, but they may not apply to you, for whatever reason.
Predicting things from past results is interesting, and sometimes something to talk about, but they don't mean anything. Up until a couple of weeks ago, nobody had ever come back from being down 3 games to 0 in the World Series.
It IS possible to get your music off of an iPod, though, especially since you're using OS X.
Plug it in, and don't let it sync with iTunes. Leave it plugged in, as it should be mounted as a drive.
I'm not at home right now, so I can't tell you exactly what the mount point is, but it should be something like/mnt/NameOfYouriPod
Just go browsing through the directories. Copy the music off into a music directory in your home dir, and you've got your music again, minus the metadata.
Not to be preachy, but you should have made a backup of the files. Apple encourages this, and you can even find documentation (official documentation) on how to make iTunes burn discs with data on them so you can back up your files.
Actually, his argument is more along the lines of 'intuitive' meaning 'familiar'. That's generally what I see in most HCI documentation. The only intuitive interface is the nipple - everything else is learned, right?:) (I didn't make that up, someone much more clever than I did.)
Anyway, something that's familiar also has the benefit of being easy to learn. Real-world interfaces that look like knobs are familiar - you turn them. After you figure out what the knob controls, you've learned the interface. I think that's what he's gunning for, in a way. UIs that are possible to learn because the way they function is familiar and consistent. (Unfortunately, because his ideas haven't caught on, whatever he starts with now will be UNfamiliar, which will lead to a greater learning curve than I think he would like.)
Multitasking ends up being an enabling feature. That is, it enables you to run several programs at once.
Because of this, you now have to modify your user interface to accomodate such a feature. How do you switch between applications? How do you maintain consistency across applications? What happens if a background application fails?
Suddenly, there are a lot more things to consider when presenting an interface to the user.
Is that I even emailed a link to the supposedly on-duty editor, and SAID that this was a dupe. It's okay if nobody's let them know what's going on, but I know that at LEAST one email was sent telling them not to post this story.
Slashdot Mirror
These aren't quite the same, and I think that the addition of spotlight will only make them better. Spotlight is actually technology that will provide the whole indexed metadata system and how to access. Apple just came up with the desktop search stuff to make sure that everyone knew about it.
Quicksilver is pretty excellent, but once it's Spotlight enabled, I'm seriously going to give up on organizing anything. I'm going to dump it all into one huge, unsorted mess. With smart folders and QS, why should I bother?
Just like every other time a website has gone down. Everyone flocks to the newsgroups and grabs what they need from there. I'll bet that the torrent newsgroups suddenly explode with traffic.
Apple has never promised that their hardware would work with another music store. When Harmony was announced, Apple SAID that they would do what they had to do. Surely you didn't expect them to leave it alone.
Someone pointed out that the change in the firmware could have done something as innocuous as invalidated some memory offsets that Harmony was relying on. We don't know.
But in any case, Apple's story has ALWAYS been that their player ONLY works with the iTMS. That's the way they market it and sell it. If you don't like it, don't buy it in the first place. After that, if it starts working with another music store, but Apple somehow 'breaks' it, all they've done is make the player do EXACTLY what they sold it to you to do. Play music, and work ONLY with the iTMS.
I think Apple's been pretty up front about how their hardware works. They say, "Our iPod works with the iTunes music store, and ONLY the iTunes music store. Like it or lump it."
If you then go out and buy an iPod and expect it to work with other music stores, you're a fool.
If someone then goes and hacks it so that it DOES work with another music store, but Apple changes it so that it works EXACTLY THE WAY THEY SOLD IT TO YOU, there's nothing unethical going on, especially if YOU'RE the one that ended up making the change to your device so it didn't work. They haven't changed the iPod, as I said before. They've left it up to you do actually modify the device. If you do, that's your problem.
Apple hasn't changed the iPod, YOU have. By downloading the firmware and installing it, you've given tacit approval to Apple to modify your firmware in whatever way they please. They haven't come in and changed the firmware chip, nor have they actually made the software update to the firmware themselves - that was all you.
It's not unethical, either. You should know the risks involved with updating your firmware, whether it removes functionality or not.
Incidentally, the new features on most iPods aren't really worth downloading in any case. (And they usually stop updating the firmware of iPods that aren't the current generation. My 3G iPod no longer gets useful firmware updates.)
That's the stuff. :D
I don't know why there's a gap in my memory when it comes to that stuff. Weird.
So I have a similar problem.
I have one of those assemble-yourself wooden utility shelves that I keep my computers and routers and stuff on. On the bottom shelf is my mail server and UPS. I went to the hardware store, bought some of that board with the holes in it (I can never remember what it's called) measured it, and enclosed the bottom of the shelf. I put a hinge on the front part and a little latch.
I've got almost no handyman skills at all, but this was easy, and the computer still gets enough airflow to stay cool.
I didn't have to install any special software to use my iPod as a hard drive. I'm using it on a Mac, though.
The downside to dragging and dropping MP3s as opposed to using something like iTunes is I bet my playlist creation is somewhat easier than yours is. I couldn't live without smart playlists anymore.
Arguably, they're not overpriced. Not only did you pay for them, you seem really happy with them. Isn't that satisfaction and productivity worth the price?
:)
I know it is for me.
Interestingly, I don't think I've ever had your problem. Every application that I use that outputs a file asks me where I want to save it. I may just not be using the same applications as you, though.
At this point, I'm intentionally just dumping files arbritrarily in a couple of directories. I COULD arrange them, but I'm actively not doing that.
It seems rather odd that Steve Jobs isn't on that list, considering how much the stock price of Apple has gone up this year. The iPod is big news, and the company seems to be coming back into relevance in the Scientific, educational and home desktop markets. Instead, Michael Dell is on there, and all he's done is put a lot of machines together and put out a copy-cat MP3 player. (He's done a good job at it and made a lot of money, don't get me wrong. He's no innovator, though.)
For the moment, I'm just letting everything go to pot. I just throw things in whatever directory is convenient, and hope that I remember where I put it later. I'm really looking forward to Spotlight on OS X.
Personally, I think that in a few years time, heirarchical filesystems will be on their way out. With the current state of computing, there's little reason to have such a system when you can have a filesystem that does all the work for you. I've heard that the same functionality will be coming to Linux through ReiserFS (though I admit to not following that very closely since I'm obviously an OS X user).
So, that probably doesn't help you much, but then again, it might. Just look around for a system that allows fast indexed searching of your machine so you don't have to keep track of this crap yourself.
(Incidentally, it isn't only you. In one of the ACM's recent quarterly journals on Human-Computer Interaction, it found that most users are unable to keep track of where their files are because there are just too many of them. Also, it found that the search facilities currently in place in Windows and Mac (OS 9?) systems are entirely inadequate for the task.)
I'm not really trying to imply anything about you as a professional. I'm just complaining that using the word 'bemoan' in that manner gives the misleading impression that security pros wish that they didn't have to focus and get the job done. I think whoever wrote the headline didn't really know how to use 'bemoan', but heard it somewhere and thought it sounded good. :P
It sounds like security professionals are annoyed that they have to focus on anything. Wouldn't a more accurate headline be
"Security Professionals Bemoan Lack of Focus"?
Right now, it just sounds like security pros are whiny babies that don't want to do their jobs.
Ah yes, correct on a technicality. However, I'm not sure it really matters. Common vernacular is sufficiently well established at this point that 'they' is not only commonly used, but not considered incorrect. Besides, while the definition says that English lacks one, it also clearly goes on to say that people use - and not incorrectly - the plural pronoun in its place. Reading more than the first line seems to indicate that there should be no issue.
As for 'he' or 'she' not implying an exclusion, that's a ridiculous statement. If you refer to a group with a male pronoun, I've suddenly lost the ability to tell whether it's composed of only men or both men and women. There's no reason for me to assume a mixed group in particular, so I would say that the usage of that language is implicitly exclusionary.
I don't know why I get argument about this. It's entirely proper. Shakespeare used it, for heaven's sake. Are you going to tell me that his English isn't proper? He's the basis of a significant amount of our grammar, as near as I can tell. :P
Here's a relevant entry from Mirriam-Webster:
usage: They used as an indefinite subject (sense 2) is sometimes objected to on the grounds that it does not have an antecedent. Not every pronoun requires an antecedent, however. The indefinite they is used in all varieties of contexts and is standard.
usage: They, their, them, themselves: English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as everyone, anyone, someone). Writers and speakers have supplied this lack by using the plural pronouns [and every one to rest themselves betake -- Shakespeare] [I would have everybody marry if they can do it properly -- Jane Austen] [it is too hideous for anyone in their senses to buy -- W. H. Auden]. The plural pronouns have also been put to use as pronouns of indefinite number to refer to singular nouns that stand for many persons ['tis meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear the speech -- Shakespeare] [a person can't help their birth -- W. M. Thackeray] [no man goes to battle to be killed. -- But they do get killed -- G. B. Shaw]. The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound best.
In English, it's perfectly acceptable to use 'they' as the pronoun for indeterminate gender. Most people don't, for whatever reason, but it fits in quite easily.
Your argument about the female pronoun excluding males is true, but the same holds true in the other direction. While it's accepted common practice to use the male pronoun to refer to groups of people or to someone of indeterminate gender, you're now unable to determine whether or not the person or people on the other side are all men, or a mixed group.
Neither is reasonable. You can use 'they' or 'them' with no loss of specificity OR generality.
Y'see, and the watch on the beach argument is something that I find really sad. I'd LOVE to think that it just appeared on the beach, or was somehow the product of a weird series of natural events. Creationism is so dull. The thought that there's someone pulling strings and making things is much less interesting to me than everything happening 'naturally'. Where's the wonder? Where's the discovery?
(I also believe in evolution and a natural universe because it makes more sense scientifically, and I think that all the arguments that Creationists have are bunk. But that's just me.)
Chalk it up to me being a Canadian in a non-baseball city. I thought the World Series encompassed the whole playoffs - the whole series, if you will. The Stanley Cup playoffs refer to the entire thing, not jut the finals, even though there're division playoffs being done during the whole series.
:)
Thanks, though.
You can't apply them to an individual case in an attempt to predict the future.
For example, the divorce rate in North America is very high. Pretend that it's an even 50% of marriages that end in divorce.
If you get married, you are not beholden to that statistic. Whether or not you get divorced cannot be predicted by the statistic. You do not have a 50/50 chance of breaking it off with your partner. The conditions may exist that cause a 50% divorce rate, but they may not apply to you, for whatever reason.
Predicting things from past results is interesting, and sometimes something to talk about, but they don't mean anything. Up until a couple of weeks ago, nobody had ever come back from being down 3 games to 0 in the World Series.
Yeah, that sucks.
/mnt/NameOfYouriPod
It IS possible to get your music off of an iPod, though, especially since you're using OS X.
Plug it in, and don't let it sync with iTunes. Leave it plugged in, as it should be mounted as a drive.
I'm not at home right now, so I can't tell you exactly what the mount point is, but it should be something like
Just go browsing through the directories. Copy the music off into a music directory in your home dir, and you've got your music again, minus the metadata.
Not to be preachy, but you should have made a backup of the files. Apple encourages this, and you can even find documentation (official documentation) on how to make iTunes burn discs with data on them so you can back up your files.
Actually, his argument is more along the lines of 'intuitive' meaning 'familiar'. That's generally what I see in most HCI documentation. The only intuitive interface is the nipple - everything else is learned, right? :) (I didn't make that up, someone much more clever than I did.)
Anyway, something that's familiar also has the benefit of being easy to learn. Real-world interfaces that look like knobs are familiar - you turn them. After you figure out what the knob controls, you've learned the interface. I think that's what he's gunning for, in a way. UIs that are possible to learn because the way they function is familiar and consistent. (Unfortunately, because his ideas haven't caught on, whatever he starts with now will be UNfamiliar, which will lead to a greater learning curve than I think he would like.)
I have to disagree just slightly.
Multitasking ends up being an enabling feature. That is, it enables you to run several programs at once.
Because of this, you now have to modify your user interface to accomodate such a feature. How do you switch between applications? How do you maintain consistency across applications? What happens if a background application fails?
Suddenly, there are a lot more things to consider when presenting an interface to the user.
There's a downside to touching, sometimes:
Is that I even emailed a link to the supposedly on-duty editor, and SAID that this was a dupe. It's okay if nobody's let them know what's going on, but I know that at LEAST one email was sent telling them not to post this story.