As most designers will hopefully agree, Adobe's software is stable, well designed, consistent in operation and relatively intuitive. However, their web offerings are limited. On the other hand, Macromedia's web centric software is unstable, (IMHO) appallingly designed, inconsistent and very hard to learn. So, now Adobe and Macromedia are one, hopefully they can combine the pluses of their cultures and products to the benefit of frustrated designers & developers everywhere.
The Americans are being savvy. After all, the screens and graphics drivers on Pocket PC, Palm and some of the latest phones may not match the PSP but they are good enough quality to play games. And not to mention the more versatile touch screen equipped Tapwave Zodiac. The issue here is people do not want to carry around yet another device. The PSP is not versatile enough. There is no hard drive (silly), no Bluetooth to allow for phone functionality and without a communications OS infrastructure, no way to manage your contacts for multiplayer gameplay, something 'phones' do out of the box. The phone will become the game platform, not the other way around. Why? Cost of entry.
Although never seen on a laptop, we modified an Atari Jaguar controller in about 1995 with a motion sensor and used it to control their bundled video game. You tilted it to steer. It was just a prototype but we should have patented it looking back. With rergards to this brilliant Powerbook app, it would be nice to make it clear the screen/canvas in Photoshop and other graphics apps by shaking the machine, like Etch-A-Sketch!
...a learned skill which comes about from being educated in the methods, ethics and practices that go with such a sensitive and vital occupation. I started my blog in 1994 (yup, 11 years ago) and always mentioned in my disclaimer that it was based on my opinions and observations. The patterns us bloggers see in the clouds depend on the viewing angle, while journalists will (should!) spend time viewing the clouds from assorted angles to obtain the truth.
Along with social retardation, it is games that say it's ok to be the bad buy that corrupts not the actual violence. Real life soldiers go to war and return better behaved than us civilians. Says it all really. Nothing like a good shoot up to release some pent up anger, just as long as you're taking the moral high ground on the battlefield.
OSX is in fact irrelevant to Apple's future, as are most other major operating systems to their creators. What is the future, and the iPod and Nokia's 200million per year mobile phone sales prove, is that various interconnected devices that confirm to industry standard protocols are the way forward. The electronic musical instrument industry has proven this thanks to the amazing success of MIDI which binds most instruments, yet each instrument is based on it's own unique software/hardware. OSX will become a server OS and Apple will eventually tailor software to suite the client device - as per the iPod which communicates with it's host using standard protocols (USB, MP3, Firewire etc). And if Apple don't (continue) to do this, an as yet unheard of (unformed?) company will, and they will sell products in the sort of quantities Nokia do, which dwarf even sales of the iPod and Mac. Ironically, Nokia could become the all powerful mega entity that networks our world. After all, the future is all based on communication and sharing.
So I literally threw the printer away and purchased a Canon Pixus iP 4000 which is not only a brilliantly designed piece of kit but it's transparent cartridges tell the truth and will keep on printing until totally drained. The rest of the printer industry is corrupt. We don't really need to print that much anyway do we? I mean, why print photos when you can view them online and/or on your phone, on your PDA, on your portable media player, on your DVD player, on your laptop, on your TV/Media Centre, on your electronic picture frame etc etc. Let's destroy HP and Epson by ceasing to use our printers for anything but contracts and other legal docs.
It's amazing how the world is hoodwinked every time an initially well meaning entity is transformed once money is introduced into the equation. If Google charge for Wikipedia, then the poor will once again be unable to provide an education to their children, while the wealthy minority will be able to further line their wallets. If on the other hand, Google simply host WikiP, then that will be great news. Be assured however that those in high places will do their utmost to stop the poor majority from seeking the world's most valuable asset, knowledge. For that is the way that those in power stay in power. And that's no conspiracy but the way the world has worked for millenia. Solution? A wealthy person of good character needs to back Wikipedia before it is too late.
They don't have the financial resources...
on
Mapping Google Maps
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· Score: 1
I saw a fantastic mapping system covering Oxford, England. Alas, I have lost the URL, but it used Java and did everything the latest Google maps do, plus real time rotation AND zooming, plus every single landmark, business, river, stream and whatever. However, chances are the company that developed it didn't have the staff or resources or business acumen to take it global or plug it into a major portal.
A large proportion of people don't take an in-depth interest in material pocessions, technology etc, and therefore, are not (alas) qualified to sort the lemons from the cherries. And just as most of us/.ers probably don't pay much attention to mature literature, day to day politics and a few other 'boring' subjects that we are probably not (all) qualified to comment on, the general public just assume (trust!) what they are buying will work. The mind boggles at what would happen if cars were as unreliable as computers. But then there are life or death safety concerns in that market. Either way, there are one or two yet to be revealed to the public 'products' in development that will offer an alternative to Windows. Mac OS-X or Linux Desktop offerings while cool in certain ways, are not significantly different than XP to offer an alternative. Anything that is to unseat MS will need to be both radical and cost effective in the long run. Using the iPod as an example, when launched it may have seemed expensive, but it was only twice the price of the alternative Flash based players, yet stored 20 times as much music. Any new OS will need to be that much better than Windows. Thoughts?
Sorry, my typo does not change my opinion. The software industy is partially responsible for piracy. In 1985, my company developed the world's first desktop publishing software (marketed by a 3rd party and available for the British Broadcasting Computer) and despite it's innovative features (some not even available today), it was priced at £49. (I'm not contesting Apple's pricing by the way, which is very fair.) But most apps are over £300, which is totally rediculous and encourages piracy because a spure of the moment purchase is impossible. I paid £450 for Dreamweaver MX 2004 and it a) Has masses of bugs, b) The ftp component is useless (as covered on various forums and almost admitted by Macromedia in my support phone calls to them) and it's slow as hell. And that despite the fact I paid £300 for an earlier version that was even worse but too early to qualify for an upgrade. When the sofware industry learns to be responsible and provide a product a product that works, piracy of software will fall. (Look at how Apple's excellent iTunes service has helped the music industry.) I could go on, and as a software developer, I refute that greed works. It does not. Be good and the people will worship you.
If I buy something, it should work for life or as long as I choose to own it. I also object to paid upgrades. For example, I paid £99 (UK) for iLife 4 from Apple. They have now launched iLife 5 which fixes flaws in iPhoto (amongst other things). I should NOT have to pay for it and will be pirating iPhoto 5 it as a protest against this kind of behaviour by vendors. Of course, there is no moral problem with NEW users paying more for a later version of an application than earlier versions. If you want to protest what Intuit are doing, refuse to pay them and look for alternatives. Protest with your wallet!
In trial mode in London currently, GoNumber.com has featured photos for a while, but we carefully position ourselves to get the best picture - even taking night time shots of restaurants to make them look more inviting - the yellow glow thing. A new version of GoNumber.com is in the works, based on open source of course and featuring a slew of innovations. That said, we're a bit smaller than A9 and their owners, so we may need to talk to them.
When living in California (1991-2000) I was shocked that one actually has to pay for incoming calls! And now texts? What moral right does a firm have to charge for unsolicited 'anything'?
and history shows it. In fact, all the industry need do is offer flat rate plans. Unlimited talktime and texts for a fixed amount, just like broadband. People cannot plan their cashflow around unpredictable billing. I know people here in the UK close to suicidal over their phone bills which in turn effect their credit and ability to maintain a bank account. Being communicative is NOT irresponsible it is human nature! I say, let the kids talk and text as much as they want. We are human not machines.
Having lived both in the US and UK and spent half a lifetime hanging around in audio visual stores and owning various technologies, it is patently obvious simply by looking at CRT based TVs next to flat panel TVs just how much better the CRTs are from brightness, colour rendition and lack of pixelization. Most purchased of flat panels are simply (and I suppose rightly) because they are more attractive, save space and use less power. This is mainly because CRT manufacturers have spent 50 years improving the technology, while the (consumer) flat panel TV business is only a few years old.
Although originally conceived (years ago) as a commercial venture, it will soon be free. It's a Personal listing at GoNumber.com where a 'greeting' message can be left on a person's listing ('SPACECARD') by the listing owner. For example, "I'm ok, please don't worry." We will be removing the $15 fee when the new open source version goes live in the first qtr of 2005, but anyone wanting a FREE lifetime listing NOW can contact us here and we'll forward you a promotion code to bypass the commerce server.
This is a moral outrage
on
Re-Pet a Reality
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Why? a) The woman (had to be from LA didn't she?) is too thick (British word for stupid) to realize that you cannot clone the soul. b) As other have pointed out, the flaws in genetic clones reduce the life expectancy of the cloned 'victim'. c) This is just not necessary. Why is it that Americans are so goddam stupid? Their movies tend to focus on a moral completion to a plot, while in reality, they just allow outragious goings on that eventually corrupt and offend the rest of the world to seep into society across the globe? It just will not surprise me if within the next few years, there is a global armed uprising against some of the moral crap going on, from cloning animals (and eventually people), getting consumers addicted to unrequired prescription drugs to advertising junk products to children. If you find something revolting, revolt! Before it is too late!
I was driving 90mph in my own (none-Smart/Zap) car last year near London, and a Smart car overtook me at a lot more than 90, more like 110mph. The Smart cars have an excellent safety record here and it is about time folks in the USA accepted them as they are not only a lot of fun and easier to park, but use literally 1/4 of the gasoline of your typical North American vehicle.
1. Unlike the far more sensibly run (from a business angle) auto industry, the electronics industry has a habit of dicontinuing budget models (in this case black and white Palms with long battery life) which would appeal to majority of the public.
2. Handspring/PalmOne's slow roll out of the Treo 650 and it's lack of 3G or WiFi support (unlike WiFi capability of many Pocket PC devices) means Treo 650 is what is should have been a year ago.
3. Poor marketing and reliability issues with European Treos has given it a bad name, despite being a fantastic product.
4. Microsoft have consistently won not because they are better, but when their competitors slipped up. Netscape had the chance to build webcentric apps into their browser (such as an icon for a shareable spreadsheet or similar), but lost their 'mojo'. So, today, the only innovative browser is Safari (not Firefox!) from Apple.
5. For Palm to make it big, they need to produce something that is basically a Treo 650 minus the antenna but plus WiFi, 3G (for Europe) and an iPod like internal hard drive so it can act as an entertainer and data pod. You MUST demolish your competition to stay ahead - as Apple have done with the iPod. Just plodding along gets you nowhere - slowly.
As I hope you guessed, I was being a little tongue in cheek with the golf players remark, but am sure you know what I meant. Having spent 10 years in Silicon Valley, I found a noticeable personality difference between the MBA types and engineers. I have always found engineers to be significantly more friendly trusting and likable, while the other side were cold, distant and didn't really 'get it'. I think this would be a good topic for discussion on Slashdot, but in view of current world political situation, labelling people is probably not a good idea.
Slashdot Mirror
As most designers will hopefully agree, Adobe's software is stable, well designed, consistent in operation and relatively intuitive. However, their web offerings are limited. On the other hand, Macromedia's web centric software is unstable, (IMHO) appallingly designed, inconsistent and very hard to learn. So, now Adobe and Macromedia are one, hopefully they can combine the pluses of their cultures and products to the benefit of frustrated designers & developers everywhere.
The Americans are being savvy. After all, the screens and graphics drivers on Pocket PC, Palm and some of the latest phones may not match the PSP but they are good enough quality to play games. And not to mention the more versatile touch screen equipped Tapwave Zodiac. The issue here is people do not want to carry around yet another device. The PSP is not versatile enough. There is no hard drive (silly), no Bluetooth to allow for phone functionality and without a communications OS infrastructure, no way to manage your contacts for multiplayer gameplay, something 'phones' do out of the box. The phone will become the game platform, not the other way around. Why? Cost of entry.
Although never seen on a laptop, we modified an Atari Jaguar controller in about 1995 with a motion sensor and used it to control their bundled video game. You tilted it to steer. It was just a prototype but we should have patented it looking back. With rergards to this brilliant Powerbook app, it would be nice to make it clear the screen/canvas in Photoshop and other graphics apps by shaking the machine, like Etch-A-Sketch!
You are dead right, and I've been preaching this concept since 1980 - and can prove it.
...a learned skill which comes about from being educated in the methods, ethics and practices that go with such a sensitive and vital occupation. I started my blog in 1994 (yup, 11 years ago) and always mentioned in my disclaimer that it was based on my opinions and observations. The patterns us bloggers see in the clouds depend on the viewing angle, while journalists will (should!) spend time viewing the clouds from assorted angles to obtain the truth.
Along with social retardation, it is games that say it's ok to be the bad buy that corrupts not the actual violence. Real life soldiers go to war and return better behaved than us civilians. Says it all really. Nothing like a good shoot up to release some pent up anger, just as long as you're taking the moral high ground on the battlefield.
OSX is in fact irrelevant to Apple's future, as are most other major operating systems to their creators. What is the future, and the iPod and Nokia's 200million per year mobile phone sales prove, is that various interconnected devices that confirm to industry standard protocols are the way forward. The electronic musical instrument industry has proven this thanks to the amazing success of MIDI which binds most instruments, yet each instrument is based on it's own unique software/hardware. OSX will become a server OS and Apple will eventually tailor software to suite the client device - as per the iPod which communicates with it's host using standard protocols (USB, MP3, Firewire etc). And if Apple don't (continue) to do this, an as yet unheard of (unformed?) company will, and they will sell products in the sort of quantities Nokia do, which dwarf even sales of the iPod and Mac. Ironically, Nokia could become the all powerful mega entity that networks our world. After all, the future is all based on communication and sharing.
So I literally threw the printer away and purchased a Canon Pixus iP 4000 which is not only a brilliantly designed piece of kit but it's transparent cartridges tell the truth and will keep on printing until totally drained. The rest of the printer industry is corrupt. We don't really need to print that much anyway do we? I mean, why print photos when you can view them online and/or on your phone, on your PDA, on your portable media player, on your DVD player, on your laptop, on your TV/Media Centre, on your electronic picture frame etc etc. Let's destroy HP and Epson by ceasing to use our printers for anything but contracts and other legal docs.
Why is it no matter how carefully one edits ones /. posting, one always makes a boo boo? Ah well, to err is to be hyooman.
...if we melt the water. And my tounge in cheek Mars Hydro website may well fortell a commercial future too? :-)
It's amazing how the world is hoodwinked every time an initially well meaning entity is transformed once money is introduced into the equation. If Google charge for Wikipedia, then the poor will once again be unable to provide an education to their children, while the wealthy minority will be able to further line their wallets. If on the other hand, Google simply host WikiP, then that will be great news. Be assured however that those in high places will do their utmost to stop the poor majority from seeking the world's most valuable asset, knowledge. For that is the way that those in power stay in power. And that's no conspiracy but the way the world has worked for millenia. Solution? A wealthy person of good character needs to back Wikipedia before it is too late.
I saw a fantastic mapping system covering Oxford, England. Alas, I have lost the URL, but it used Java and did everything the latest Google maps do, plus real time rotation AND zooming, plus every single landmark, business, river, stream and whatever. However, chances are the company that developed it didn't have the staff or resources or business acumen to take it global or plug it into a major portal.
A large proportion of people don't take an in-depth interest in material pocessions, technology etc, and therefore, are not (alas) qualified to sort the lemons from the cherries. And just as most of us /.ers probably don't pay much attention to mature literature, day to day politics and a few other 'boring' subjects that we are probably not (all) qualified to comment on, the general public just assume (trust!) what they are buying will work. The mind boggles at what would happen if cars were as unreliable as computers. But then there are life or death safety concerns in that market. Either way, there are one or two yet to be revealed to the public 'products' in development that will offer an alternative to Windows. Mac OS-X or Linux Desktop offerings while cool in certain ways, are not significantly different than XP to offer an alternative. Anything that is to unseat MS will need to be both radical and cost effective in the long run. Using the iPod as an example, when launched it may have seemed expensive, but it was only twice the price of the alternative Flash based players, yet stored 20 times as much music. Any new OS will need to be that much better than Windows. Thoughts?
Sorry, my typo does not change my opinion. The software industy is partially responsible for piracy. In 1985, my company developed the world's first desktop publishing software (marketed by a 3rd party and available for the British Broadcasting Computer) and despite it's innovative features (some not even available today), it was priced at £49. (I'm not contesting Apple's pricing by the way, which is very fair.) But most apps are over £300, which is totally rediculous and encourages piracy because a spure of the moment purchase is impossible. I paid £450 for Dreamweaver MX 2004 and it a) Has masses of bugs, b) The ftp component is useless (as covered on various forums and almost admitted by Macromedia in my support phone calls to them) and it's slow as hell. And that despite the fact I paid £300 for an earlier version that was even worse but too early to qualify for an upgrade. When the sofware industry learns to be responsible and provide a product a product that works, piracy of software will fall. (Look at how Apple's excellent iTunes service has helped the music industry.) I could go on, and as a software developer, I refute that greed works. It does not. Be good and the people will worship you.
If I buy something, it should work for life or as long as I choose to own it. I also object to paid upgrades. For example, I paid £99 (UK) for iLife 4 from Apple. They have now launched iLife 5 which fixes flaws in iPhoto (amongst other things). I should NOT have to pay for it and will be pirating iPhoto 5 it as a protest against this kind of behaviour by vendors. Of course, there is no moral problem with NEW users paying more for a later version of an application than earlier versions. If you want to protest what Intuit are doing, refuse to pay them and look for alternatives. Protest with your wallet!
In trial mode in London currently, GoNumber.com has featured photos for a while, but we carefully position ourselves to get the best picture - even taking night time shots of restaurants to make them look more inviting - the yellow glow thing. A new version of GoNumber.com is in the works, based on open source of course and featuring a slew of innovations. That said, we're a bit smaller than A9 and their owners, so we may need to talk to them.
When living in California (1991-2000) I was shocked that one actually has to pay for incoming calls! And now texts? What moral right does a firm have to charge for unsolicited 'anything'?
and history shows it. In fact, all the industry need do is offer flat rate plans. Unlimited talktime and texts for a fixed amount, just like broadband. People cannot plan their cashflow around unpredictable billing. I know people here in the UK close to suicidal over their phone bills which in turn effect their credit and ability to maintain a bank account. Being communicative is NOT irresponsible it is human nature! I say, let the kids talk and text as much as they want. We are human not machines.
Having lived both in the US and UK and spent half a lifetime hanging around in audio visual stores and owning various technologies, it is patently obvious simply by looking at CRT based TVs next to flat panel TVs just how much better the CRTs are from brightness, colour rendition and lack of pixelization. Most purchased of flat panels are simply (and I suppose rightly) because they are more attractive, save space and use less power. This is mainly because CRT manufacturers have spent 50 years improving the technology, while the (consumer) flat panel TV business is only a few years old.
Learn more here.
Why? a) The woman (had to be from LA didn't she?) is too thick (British word for stupid) to realize that you cannot clone the soul. b) As other have pointed out, the flaws in genetic clones reduce the life expectancy of the cloned 'victim'. c) This is just not necessary. Why is it that Americans are so goddam stupid? Their movies tend to focus on a moral completion to a plot, while in reality, they just allow outragious goings on that eventually corrupt and offend the rest of the world to seep into society across the globe? It just will not surprise me if within the next few years, there is a global armed uprising against some of the moral crap going on, from cloning animals (and eventually people), getting consumers addicted to unrequired prescription drugs to advertising junk products to children. If you find something revolting, revolt! Before it is too late!
I was driving 90mph in my own (none-Smart/Zap) car last year near London, and a Smart car overtook me at a lot more than 90, more like 110mph. The Smart cars have an excellent safety record here and it is about time folks in the USA accepted them as they are not only a lot of fun and easier to park, but use literally 1/4 of the gasoline of your typical North American vehicle.
2. Handspring/PalmOne's slow roll out of the Treo 650 and it's lack of 3G or WiFi support (unlike WiFi capability of many Pocket PC devices) means Treo 650 is what is should have been a year ago.
3. Poor marketing and reliability issues with European Treos has given it a bad name, despite being a fantastic product.
4. Microsoft have consistently won not because they are better, but when their competitors slipped up. Netscape had the chance to build webcentric apps into their browser (such as an icon for a shareable spreadsheet or similar), but lost their 'mojo'. So, today, the only innovative browser is Safari (not Firefox!) from Apple.
5. For Palm to make it big, they need to produce something that is basically a Treo 650 minus the antenna but plus WiFi, 3G (for Europe) and an iPod like internal hard drive so it can act as an entertainer and data pod. You MUST demolish your competition to stay ahead - as Apple have done with the iPod. Just plodding along gets you nowhere - slowly.
The horsemen were the four aircraft used on September 11, 2001.
As I hope you guessed, I was being a little tongue in cheek with the golf players remark, but am sure you know what I meant. Having spent 10 years in Silicon Valley, I found a noticeable personality difference between the MBA types and engineers. I have always found engineers to be significantly more friendly trusting and likable, while the other side were cold, distant and didn't really 'get it'. I think this would be a good topic for discussion on Slashdot, but in view of current world political situation, labelling people is probably not a good idea.