Not on my computer. I only have to type things once or (when there is a typo) twice. If I turn on speach recognition I get all the joy of asking the computer over and over:
"Computer, close window"
"Computer, close window"
"Computer, close window"
by the time I ask twice, I could have used the keyboard or mouse. To get voice recognition to work, it might take 10 tries and still not work.
Thier going to "flex their muscle"? Give me a break. The percentage of music sold online vs. CDs is tiny. Apple has maybe 60% marketshare in a very immature market. There's not enough muscle there.
Also, I think your split of the proceeds is fantasy land. Currently the split is more like 90% label, 8% Apple (to partially cover costs), 1% performer, 1%writier. Apple isn't going to help the writers and performers out.
If they can hang on and be the market leader 3-5 years from now, then they will have enough muscle to start making money.
I used to buy lots of things on ebay. I also tried selling on eBay a couple of times. After being ripped off twice (once as buyer, once as seller), I'll never use eBay again. I used to use it between 1997-2000 and that's about the point where I quit.
It all comes down to this: I was buying and selling on there *for fun*. There is nothing on eBay I can't live without. I have a real job and do not need to sell anything on eBay to make money. The one time I tried selling something it was because my daughter wanted to sell some dolls and we ended up getting ripped off.
Once it quits being fun, its time to pull the plug! That's why I won't ever use it again. There's just too many other stores where I don't get ripped off (and don't have to worry about it either.)
Looking through auctions on eBay used to be fun around 1997-98. Today, there are enough frauds that its not fun for me anymore.
From your post, it sounds to me like you are doing win32 programming. It also sounds like you are trying to use a bunch of those calls that Microsoft has that end in "ex".
You're right. Those damn calls have so many goddamned parameters and complicated structures to fill out, it feels like you're going on a snipe hunt every time you want to make a system call.
Try Qt. Its not quite as efficient as win32, but for GUIs, it generally doesn't matter. For other things, the key is to make as few system calls as possible and instead rely on the C/C++ standard libraries.
I'm lucky. I get to write commercial software for MacOS X using Cocoa. Still, the bugs I have are mostly due to having to make system calls. When I'm writing code to hold and manipulate data using the STL, I have very few bugs. Where I run into trouble is when I want to use something like Quicktime or other system APIs where I don't really know what the calls are doing and there are a lot of undocumented gotchas.
You really need to check out Raskin's book "The Humane Interface" and the information on his website. He is working to buld a new paradigm for software interfaces based on information that has been discovered in the field of human factors/human computer interaction since 1984.
Raskin *is* a visionary (he's the guy who started the Macintosh project at Apple), and does have specific ideas.
Linux is an operating system. It doesn't provide support for a given program. A given program is written with the intention of running on linux. Or not. The decision here is not one that Linus and the linux community make - but one that Adobe, Macromedia, and the companies that make the applications make.
This is not exactly true. I work for a company that makes a high volume software product for both MacOS X and Windows 2K/XP. We would like to make a version of it for Linux. However, Linux does not have the correct "support" for us in their OS. What I mean by this is that there is not a standard binary format for developing Linux software applications and having them work on "Linux" PCs. Instead, you have to create a different binary for every version of every Linux distribution. This is a nightmare. The Open Source guys get around this by just shipping source code and having the user compile it themselves. We do not have that option for a variety of reasons. One of which is that we have some algorithms in our product that has military applications and we've been going back and forth with the DOD regarding these algorithms. I'm not directly involved in those discussions and IANAL, so I don't know a lot of details about it except to say that we will not be shipping source code.
Until Linux gets some support for an executable format that can work on all versions of Linux, we won't be shipping a Linux version of our app. Obviously I don't expect miracles. I'd be totally willing to have support only for x86 Linux (i.e. I get that Linux on PowerPC could not run the same executable and I know there are Linux solutions for a variety of chipsets), but if Apple can have one executable work on OS 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3, then I ought to be able to run the same app on the same PC whether it running RedHat or some new rev of RedHat, or Suse, or any other Linux distro. It ought to be more like developing for WinCE which supports multiple chipsets, but the same app works on two different devices if they have the same processor family. I also believe that if you do the right things (i.e. use documented calls), you can write an app for CE that works with newer versions of CE. Every other platform I've developed for is the same way. Older well written apps work with newer revs of the OS with some rare exceptions. Linux needs to behave that way or you will continue to not have commercial development.
If you're OK using Gimp instead of Photoshop, more power to you! If you don't *want* versions of commercial programs, that's fine by me. Linux and Open Source are wonderful just the way they are, but don't bitch that you don't have commercial developers lining up when Linux goes out of its way to make it hard for us to deliver software in a manner that is acceptable to us.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah
on
Why iPod Can't Save Apple
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'll make you a deal. Since all that's stopping you is the mouse, you buy a G5 and send me a copy of the receipt and I will personally buy you a two button mouse.
and that we DID go to the moon, and went there after creating an amazing space launch infrastructure in a very short time.
Merely asserting something doesn't necessarily make it true. I seriously believe that the moon landing may have been faked, not based on nit picky evidence and counter-evidence. Instead, I base it on the fact that supposedly we did all this in the 60s and early 70s with such great success. Since then, NASA hasn't taken a human outside of earth orbit and has killed a lot of people with the Space Shuttle.
Plus, I just don't trust the US government not to lie big time. They had the means, motive, and opportunity to fake the moon landing. That plus the fact that the US hasn't been back, or done anything significant with human space flight since the suppoed moon missions leads me to believe that it was fake.
Ignore the rule. I have a small cell phone and I keep it in my pocket and on vibrate.
Keep doing what you are doing and see how long you can get away with it. Most of the time companies make policies of this kind to stop 1 or 2 people from abusing something. For example, maybe there are 1 or 2 people in your company making too many personal calls on the cell phone. If you are not that person, they are unlikely to care if you keep using your phone.
It is always easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Plus, you have a good reason to use it to monitor your servers. I bet no one says anything if you don't flaunt it in people's faces.
If the kid you are describing is fine with the way he is and his level of social acceptance, I think he is more than OK. He will probably end up a very "boring" PhD who relates to his colleagues on a professional and academic level. He'll probably be a very hated prof if he goes into that. If he goes into industry, he'll be a great engineer and a terrible manager - hopefully people will recognize his personality and not make him a manager, but instead make him a researcher.
It's the guy who invented VariMax rotations in statistics. He was a total animal who never talked to anyone except about statistics and god help the grad student who had him on his or her committee.
The only problem is if his level of social acceptance bothers *him*.
Fashion or, as I prefer to think of it, good industrial design, really works best as a tie breaker feature for consumer electronics. Industrial design by itself will not sell a product. It will not make up a huge difference in cost.
Size doesn't help for non-portable devices either. For example, people were not willing to pay $1700 for the PowerMac G4 Cube when they could get the same hardware in a tower for $1200. Even though the cube was *really* cool. I have a G4 cube right here (no, I didn't buy it myself and I have no idea why my company bought it). I can tell you that the cube is *very cool*. The industrial design is awesome. On the other hand, If I had been buying a computer at the time, I would have bought the tower.
On the other hand, the iPod mini is a portable device. People will pay more for a smaller portable device. Phones, laptops, MP3 players, etc. The smaller the better and people will pay for it!
I think that the iPod mini is selling because it is a good device that is well made, that has good value. It is better than most of its competitors. Also, it costs less dollars than any other iPod. Some people care about price more than price per anything.
I'm sick of this "Microsoft saved/bought Apple" crap that I keep hearing from uninformed retards.
*After* it was totally apparent that Steve Jobs had saved Apple, Microsoft took the opportunity to buy a real small amount of Apple's stock at at an artificially low price (they made a killing on it as the stock went up 10x in value from that over the next year).
Microsoft also got some good PR for their Mac Office product which had long been a cash cow for Microsoft. In the year leading up to the release of Office 98 and the announcement, Microsoft's sales of Office for Mac had been surpased by Nissus Writer. After they got their big PR boost thanks to Steve they were back raking in the dough from selling Office for Mac.
The amount of stock they bought was $150 million. At the time, Apple had a $7 Billion price cap and $2 Billion in cash on hand. The quarter that MS made their "investment", Apple's profits were more than $150 million.
Also Apple was forced to cross license patents with Microsoft and ship Microsoft's crappy IE browser as the default on Mac systems.
Did Microsoft "prop up" Apple. Hardly. They took advantage of a weak moment and robbed Apple blind.
was to try to do anything to help the police. The police are a bunch of thugs and they've proven it again in this case. Never help the police - you will get screwed. Don't have anything to do with the police. If you ever get arrested, shut up and only speak through your lawyer.
Slashdot Mirror
speaking to a machine is just like typing to it
Not on my computer. I only have to type things once or (when there is a typo) twice. If I turn on speach recognition I get all the joy of asking the computer over and over:
"Computer, close window"
"Computer, close window"
"Computer, close window"
by the time I ask twice, I could have used the keyboard or mouse. To get voice recognition to work, it might take 10 tries and still not work.
Maybe it really would be a mugger's dream then. They aren't expecting crime. I could move there and be the top mugger!
Thier going to "flex their muscle"? Give me a break. The percentage of music sold online vs. CDs is tiny. Apple has maybe 60% marketshare in a very immature market. There's not enough muscle there.
Also, I think your split of the proceeds is fantasy land. Currently the split is more like 90% label, 8% Apple (to partially cover costs), 1% performer, 1%writier. Apple isn't going to help the writers and performers out.
If they can hang on and be the market leader 3-5 years from now, then they will have enough muscle to start making money.
I used to buy lots of things on ebay. I also tried selling on eBay a couple of times. After being ripped off twice (once as buyer, once as seller), I'll never use eBay again. I used to use it between 1997-2000 and that's about the point where I quit.
It all comes down to this: I was buying and selling on there *for fun*. There is nothing on eBay I can't live without. I have a real job and do not need to sell anything on eBay to make money. The one time I tried selling something it was because my daughter wanted to sell some dolls and we ended up getting ripped off.
Once it quits being fun, its time to pull the plug! That's why I won't ever use it again. There's just too many other stores where I don't get ripped off (and don't have to worry about it either.)
Looking through auctions on eBay used to be fun around 1997-98. Today, there are enough frauds that its not fun for me anymore.
From your post, it sounds to me like you are doing win32 programming. It also sounds like you are trying to use a bunch of those calls that Microsoft has that end in "ex".
You're right. Those damn calls have so many goddamned parameters and complicated structures to fill out, it feels like you're going on a snipe hunt every time you want to make a system call.
Try Qt. Its not quite as efficient as win32, but for GUIs, it generally doesn't matter. For other things, the key is to make as few system calls as possible and instead rely on the C/C++ standard libraries.
I'm lucky. I get to write commercial software for MacOS X using Cocoa. Still, the bugs I have are mostly due to having to make system calls. When I'm writing code to hold and manipulate data using the STL, I have very few bugs. Where I run into trouble is when I want to use something like Quicktime or other system APIs where I don't really know what the calls are doing and there are a lot of undocumented gotchas.
You really need to check out Raskin's book "The Humane Interface" and the information on his website. He is working to buld a new paradigm for software interfaces based on information that has been discovered in the field of human factors/human computer interaction since 1984.
Raskin *is* a visionary (he's the guy who started the Macintosh project at Apple), and does have specific ideas.
He said "loosing plantiff pays", not "loosing party pays". Think about the difference.
Linux is an operating system. It doesn't provide support for a given program. A given program is written with the intention of running on linux. Or not. The decision here is not one that Linus and the linux community make - but one that Adobe, Macromedia, and the companies that make the applications make.
This is not exactly true. I work for a company that makes a high volume software product for both MacOS X and Windows 2K/XP. We would like to make a version of it for Linux. However, Linux does not have the correct "support" for us in their OS. What I mean by this is that there is not a standard binary format for developing Linux software applications and having them work on "Linux" PCs. Instead, you have to create a different binary for every version of every Linux distribution. This is a nightmare. The Open Source guys get around this by just shipping source code and having the user compile it themselves. We do not have that option for a variety of reasons. One of which is that we have some algorithms in our product that has military applications and we've been going back and forth with the DOD regarding these algorithms. I'm not directly involved in those discussions and IANAL, so I don't know a lot of details about it except to say that we will not be shipping source code.
Until Linux gets some support for an executable format that can work on all versions of Linux, we won't be shipping a Linux version of our app. Obviously I don't expect miracles. I'd be totally willing to have support only for x86 Linux (i.e. I get that Linux on PowerPC could not run the same executable and I know there are Linux solutions for a variety of chipsets), but if Apple can have one executable work on OS 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3, then I ought to be able to run the same app on the same PC whether it running RedHat or some new rev of RedHat, or Suse, or any other Linux distro. It ought to be more like developing for WinCE which supports multiple chipsets, but the same app works on two different devices if they have the same processor family. I also believe that if you do the right things (i.e. use documented calls), you can write an app for CE that works with newer versions of CE. Every other platform I've developed for is the same way. Older well written apps work with newer revs of the OS with some rare exceptions. Linux needs to behave that way or you will continue to not have commercial development.
If you're OK using Gimp instead of Photoshop, more power to you! If you don't *want* versions of commercial programs, that's fine by me. Linux and Open Source are wonderful just the way they are, but don't bitch that you don't have commercial developers lining up when Linux goes out of its way to make it hard for us to deliver software in a manner that is acceptable to us.
I'll make you a deal. Since all that's stopping you is the mouse, you buy a G5 and send me a copy of the receipt and I will personally buy you a two button mouse.
and that we DID go to the moon, and went there after creating an amazing space launch infrastructure in a very short time.
Merely asserting something doesn't necessarily make it true. I seriously believe that the moon landing may have been faked, not based on nit picky evidence and counter-evidence. Instead, I base it on the fact that supposedly we did all this in the 60s and early 70s with such great success. Since then, NASA hasn't taken a human outside of earth orbit and has killed a lot of people with the Space Shuttle.
Plus, I just don't trust the US government not to lie big time. They had the means, motive, and opportunity to fake the moon landing. That plus the fact that the US hasn't been back, or done anything significant with human space flight since the suppoed moon missions leads me to believe that it was fake.
Thanks. I've been trying to forget that movie for the past 20 years!
Ignore the rule. I have a small cell phone and I keep it in my pocket and on vibrate.
Keep doing what you are doing and see how long you can get away with it. Most of the time companies make policies of this kind to stop 1 or 2 people from abusing something. For example, maybe there are 1 or 2 people in your company making too many personal calls on the cell phone. If you are not that person, they are unlikely to care if you keep using your phone.
It is always easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Plus, you have a good reason to use it to monitor your servers. I bet no one says anything if you don't flaunt it in people's faces.
I wouldn't be that worried if the scorpian bit me. Instead I'd be worried if a scorpian stung me.
And also you have the noise of the freezer to contend with.
I think that all hard drives should come pre-loaded from the manufacturer with pr0n.
I am le tired!
I have a counter argument: Apple *should* fuck with French composers.
Apple should try to change local laws of France, not work with them.
Just my opinion, but if Apple fights for its rights, it means a lot more than the average French citizen fighting for his/her rights.
Wow, they lost a lawsuit about the iPod over a decade ago? I gues they've been making iPods longer than I thought!
If the kid you are describing is fine with the way he is and his level of social acceptance, I think he is more than OK. He will probably end up a very "boring" PhD who relates to his colleagues on a professional and academic level. He'll probably be a very hated prof if he goes into that. If he goes into industry, he'll be a great engineer and a terrible manager - hopefully people will recognize his personality and not make him a manager, but instead make him a researcher.
It's the guy who invented VariMax rotations in statistics. He was a total animal who never talked to anyone except about statistics and god help the grad student who had him on his or her committee.
The only problem is if his level of social acceptance bothers *him*.
Fuck Darl. Sell me the happy pill. I want to be happy.
They already have that. Its called a Big Wheel.
Fashion or, as I prefer to think of it, good industrial design, really works best as a tie breaker feature for consumer electronics. Industrial design by itself will not sell a product. It will not make up a huge difference in cost.
Size doesn't help for non-portable devices either. For example, people were not willing to pay $1700 for the PowerMac G4 Cube when they could get the same hardware in a tower for $1200. Even though the cube was *really* cool. I have a G4 cube right here (no, I didn't buy it myself and I have no idea why my company bought it). I can tell you that the cube is *very cool*. The industrial design is awesome. On the other hand, If I had been buying a computer at the time, I would have bought the tower.
On the other hand, the iPod mini is a portable device. People will pay more for a smaller portable device. Phones, laptops, MP3 players, etc. The smaller the better and people will pay for it!
I think that the iPod mini is selling because it is a good device that is well made, that has good value. It is better than most of its competitors. Also, it costs less dollars than any other iPod. Some people care about price more than price per anything.
How long do you think it takes a ship full of iPods to get to the US from Taiwan?
I'm sick of this "Microsoft saved/bought Apple" crap that I keep hearing from uninformed retards.
*After* it was totally apparent that Steve Jobs had saved Apple, Microsoft took the opportunity to buy a real small amount of Apple's stock at at an artificially low price (they made a killing on it as the stock went up 10x in value from that over the next year).
Microsoft also got some good PR for their Mac Office product which had long been a cash cow for Microsoft. In the year leading up to the release of Office 98 and the announcement, Microsoft's sales of Office for Mac had been surpased by Nissus Writer. After they got their big PR boost thanks to Steve they were back raking in the dough from selling Office for Mac.
The amount of stock they bought was $150 million. At the time, Apple had a $7 Billion price cap and $2 Billion in cash on hand. The quarter that MS made their "investment", Apple's profits were more than $150 million.
Also Apple was forced to cross license patents with Microsoft and ship Microsoft's crappy IE browser as the default on Mac systems.
Did Microsoft "prop up" Apple. Hardly. They took advantage of a weak moment and robbed Apple blind.
was to try to do anything to help the police. The police are a bunch of thugs and they've proven it again in this case. Never help the police - you will get screwed. Don't have anything to do with the police. If you ever get arrested, shut up and only speak through your lawyer.