Yep. *As I was saying*, "Whoever gushes about its ease of use probably does three things with it, ever." Okay, if you count web browsing and email as one thing, web development in rails and php, application development in c++ and objective-c, graphic design, video transcoding, managing my budget, calendars and contact information and remote server administration as one thing, and watching video and listening to music as one thing - I suppose I only do three things with my Mac (of course, in the process I use upwards of 40 different applications to do those 'three' things).
As to your "sub-window" problem, that has, in fact, been fixed in Leopard; cmd + w will close them now. Your comment about keyboard shortcuts is just disingenuous - you can do almost anything in the menus with a shortcut; a quick survey shows that about 90% of the commands in the menus have key equivalents. I do a great deal of my development work without touching the keyboard for hours (reclined in a chair with a logitech wireless keyboard). And of course, in a tirade about Mac OS X not being easy to use - complaining about the behavior of Apple hardware and software on Windows is hardly apropos (but failing to mention that initially certainly did lend some weight to your point).
-Plug in iPod. Why aren't you charging. You charged just two minutes ago! I want to fill it up, and it's less than half-charged! No help in Help. Eventually have to reset.
Something is wrong with your iPod, not OS X, reboot the iPod.
-Okay iPod, I'm plugging you into a different computer, but *just to charge*, I don't want you to wipe the library on this one, wait, WAIT, STOP, NO, NO, DON'T SYNC, STOP, STOP, STOP, phew!!! glad I caught it in time!
Just click "No, I don't want to wipe my iPod" - it's right there on the screen, not that hard.
-Why do I have to go through sync in iTunes to get mp3s on my iPod? not necessary elsewhere on every single other mp3 player on the market.
-Why the hell did it let a sub-window of Mail open so big as to cover the dock and not be closable without hiding the dock?
Command (or apple) + W, dude.
-Why do I have to add a clip to my movies in iMovie to extract stills? Why do I have to re-chase down the directory and retype the prefix each time?
-Why is iPhoto in general so damn inscrutable?
-Why is it so hard to upload stuff held captive by iPhoto, to photobucket?
-Why does the help feature so rarely help me find basic features I want to do?
-Why does iMovie make me wait through the clip-making process RIGHT AFTER every time I record something, usually taking over 15 seconds?
Can't speak to these, as I don't use them.
-Why discrimination against people who don't have two hands to conviently use at all times.
Hey Steve: right-clicking and alt-commands. Learn it.
Umm - if you want to right-click, buy a two button mouse (or a new Mac, they all support right click, now) - as to alt-commands, if you mean using alt to navigate menus, I personally find that rather awkward. Learn the keyboard shortcuts, they're quite easy (and consistent almost everywhere, too!)
Amen brother. Programming languages are, in this way, a lot like spoken and written languages - once you've learned a few, picking up a new one becomes much easier. After thoroughly learning C++ and Java, Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, Lisp, Objective-C and JavaScript took me almost no time at all to pick up - just a month or two of casual tinkering before I became proficient.
Programming languages are ultimately just expressions of logic, with different strengths for different applications. I once read that children who learn more than one language when they are young have a fundamentally different structure for the language center of their brains than those of us who learn only one, and a significantly greater facility for learning languages, because they essentially have a better data structure for storing and processing language. I think the same thing can be achieved with programming languages, one simply has to go out of one's way to *learn more than one*. I try to learn a new language every year or two, simply because it's good exercise for the brain.
Since firmware v1.1.4 all user-level applications run as the 'mobile' user - which is an account with limited rights. Not saying that iPhones are impenetrable, but at least that one glaring problem has been fixed.
Humming/tapping finders, pshaw! If the company has shown so little interest in using the guy's time for his remaining few weeks, he should requisition a good projector and a conference room, bring in an xbox and host Halo tournaments or some such. A person sitting at a desk or talking to other employees just doesn't make the point that having him there (doing nothing) is wasting everyone's time quite as well as 110" of glorious hd gaming on a conference room wall does.
Hell I did voice-overs for TV commercials back when I worked at Comcast and I was a IT manager. If I can do it anyone can. No offense intended, but given the Comcast commercials I've seen - I'm not sure your "anyone can do it" stance holds up...
Oh please - the fact that this somewhat resembles a *pending* regulation (not law) by the FCC is a total red herring. The media conglomerates asked for it (and no doubt greased some palms along the way) and Microsoft gave it to them.
it's not as if Microsoft was screwing around with Americans just because they wanted to be a jerk. No. I suspect they're doing this because they were paid off by the media conglomerates, not because they wanted to tow the line of Canadian (or any other country's) law. This isn't the only place in Vista where "inappropriate" DRM has creeped in, and it wasn't international law that inspired it - it was Big Media.
The only situation I've encountered regarding the broadcasters determining what I could do with their programs is that I cannot pull the majority of HD recordings off the Tivo due to the flags the broadcaster set. As to why Tivo is ignoring the "do not record" flags set by the broadcaster: they aren't required to - so why should they?
I find that Office 2004 is quite a bit faster than Office 2008 Seconded! I'm still completely baffled by the fact that Word 2008 takes almost a full minute to load on my brand new MacBook - while Word 2004 (running in rosetta) clocks in at about 15 seconds.
I understand your point, but frankly, the "harhar post it on slashdot" crowd is absolutely right. The people he wants read this site, I can guarantee it, and at least a mention of the project's site would have done him some enormous good. Honestly, creating interest in something you're doing involves announcing its existence to like-minded people. What better forum than this one?
no URL, sorry, I can't afford to get my server nuked Changing that might have been your first step. Putting your site on coral cache and posting *that* link here may have gotten you a dozen people interested in helping.
Would Apple stand up to the NSA? Well...this guide explains how to harden a Mac OS X system to NSA specs. I would also take issue with your description of Mac OS X as a 'closed source platform' as this link shows that a large chunk of OS X (particularly the lower level elements - yes, the GUI is closed, but things like FileVault are not) is, in fact, open source.
The problem is the stock (1.8.x) ruby interpreter. As the language matures, better and better implementations of the interpreters are cropping up, and it seems that ruby 2.0 will easily catch up with python in terms of performance. There's nothing wrong with the language - blaming the language for the failure of the interpreter is tantamount to blaming C for the difference between the output of intel compilers vs. gcc.
NPR, forget it. NPR is with PBS and both have a close relationship with big media. Remember, PBS is a member of the RIAA. PBS is most certainly *not* a member of the RIAA. The RIAA is an association of record labels - members are listed here. You may also want to have a look at this for an idea about how NPR feels about the RIAA.
Slightly OT, but if someone is savvy enough to hack a WEP encrypted network, they'll be savvy enough to sidestep MAC address restrictions - use WPA2, or even a RADIUS/VPN solution if you want real security.
As far as shell commands go - that one is pretty trivial; if, however, you are so terminal averse that that little one-liner scares you, there's Eiciel for Linux, which is a gnome app for ACL management.
Actually the part that *you* missed is that Apple sent out an email the night before the beta software expired telling developers to update their software before it was disabled.
Yes - Apple is the first company ever to expire beta software, forcing you to upgrade to the *now available* new version of the beta software (if you are a legitimate, registered beta tester). Oh wait, no they're not. Disabling expired beta software, when new beta software is available, is a very useful tool in generating relevant, up to date feedback to further improve said beta software. There is nothing nefarious going on here.
Slashdot Mirror
As to your "sub-window" problem, that has, in fact, been fixed in Leopard; cmd + w will close them now. Your comment about keyboard shortcuts is just disingenuous - you can do almost anything in the menus with a shortcut; a quick survey shows that about 90% of the commands in the menus have key equivalents. I do a great deal of my development work without touching the keyboard for hours (reclined in a chair with a logitech wireless keyboard). And of course, in a tirade about Mac OS X not being easy to use - complaining about the behavior of Apple hardware and software on Windows is hardly apropos (but failing to mention that initially certainly did lend some weight to your point).
-Plug in iPod. Why aren't you charging. You charged just two minutes ago! I want to fill it up, and it's less than half-charged! No help in Help. Eventually have to reset.
Something is wrong with your iPod, not OS X, reboot the iPod.
-Okay iPod, I'm plugging you into a different computer, but *just to charge*, I don't want you to wipe the library on this one, wait, WAIT, STOP, NO, NO, DON'T SYNC, STOP, STOP, STOP, phew!!! glad I caught it in time!
Just click "No, I don't want to wipe my iPod" - it's right there on the screen, not that hard.
-Why do I have to go through sync in iTunes to get mp3s on my iPod? not necessary elsewhere on every single other mp3 player on the market.
google is your friend.
-Why the hell did it let a sub-window of Mail open so big as to cover the dock and not be closable without hiding the dock?
Command (or apple) + W, dude.
-Why do I have to add a clip to my movies in iMovie to extract stills? Why do I have to re-chase down the directory and retype the prefix each time? -Why is iPhoto in general so damn inscrutable? -Why is it so hard to upload stuff held captive by iPhoto, to photobucket? -Why does the help feature so rarely help me find basic features I want to do? -Why does iMovie make me wait through the clip-making process RIGHT AFTER every time I record something, usually taking over 15 seconds?
Can't speak to these, as I don't use them.
-Why discrimination against people who don't have two hands to conviently use at all times.
Hey Steve: right-clicking and alt-commands. Learn it.
Umm - if you want to right-click, buy a two button mouse (or a new Mac, they all support right click, now) - as to alt-commands, if you mean using alt to navigate menus, I personally find that rather awkward. Learn the keyboard shortcuts, they're quite easy (and consistent almost everywhere, too!)
Amen brother. Programming languages are, in this way, a lot like spoken and written languages - once you've learned a few, picking up a new one becomes much easier. After thoroughly learning C++ and Java, Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, Lisp, Objective-C and JavaScript took me almost no time at all to pick up - just a month or two of casual tinkering before I became proficient.
Programming languages are ultimately just expressions of logic, with different strengths for different applications. I once read that children who learn more than one language when they are young have a fundamentally different structure for the language center of their brains than those of us who learn only one, and a significantly greater facility for learning languages, because they essentially have a better data structure for storing and processing language. I think the same thing can be achieved with programming languages, one simply has to go out of one's way to *learn more than one*. I try to learn a new language every year or two, simply because it's good exercise for the brain.
Ha! That's what he gets for not checking his inputs :P
Since firmware v1.1.4 all user-level applications run as the 'mobile' user - which is an account with limited rights. Not saying that iPhones are impenetrable, but at least that one glaring problem has been fixed.
Humming/tapping finders, pshaw! If the company has shown so little interest in using the guy's time for his remaining few weeks, he should requisition a good projector and a conference room, bring in an xbox and host Halo tournaments or some such. A person sitting at a desk or talking to other employees just doesn't make the point that having him there (doing nothing) is wasting everyone's time quite as well as 110" of glorious hd gaming on a conference room wall does.
Sarcasm is almost always easily determined by context - this tilde nonsense is completely unnecessary.
<comic-book-guy-voice>
Ooh - a sarcasm notator, that's real useful.
</comic-book-guy-voice>
That is indeed what I meant - sorry if I offended your linguistic aesthetic sense. And while I'm at it - I also meant "crept" not "creeped".
Oh please - the fact that this somewhat resembles a *pending* regulation (not law) by the FCC is a total red herring. The media conglomerates asked for it (and no doubt greased some palms along the way) and Microsoft gave it to them.
The only situation I've encountered regarding the broadcasters determining what I could do with their programs is that I cannot pull the majority of HD recordings off the Tivo due to the flags the broadcaster set. As to why Tivo is ignoring the "do not record" flags set by the broadcaster: they aren't required to - so why should they?
I completely agree - especially for the Winter Olympics :P
Quite right - thanks!
I understand your point, but frankly, the "harhar post it on slashdot" crowd is absolutely right. The people he wants read this site, I can guarantee it, and at least a mention of the project's site would have done him some enormous good. Honestly, creating interest in something you're doing involves announcing its existence to like-minded people. What better forum than this one?
...only in IE 6 - but then it's *really* awkward.
The problem is the stock (1.8.x) ruby interpreter. As the language matures, better and better implementations of the interpreters are cropping up, and it seems that ruby 2.0 will easily catch up with python in terms of performance. There's nothing wrong with the language - blaming the language for the failure of the interpreter is tantamount to blaming C for the difference between the output of intel compilers vs. gcc.
Slightly OT, but if someone is savvy enough to hack a WEP encrypted network, they'll be savvy enough to sidestep MAC address restrictions - use WPA2, or even a RADIUS/VPN solution if you want real security.
As far as shell commands go - that one is pretty trivial; if, however, you are so terminal averse that that little one-liner scares you, there's Eiciel for Linux, which is a gnome app for ACL management.
Actually the part that *you* missed is that Apple sent out an email the night before the beta software expired telling developers to update their software before it was disabled.
Yes - Apple is the first company ever to expire beta software, forcing you to upgrade to the *now available* new version of the beta software (if you are a legitimate, registered beta tester). Oh wait, no they're not. Disabling expired beta software, when new beta software is available, is a very useful tool in generating relevant, up to date feedback to further improve said beta software. There is nothing nefarious going on here.