I am exactly one of those children. I was not raised in a christian family, or with any other religion. I also read the entire series and enjoyed it very much. I remember having a certain affinity to some of the principles that underly the story and that can be attributed to my upbringing in western, judeo-christian society.
The way I read it is this: everyone will take from the story the message they want to take, their interpretation will be founded upon their perspective.
For me this meant these were just characters who displayed characteristics that I identified as right and wrong because that's what my parents and society taught me, not the bible.
Yes, with a 68040 proc. My high school had a toaster and it even could run Mac OS in a windows. I think at one point they were working on a PowerPC version, this could potentially run OS X.
Go walk around a college campus. Count the the people with iPods. OK, now tell me if this is really going to solve the 'problem.'
They'd be better of getting a discount rate for students at the iTMS.
I don't get it, why in this world of standards does Dell not make it act like a USB mass storage device? These are exactly the design decisions that make for flawed products. Moreover, these are the very same decisions that differentiate Apple products from the rest of the world. Macs can boot from the iPod, that's right, boot, let alone need some special driver (especially a driver that requires installation of gads of other software at the same time).
As someone who does a lot of travelling and moves around a bit, I see these things as digital wallets. Why else would you want 40 Gb? Dell's device might be more usefull if you could go to any computer with a reasonably modern OS and plug it in, without needing administrative access to install drivers.
There is another problem, USB. The iPod has firewire which doesn't need a host, I can only speculate that this is one of the reasons why Belkin chose firewire for their card reader. USB is good, it's good to have both, but when you want flexibility, USB has it's issues.
Sometimes it's just the little things that count, that make a good design great. When I go to work and work on pc hardware and Windows, I miss the details, nuance and elegance that makes working with my Mac at home a joy to use.
I think someone said it before, but I'm going to say it again. The iMacs are not for power users, not for people who upgrade every two years, and therefore not for the majority of Slashdot readers.
In my experience, non-power user mac users do not toss computers out. In fact, they tend not to upgrade for 8 years or more. Some might say this is because of the 'premium price' of macs, I say its because macs tend to have a longer useful life. They are good for desktop tasks for much longer. Sure, you can take your old pc and throw linux on it and its just fine for a NAT/firewall/print server, but a mac tends to have a longer useful life when measured in terms of time as a primary household computer.
You bring up a great angle. I think one of the huge problems that plagues technology is that the technology itself becomes the goal, not the application for which the technology is the tool. This is a huge problem with technology in schools.
In this case, the end is the IT people are looking for is IT uniformity at all costs, whether or not uniformity is good for the classroom.
I work in the seattle school district, they are very PC centric, but they would NEVER do such a thing. I feel sorry for the teacher, it is his class and his kids that will be most affected on this. It is utterly rediculous for bean counters who don't understand technology to make this decision. Their tech support is scared, they don't understand the macs and don't want to. I personally manage a mixed platform school and I by far prefer maintaining the macs, my life is easier because of them. The fact is, there are studies showing that macs have a lower total cost of ownership. Plus, they are just better computers for education, hands down. They would be foolish to turn down this offer. The school board, for its pompous attitude should pony up the money personally to substitute other computers if they continue to pursue such a stupid policy. They are wrong, only the kids will suffer from their bias and incompetence.
I seriously doubt that Quark will EVER release a 64-bit version, at least not for a very long time. There just is no point. Does quark do a lot of high precision calculations? Does it need a more memory space than 32-bits provides? I doubt that its needs push a 32-bit system in any way that would make the change necessary. The gains that the rumored system would provide to Quark are related to memory bandwidth and are unlikely to be affected by the change to 64-bits.
The NY Times has an editorial that seems relevant to this entire discussion. Their take is that the RIAA has shot itself in the foot so many times and that Apple's iTMS is a feasible solution to the woes of the contemporary music economy. I can't agree more. Especially relevant is their pointing out that Apple's independence from the interests of the big corporations is critical. I think the policy that Apple is reportedly pursuing demonstrates their ability to be an independent, while remaining practical and responsible to all parties (artists and consumers). I would like to also add that the Slashdot community, as a community of vocal critics, needs to be careful not to jump to conclusions. Face it, corporations are here to stay. We therefore need to temper our responses to favor responsible corporations that demonstrate positive contributions to society. This means that we cannot call them 'evil' when they try to keep secrets for business purposes or cover their backs legally. The Register article that criticizes their lack of beta testing of iSync is a good example of positive criticism. However, tearing apart Apple when they modify a product such as iTunes to protect themselves from prosecution is out of line. Would we have them wait until it becomes a legal issue and the RIAA shuts down their participation in iTMS due to breach of contract? This doesn't help anyone. Instead, we should look upon the RIAA, in the case of iTMS, as being a base from which Apple can expand offerings to benefit the little guys. We should have patience and speak with the big picture in mind.
The URL for the article is http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/opinion/07SAT4.h tml
It requires registration, so here's the article:
__Downloading Music Over the Internet Without Feeling Like a Criminal__
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Hardly a week goes by without another salvo in the music wars, which have been going on now for years. And week by week the shape of the struggle seems to change.
What set it all off was the emergence in 1999 of Napster, the file-swapping brainstorm that allowed computer users to download free music files. Napster was enormously destabilizing. It undermined the economic logic of $17.99 CD's by making the physical object itself, the CD in its jewel case, irrelevant. The recording industry knew exactly what to make of Napster, calling it theft, plain and simple. Recording artists had a harder time. Many musicians agreed that file swapping was a form of theft, but many of them also argued that their recording contracts were a form of theft, too. At the very least, file swapping became the perfect industry excuse for the prolonged downturn in CD sales, whether it was the real cause or not.
Since then, there have been calls for copy-protected CD's and for government intervention. The recording industry has been fighting for its life with the zeal of desperation and ineptitude. It brought a farcical suit, since dropped, for billions of dollars against four file-swapping students, and it has sought to snoop on private computers. Reports say that it has also planned to hack its way into the machines of file swappers.
The industry knows that its future depends on somehow making music files available for purchase and downloading over the Internet. And yet every pay-per-play music downloading service the recording industry has sanctioned has been notable mainly for clumsiness, proprietary paranoia and a condescending attitude toward its customers.
It's clear what computer-literate music lovers really want: a simple, elegant interface; a broad catalog of music; quick, high-quality downloading; and an approach that doesn't treat the consumer like a criminal wearing a house-arrest shackle. The new Apple music service, the iTunes Music Store, should point the way, especially when it or similar services spread to the Windows platform.
It's ironic that Apple should have introduced the first really successful commercial Inter
I believe that he has been fundamental in Apple's recent successes. It also speaks well of Apple's management. Love him or hate him, Jobs seems to be making some excellent decisions, including personnel decisions. I'm sure HP would love to get him in to FIX the Athens PC. It's one thing to have visionaries at the helm, which I don't doubt that most execs have visions for their companies, but its another to be able to build a team that will bring it to brilliant fruition.
I agree completely with the distraction issue. I am a student currently. I have been by people with laptops and have found it incredibly irritating and distracting. This quarter there is someone with a folding keyboard and PDA, it's not bad, I don't even notice it.
I think there is more to it than the keyboard itself, though. Some people are so completely oblivious and pound away on their computers, and this contributes immensely to the issue.
As a person who often is asked for computer recommendations, I almost always recommend the iBook. It's inexpensive for the feature-set, excellent battery life, and the cross-platform compatibility of OS X is stupendous. There are always computer labs for the once-in-a-lifetime chance you HAVE to have Windows.
The games issue is moot, as most laptops are not gaming machines. They just don't have the hardware to do it, in most cases.
I always recommend that people never spend anymore than they would be willing to lose. This is just common sense. Portability is key, too. Huge 15" LCD screens make laptops impossible to carry around. What's the point in buying a laptop if you won't use it that way? The iBook is nice because it actually has most of the features of a desktop replacement while maintaining a portable form factor.
Oh, and Keynote presentations are great. I hate Powerpoint, it's ugly and it makes ugly presentations. If you do any presentations, why not have something that looks like someone cared about the looks? If you don't care, use overheads.
On another note. I'm a double degree, Applied and Computational Mathematical Studies, and Spanish. Consumer versions of Office for the PC do not come with foreign language grammar and spelling tools, Office X for the Mac does. Funny how Office for the Mac has more features than the Win version. I also love my Macs because having a UNIX based OS gives me a wealth of tools for my computer science and math work.
A friend of mine who studies Swedish loves that he can run his iBook entirely in Swedish, including system wide spellchecking in Cocoa applications.
First, I am a Mac fan and have never owned a PC. I do, however, run a PC network at work and have built and supported numerous PC's' for friends.
The last time a friend of mine bought a Gateway it was hell. The shit OEM hardware and drivers didn't do what it was supposed to do. The DVD dropped frames (and this was a high MHZ P4). After weeks of complaining for my friend (he was a novice), I was able to get them to solve the problem. It was not a fun experience. It also mirrors the experiences that I have had with Dell.
Now to my Apple experience. First, there is a problem with some of the optical mice that came with the newer CRT iMacs, they tend to die. I was in the Bellevue Apple Store the other day and a guy had his mouse there. He went to the genius bar and talked to someone, he walked out with a new mouse, without a hitch. My work has 8 of these dead mice, I asked and they said to bring them in. I don't even have to mail them anywhere.
I helped a friend with her iBook. For some reason it came with 128 MB RAM instead of 256. My friend was on vacation but the iBook had been shipped to me for this reason. Apple saw my name and sent me new RAM the next day. I had it all ready to go for my friend when she got back in town.
I have to Macs myself. A tower w/17" LCD Studio Display and a Lombard Powerbook G3. I have had excellent service on the two problems I had, with the same practically next day service that so many other of these Slashdot posters have mentioned. They both replaced the power management board in my PB and the backlight in the Studio Display.
That sums up my experience. I think from this entire discussion it can be seen that the Consumer Reports conclusion is valid, and not just the ravings of people trapped in the so-called reality distortion field.
I listened to an interview of the legislator sponsoring this legislation. One of the factors in a need for a law is that the game industry is not enforcing the ratings system. The government did a sting and they found that only KB Toys checked the kids' ages.
The proprietary part of.Mac really is just a virtual device that iSync connects to over WebDAV (I think it is the encryption/authentication that closes the interface, not really a new protocol). The problem is, as I said, that it is proprietary and thus there is no open way to simply create a service on your own computer that iSync can connect to and stores the same information as.Mac.
I do remember seeing one person that had sniffed the communications to.Mac and created a dummy server. The problem was that it was far to complicated and generally not a feasible solition.
The solution would be to create a plug-in to iSync that allowed the use of a different server. Imagine a virtual bluetooth device that was really a connection to remote server. It might also be possible to plug more directly into iSynch. I am aware that it is based on SynchML, it strikes me that this standards based approach makes virtual device solution possible.
The suggestion to use a PDA or phone is good, but some of us don't have these toys. I really just want to synch multiple computers.
This is one among some other applescript goodies that have been announced. Interestingly, thye are releasing GUI interaction, something that was previously only available via third party tools like Prefab Player. Also, if you look in the new player, there is a setting for which language to use. Thus, there is the flexibility to use other languages (fronteir?).
Alone, this is a purely political gag. The problem is when filtering is applied here. What happens when schools change their filters accept only.kids.us connections rather than denying known, objectionable sites.
Now, we have the federal government or some other organization in the business of censoring all of the content in this domain. Furthermore, it creates a huge barrier of entry to be part of this domain. Passing only this domain means that students would only be able to access the content of big business. Small content providers will always need the normal site, but now they would have to maintain a separate site soley to publish legitimately to kids. This means that kids will only see what the entities (businesses & large organizations) that will be able to afford to maintain a real web site and an isolated.kids.us site provide. Many of the truly valuable sites will be blocked because those people won't be able to publish in.kids.us, instead the kids will be limited to cnn.kids.us and yahooligans.kids.us.
What's next?.patriots.us where you can only publish pro-US propaganda? Hey, they could just make all the.kids.us sites a subset of.patriots.us, 'cause we gotta protect the little ones from the extremests!
I work in a school and I can't read Salon.com on my lunch break. Yes, they have a 'Sex' section, but it is more aptly named a 'Human sexuality' section and is in no way pornographic. Oh well, the kiddies will just have to be content with foxnews.kids.us.
Though I don't have a specific answer to your problem, my guess is that a library such as this might be accessible through the Cocoa or Carbon API's. I know that Adium (which is open source) will reconnect to it's server if it loses it's connection. My experience is that the network utilities work differently in some cases than they do under linux, probably due to their BSD heritage. Ifconfig will list all the interfaces that are up with the command 'ifconfig -u.'
The thing is, the AD has to have the proper information about where the home directory lies. Home directories can be used over NFS or AFP, so you can theoretically forgo an OS X Server box. The problem, as you allude it it, is populating the AD with the correct information.
10.2 uses a new architecture called Open Directory which is released as open source (yes, the apple license, of course). Open Directory is what allows 10.2 to work with Active Directory. How does it do this? LDAP.
Most likely, the configuration issues are with configuring the AD with the proper schema. When the AD is properly set up, then all you have to do is go into the Open Directory Assistant and create an LDAP service that is configured to use the Active Directory preset. Yes, it's a preset and so there is little or configuration on the OS X side. Once the LDAP service is created, then you select it as an authentication service (in the same utility) and you are done.
Schools ALWAYS need to ask for donations. They either apply for a donation or write a grant. This was a case of the former, but a twisted one. Read the open letter. They refer to microsoft's 'pos facto' decision to occlude the Windows license.
Moreover isn't there any such thing as morality? You're comment makes schools look like your common beggar. If computers are donated, they're not going to just go out and buy a forty of Old English. Is there a good reason that Microsoft can't just donate the hardware?
MS does this all the time, and it is a truly singular stance. Your argument states what the CAN do. But isn't it the DUTY of the rest of us to play watchdog, to call out the corporations for such heinous actions.
It shames me as an American that my countrymen go to the poor of this world, hand them a dollar and then steal their clothes. That is what MS is doing here.
Fortuantely I can find consolation in the works of others. I work at an elementary school in seattle and we recently needed to surplus some old macs that we have and can't use (too expensive for us to fix, we don't have the manpower to do it ourselves). Yet, we are donating many of them and a local group is going to harvest parts and fix them up and then ship them off to Africa. There are no strings attached. Oh, and as for software, they can download Mac OS 7.5.5 free and then install the free Nisus Writer or install mkLinux.
Yes, OS X 10.2 should be able to automount an NFS volume from a linux box, deriving the required information from the an LDAP database. Yet, this isn't that easy.
Over the last two weeks, my work has been attempting to do a similart task with a combination of Jaguar server and Linux. Basically, the issue of where your home directory is doesn't matter a whole lot. The problem is working with LDAP.
Our issue has lied in getting the LDAP database setup wioth the proper base such that the fields exist. The LDAP server MUST accomidate all the fields. This includes regular Posix account information, plus special Apple fields such as MCX flags,etc. If you examine the apple.schema file that comes with 10.2 (/etc/openldap/schema/apple.schema), you will see all of these. The 10.2 documentation is good and bad, it says some stuff about this and leaves out a lot.
Another problem is the generation of all of this information. I believe that it isn't all regular ASCII (mainly MCX flags). If you already have a netinfo database under Jaguard server, you can migrate the output from slapcat. The problem is, this doesn't work under the client verion, though this may be a matter of configuring the ldap.conf file properly.
As another clue, check out the Unix RFC preset in the LDAPv3 section of the 10.2 Directory Access utility. This has additional information regarding mappings.
In essence, we have yet to be able to maintain an OpenLDAP directory under linux that could authenticate OS X. However turning on slapd under 10.2 did work with LDAP authentication. It's all a matter of having a database with the proper fields and information.
I'll post more as I remember more of the details, my notes are all at work.
I sometimes need Matlab and have found a way to run it at home, well, sort of. The University of Washington's Math Sciences server has Matlab. I just ssh into the server from XDarwin and run matlab, it works just fine. Hey, I'm already paying for it through their license, I may as well use their copy.
I wouldn't be surprised if most math departments at higher ed institutions had this.
I was able to get Cingular to give me the code to disable the SIM-lock on my Nokia 8290. I called up and they passed me up to another support level and I talked to them and they didn't hassle me at all. They then e-mailed me the code (3 steps, very easy) and I unlocked it. I then walked into a store that sold Voicestream and the salesgirl let me put her SIM card in my phone and we were able to then make a call with the Voicestream network.
My aunt runs her own small NGO in Nigeria and they have a computer. One of the biggest problems she runs into is the surge protector getting fried from electricity surges. They have horribly regulated electricity, this is something we take for granted and only think of in storms,.
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The way I read it is this: everyone will take from the story the message they want to take, their interpretation will be founded upon their perspective.
For me this meant these were just characters who displayed characteristics that I identified as right and wrong because that's what my parents and society taught me, not the bible.
Yes, with a 68040 proc. My high school had a toaster and it even could run Mac OS in a windows. I think at one point they were working on a PowerPC version, this could potentially run OS X.
Go walk around a college campus. Count the the people with iPods. OK, now tell me if this is really going to solve the 'problem.' They'd be better of getting a discount rate for students at the iTMS.
As someone who does a lot of travelling and moves around a bit, I see these things as digital wallets. Why else would you want 40 Gb? Dell's device might be more usefull if you could go to any computer with a reasonably modern OS and plug it in, without needing administrative access to install drivers.
There is another problem, USB. The iPod has firewire which doesn't need a host, I can only speculate that this is one of the reasons why Belkin chose firewire for their card reader. USB is good, it's good to have both, but when you want flexibility, USB has it's issues.
Sometimes it's just the little things that count, that make a good design great. When I go to work and work on pc hardware and Windows, I miss the details, nuance and elegance that makes working with my Mac at home a joy to use.
I think someone said it before, but I'm going to say it again. The iMacs are not for power users, not for people who upgrade every two years, and therefore not for the majority of Slashdot readers.
In my experience, non-power user mac users do not toss computers out. In fact, they tend not to upgrade for 8 years or more. Some might say this is because of the 'premium price' of macs, I say its because macs tend to have a longer useful life. They are good for desktop tasks for much longer. Sure, you can take your old pc and throw linux on it and its just fine for a NAT/firewall/print server, but a mac tends to have a longer useful life when measured in terms of time as a primary household computer.
You bring up a great angle. I think one of the huge problems that plagues technology is that the technology itself becomes the goal, not the application for which the technology is the tool. This is a huge problem with technology in schools. In this case, the end is the IT people are looking for is IT uniformity at all costs, whether or not uniformity is good for the classroom.
I work in the seattle school district, they are very PC centric, but they would NEVER do such a thing. I feel sorry for the teacher, it is his class and his kids that will be most affected on this. It is utterly rediculous for bean counters who don't understand technology to make this decision. Their tech support is scared, they don't understand the macs and don't want to. I personally manage a mixed platform school and I by far prefer maintaining the macs, my life is easier because of them. The fact is, there are studies showing that macs have a lower total cost of ownership. Plus, they are just better computers for education, hands down. They would be foolish to turn down this offer. The school board, for its pompous attitude should pony up the money personally to substitute other computers if they continue to pursue such a stupid policy. They are wrong, only the kids will suffer from their bias and incompetence.
I seriously doubt that Quark will EVER release a 64-bit version, at least not for a very long time. There just is no point. Does quark do a lot of high precision calculations? Does it need a more memory space than 32-bits provides? I doubt that its needs push a 32-bit system in any way that would make the change necessary. The gains that the rumored system would provide to Quark are related to memory bandwidth and are unlikely to be affected by the change to 64-bits.
The NY Times has an editorial that seems relevant to this entire discussion. Their take is that the RIAA has shot itself in the foot so many times and that Apple's iTMS is a feasible solution to the woes of the contemporary music economy. I can't agree more. Especially relevant is their pointing out that Apple's independence from the interests of the big corporations is critical. I think the policy that Apple is reportedly pursuing demonstrates their ability to be an independent, while remaining practical and responsible to all parties (artists and consumers). I would like to also add that the Slashdot community, as a community of vocal critics, needs to be careful not to jump to conclusions. Face it, corporations are here to stay. We therefore need to temper our responses to favor responsible corporations that demonstrate positive contributions to society. This means that we cannot call them 'evil' when they try to keep secrets for business purposes or cover their backs legally. The Register article that criticizes their lack of beta testing of iSync is a good example of positive criticism. However, tearing apart Apple when they modify a product such as iTunes to protect themselves from prosecution is out of line. Would we have them wait until it becomes a legal issue and the RIAA shuts down their participation in iTMS due to breach of contract? This doesn't help anyone. Instead, we should look upon the RIAA, in the case of iTMS, as being a base from which Apple can expand offerings to benefit the little guys. We should have patience and speak with the big picture in mind.
The URL for the article is http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/07/opinion/07SAT4.h tml
It requires registration, so here's the article:
__Downloading Music Over the Internet Without Feeling Like a Criminal__
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Hardly a week goes by without another salvo in the music wars, which have been going on now for years. And week by week the shape of the struggle seems to change.
What set it all off was the emergence in 1999 of Napster, the file-swapping brainstorm that allowed computer users to download free music files. Napster was enormously destabilizing. It undermined the economic logic of $17.99 CD's by making the physical object itself, the CD in its jewel case, irrelevant. The recording industry knew exactly what to make of Napster, calling it theft, plain and simple. Recording artists had a harder time. Many musicians agreed that file swapping was a form of theft, but many of them also argued that their recording contracts were a form of theft, too. At the very least, file swapping became the perfect industry excuse for the prolonged downturn in CD sales, whether it was the real cause or not.
Since then, there have been calls for copy-protected CD's and for government intervention. The recording industry has been fighting for its life with the zeal of desperation and ineptitude. It brought a farcical suit, since dropped, for billions of dollars against four file-swapping students, and it has sought to snoop on private computers. Reports say that it has also planned to hack its way into the machines of file swappers.
The industry knows that its future depends on somehow making music files available for purchase and downloading over the Internet. And yet every pay-per-play music downloading service the recording industry has sanctioned has been notable mainly for clumsiness, proprietary paranoia and a condescending attitude toward its customers.
It's clear what computer-literate music lovers really want: a simple, elegant interface; a broad catalog of music; quick, high-quality downloading; and an approach that doesn't treat the consumer like a criminal wearing a house-arrest shackle. The new Apple music service, the iTunes Music Store, should point the way, especially when it or similar services spread to the Windows platform.
It's ironic that Apple should have introduced the first really successful commercial Inter
I believe that he has been fundamental in Apple's recent successes. It also speaks well of Apple's management. Love him or hate him, Jobs seems to be making some excellent decisions, including personnel decisions. I'm sure HP would love to get him in to FIX the Athens PC. It's one thing to have visionaries at the helm, which I don't doubt that most execs have visions for their companies, but its another to be able to build a team that will bring it to brilliant fruition.
I agree completely with the distraction issue. I am a student currently. I have been by people with laptops and have found it incredibly irritating and distracting. This quarter there is someone with a folding keyboard and PDA, it's not bad, I don't even notice it.
I think there is more to it than the keyboard itself, though. Some people are so completely oblivious and pound away on their computers, and this contributes immensely to the issue.
As a person who often is asked for computer recommendations, I almost always recommend the iBook. It's inexpensive for the feature-set, excellent battery life, and the cross-platform compatibility of OS X is stupendous. There are always computer labs for the once-in-a-lifetime chance you HAVE to have Windows.
The games issue is moot, as most laptops are not gaming machines. They just don't have the hardware to do it, in most cases.
I always recommend that people never spend anymore than they would be willing to lose. This is just common sense. Portability is key, too. Huge 15" LCD screens make laptops impossible to carry around. What's the point in buying a laptop if you won't use it that way? The iBook is nice because it actually has most of the features of a desktop replacement while maintaining a portable form factor.
Oh, and Keynote presentations are great. I hate Powerpoint, it's ugly and it makes ugly presentations. If you do any presentations, why not have something that looks like someone cared about the looks? If you don't care, use overheads.
On another note. I'm a double degree, Applied and Computational Mathematical Studies, and Spanish. Consumer versions of Office for the PC do not come with foreign language grammar and spelling tools, Office X for the Mac does. Funny how Office for the Mac has more features than the Win version. I also love my Macs because having a UNIX based OS gives me a wealth of tools for my computer science and math work.
A friend of mine who studies Swedish loves that he can run his iBook entirely in Swedish, including system wide spellchecking in Cocoa applications.
Thats my 2 cents.
First, I am a Mac fan and have never owned a PC. I do, however, run a PC network at work and have built and supported numerous PC's' for friends. The last time a friend of mine bought a Gateway it was hell. The shit OEM hardware and drivers didn't do what it was supposed to do. The DVD dropped frames (and this was a high MHZ P4). After weeks of complaining for my friend (he was a novice), I was able to get them to solve the problem. It was not a fun experience. It also mirrors the experiences that I have had with Dell. Now to my Apple experience. First, there is a problem with some of the optical mice that came with the newer CRT iMacs, they tend to die. I was in the Bellevue Apple Store the other day and a guy had his mouse there. He went to the genius bar and talked to someone, he walked out with a new mouse, without a hitch. My work has 8 of these dead mice, I asked and they said to bring them in. I don't even have to mail them anywhere. I helped a friend with her iBook. For some reason it came with 128 MB RAM instead of 256. My friend was on vacation but the iBook had been shipped to me for this reason. Apple saw my name and sent me new RAM the next day. I had it all ready to go for my friend when she got back in town. I have to Macs myself. A tower w/17" LCD Studio Display and a Lombard Powerbook G3. I have had excellent service on the two problems I had, with the same practically next day service that so many other of these Slashdot posters have mentioned. They both replaced the power management board in my PB and the backlight in the Studio Display. That sums up my experience. I think from this entire discussion it can be seen that the Consumer Reports conclusion is valid, and not just the ravings of people trapped in the so-called reality distortion field.
I listened to an interview of the legislator sponsoring this legislation. One of the factors in a need for a law is that the game industry is not enforcing the ratings system. The government did a sting and they found that only KB Toys checked the kids' ages.
The proprietary part of .Mac really is just a virtual device that iSync connects to over WebDAV (I think it is the encryption/authentication that closes the interface, not really a new protocol). The problem is, as I said, that it is proprietary and thus there is no open way to simply create a service on your own computer that iSync can connect to and stores the same information as .Mac.
.Mac and created a dummy server. The problem was that it was far to complicated and generally not a feasible solition.
I do remember seeing one person that had sniffed the communications to
The solution would be to create a plug-in to iSync that allowed the use of a different server. Imagine a virtual bluetooth device that was really a connection to remote server. It might also be possible to plug more directly into iSynch. I am aware that it is based on SynchML, it strikes me that this standards based approach makes virtual device solution possible.
The suggestion to use a PDA or phone is good, but some of us don't have these toys. I really just want to synch multiple computers.
This is one among some other applescript goodies that have been announced. Interestingly, thye are releasing GUI interaction, something that was previously only available via third party tools like Prefab Player. Also, if you look in the new player, there is a setting for which language to use. Thus, there is the flexibility to use other languages (fronteir?).
Now, we have the federal government or some other organization in the business of censoring all of the content in this domain. Furthermore, it creates a huge barrier of entry to be part of this domain. Passing only this domain means that students would only be able to access the content of big business. Small content providers will always need the normal site, but now they would have to maintain a separate site soley to publish legitimately to kids. This means that kids will only see what the entities (businesses & large organizations) that will be able to afford to maintain a real web site and an isolated .kids.us site provide. Many of the truly valuable sites will be blocked because those people won't be able to publish in .kids.us, instead the kids will be limited to cnn.kids.us and yahooligans.kids.us.
What's next? .patriots.us where you can only publish pro-US propaganda? Hey, they could just make all the .kids.us sites a subset of .patriots.us, 'cause we gotta protect the little ones from the extremests!
I work in a school and I can't read Salon.com on my lunch break. Yes, they have a 'Sex' section, but it is more aptly named a 'Human sexuality' section and is in no way pornographic. Oh well, the kiddies will just have to be content with foxnews.kids.us.
Though I don't have a specific answer to your problem, my guess is that a library such as this might be accessible through the Cocoa or Carbon API's. I know that Adium (which is open source) will reconnect to it's server if it loses it's connection. My experience is that the network utilities work differently in some cases than they do under linux, probably due to their BSD heritage. Ifconfig will list all the interfaces that are up with the command 'ifconfig -u.'
The thing is, the AD has to have the proper information about where the home directory lies. Home directories can be used over NFS or AFP, so you can theoretically forgo an OS X Server box. The problem, as you allude it it, is populating the AD with the correct information.
Most likely, the configuration issues are with configuring the AD with the proper schema. When the AD is properly set up, then all you have to do is go into the Open Directory Assistant and create an LDAP service that is configured to use the Active Directory preset. Yes, it's a preset and so there is little or configuration on the OS X side. Once the LDAP service is created, then you select it as an authentication service (in the same utility) and you are done.
Actually, most of the conquistadors came from this area.
Moreover isn't there any such thing as morality? You're comment makes schools look like your common beggar. If computers are donated, they're not going to just go out and buy a forty of Old English. Is there a good reason that Microsoft can't just donate the hardware?
MS does this all the time, and it is a truly singular stance. Your argument states what the CAN do. But isn't it the DUTY of the rest of us to play watchdog, to call out the corporations for such heinous actions.
It shames me as an American that my countrymen go to the poor of this world, hand them a dollar and then steal their clothes. That is what MS is doing here.
Fortuantely I can find consolation in the works of others. I work at an elementary school in seattle and we recently needed to surplus some old macs that we have and can't use (too expensive for us to fix, we don't have the manpower to do it ourselves). Yet, we are donating many of them and a local group is going to harvest parts and fix them up and then ship them off to Africa. There are no strings attached. Oh, and as for software, they can download Mac OS 7.5.5 free and then install the free Nisus Writer or install mkLinux.
Yes, OS X 10.2 should be able to automount an NFS volume from a linux box, deriving the required information from the an LDAP database. Yet, this isn't that easy. Over the last two weeks, my work has been attempting to do a similart task with a combination of Jaguar server and Linux. Basically, the issue of where your home directory is doesn't matter a whole lot. The problem is working with LDAP. Our issue has lied in getting the LDAP database setup wioth the proper base such that the fields exist. The LDAP server MUST accomidate all the fields. This includes regular Posix account information, plus special Apple fields such as MCX flags,etc. If you examine the apple.schema file that comes with 10.2 (/etc/openldap/schema/apple.schema), you will see all of these. The 10.2 documentation is good and bad, it says some stuff about this and leaves out a lot. Another problem is the generation of all of this information. I believe that it isn't all regular ASCII (mainly MCX flags). If you already have a netinfo database under Jaguard server, you can migrate the output from slapcat. The problem is, this doesn't work under the client verion, though this may be a matter of configuring the ldap.conf file properly. As another clue, check out the Unix RFC preset in the LDAPv3 section of the 10.2 Directory Access utility. This has additional information regarding mappings. In essence, we have yet to be able to maintain an OpenLDAP directory under linux that could authenticate OS X. However turning on slapd under 10.2 did work with LDAP authentication. It's all a matter of having a database with the proper fields and information. I'll post more as I remember more of the details, my notes are all at work.
I sometimes need Matlab and have found a way to run it at home, well, sort of. The University of Washington's Math Sciences server has Matlab. I just ssh into the server from XDarwin and run matlab, it works just fine. Hey, I'm already paying for it through their license, I may as well use their copy. I wouldn't be surprised if most math departments at higher ed institutions had this.
I was able to get Cingular to give me the code to disable the SIM-lock on my Nokia 8290. I called up and they passed me up to another support level and I talked to them and they didn't hassle me at all. They then e-mailed me the code (3 steps, very easy) and I unlocked it. I then walked into a store that sold Voicestream and the salesgirl let me put her SIM card in my phone and we were able to then make a call with the Voicestream network.
My aunt runs her own small NGO in Nigeria and they have a computer. One of the biggest problems she runs into is the surge protector getting fried from electricity surges. They have horribly regulated electricity, this is something we take for granted and only think of in storms,.