I've been part of a development team which spoke directly with Microsoft representatives on many occasions and when we mentioned Windows 2000 bugs their answer was "buy XP." I quit.
Well, to be fair, Apple does the same thing. Bugs are prioritized, and some of them can be fixed in minor releases, some of them wait for major releases, and some of them end up triaged as "not to be fixed". Whether a bug gets fixed depends on a combination of its severity, how many users it affects, the time it takes to find it, and the risk of breaking something else if you fix it.
I'm not optimistic. It seams like Microsoft has lost its greatest asset. Talented developers.
They still have quite a few of them, but they bury them with incompetent management. Also, their recruitment is severely inhibited now, because anyone who wants to invent something knows that they can do it at Apple, Google, or at a start-up. MS is tottering under their own bulk.
does this one support all of the CoreImage functionality?
This was just asked and answered on the Quartz Composer Developers mailing list:
Yes & Yes
Although the graphics chip is an embedded Intel i950, and the performance won't be stellar - say compared to the new iMacs or MacBook Pros, but definitely better than the previous Mac Mini
I think this time around people are less impressed.
Every time Apple ships another machine and omits the antigravity feature, the stock takes a hit. On days with no news, we usually see a fifty cents to a dollar in gains.
What I want to know is what Apple's going to do with its new 107,000 square foot Tier IV data center... iTunes Movie/Media Store, anyone?
Oh, I don't think that's hard to guess at all. Upgrading the video to standard-def, then HD 720, HD 1080, longer programs, wider variety of material, deals with every studio that's got shows sitting on the shelf not making money... Just that could easily fill up that new data center within a year and a half.
Got two out of three. They licensed it to Motorola, and would probably license it to other manufacturer who actually had something to offer. Real Networks brought NOTHING to the table. Glaser was just begging for Steve to throw him a lifeline.
90% of posters bitch about microsoft being shit and then when confronted about it they have no real reasons.
Guess again.
Do you honestly contend that 90% of the people complaining about Microsoft have never personally been affected by the dismal quality of their products?
It sounds to me like they have a POS 'out of the box' windows solution that leaves so many holes 'out of the box' that when the company PHB's go play directly with the machines (as they're want to do) their virus-loaded machines then infect the PVR boxes.
That's the case for an awful lot of systems that are built on Windows. I know of horrificially expensive microscopes, for example, which you can't put on a network because the embedded windows machine would get infected.
Acting as home DVR isn't quite the same thing you need for surveillance. Still, that box may make a dandy jumping-off point for this kind of application.
Can something be called a "standard" if the people who make it refuse to license it to anyone else, and indeed do everything they can to stop other people (e.g. Real) from interoperating with it?
They licensed it to Motorola, and they'd probably do likewise with other companies that actually brought something to the table. There was no benefit at all that Real could offer to Apple. Glaser is just a failure who was snivelling at Apple for not throwing him a lifeline.
The iPod's interface is great, sure, but if it takes hiring this particular guy for them to come up with a better one, that's just sad.
The funny thing is, Paul Mercer isn't responsible for the iPod's UI. That was done in-house at Apple, by a group headed by Jeff Robbin (now a VP in the Applications group).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at that point, the next major version will probably be less than a decade away, so why not just wait for that? ;-)
-jcr
I've been part of a development team which spoke directly with Microsoft representatives on many occasions and when we mentioned Windows 2000 bugs their answer was "buy XP." I quit.
Well, to be fair, Apple does the same thing. Bugs are prioritized, and some of them can be fixed in minor releases, some of them wait for major releases, and some of them end up triaged as "not to be fixed". Whether a bug gets fixed depends on a combination of its severity, how many users it affects, the time it takes to find it, and the risk of breaking something else if you fix it.
-jcr
I'm not optimistic. It seams like Microsoft has lost its greatest asset. Talented developers.
They still have quite a few of them, but they bury them with incompetent management. Also, their recruitment is severely inhibited now, because anyone who wants to invent something knows that they can do it at Apple, Google, or at a start-up. MS is tottering under their own bulk.
-jcr
That's pretty much it. The dramatic gains tend to happen around the earnings reports.
-jcr
It's just a big speaker with a iPod dock on top. That's what it looks like at least. I am thoroughly unimpressed with it.
Do you always judge audio components by the way they look? Not too clear on the concept of audio, are we?
-jcr
This was just asked and answered on the Quartz Composer Developers mailing list:
-jcr
So, how much you wanna bet if you buy Apple's 2 Gig DDR2 stick, it won't be running at 667?
Apple's not offering a 2gig DDR2 stick. Their 2-gig memory configuration is a pair of one-gig sticks.
Tricky, tricky.
Yeah, damn them for your misunderstanding!
-jcr
I'm not 100% sure about Front Row but I'm willing to bet that it works also.
Yeah, it works. FrontRow just drives the DVDPlayer app through the scripting interface. It doesn't actually play the DVDs itself.
-jcr
It doesn't add anything the exisiting iPod hi-fi's already have except a bigger price tag and the Apple logo.
How can you decide that before you've heard it?
-jcr
In short, it's a major step down from the old Mac Minis, and not useful for those who liked running WoW on their Minis.
I'd wait until I saw WoW running on it before making such a statement.
-jcr
The audio jack is a combined digital optical and line-level analog jack.
-jcr
The core duo is plenty fast enough for real-time h.264 decoding. In fact, it should be fast enough for real time encoding.
-jcr
It runs Quartz Extreme. I don't think Apple will ever introduce another machine that doesn't.
-jcr
I think this time around people are less impressed.
Every time Apple ships another machine and omits the antigravity feature, the stock takes a hit. On days with no news, we usually see a fifty cents to a dollar in gains.
-jcr
I think they're just charging the early-adopter premium right now. When the costs for the parts drop, so will the price of the Mini.
-jcr
What I want to know is what Apple's going to do with its new 107,000 square foot Tier IV data center... iTunes Movie/Media Store, anyone?
Oh, I don't think that's hard to guess at all. Upgrading the video to standard-def, then HD 720, HD 1080, longer programs, wider variety of material, deals with every studio that's got shows sitting on the shelf not making money... Just that could easily fill up that new data center within a year and a half.
-jcr
there's a huge number of safety-critical medical systems based on windows.
IIRC, that's explicitly prohibited by the windows EULA..
-jcr
It's proprietary, DRMed, and unlicenseable.
Got two out of three. They licensed it to Motorola, and would probably license it to other manufacturer who actually had something to offer. Real Networks brought NOTHING to the table. Glaser was just begging for Steve to throw him a lifeline.
-jcr
The iPod was slightly successful before iTMS.
No, the iPod was the top-selling music player already by the time the iTMS opened for business.
-jcr
90% of posters bitch about microsoft being shit and then when confronted about it they have no real reasons.
Guess again.
Do you honestly contend that 90% of the people complaining about Microsoft have never personally been affected by the dismal quality of their products?
-jcr
It sounds to me like they have a POS 'out of the box' windows solution that leaves so many holes 'out of the box' that when the company PHB's go play directly with the machines (as they're want to do) their virus-loaded machines then infect the PVR boxes.
That's the case for an awful lot of systems that are built on Windows. I know of horrificially expensive microscopes, for example, which you can't put on a network because the embedded windows machine would get infected.
-jcr
Acting as home DVR isn't quite the same thing you need for surveillance. Still, that box may make a dandy jumping-off point for this kind of application.
-jcr
Make up your mind, dude. If you don't want people to click the link, don't say that it's porn.
-jcr
Can something be called a "standard" if the people who make it refuse to license it to anyone else, and indeed do everything they can to stop other people (e.g. Real) from interoperating with it?
They licensed it to Motorola, and they'd probably do likewise with other companies that actually brought something to the table. There was no benefit at all that Real could offer to Apple. Glaser is just a failure who was snivelling at Apple for not throwing him a lifeline.
-jcr
The iPod's interface is great, sure, but if it takes hiring this particular guy for them to come up with a better one, that's just sad.
The funny thing is, Paul Mercer isn't responsible for the iPod's UI. That was done in-house at Apple, by a group headed by Jeff Robbin (now a VP in the Applications group).
-jcr