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User: mario_grgic

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  1. Re:I'd like to see Apple make a move, but... on Why Apple Doesn't Market Squarely To Businesses · · Score: 1

    You know that is extremely insightful comment. This is a realization I'm coming to in my professional life. Software companies are so afraid of making something simple and elegant. It always has to be clunky over-engineered, busy nuts and bolts and kitchen sink, so they are not perceived as simplistic or lacking features.

    It really does take genius and strong philosophy to make something simple yet functional, something that achieves the needs of 90% of users, but doesn't leave out true power users either.

    Of all the commercial software out there, Apple comes closest to this ideal. That's what Apple is all about in a way.

  2. Re:I'd like to see Apple make a move, but... on Why Apple Doesn't Market Squarely To Businesses · · Score: 1

    Yeah ok. I don't think the word "robustness" means what you think it means.

  3. Re:Macs are great for small business though on Why Apple Doesn't Market Squarely To Businesses · · Score: 1

    Total cost of ownership is much smaller for OS X. You are talking about imagining windows installs. Well, that software does not come with Windows and it's not free. It DOES come with OS X in either GUI or command line version. It is trivial to image OS X installation and put it back if things go bad.

    This is just one example. OS X comes with gazillion free tools out of the box. You got everything you need.

    People that don't use (or never learned to use) OS X can't imagine why people praise it. If you really think OS X feels 15 years old, then you really never mastered it. To me it feels light years ahead of Windows 7 still. MS copied, but as usual copied badly. Windows still feels like an old clunker with bolted on patch solutions, that just don't flow together. OS X is simple beauty and so easy to drive (just look at Spotlight vs Windows Search and how clunky it feels compared to Spotlight).

    And yes, Terminal is there, and if it weren't there a lot of people would never switch to OS X. It's still the most powerful and fastest way to interact with the computer, and nothing beats it for flexibility. The fact you are dismissing it, tells me you are not an advanced user or software developer. If you were you would appreciate that little black window, and you would also know how much windows command prompt sucks without something like MKS Toolkit (with all the UNIX shells) or perhaps Cygwin.

    All that said, I'd hate to see OS X used by the enterprises. That's just boring market to be in. These people are the anti-thesis of everything Mac and OS X stands for.

  4. In Canada on Routine DNA Tests For Newborns Mean Looming Privacy Problems · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the information is kept by a private entity, not even government. Also, most hospitals collect the placenta and the cord for stem cell collection (and of course the baby's and mother's DNA).

    I think this is a loosing battle. It's so easy to collect DNA anyway. It's not really hard to tell where all this is leading. Just by sampling yesterday's news you can imagine (without being too imaginative) that one day a corporation is going to be a president of USA or the new Earth government, and each one of the inhabitants is going to be matrix like "cells" serving the corporation. If we don't destroy the Earth first, that is.

  5. Re:240mm square? on Intel Details Upcoming Gulftown Six-Core Processor · · Score: 1

    That's because the actual unit is mm^2, which people pronounce millimeter squared, instead of square millimeter.

    So, 240 mm^2 is 15.49 mm * 15.49 mm

  6. Re:SDK version 3.2 only? Skype not updated yet... on With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone · · Score: 1

    Jailbroken iPhone? I'm in Canada on Rogers network, iPhone not jailbroken. Still refuses to do VOIP calls through 3G, which according to Skype is expected. A new update app is needed to enable it.

  7. Re:SDK version 3.2 only? Skype not updated yet... on With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone · · Score: 1

    Yes, Skype have been saying that for months now. It's Apple that actually has to allow and approve VOIP over 3G app, which they have not to this date. That's all I'm saying.

    I don't think we'll see updated Skype app for a few months until the 3.2 SDK is out, and even then it's not certain that 3.2 SDK applies to the iPhone?

  8. Re:SDK version 3.2 only? Skype not updated yet... on With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone · · Score: 1

    I have tried skype on my iPhone. Still refuses to work over 3G.

  9. SDK version 3.2 only? Skype not updated yet... on With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone · · Score: 1, Redundant

    This restriction is lifted in SDK 3.2 for iPad, and it's not certain that it will be available on the iPhone. Also, as of now Skype does not have app for iPhone that is 3G enable in the app store.

  10. Re:Over time... on iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward" · · Score: 1

    iPhone OS is already stripped down OS X, with new presentation layer, so they don't need to merge, one is already a subset of the other. iPhone OS is not appropriate OS for desktop computers, so no one is really worried about that.

    What people are worried about is the philosophy of turning general purpose computing devices that we currently have on our desktops and laptops into computing appliances. That is a real possibility and real danger, which would be a death of general computing for the masses.

  11. He's not the only one to wonder... on iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward" · · Score: 1

    Apple has certainly raised some eye brows with recent purchase of an advertising company which together with that OS patent that prevents the user from doing anything with the computer until they have confirmed they have seen the ad makes for some interesting computing horror scenarios.

    I'm currently invested into Apple hardware and genuinely like OS X, but it does make me wonder in anticipation about where their desktop offerings are headed. I certainly hope they won't make a silly mistake of turning their currently general purpose desktop computers into a locked down environment akin to iPhone or iPad.

  12. Re:Bye bye, SunOS on Oracle To Invest In Sun Hardware, Cut Sun Staff · · Score: 1

    It appears Apple is rolling their own file system for OS X. At least that's the impression I get from the job postings looking for architects with file system knowledge.

  13. Re:'Pretty well' isn't good enough on Intego's "Year In Mac Security" Report · · Score: 1

    So don't buy one. See how easy that is. If you want a phone you can flash ROM on, install OS you want it, develop apps for it you want, and choose provider you like, shop elsewhere (I don't know of any that will let you do all those things).

    It's not like Apple advertised you could do all those things with an iPhone and we now find out you can't. iPhone was meant to be an appliance (a phone) from day one and not a general purpose computing device like their laptops.

    If they ever started doing that with their desktop/laptop computers I would never buy one.

  14. Re:grad vs masters vs phd the myth. on Is Programming a Lucrative Profession? · · Score: 2

    You sound a little bitter. There may perhaps be some PhD students that would fit that profile. So what, they figured they'd rather be someone's bitch for 3-5 years, and then have their own bitches, rather than go out into "the real world" and be someone's bitch for the rest of their life.

    And besides PhD in English or sociology in not the same as PhD in math, physics, medicine, electronics. I certainly know a few of those PhD students or people with PhDs and they are some of the smartest people on the planet. But they don't program as well as I do. But would you expect them to? People get accepted into a PhD program because of their potential to do research in their respective fields, which is a skill quite opposite of what it takes to make it as a programmer in a corporation.

  15. Re:grad vs masters vs phd the myth. on Is Programming a Lucrative Profession? · · Score: 1

    Just made up ad hoc = rules. What you probably wanted to say is that the natural language rules don't have to follow from some first principles or make sense until they become too familiar.

  16. Re:Really? on Is Programming a Lucrative Profession? · · Score: 1

    Some of us prefer VIM since truly nothing else comes even 1% as close. But it requires learning and that's a major put off for a lot of people who would rather pay for a dumber editor.

  17. Re:Really? on Is Programming a Lucrative Profession? · · Score: 1

    Stop programming for Windows and you won't have to pay for your own tools. Everyone else gives their tools away.

  18. Re:'Pretty well' isn't good enough on Intego's "Year In Mac Security" Report · · Score: 3, Informative

    The article you like to is talking apples and oranges literally. If the implication is that BSD bug is also a bug in OS X, then it's false. The bug is not present in OS X.

    iPhone on the other hand is a completely different beast and yes it is locked down platform mostly for the benefit of the users, so we don't have to worry if an application is safe to install and use.

    Yes, there may be security issues in iPhone apps, but even the security updates of applications go through the same review process, which may catch an omission in the review of the previous version (which is what happened in the case of the software discussed in the article).

    The review process is not perfect nor ideal, but I for one am thankful that someone else is testing the applications for me and I don't have to waste the time and money on tools to check what each app does and it it is safe to use on my phone.

  19. Re:So, avoid pirated Mac software... on Intego's "Year In Mac Security" Report · · Score: 2, Informative

    Both Mail and Finder will warn you that what you are opening has been downloaded from the internet and ask you to confirm you want to execute it.

    Each file you download is put into a quarantine and your answer to the question is recorded.

    You generally don't have to worry about opening non-executable files like images, zip files, video files etc. But, you of course, do have to worry about shell scripts, apple scripts, applications and application documents that contain java script (like PDF if you use Adobe reader which almost no one on a Mac does, since Preview app is so much better and it's there on each Mac)

    Any savvy user should already know all these things no matter what platform they use.

  20. Re:Why put tabs in code anyway? on Visual Studio 2010 Forces Tab Indenting · · Score: 1

    Your diff tool should have an option to ignore whitespace when computing diffs or else you will go insane.

  21. Re:Different Day, Same Crap on Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X · · Score: 2

    Actually, no. Both virus and worm are self replicating and propagating without user interaction. The only technical difference is that a virus attaches itself to an existing process, whereas a worm is standalone.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm

  22. Re:Different Day, Same Crap on Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except you kids need to read on what people mean when they say a "virus". Hint: it's not the same thing as malware that user has to install themselves, and you need to rely on social engineering techniques to get them to install your malware for you (in the above case the lure of free Photoshop installation), etc.

  23. Re:You forget one simple thing... on Apple Patches Massive Holes In OS X · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What you are linking to is NOT a virus, but a malware that user has to download, authenticate themselves as someone allowed to install software and install it.

    If you have a user willing to do that, then all bets are off.

    The original assertion still stands though. No viruses (i.e. self propagating code that spreads from machine to machine without user intervention). There aren't any for OS X and I'm not aware of any for Linux/BSD etc either.

  24. Understanding statistics is hard... on Why Programmers Need To Learn Statistics · · Score: 1

    Speaking as someone with postgraduate degree in pure math, I'll be the first to admit that the subject is very hard to really understand well. Statistics is founded on probability theory, which in turn is based on measure theory, which is based on generalized integral theory and mathematical analysis. It takes 4 - 6 years of continuous hard study to cover this material and really know it all. And only people who devote their professional life to it can do that.

    At most one could hope that one develops as sense for high level statistics, but that also takes several years of exposure to concrete examples, since intuition often fails miserably when it comes to even discrete probability theory.

    Statistics is really useful as a scientific/theoretic method of reasoning, but convincing business people or even practicing scientists with it is futile in my opinion.

  25. Too old test group? on Ginkgo Doesn't Improve Memory Or Cognitive Skills · · Score: 1

    Could it be that the brains of the test subjects in this study are compromised by disease beyond repair and giving them Ginko at that stage doesn't do anything for them?

    I always thought of Ginko in combination with Ginseng as a preventative measure rather than something you take to heal Alzheimer's or reverse it.

    I think everyone agrees that Ginko with Ginseng does increase blood flow to the brain, which means more nutrients and more oxygen for the brain. Now this does not mean you will be smarter or suddenly have better memory. It only means that perhaps you have a better potential for those things. If you are a lazy ass, refusing to study or exercise your brain, then no drug will help.

    On the other hand, Ginko and Ginseng do have side effects, too much stimulation to sleep and they give you jitters, and of course Ginseng is a blood thinner (just like Aspirin).