This might be useful in that it frees the developer from having to decide whether build a web app or a desktop app. However, that benefit doesn't come free. Part of the advantage of web applications is that the software is always up to date. That advantage becomes harder to accommodate if the data is stored locally since the software provider must now deal with a problem it didn't have to before: backwards compatibility. The 3d support would allow some applications to become better but remember that Ajax applications are slow - very slow - and adding native support also means reduced ubiquity. Would this program allow for offline support? Google Gears in theory addresses this problem but hasn't been ported to all applications and would need to be used in combination. In short, I see this application as expanding opportunities for web applications but is far from displacing desktop applications.
I view this application as closer to Java applets rather than active desktop. Java applets desktop applications to the web while Mozilla's approach brings web applications to the desktop. Java applets are slower to load in a web browser than Ajax pages while Java applications are faster to run on the desktop than Ajax applications. If our goal is to provide occasional desktop access to applications predominantly accessed from a web browser then this is a good approach. But if the goal is to make desktop applications with the benefits of web applications then as developers we're better off writing our applications in Java.,
I bought my 75GXP in Dovember 2000 from uBid. I found it unusual at the time that no retailers were offering it, but uBid was selling it and I wanted > 60Gb so I purchased it. The unusual thing about this is that IBM publicly claims to have only stared production of the units at the end of December, while on my drive it states November; the webmaster of storagereview.com didn't even get his model until Feb and also commented on the earliness of my model. This leads me to beleive that IBM sold modified pre-final production models on uBid to make a little extra cash. Whats the problem with this? My drive sounds louder than a 10k RPM drive produced 10 years ago. Since there were so few units sold then, I haven't been able to identify anyone else who purchased the drive to see if they were all like that, but IBM has had a history of giving handing out defective drives. So far my tally is two 18GB (note IBM return policy is to reduce warranty on a returned product to 90 days!!) and one 60GB drive. In theory, great drives. In theory...
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This might be useful in that it frees the developer from having to decide whether build a web app or a desktop app. However, that benefit doesn't come free. Part of the advantage of web applications is that the software is always up to date. That advantage becomes harder to accommodate if the data is stored locally since the software provider must now deal with a problem it didn't have to before: backwards compatibility. The 3d support would allow some applications to become better but remember that Ajax applications are slow - very slow - and adding native support also means reduced ubiquity. Would this program allow for offline support? Google Gears in theory addresses this problem but hasn't been ported to all applications and would need to be used in combination. In short, I see this application as expanding opportunities for web applications but is far from displacing desktop applications. I view this application as closer to Java applets rather than active desktop. Java applets desktop applications to the web while Mozilla's approach brings web applications to the desktop. Java applets are slower to load in a web browser than Ajax pages while Java applications are faster to run on the desktop than Ajax applications. If our goal is to provide occasional desktop access to applications predominantly accessed from a web browser then this is a good approach. But if the goal is to make desktop applications with the benefits of web applications then as developers we're better off writing our applications in Java.,
I bought my 75GXP in Dovember 2000 from uBid. I found it unusual at the time that no retailers were offering it, but uBid was selling it and I wanted > 60Gb so I purchased it. The unusual thing about this is that IBM publicly claims to have only stared production of the units at the end of December, while on my drive it states November; the webmaster of storagereview.com didn't even get his model until Feb and also commented on the earliness of my model. This leads me to beleive that IBM sold modified pre-final production models on uBid to make a little extra cash. Whats the problem with this? My drive sounds louder than a 10k RPM drive produced 10 years ago. Since there were so few units sold then, I haven't been able to identify anyone else who purchased the drive to see if they were all like that, but IBM has had a history of giving handing out defective drives. So far my tally is two 18GB (note IBM return policy is to reduce warranty on a returned product to 90 days!!) and one 60GB drive. In theory, great drives. In theory...