Just to clarify, I was talking about host's file system snapshots (think LVM), and not VMWares's guest snapshots. FS snapshots will let you get a consistent backup of host OS and all the VMs. (if you backup a running VM without a FS snapshot you likely end up with a useless corrupted file)
This way you can grab the off-site backup drive, install it into fresh hardware, turn it on and have a fully functional system in matter of seconds.
And no, it does not replace file-level backups - its just for emergency recovery. (Of course theoretically you can start the backup on a non-networked hardware and get the files you need, but there are better solutions.
(I estimate 3-4 hours, including host OS installation).
I've done this in some small VMWare setups: using snapshot feature on FS (LVM works) plus a few very large external drives (those USB to SATA cradles work great), automate a backup of the snapshots of the OS and VM partitions once every X days take the drive offsite and use another one. With 3 drives, you can rotate them and always keep one offsite. What you now have is essentially a fully working drive you can insert into another server and just turn on, no OS install, no fiddling with VMWare install and versions, recovery time is down to essentially the time it takes to get the drive(if you have to use offsite drive) and get new hardware. Best thing is that the costs are that of a few USB drives and a bit of scripting...
I think the only people talk about being "revolutionary" is the multitouch stuff. It's more than just "cute", but there is a limit to its usefulness. Also, when you get down to it, it's only a couple of gestures implemented in a couple of places. It mostly amounts to a very good way of zooming in and out.
Personally I find the double click works much better than pinching, but both methods suffer greatly if your material has a lot of links (most of the time if you accidentally hit one, you have to wait the few minutes as it tries to open Safari, then close it then re-open and find what you were looking at in the first place - just to try to zoom and be caught by same thing again.
The revolution part lies not in the brand new features etc., but in how many people begin using the new interface in the real world. The original Macintosh was an evolution on Xerox PARC designs, but the Mac spread those ideas to millions of actual people, from whence they spread to Windows (and thus billions of people). Same with the iPod: comparable devices existed, but the iPod is the one that everyone started using. That's the revolution, and it never looks like one to people on the inside of the industry.
I understand your point, but it just does not sit well with me. I would find it difficult to accept that Microsoft is revolutionary of the Graphical Interface - I would much more give this credit to Xerox or, in smaller sense maybe to Apple - but by this logic, Microsoft deserves full credit for it. I would also not give HP the title of a revolutionary in laser printing - they neither invented the process nor had the most advanced devices, but they were the de-facto standard of laser printing - so are they a Revolutionary? Is Wal-Mart a revolutionary in selling products because they hold 10+% of the market? Is DELL the revolutionary of the computer industry (well, yes they were revolutionary in some sense, but not because they control such a huge part of the market)?
I think a lot of those things are revolutionary in terms of marketing and sales, but somehow the concept of market share making you a technological revolutionary is just a bit off for me.
Can someone please SERIOUSLY (no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
Nothing. It's just the next evolutionary step of the model Palm introduced in the '90s. It doesn't make sense for a tablet.
Now if they were to bring back the Newton scroll, that would be interesting.
Well, evolutionary vs revolutionary aside, I actually think that the iPhone interface maybe a good match for a tablet platform (though in interest of full disclosure, personally I would prefer a platform with more freedom and more open to innovation).
Key here is the realization that Computer Age is over, and we are now in the Information Age. If you give up on the idea that a tablet should be a computer replacement and accept that most people do not need/want a computer - they want access to information. Modern crop of advanced phones like iPhone and smartphones have opened this concept to the public, but even the new Droid/Nexus screens, despite being much better than iPhone's, are still way too small for full access - so a tablet version of this ( "a computer for idiots" so-to-speak) may be a perfect next device. All you need is a web/email UI plus ability to run simple apps that access data over the internet - and the computer becomes irrelevant to most people. Announcement of KDK is yet another nail in general use computer's coffin. If Apple or Asus, or someone else in computer industry not going to put a usable tablet out soon, Kindle and other ebook readers are going to eat their lunch.
-Em
(P.S. I am not saying computers will be obsolete, but that they will become a more commercial, heavy duty device that will not be found in most households - just workplaces and SOME households of people interested in this sort of a thing)
Can someone please SERIOUSLY ( no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
They have pages of icons - kind of like desktop UI, but pretty much EXACLY like 90's PalmOS and many other portable OS's.
They added gestures on OS level (scroll bar everywhere, instead of certain part of the screen), which was also available on PC and some advanced PalmOS apps - although it was a nice touch to make it part of OS. Multi-touch is cute, but hardly a revolution (except maybe literally)
They removed many standard UI components like date pickers and replaced them with clunky wheels - that was probably a step back.
They added a software repository- the kind Linux world was using for a decade.
They added extra sensors to the OS - which were nice, but also been available on other devices for a while.
There is nothing new here except for putting bunch of existing things all together, for which they certainly deserve praise, but all in all it seems like a great evolutionary work, hardly a revolutionary one.
This concern was also raised here. The behavior appears to be browser dependent. I get the proper URL in clipboard using Chrome/Safari/Opera but the modified Google URL using Firefox.
Sounds like maybe it was either a temporary issue or FUD. Works fine for me on FF. Or maybe original reporter have some ad-ware on their machine.
I *really* hate Google for destroying the right-click copy-link-location. Maybe I'll change to Bing, it does not do that.
Erm, ok, I'll bite - how so? I have no problems doing "copy link location" on Google or for that matter on Bing. If you are on a Mac, you might have to hold one of the keyboard modifier buttons to "right click" - but that's hardly Google's fault.
The 21st century called, and apparently forgot to send you the past few years.
What part of "built upon" did you miss?;-)
Besides, regardless of the changes of last decade. as for comparing US with totalitarian communist/socialist governments - I suggest you actually go and live there for a while (and not as a tourist) - From personal experience I can tell you that after a few years there with no chance for leaving, you will understand just how ludicrously, mind bogglingly stupid these comparisons are. Neither Bush nor Obama come anywhere close to that. Get some perspective please.
As much as I think child porn is bad (including possession), I think US law, for better or for worse, is built upon giving individual rights to protect themselves from self-incrimination, otherwise the legal system can run amok - as evidenced by this case (if we choose to believe the guy).
So I kinda like the Neal Stephenson approach of having a strong magnetic field in the door frame wipe any drive passing through it. Surely in this day and age of portable electronics it may cause some issues, but not unresolvable ones;-)
I will say that going from XP to Windows 7 is a much larger leap than going from Vista to Windows 7... if you're already running Vista, you already have pretty much everything in 7 except for the new Start bar. Vista users probably feel less pressure to upgrade due to that.
Well, I think it is even simpler than that.
Unlike the crowd here, MOST people run whatever comes on their PC.
People who buy new computers (you know, ones with Windows 7) are more likely to be replacing an older computer (more likely one that shipped with XP) rather than newer one (with Vista).
Thus the Windows 7 systems are mostly replacing XP. Why this is news is beyond me. Now if it was the other way around, I would be very surprised.
Bad news for you is that you don't have a legitimate copy. You have a copy made by Microsoft, but it's still illegal to use a version you are not allowed to use.
Are you implying that if he did not buy the windows copy he was using, it was then NOT made by Microsoft? Is that like the tree falling in the woods sort of thing?
The only thing more obnoxious than iPhone people is anti-iPhone people. You are creating a new 'type' of retard: the AndTard. You hate Apple just because. You hate everything the iPhone does just because. You probably hate the 'pinch' functionality just because Apple came up with it.
You have lowered yourself to the level of those you hate, as haters so often do. But then you went a step further.
LOL. You know, trolls are a lot less fun when they are AC.... but what are you going to do.
For the record, I do not hate things iPhone does, nor I hate the iPhone people - I do hate the things iPhone doesn't do. iPhone does many things nicely and for many people thats enough -- which is again the point of my post above -- not everyone needs a real smartphone.
As for Apple, I learned to hate them from owning their products - and not "just because" - but with a good reason. I hate their general attitude that their users are brainless sheep and that Apple always knows better what those sheep need and what they do not need. Now, I am not going to argue if they are right or wrong, but regardless I find that attitude warrants the dislike of them as a company.
You're replacing others' bias for one of your own. For every "fart app" that is not needed, how many "alternate dialers" or "profile managers" do you think the general public needs, or even cares about?
Erm, Wasn't that what i said??? Lets see:
But as with all smartphones, this is a much smaller market, and will be more competitive as most people do not need more that a few of those utils.
Yep, sounds pretty similar..
This is classic developer featuritis. I don't need 50 ways to accomplish one thing. I only need one way to do it, but perform it reasonably well/fail gracefully.
You are absolutely right - I DO only need one way to do things- the one way that works for ME. Unfortunately Apple's "one way" frequently "fails gracefully" for ME (and it often fails spectacularly.) And so on iPhone platform users are SOL if they don't like the one way they are told to think and do things. Here's one extremely basic example - why is it that I cannot have more than two ringer profiles??? Say how about "loud", "vibrate" and "silent" - sounds simple, every smartphone seems to have this sort of a capability? Please? Nope, you will only have two profiles and you will like it that way. But hey, don't fret - you CAN have literally hundreds of fart apps.
But thats the point - for the crowd that does not care about having a real smartphone - which, face it, is the majority of the iPhone users, the fart apps are a big deal. So I think those developers are right to target them if they want to make money.
My sole point was that I don't see this as a problem for Android until they actually start going after the fart app crowd. All the good stuff from big guys gets released on Android anyway and Android gets some stuff that iPhone users could only dream of. Things they do not care about. (well, until next iPhone OS release adds some a half-assed version of it - at which point everyone will be swooning over how clever Apple is)
The point is that developers feel like they are not making as much money on Android and that it is not worth investing in.
I would say that it does not necessarily has to be a bad thing.
Basically those who are using it to make money by selling useless apps (I mean how many fart apps do you need? I argue the number is less than one!) would fare much better in Apple land. Android is, at least so far, not being bought by the same audience that buys iPhones - the Android audience is not going to be excited by a fart app or any other throwaway app - at least not enough to shell out any money for it. On the other hand, the market for utility apps - like profile managers, alternate dialers, etc - would probably be much hotter at Android (well, its not a fair comparison, since these things are impossible to do on Apple AppStore). But as with all smartphones, this is a much smaller market, and will be more competitive as most people do not need more that a few of those utils. Android is trying to shift that a bit by making the platform much more popular than any existing smartphones, as well as adding AppStore-like centralized, easy to use repositories - but still, the market is only so big. Of course this depends on the demographics for iPhone vs Android staying the same, and everyone is trying to shift that (take Droid for example) - but meanwhile iPhone will generate more sales and be more attractive to mass apps makers - but Android will have the really useful(at least in my opinion) stuff.
Anyone else notice that the so called "study" is actually a marketing material for some SaaS product? If you like that there are some great whitepapers out there... LOL.
its a joke - they just downloaded some bug reports, made some pretty graphs and called it a report. I will bet you the person putting it together could not explain what a "web browser vulnerability" is - other than something that should scare people to buy their product.
Once you start using a full disk encryption solution like Truecrypt or others, all the "insecure" electronic methods you discussed suddenly become secure.
Amen to that - for what the original poster asked for, this is the best solution by far. Remember that passwords are not the only sensitive data on your drive - whole disk encryption will protect all of your data. Combine this with autolocking screensaver and some other basic security precautions (keep your OS up to date, never leave your computer unlocked, keep the FW up, don't load random software from internet without a sandbox, etc, etc) and you have a REASONABLE protection. Is it foolproof - no. THERE IS NO FOOLPROOF SECURITY. Security is a game of "cost of intruding" vs "worth of data". As long as you keep the "cost of intruding" higher than the "worth of the data" - you are reasonably protected.
One catch though - last I checked Truecrypt does not support Linux for full OS disk encryption. There are other, less simple, but probably as secure (if not more) solutions for Linux.
Alternative to this is running PortableFirefox from an encrypted disk/usb/partition/file.
How much do you use it? I use my iPhone G3 as a music player roughly six hours a day, make a few phone calls, send lots of text messages and perhaps an hour or so of Web browsing and I generally have a least a half-charge left at the end of the day. Sure, I've had phones with better battery life but they didn't do nearly so much. It's a trade-off, for sure.
I do use it a fair deal more than an average user and while I would agree that it is really pretty decent on battery when you listen to music, any time a screen is on you can just SEE the battery drain. I mostly use phone, email, calendar and SMS and while most of those use screen (and thus drain battery) I think also at fault is the very poor radio inside my G3. I pretty much do not get any reception inside most buildings (which is sad, cause I spend most of my time in downtown SF - if you can't get reception there....) - I did find that if I spend most of my day outside with strong reception - the battery life is significantly better (But then again, I am using the phone significantly less when I am outside)
Java might just eat into battery life just enough to on average change the device from "lasts a long time on a change" to "the battery life is ok".
"lasts a long time on a charge"??? I am not sure what phone you are talking about, but "the battery life is ok" would be a huge improvement for iPhone. My iPhone requires several charges a day - I cannot imagine it getting any worse. My wife uses hers much less, so she usually makes it to the evening hours, but having a charger in any place I spend more than a few hours is a must.
Apple cares as much about control over the application development platform as they do about the number of apps in their store. Look, I don't hate Apple or anything (hell, I'm posting this from a new MacBook Pro), but the truth is the truth.
I call BS.
Apple cares far more about control than about number of apps. These are the people who for a year after launch of the SDK forbidden posting of any sample code in public!!! Number of apps is not a priority to Apple - otherwise it would take less than a month it takes now to get an app even looked at, let alone approved and they would not reject applications just because they did not like the loading splash screen. (they objected to one of my submissions because splash screen was a logo instead of a fake screenshot of an application - even though half the apps in the app store use logos or things like that)
Apple is all about control. Absolute control. If they figure out how, this thing will be dead before the first app is submitted.
I know slashdotters love this kind of sentiment, but this is a pretty inane thing to say and the poster and the people who modded this insightful have never actually looked at a mac laptop's features carefully. Just off the top of my head, here is a list of stuff that is included in mac laptops that you don't find in the "average" PC:
I think you missed the original posters point - which was not about Apple's not being "Premium" but about the fact that this study's claim about Apple dominating "Premium PCs" is bogus as it is NOT about "Premium PCs" but about "Premium Price" -- their definition of "Premium" is based on price not features (One can also claim point out the fact that Apple is not a PC at all (according to Apple - thus Apple's "Mac vs PC" ad campaign) but that's more of a joke at Apple's expense.
easy removal of power connector in case of tripping accelerometers to shut the hard drive off if the laptop falls backlit keyboards that have a sensor to automatically come on automatic screen dimming at low light levels single piece aluminum frame construction for less stress on the motherboard (the most common point of failure of a laptop, in my experience) custom battery arrangement to maximize useful lifetime but leave a smaller dimensional footprint.
All of these features, maybe except for the power connector(have not seen that yet), can be found on many PCs and a number of them originated in PC markets. Still, the "premium" tag here means price, not features so it is irrelevant.
I'm sure there are others that I'm missing but the very idea that mac laptops aren't "premium" is ridiculous. You can argue that the set of features that you get are not worth the price, but one can make the same argument about "premium" cars as well and has nothing to do with if the object itself has a feature set above and beyond the average.
Again, you are missing the point. The criteria of this "study" was NOT the feature set. The "premium" tag was about the price, not features. In short their claim is that majority of people who spend a lot of money on computers buy macs - (which is also unlikely given high end PCs bought in bulk by companies, but that's their claim)
Ok, is this to complete with Amazon's double rot-13 encryption patent?
Let me get this straight, they invented a system that identifies people by slightly altering wording of messages.... automatically.... sooooooo, what exactly is stopping people from using the same exact system to automatically modify the message to make it un-traceable again????? Thunderbird plug-in in 3... 2...1...
There is no reason to add the dependency of a DHCP server to many of those services. Reserved DHCP works great under some situations but if you're talking about a static set of servers or equipment, static ip is more reliable.
Depends on your situation and your resources. A while ago I did a favor for a friend in a mid size office (300 people or so) lacking a real sysadmin where they asked me to re-ip the entire network on a short notice. Luckily I had the foresight to make sure just about everything was on DHCP or static DHCP. With renewal time lowered to 24 hours - this gave me a 12 hour window - perfect for overnight reset. During the day I wrote a quick script to dump out, massage and re-write the static IPs in DHCP DB. After everyone gone home that night, all I had to do is change IPs on a the few static servers (DHCP server mostly) - activate the new DHCP scope and go home. 1/2 hour worth of work. Next morning everything was up and running, and for the few people who complained(there are always a few), a reboot fixed everything.
So yes, static IPs are more reliable on small network or if you are well staffed and have time to burn. But there is value in static DHCP when you are understaffed. Of course it makes it much more important to keep the DHCP server up, but hey, you still have at least 1/2 your renewal time to fix it and hopefully you are monitoring your DHCP server.
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Just to clarify, I was talking about host's file system snapshots (think LVM), and not VMWares's guest snapshots. FS snapshots will let you get a consistent backup of host OS and all the VMs. (if you backup a running VM without a FS snapshot you likely end up with a useless corrupted file)
This way you can grab the off-site backup drive, install it into fresh hardware, turn it on and have a fully functional system in matter of seconds.
And no, it does not replace file-level backups - its just for emergency recovery. (Of course theoretically you can start the backup on a non-networked hardware and get the files you need, but there are better solutions.
-Em
(I estimate 3-4 hours, including host OS installation).
I've done this in some small VMWare setups: using snapshot feature on FS (LVM works) plus a few very large external drives (those USB to SATA cradles work great), automate a backup of the snapshots of the OS and VM partitions once every X days take the drive offsite and use another one. With 3 drives, you can rotate them and always keep one offsite. What you now have is essentially a fully working drive you can insert into another server and just turn on, no OS install, no fiddling with VMWare install and versions, recovery time is down to essentially the time it takes to get the drive(if you have to use offsite drive) and get new hardware. Best thing is that the costs are that of a few USB drives and a bit of scripting...
-Em
I think the only people talk about being "revolutionary" is the multitouch stuff. It's more than just "cute", but there is a limit to its usefulness. Also, when you get down to it, it's only a couple of gestures implemented in a couple of places. It mostly amounts to a very good way of zooming in and out.
Personally I find the double click works much better than pinching, but both methods suffer greatly if your material has a lot of links (most of the time if you accidentally hit one, you have to wait the few minutes as it tries to open Safari, then close it then re-open and find what you were looking at in the first place - just to try to zoom and be caught by same thing again.
-Em
The revolution part lies not in the brand new features etc., but in how many people begin using the new interface in the real world. The original Macintosh was an evolution on Xerox PARC designs, but the Mac spread those ideas to millions of actual people, from whence they spread to Windows (and thus billions of people). Same with the iPod: comparable devices existed, but the iPod is the one that everyone started using. That's the revolution, and it never looks like one to people on the inside of the industry.
I understand your point, but it just does not sit well with me. I would find it difficult to accept that Microsoft is revolutionary of the Graphical Interface - I would much more give this credit to Xerox or, in smaller sense maybe to Apple - but by this logic, Microsoft deserves full credit for it. I would also not give HP the title of a revolutionary in laser printing - they neither invented the process nor had the most advanced devices, but they were the de-facto standard of laser printing - so are they a Revolutionary? Is Wal-Mart a revolutionary in selling products because they hold 10+% of the market? Is DELL the revolutionary of the computer industry (well, yes they were revolutionary in some sense, but not because they control such a huge part of the market)?
I think a lot of those things are revolutionary in terms of marketing and sales, but somehow the concept of market share making you a technological revolutionary is just a bit off for me.
-Em
Can someone please SERIOUSLY (no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
Nothing. It's just the next evolutionary step of the model Palm introduced in the '90s. It doesn't make sense for a tablet.
Now if they were to bring back the Newton scroll, that would be interesting.
Well, evolutionary vs revolutionary aside, I actually think that the iPhone interface maybe a good match for a tablet platform (though in interest of full disclosure, personally I would prefer a platform with more freedom and more open to innovation).
Key here is the realization that Computer Age is over, and we are now in the Information Age. If you give up on the idea that a tablet should be a computer replacement and accept that most people do not need/want a computer - they want access to information. Modern crop of advanced phones like iPhone and smartphones have opened this concept to the public, but even the new Droid/Nexus screens, despite being much better than iPhone's, are still way too small for full access - so a tablet version of this ( "a computer for idiots" so-to-speak) may be a perfect next device. All you need is a web/email UI plus ability to run simple apps that access data over the internet - and the computer becomes irrelevant to most people. Announcement of KDK is yet another nail in general use computer's coffin. If Apple or Asus, or someone else in computer industry not going to put a usable tablet out soon, Kindle and other ebook readers are going to eat their lunch.
-Em
(P.S. I am not saying computers will be obsolete, but that they will become a more commercial, heavy duty device that will not be found in most households - just workplaces and SOME households of people interested in this sort of a thing)
Can someone please SERIOUSLY ( no pro or anti apple fanaticism please) explain what exactly is so revolutionary about iPhone interface?
They have pages of icons - kind of like desktop UI, but pretty much EXACLY like 90's PalmOS and many other portable OS's.
They added gestures on OS level (scroll bar everywhere, instead of certain part of the screen), which was also available on PC and some advanced PalmOS apps - although it was a nice touch to make it part of OS. Multi-touch is cute, but hardly a revolution (except maybe literally)
They removed many standard UI components like date pickers and replaced them with clunky wheels - that was probably a step back.
They added a software repository- the kind Linux world was using for a decade.
They added extra sensors to the OS - which were nice, but also been available on other devices for a while.
There is nothing new here except for putting bunch of existing things all together, for which they certainly deserve praise, but all in all it seems like a great evolutionary work, hardly a revolutionary one.
-Em
This concern was also raised here. The behavior appears to be browser dependent. I get the proper URL in clipboard using Chrome/Safari/Opera but the modified Google URL using Firefox.
Sounds like maybe it was either a temporary issue or FUD. Works fine for me on FF. Or maybe original reporter have some ad-ware on their machine.
-Em
I *really* hate Google for destroying the right-click copy-link-location. Maybe I'll change to Bing, it does not do that.
Erm, ok, I'll bite - how so? I have no problems doing "copy link location" on Google or for that matter on Bing. If you are on a Mac, you might have to hold one of the keyboard modifier buttons to "right click" - but that's hardly Google's fault.
-Em
It's key management and distribution, not cost. The costs are very low. Training everyone to exchange S/MIME keys, for example, is just too damn hard.
Erm, time IS a cost, a HUGE cost, often much bigger cost than anything else.
-Em
The 21st century called, and apparently forgot to send you the past few years.
What part of "built upon" did you miss? ;-)
Besides, regardless of the changes of last decade. as for comparing US with totalitarian communist/socialist governments - I suggest you actually go and live there for a while (and not as a tourist) - From personal experience I can tell you that after a few years there with no chance for leaving, you will understand just how ludicrously, mind bogglingly stupid these comparisons are. Neither Bush nor Obama come anywhere close to that. Get some perspective please.
-Em
As much as I think child porn is bad (including possession), I think US law, for better or for worse, is built upon giving individual rights to protect themselves from self-incrimination, otherwise the legal system can run amok - as evidenced by this case (if we choose to believe the guy).
So I kinda like the Neal Stephenson approach of having a strong magnetic field in the door frame wipe any drive passing through it. Surely in this day and age of portable electronics it may cause some issues, but not unresolvable ones ;-)
Probably true.
I will say that going from XP to Windows 7 is a much larger leap than going from Vista to Windows 7... if you're already running Vista, you already have pretty much everything in 7 except for the new Start bar. Vista users probably feel less pressure to upgrade due to that.
Well, I think it is even simpler than that.
Unlike the crowd here, MOST people run whatever comes on their PC.
People who buy new computers (you know, ones with Windows 7) are more likely to be replacing an older computer (more likely one that shipped with XP) rather than newer one (with Vista).
Thus the Windows 7 systems are mostly replacing XP. Why this is news is beyond me. Now if it was the other way around, I would be very surprised.
-Em
Bad news for you is that you don't have a legitimate copy. You have a copy made by Microsoft, but it's still illegal to use a version you are not allowed to use.
Are you implying that if he did not buy the windows copy he was using, it was then NOT made by Microsoft? Is that like the tree falling in the woods sort of thing?
-Em
The only thing more obnoxious than iPhone people is anti-iPhone people. You are creating a new 'type' of retard: the AndTard. You hate Apple just because. You hate everything the iPhone does just because. You probably hate the 'pinch' functionality just because Apple came up with it.
You have lowered yourself to the level of those you hate, as haters so often do. But then you went a step further.
LOL. You know, trolls are a lot less fun when they are AC.... but what are you going to do.
For the record, I do not hate things iPhone does, nor I hate the iPhone people - I do hate the things iPhone doesn't do. iPhone does many things nicely and for many people thats enough -- which is again the point of my post above -- not everyone needs a real smartphone.
As for Apple, I learned to hate them from owning their products - and not "just because" - but with a good reason. I hate their general attitude that their users are brainless sheep and that Apple always knows better what those sheep need and what they do not need. Now, I am not going to argue if they are right or wrong, but regardless I find that attitude warrants the dislike of them as a company.
-Em
You're replacing others' bias for one of your own. For every "fart app" that is not needed, how many "alternate dialers" or "profile managers" do you think the general public needs, or even cares about?
Erm, Wasn't that what i said??? Lets see:
But as with all smartphones, this is a much smaller market, and will be more competitive as most people do not need more that a few of those utils.
Yep, sounds pretty similar..
This is classic developer featuritis. I don't need 50 ways to accomplish one thing. I only need one way to do it, but perform it reasonably well/fail gracefully.
You are absolutely right - I DO only need one way to do things- the one way that works for ME. Unfortunately Apple's "one way" frequently "fails gracefully" for ME (and it often fails spectacularly.) And so on iPhone platform users are SOL if they don't like the one way they are told to think and do things. Here's one extremely basic example - why is it that I cannot have more than two ringer profiles??? Say how about "loud", "vibrate" and "silent" - sounds simple, every smartphone seems to have this sort of a capability? Please? Nope, you will only have two profiles and you will like it that way. But hey, don't fret - you CAN have literally hundreds of fart apps.
But thats the point - for the crowd that does not care about having a real smartphone - which, face it, is the majority of the iPhone users, the fart apps are a big deal. So I think those developers are right to target them if they want to make money.
My sole point was that I don't see this as a problem for Android until they actually start going after the fart app crowd. All the good stuff from big guys gets released on Android anyway and Android gets some stuff that iPhone users could only dream of. Things they do not care about. (well, until next iPhone OS release adds some a half-assed version of it - at which point everyone will be swooning over how clever Apple is)
-Em
The point is that developers feel like they are not making as much money on Android and that it is not worth investing in.
I would say that it does not necessarily has to be a bad thing.
Basically those who are using it to make money by selling useless apps (I mean how many fart apps do you need? I argue the number is less than one!) would fare much better in Apple land. Android is, at least so far, not being bought by the same audience that buys iPhones - the Android audience is not going to be excited by a fart app or any other throwaway app - at least not enough to shell out any money for it. On the other hand, the market for utility apps - like profile managers, alternate dialers, etc - would probably be much hotter at Android (well, its not a fair comparison, since these things are impossible to do on Apple AppStore). But as with all smartphones, this is a much smaller market, and will be more competitive as most people do not need more that a few of those utils. Android is trying to shift that a bit by making the platform much more popular than any existing smartphones, as well as adding AppStore-like centralized, easy to use repositories - but still, the market is only so big. Of course this depends on the demographics for iPhone vs Android staying the same, and everyone is trying to shift that (take Droid for example) - but meanwhile iPhone will generate more sales and be more attractive to mass apps makers - but Android will have the really useful(at least in my opinion) stuff.
-Em
Anyone else notice that the so called "study" is actually a marketing material for some SaaS product? If you like that there are some great whitepapers out there... LOL.
its a joke - they just downloaded some bug reports, made some pretty graphs and called it a report. I will bet you the person putting it together could not explain what a "web browser vulnerability" is - other than something that should scare people to buy their product.
Once you start using a full disk encryption solution like Truecrypt or others, all the "insecure" electronic methods you discussed suddenly become secure.
Amen to that - for what the original poster asked for, this is the best solution by far. Remember that passwords are not the only sensitive data on your drive - whole disk encryption will protect all of your data. Combine this with autolocking screensaver and some other basic security precautions (keep your OS up to date, never leave your computer unlocked, keep the FW up, don't load random software from internet without a sandbox, etc, etc) and you have a REASONABLE protection. Is it foolproof - no. THERE IS NO FOOLPROOF SECURITY. Security is a game of "cost of intruding" vs "worth of data". As long as you keep the "cost of intruding" higher than the "worth of the data" - you are reasonably protected.
One catch though - last I checked Truecrypt does not support Linux for full OS disk encryption. There are other, less simple, but probably as secure (if not more) solutions for Linux.
Alternative to this is running PortableFirefox from an encrypted disk/usb/partition/file.
-Em
How much do you use it? I use my iPhone G3 as a music player roughly six hours a day, make a few phone calls, send lots of text messages and perhaps an hour or so of Web browsing and I generally have a least a half-charge left at the end of the day. Sure, I've had phones with better battery life but they didn't do nearly so much. It's a trade-off, for sure.
I do use it a fair deal more than an average user and while I would agree that it is really pretty decent on battery when you listen to music, any time a screen is on you can just SEE the battery drain. I mostly use phone, email, calendar and SMS and while most of those use screen (and thus drain battery) I think also at fault is the very poor radio inside my G3. I pretty much do not get any reception inside most buildings (which is sad, cause I spend most of my time in downtown SF - if you can't get reception there....) - I did find that if I spend most of my day outside with strong reception - the battery life is significantly better (But then again, I am using the phone significantly less when I am outside)
Java might just eat into battery life just enough to on average change the device from "lasts a long time on a change" to "the battery life is ok".
"lasts a long time on a charge"??? I am not sure what phone you are talking about, but "the battery life is ok" would be a huge improvement for iPhone. My iPhone requires several charges a day - I cannot imagine it getting any worse. My wife uses hers much less, so she usually makes it to the evening hours, but having a charger in any place I spend more than a few hours is a must.
Apple cares as much about control over the application development platform as they do about the number of apps in their store. Look, I don't hate Apple or anything (hell, I'm posting this from a new MacBook Pro), but the truth is the truth.
I call BS.
Apple cares far more about control than about number of apps. These are the people who for a year after launch of the SDK forbidden posting of any sample code in public!!! Number of apps is not a priority to Apple - otherwise it would take less than a month it takes now to get an app even looked at, let alone approved and they would not reject applications just because they did not like the loading splash screen. (they objected to one of my submissions because splash screen was a logo instead of a fake screenshot of an application - even though half the apps in the app store use logos or things like that)
Apple is all about control. Absolute control. If they figure out how, this thing will be dead before the first app is submitted.
-Em
This sure is a big hit on the Linux for Pedophiles distro.
What part of "insert itself between the Windows calls and TrueCrypt" did you miss?
I know slashdotters love this kind of sentiment, but this is a pretty inane thing to say and the poster and the people who modded this insightful have never actually looked at a mac laptop's features carefully. Just off the top of my head, here is a list of stuff that is included in mac laptops that you don't find in the "average" PC:
I think you missed the original posters point - which was not about Apple's not being "Premium" but about the fact that this study's claim about Apple dominating "Premium PCs" is bogus as it is NOT about "Premium PCs" but about "Premium Price" -- their definition of "Premium" is based on price not features (One can also claim point out the fact that Apple is not a PC at all (according to Apple - thus Apple's "Mac vs PC" ad campaign) but that's more of a joke at Apple's expense.
easy removal of power connector in case of tripping
accelerometers to shut the hard drive off if the laptop falls
backlit keyboards that have a sensor to automatically come on
automatic screen dimming at low light levels
single piece aluminum frame construction for less stress on the motherboard (the most common point of failure of a laptop, in my experience)
custom battery arrangement to maximize useful lifetime but leave a smaller dimensional footprint.
All of these features, maybe except for the power connector(have not seen that yet), can be found on many PCs and a number of them originated in PC markets. Still, the "premium" tag here means price, not features so it is irrelevant.
I'm sure there are others that I'm missing but the very idea that mac laptops aren't "premium" is ridiculous. You can argue that the set of features that you get are not worth the price, but one can make the same argument about "premium" cars as well and has nothing to do with if the object itself has a feature set above and beyond the average.
Again, you are missing the point. The criteria of this "study" was NOT the feature set. The "premium" tag was about the price, not features. In short their claim is that majority of people who spend a lot of money on computers buy macs - (which is also unlikely given high end PCs bought in bulk by companies, but that's their claim)
-Em
Ok, is this to complete with Amazon's double rot-13 encryption patent?
Let me get this straight, they invented a system that identifies people by slightly altering wording of messages.... automatically.... sooooooo, what exactly is stopping people from using the same exact system to automatically modify the message to make it un-traceable again????? Thunderbird plug-in in 3 ... 2...1...
-Em
There is no reason to add the dependency of a DHCP server to many of those services. Reserved DHCP works great under some situations but if you're talking about a static set of servers or equipment, static ip is more reliable.
Depends on your situation and your resources. A while ago I did a favor for a friend in a mid size office (300 people or so) lacking a real sysadmin where they asked me to re-ip the entire network on a short notice. Luckily I had the foresight to make sure just about everything was on DHCP or static DHCP. With renewal time lowered to 24 hours - this gave me a 12 hour window - perfect for overnight reset. During the day I wrote a quick script to dump out, massage and re-write the static IPs in DHCP DB. After everyone gone home that night, all I had to do is change IPs on a the few static servers (DHCP server mostly) - activate the new DHCP scope and go home. 1/2 hour worth of work. Next morning everything was up and running, and for the few people who complained(there are always a few), a reboot fixed everything.
So yes, static IPs are more reliable on small network or if you are well staffed and have time to burn. But there is value in static DHCP when you are understaffed. Of course it makes it much more important to keep the DHCP server up, but hey, you still have at least 1/2 your renewal time to fix it and hopefully you are monitoring your DHCP server.
-Em