Neat story. And excellent point about tarmac/concrete.
Something that always bugged me about people who say running barefoot is good for you because it's natural also "must" take the extra step of running/walking on "natural" surfaces. That means no sidewalks, no paved roads, nothing man-made at all.
What did humans walk on 10,000 years ago? Dirt. Gravel. Beach sand. Swamps. Woods. Snow. Open fields. etc...
These surfaces "give", unlike solid man-made surfaces. I would imagine that the "perfect" shoe would probably mimic this experience, at least partially. That's probably why all shoes have some sort of cushioning built into them.
Shoe's are man-made technology designed to work in conjunction with other man-made technology, roads and artificial surfaces.
Hack this by changing seats a few times during the movie.
Or, slip someone in the movie theater $100 so you can go up into the projector room and film it there...
"Our watermarking technology has determined that the movie pirate is... the projector!"
Microsoft products are like Lego's. You don't always get the pieces you want in a set, but they plug together nicely, and can be centrally managed through Active Directory (very robustly, I might add).
Everybody out there always criticizes Microsoft when they find another company (the flavor of the year) who has a better Lego piece, or two, than Microsoft. It's touted as the best invention ever, and promoted as the downfall of Microsoft.
But as it turns out, it's not a Lego piece at all. It's a K'Nex piece. By itself, it's wonderful and awe inspiring. But when you want it to play nicely with the thousands of Lego pieces you already own, good luck!
I've had similar experiences with Leopard and 3rd party apps. Specifically, Parallels had substantial issues (build 5160). Their latest beta (build 5570 - http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/beta) appears to have fixed issues I've had with kernel panics, related to Parallels.
Their developers noted that Apple made substantial changes to Leopard between Release Candidate and Final. A number of other apps I had broke, though most were patched within about 1-2 weeks.
The following crash has happened three times since installing Leopard. It appears to be a Wireless driver issue, and appears to occur at random. There's an Apple thread about this (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5867190). Anyone have a clue as to what's going on? Could this be Parallels related, even though it occurs when Parallels isn't even running?
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Mac OS version: 9B18
Kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 9.1.0: Wed Oct 31 17:46:22 PDT 2007; root:xnu-1228.0.2~1/RELEASE_I386 System model name: MacBookPro2,2 (Mac-F42187C8)
It's GUI based. You can either install the Application version, or the "System Preferences" version, both which are available in the download.
You can setup SMB shares for Windows/Linux/Mac clients, or AFS shares for Mac/Linux clients (not sure if Windows does AFS - never looked into it).
After setting up a SMB share, ensure that "Windows Sharing" is enabled under "Sharing" in "System Preferences." Also, click on the "Accounts" button there and enable one or more local accounts to access the share remotely. Then, on a Windows box, it's as simple as connecting to: \\ip-address\sharename\ Enter in the username and password credentials, you'll connect, and bam, you have access to the share.
Local access rights apply to the local user connecting to the share remotely.
Semi off-topic, but I'm angry when sites don't work if you have scripting disabled on your browser. The vast majority of web-based attacks are vectored through scripting (javascript, activex). Until scripting is a secure thing, it should be done away with on all sites except for those that absolutely require it (like Google Maps - though it does work like a cheap version of Mapquest when you use it with scripting disabled).
[/rant not over]
My websites on my web-host were hacked today (not my fault, theirs), and the attackers placed exploit javascript code in all of my index.htm/html files (looked like buffer overflow code, but I didn't research it). Any browsers pointed to my sites with scripting enabled likely got hit.
Diddy Kong Racing for N64, only because the AI there didn't cheat, unlike Mario Kart 64. In fact, the AI in MK still cheats on the DS to this day. Grumble.
The writer of the article completely contradicts a single point and states that it's unfair to "bunch" a niche into a larger, more vague category, and then does so him/her-self a few paragraphs later:
BMW doesn't compete against ship and plane builders, nor even the entire line of cars built by GM. It would therefore be absurd to talk about BMW's small share of the "vehicle market," or even to compare its market share among other car makers. It's simply pointless and irrelevant.
Followed by:
However, in the same January 2007 press release, a Gartner analyst also stated that "the PC industry battled for wallet share against other consumer electronics products, such as games consoles and flat panel TVs." In other words, the vast PC market is but part of a larger market: consumer electronics.
If you want to get a good idea of how well a company is doing with its products, look at its financial statements over a long period of time and compare them to "like" competitors. Market cap, P/E ratio's, the number of shorts, placements of put's/call's on a stock, and other metrics should all be taken into consideration.
Disney and Pixar have close ties to Apple, who has close ties to Google. When GE has decided to drop Microsoft Office for Google Apps, then that'll be newsworthy.
Also, the moment Microsoft sees that their market dominance of Office is dwindling, they'll lower the price. Corporations are still willing to shell out big bucks for Office over free alternatives simply due to the corporate-friendly nature of Office.
I use NeoOffice on my Mac (a nice OpenOffice port that doesn't run in X11), and while it's good for personal use, it stinks for business use. Office is still king.
Hey CatOne, thanks for the detailed answer. Your's is the best comment in the thread, by far. I was coming from the perspective of a robust AD integration, rather than having compatibility with a few of its nice features (like Single Sign On, Roaming Profiles, etc...).
You sparked my interests though with Centrify Direct Control, something I was totally oblivious to until just now. How well does it work? Are the costs reasonable? The site mentions that it supports Linux too. Any comments on that? Thanks for the link by the way - I'll definitely keep it bookmarked.
Apple's Workgroup Manager is something that I've unfortunately not had the change to play with (no copies of OS X Server lying around anywhere). Having just looked at Apple's site (http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/workg roupmanagement.html), it seems that it does everything one could want it to do! Wow!
Let me lay down a test scenerio, and see if Workgroup Manager/Direct Control could handle it:
1) We've implemented Radius WPA-PSK WiFi and want to push settings out to all clients, without touching machines. 2) Office 2003 is getting upgraded to 2007 via a GPO push, using an.msi. While Mac's certainly can't accept a Windows.msi, can apps be pushed out over Workgroup Manager/Direct Control to Macs? 3) If they can be pushed, can they force upgrades, or sit in something like "Add/Remove Programs" until a user decides to install them? 4) Can they work with an RIS server (or something similar to push images to new machines)?
You're spot on about the "learning new things is scary" line. Part of it certainly has to do with paying for training, something smaller/mid-sized companies are inclined to do.
Most IT folk I know don't even want to bother learning Mac OS X, having been Windows guru's for so many years. It does take time and effort to do, but it's rewarding (in my opinion). This is a huge bottleneck in getting Apple inside of corporate IT land, one that's going to be around for a long time.
Excel on Windows is much more robust than Excel (or any other spreadsheet program) on Mac. Most of it is the VBA scripting, which while has had a tarnished image due to malicious use, it a requirement for virtually all finance departments. Microsoft also has some backend Office server products that I've never used before, which probably don't exist on Mac.
For standard spreadsheet work, Office Mac Excel should work fine (though personally, I can't stand the GUI - Neo Office it is then). I think the largest challenge here is training new users on how to use a non-Excel spreadsheet program. I've plopped OpenOffice Calc in front of many users, and they've gladly handed over ~$150 for a copy of Excel after not liking the menu's being all different.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/opendi rectory.html
That looks like Samba-3 to me. I'm curious, do you know how much of Samba-3 was used in OS X, and how much of it is unique to Apple (asides from GUI things like "Directory Access")? Apple does have a tendency to take OSS and customize it to their needs (usually that's the case if it's under the BSD license, from what I've gathered - correct me if I'm wrong).
Samba is under the GPL, of course.
Yeah, it's basic Samba-3 Domain authentication, but nothing beyond that. You can get a Mac client to authenticate through ADS, but that's about it. Like you said, but it's still a far cry from centrally managed Macs.
The thing is, unless Apple can seamlessly integrate their desktop OS into Active Directory like how 2000/XP (and soon Vista) already do, they're not going to be considered as a major player in corporate IT land. They need to be able to plug into currently existing infrastructure, be centrally managed, and offer an improved Net Present Value over PC's.
I just don't see that happening for a number of reasons, asides from having to wait for Samba-4. It's going to be really tough to convince a CFO to buy new $2,000 MacBook Pro's for its users, plus copies of Parallels/VMWare Fusion, plus a Windows OS (not sure if MVL applies to Apple-based hardware - anyone?), and any other number of pieces of software that they need.
With bulk-licensing programs, it's much cheaper to replace old PC hardware with new while not having to worry a whole lot about licensing (so long as you did your homework when you spent the money). That's because you're moving from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, per say. There are very few vendors that'll let you move a license across different OS's.
Also, you have to re-train end users on how to use a different OS with its own quirks, provide HelpDesk support for dual-OS's (unless you ditch windows entirely; good luck with that), and you can't centrally manage them like you can with 2000/XP boxes in a properly implemented Active Directory environment.
Exchange support in Entourage is crap too since it relies on WebDev (IMAP/POP are your other options, which aren't good corporate solutions). Mac Excel != PC Excel. You get the point.
I do see Apple making inroads in the SoHo (Small Office, Home Office) area. Here you don't need a Domain infrastructure, workers are their own help desk, and so long as your work doesn't rely on some PC-only software, you can get by. The problem here is these customers are very price sensitive, so a Dell $500 special is much more appealing than what Apple offers.
On the IT side of things, I use a MacBook Pro with OS X, XP, and Gentoo Linux loaded on it, running in Parallels. It's my main box, and I love it for a few reasons:
1) 3 OS's on one machine instead of 3 OS's on three machines. Wonderful! 2) I personally like OS X as my main desktop environment over XP and Gnome. 3) I need access to all 3 OS's to do my work, which is pretty rare.
On the downside:
1) No docking station support. 2) No Serial/Parallel/Modem cables - all needed by IT Pro's to hook into existing networking gear, and to provide legacy support. 3) The battery sucks relative to previous PC laptops I've had (2-3 hours use vs. 5-6 on a PC laptop). 4) No floppy drive.
Ready for Corporate IT land? It still has a long ways to go. For a power user like myself? Yeah, it fits nicely.
Does anyone know if VMWare Fusion (for Mac) is going to have something like the "Coherency" feature?
Also, is the Parallels Coherency feature for Windows-only, or can it be used with Linux in, say, an X/KDE or X/GNOME configuration?
Oh! I see. Much like the way schooling was in the Middle Ages: first you teach language, rhetorics and logic, then specific subjects. Nice!
How do you recommend it should be done then? Tell kids to believe in something because I say so? If that's the case, how do I prevent children from being told a lie?
Agreed. You provided a very concise explanation of the medieval technique of the disputatio, extensively used to write the philosophical treatises of the time, such as the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Too bad philosophers abandoned the method when we entered the Modern Age, don't you think?
I'm not familiar with the disputatio. Can you point out how what I wrote relates to it, and why, as you seem to suggest, it's a bad thing?
Exactly. Too bad modern science has got rid of the concept of "reality", preferring to adopt the concept, invented by Kant, of "phenomenons". That's why in the Middle Ages everyone was a Realist, while nowadays Instrumentalism is the norm.
Science has accepted the fact that our view on the universe is a limited one, and doesn't state something as "fact" or "fiction." Thus you are correct about the "phenomenon" observation, and scientists do indeed follow Instrumentalism today.
It's end goal, however, is to draw out reality for what it actually is. It's openness to question itself is a quality seen in no religion I'm aware of (perhaps Buddhism is an exception).
No, no! You mean: "like the scientistic ideology".
It seems to be winning ideology for the time being, when you look at what it has accomplished in the recent 100 years (computers, rocket ships to the moon, medicine, etc...). Religious ideologies have been praying for centuries, but it has been scientifically shown that the power of prayer to be bogus. Their credence is much less.
Or self-righteous scientistic believers lash out agains perfectly reasonable counter-arguments they don't like and prefer to see muted.
A true scientist is acceptant of perfectly reasonable counter-arguments. Those arguments will have to offer proof, and be held accountable, however, for them to hold. Tests like this prevent people from simply making something up and saying it's true. If such a loophole is allowed in an ideology, it's destine to fail.
Post XV-century, modernist, heretical, protestant interpretations of the Bible, you mean.
Most born-again christians interpret the bible in its literal sense. Other non-literal interpretations require a constant re-interpreting of the bible as new things are learned about the world. This exists because of the vagueness the bible, and other religious texts, contain.
They are written in such a way that they avoid being able to be held accountable. The few times they have stated specific events (Noah's Ark, Adam & Eve, for instance), and have been proven incorrect through scientific means, credibility is shattered, and new explanations have to be created by humans (like Intelligent Design).
This is no different than a criminal giving different stories of his crime to the police. "CRIMINAL: I wasn't at the scene of the crime like I said earlier. I was at home, sleeping. POLICE: The murder occurred in your house. CRIMINAL: I was actually in the mall, shopping instead."
Because science will prove that Intelligent Design (human intelligent design, in the case) actually works? And because it will provide a path for the mass production of stem cells without killing babies? Nah, I don't think so.
It'll open the possibility that life had emerged from non-life, naturally, billions of years ago on this planet (that's the theory, anyway). Human Intelligent Design, which is seen throughout society today, appears to be the product of Natura
A school's job is not meant to brainwash people into believing something, whether that be Science or Jesus. It's job is to teach them how to gather evidence from all points of view, and then come to logical conclusions about that evidence using critical analysis, sound reasoning, valid thought processes, and logic.
Individuals who promote a certain viewpoint, whether that be religious, political, scientific, or whatever, must be able to back their viewpoints with such reasoning and evidence. Otherwise their thoughts are little more than opinions and/or delusions, whether theirs or someone else's, that lack justification, accountability, and credibility.
The idea is that by providing people with valid, unbiased thought-processes through proper schooling, they will be able to draw their own conclusions, and a perception of reality for what it actually is will emerge. This would eliminate the ability for people to be easily manipulated, and/or brainwashed into believing non-truths, fairy tales, and superstition.
Any such schooling is a direct threat to organizations based upon such fantasies, like religions. It becomes next to impossible to make someone believe in something without being able to offer them a whole-hearted explanation, taking all relevant factors into account.
Because of this, fantasy-based organizations become threatened with this type of schooling. The chessboard needs an ample supply of pawns, if you will, and if those pawns disappear, so does the religion. It's not surprising then to see members of a religious cult, such as Jesus Teacher Lady here, lash out against a student in her class.
There will be more lashing out in the years to come, especially seeing as science is starting to exponentially increase its speed of discovering new things about the world around us, many of which completely contradict the bible.
I predict that within the next 30 years, scientists will be able to create life from non-life in a lab. It'll mark a definitive moment in human history, shattering religions to shreds. You can expect protest far greater than Jesus Teacher Lady, and quite possibly far more dangerous.
Both Blue Ray and HD-DVD have a lot going against them. Both formats
are brand new to the consumer market. In quick summary, most people are
going to wait 3-5 years before adopting either of these formats, if they take
off. Buying one today means either you've got a lot of money to burn (paypal@dave-gallagher.net
please), or you're easily influenced by marketing.
DVD's were first starting to be sold in early 1997.
By 1999, DVD players were around $300 each. DVD sales were tiny
compared to VHS.
DVD's and players increased on popularity by 2001, aided by the
PlayStation 2 having a DVD-player built into it (at the time, a PS2 wasn't
much more money than a sole DVD player). The format was being adopted
rapidly by this point.
By 2002-2003, DVD's finally had surpassed VHS sales, 5-6 years after
they first came out.
Now, in late 2006, it's tough to find a home that doesn't own a DVD
player. Also:
You can buy DVD movies everywhere.
You can rent DVD movies everywhere (Netflix, BlockBuster, etc)
There are tens of thousands of titles available for DVD, including a
vast array of Movies (previously available on VHS), and TV shows (many
never available before on VHS).
DVD players can be bought for $50 or less. Almost all
computers have one built in.
DVD movies can be had for $2 - $20. Some series and combo's
cost more, obviously.
Other notable mentions during this time period:
VHS degraded over time. DVD's don't (when stored right).
VHS has a much worse picture quality than DVD did.
Nearly everyone already owned a TV which would benefit from upgrading
from VHS to DVD.
DVD's sounded much better. Some people bought high-end stereo
systems, but most still use the speakers in their TV.
This took from 1997 to 2006 to accomplish. It's almost a ten-year old
format. To say either Blue Ray or HD-DVD will take off in a short period
of time (1-2 years) is blasphemy. It'll take at least 3, but probably
around 5 years, before either format becomes mainstream. IF either format
survives, that is.
Things going against Blue Ray & HD-DVD:
Extremely limited selection of titles. Think hundreds of them (if
not only a hundred), vs. tens of thousands for DVD.
No rental outlets carry them yet.
Movie Players cost much more money than DVD players. $500+ if you
buy a PS3, or Xbox 360 Core w/HD-DVD add-on.
These movies are priced more. The cheapest I've seen are around
$25 each.
Most people don't own a TV that will benefit from the higher resolution
of these types of media.
...unlike upgrading from VHS to DVD, where everyone experienced an
increase in picture quality.
High-end audio equipment is needed for many to take advantage of the new
features to these discs. Again, most people don't have this.
Everyone just through out their VHS tapes and replaced them with DVD's.
They may buy new movies on HD-DVD/Blue Ray, but good luck convincing them to
re-buy Terminator 2 for the 3rd time.
By the time it takes for Blue Ray/HD-DVD to catch on (3-5 years), if they
catch on, there will be:
Xbox 1080
PlayStation 4
On-Demand HD Movies, over the net, delivered to your TiVo, Xbox 360,
Apple iTV, whatever.
On-Demand HD Movies, through your TV provider.
Neither format is proven (asides from looking and sounding good, with the
right equipment), and the VAST majority of consumers won't see a benefit from
either of them today. What has to happen for consumers to benefit is:
1920x1080 P HDTV's have to come down in price, to the $200 Wal-Mart
special range.
I completely agree with the Mouse Acceleration issue. If you use nothing but a Mac, you get use to it. But if you switch back and forth between PC/Linux/MacOS X, it's a HUGE pain.
Another big concern is that you can't change the system-wide font sizes on a Mac. I'm stuck having to upgrade my grandparents 17" LCD (1280x1024) to a larger 19 or 20 inch screen.
Why? They can't read the system-wide fonts, and there is no way to increase the system-wide font size except for dropping the screen resolution down. Of course if you go too low, you lose out on desktop space. The only option for me anyway is to buy my grandparents a larger monitor and run it in 1024x768 so they have larger fonts, or switch them back to Windows.
I feel sad for people who invested in those 30" Apple LCD's (which are overpriced now compared to the Dell's - ~$1250@ Dell, or $2000@ Apple). You've got this glorious amount of workspace, made impossible to read by tiny-text.
Windows does a VERY good job with handicap-assisted features. It has themes and font-styles built in for hard-of-site users. Apple has some features (magnifier, read-text-aloud), but they still lag severely behind Windows and even Linux (KDE and Gnome have most of the features seen in Windows, plus you can change system-wide font sizes).
I have a hunch that design has taken a step ahead on usability on this front, particularly seeing that Microsoft has had this stuff in Windows for more than a decade, debuting in Windows 95/98.
Ars Technica reports that Microsoft has added the option to disable the sound in the control panel.
Thank god. Next on the list to disable the startup sound, Apple. Every damn one of those things makes the same noise, EVERY time it's booted. I swear, the "Apple Noise" must play every time a door opens, or a button is pushed on the Apple campus. Those people are nuts!
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for posting, that was one of the best things I've ever read on Slashdot. It's all so very very true. :)
Neat story. And excellent point about tarmac/concrete. Something that always bugged me about people who say running barefoot is good for you because it's natural also "must" take the extra step of running/walking on "natural" surfaces. That means no sidewalks, no paved roads, nothing man-made at all. What did humans walk on 10,000 years ago? Dirt. Gravel. Beach sand. Swamps. Woods. Snow. Open fields. etc... These surfaces "give", unlike solid man-made surfaces. I would imagine that the "perfect" shoe would probably mimic this experience, at least partially. That's probably why all shoes have some sort of cushioning built into them. Shoe's are man-made technology designed to work in conjunction with other man-made technology, roads and artificial surfaces.
Hack this by changing seats a few times during the movie. Or, slip someone in the movie theater $100 so you can go up into the projector room and film it there... "Our watermarking technology has determined that the movie pirate is... the projector!"
Microsoft products are like Lego's. You don't always get the pieces you want in a set, but they plug together nicely, and can be centrally managed through Active Directory (very robustly, I might add).
Everybody out there always criticizes Microsoft when they find another company (the flavor of the year) who has a better Lego piece, or two, than Microsoft. It's touted as the best invention ever, and promoted as the downfall of Microsoft.
But as it turns out, it's not a Lego piece at all. It's a K'Nex piece. By itself, it's wonderful and awe inspiring. But when you want it to play nicely with the thousands of Lego pieces you already own, good luck!
I've had similar experiences with Leopard and 3rd party apps. Specifically, Parallels had substantial issues (build 5160). Their latest beta (build 5570 - http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/beta) appears to have fixed issues I've had with kernel panics, related to Parallels.
Their developers noted that Apple made substantial changes to Leopard between Release Candidate and Final. A number of other apps I had broke, though most were patched within about 1-2 weeks.
The following crash has happened three times since installing Leopard. It appears to be a Wireless driver issue, and appears to occur at random. There's an Apple thread about this (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5867190). Anyone have a clue as to what's going on? Could this be Parallels related, even though it occurs when Parallels isn't even running?
Fri Nov 23 19:14:00 2007
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x0039CD77): "m_free: freeing an already freed mbuf"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1228.0.2/bsd/kern/uipc_mbuf.c:2742
Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x3422f978 : 0x12b0e1 (0x455670 0x3422f9ac 0x133238 0x0)
0x3422f9c8 : 0x39cd77 (0x48e03c 0x30141200 0x8594fe0 0x1)
0x3422fa08 : 0x39d073 (0x300cd000 0x8 0x3422fa58 0x1)
0x3422fa28 : 0x8f9b87 (0x301b1000 0x0 0x20 0x2)
0x3422fb98 : 0x8f9ec5 (0x23a782c8 0x23a7a150 0x3422fbc8 0x1a6d13)
0x3422fce8 : 0x90520b (0x23b71004 0x0 0x46 0xbf4b40)
0x3422fe68 : 0x8d584a (0x23a784c0 0x0 0x4203 0x49f76d0)
0x3422feb8 : 0x8d6f3f (0x95dc80 0x95dc84 0x49f76b0 0x135e09)
0x3422ff48 : 0x8d54b7 (0x42d4804 0x0 0x1361b0 0x19ccc1)
0x3422ff78 : 0x13e987 (0x42d4c94 0x42d4804 0x1a136f 0x58e46b0)
0x3422ffc8 : 0x19e2ec (0x0 0x0 0x1a10b5 0x49f76b0)
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(300.22)@0x8d4000->0x95efff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family(200.7)@0x8b6000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.4)@0x63c000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.6.0)@0x64c000
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Mac OS version:
9B18
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.1.0: Wed Oct 31 17:46:22 PDT 2007; root:xnu-1228.0.2~1/RELEASE_I386
System model name: MacBookPro2,2 (Mac-F42187C8)
It's GUI based. You can either install the Application version, or the "System Preferences" version, both which are available in the download.
You can setup SMB shares for Windows/Linux/Mac clients, or AFS shares for Mac/Linux clients (not sure if Windows does AFS - never looked into it).
After setting up a SMB share, ensure that "Windows Sharing" is enabled under "Sharing" in "System Preferences." Also, click on the "Accounts" button there and enable one or more local accounts to access the share remotely. Then, on a Windows box, it's as simple as connecting to: \\ip-address\sharename\ Enter in the username and password credentials, you'll connect, and bam, you have access to the share.
Local access rights apply to the local user connecting to the share remotely.
Make sure you un-share folders when you're done.
Keeps all of that Firefox JavaScript nastiness at bay, plus flash ads to boot. :)
Black marker is your friend, my man.
Semi off-topic, but I'm angry when sites don't work if you have scripting disabled on your browser. The vast majority of web-based attacks are vectored through scripting (javascript, activex). Until scripting is a secure thing, it should be done away with on all sites except for those that absolutely require it (like Google Maps - though it does work like a cheap version of Mapquest when you use it with scripting disabled).
[/rant not over]
My websites on my web-host were hacked today (not my fault, theirs), and the attackers placed exploit javascript code in all of my index.htm/html files (looked like buffer overflow code, but I didn't research it). Any browsers pointed to my sites with scripting enabled likely got hit.
[/rant over]
Diddy Kong Racing for N64, only because the AI there didn't cheat, unlike Mario Kart 64. In fact, the AI in MK still cheats on the DS to this day. Grumble.
Followed by:
If you want to get a good idea of how well a company is doing with its products, look at its financial statements over a long period of time and compare them to "like" competitors. Market cap, P/E ratio's, the number of shorts, placements of put's/call's on a stock, and other metrics should all be taken into consideration.
Disney and Pixar have close ties to Apple, who has close ties to Google. When GE has decided to drop Microsoft Office for Google Apps, then that'll be newsworthy.
Also, the moment Microsoft sees that their market dominance of Office is dwindling, they'll lower the price. Corporations are still willing to shell out big bucks for Office over free alternatives simply due to the corporate-friendly nature of Office.
I use NeoOffice on my Mac (a nice OpenOffice port that doesn't run in X11), and while it's good for personal use, it stinks for business use. Office is still king.
Hey CatOne, thanks for the detailed answer. Your's is the best comment in the thread, by far. I was coming from the perspective of a robust AD integration, rather than having compatibility with a few of its nice features (like Single Sign On, Roaming Profiles, etc...).
g roupmanagement.html), it seems that it does everything one could want it to do! Wow!
.msi. While Mac's certainly can't accept a Windows .msi, can apps be pushed out over Workgroup Manager/Direct Control to Macs?
:)
You sparked my interests though with Centrify Direct Control, something I was totally oblivious to until just now. How well does it work? Are the costs reasonable? The site mentions that it supports Linux too. Any comments on that? Thanks for the link by the way - I'll definitely keep it bookmarked.
Apple's Workgroup Manager is something that I've unfortunately not had the change to play with (no copies of OS X Server lying around anywhere). Having just looked at Apple's site (http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/work
Let me lay down a test scenerio, and see if Workgroup Manager/Direct Control could handle it:
1) We've implemented Radius WPA-PSK WiFi and want to push settings out to all clients, without touching machines.
2) Office 2003 is getting upgraded to 2007 via a GPO push, using an
3) If they can be pushed, can they force upgrades, or sit in something like "Add/Remove Programs" until a user decides to install them?
4) Can they work with an RIS server (or something similar to push images to new machines)?
You're spot on about the "learning new things is scary" line. Part of it certainly has to do with paying for training, something smaller/mid-sized companies are inclined to do.
Most IT folk I know don't even want to bother learning Mac OS X, having been Windows guru's for so many years. It does take time and effort to do, but it's rewarding (in my opinion). This is a huge bottleneck in getting Apple inside of corporate IT land, one that's going to be around for a long time.
Excel on Windows is much more robust than Excel (or any other spreadsheet program) on Mac. Most of it is the VBA scripting, which while has had a tarnished image due to malicious use, it a requirement for virtually all finance departments. Microsoft also has some backend Office server products that I've never used before, which probably don't exist on Mac.
For standard spreadsheet work, Office Mac Excel should work fine (though personally, I can't stand the GUI - Neo Office it is then). I think the largest challenge here is training new users on how to use a non-Excel spreadsheet program. I've plopped OpenOffice Calc in front of many users, and they've gladly handed over ~$150 for a copy of Excel after not liking the menu's being all different.
Thanks for the comments!
-Dave
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/opendi rectory.html
That looks like Samba-3 to me. I'm curious, do you know how much of Samba-3 was used in OS X, and how much of it is unique to Apple (asides from GUI things like "Directory Access")? Apple does have a tendency to take OSS and customize it to their needs (usually that's the case if it's under the BSD license, from what I've gathered - correct me if I'm wrong).
Samba is under the GPL, of course.
Yeah, it's basic Samba-3 Domain authentication, but nothing beyond that. You can get a Mac client to authenticate through ADS, but that's about it. Like you said, but it's still a far cry from centrally managed Macs.
The thing is, unless Apple can seamlessly integrate their desktop OS into Active Directory like how 2000/XP (and soon Vista) already do, they're not going to be considered as a major player in corporate IT land. They need to be able to plug into currently existing infrastructure, be centrally managed, and offer an improved Net Present Value over PC's.
I just don't see that happening for a number of reasons, asides from having to wait for Samba-4. It's going to be really tough to convince a CFO to buy new $2,000 MacBook Pro's for its users, plus copies of Parallels/VMWare Fusion, plus a Windows OS (not sure if MVL applies to Apple-based hardware - anyone?), and any other number of pieces of software that they need.
With bulk-licensing programs, it's much cheaper to replace old PC hardware with new while not having to worry a whole lot about licensing (so long as you did your homework when you spent the money). That's because you're moving from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, per say. There are very few vendors that'll let you move a license across different OS's.
Also, you have to re-train end users on how to use a different OS with its own quirks, provide HelpDesk support for dual-OS's (unless you ditch windows entirely; good luck with that), and you can't centrally manage them like you can with 2000/XP boxes in a properly implemented Active Directory environment.
Exchange support in Entourage is crap too since it relies on WebDev (IMAP/POP are your other options, which aren't good corporate solutions). Mac Excel != PC Excel. You get the point.
I do see Apple making inroads in the SoHo (Small Office, Home Office) area. Here you don't need a Domain infrastructure, workers are their own help desk, and so long as your work doesn't rely on some PC-only software, you can get by. The problem here is these customers are very price sensitive, so a Dell $500 special is much more appealing than what Apple offers.
On the IT side of things, I use a MacBook Pro with OS X, XP, and Gentoo Linux loaded on it, running in Parallels. It's my main box, and I love it for a few reasons:
1) 3 OS's on one machine instead of 3 OS's on three machines. Wonderful!
2) I personally like OS X as my main desktop environment over XP and Gnome.
3) I need access to all 3 OS's to do my work, which is pretty rare.
On the downside:
1) No docking station support.
2) No Serial/Parallel/Modem cables - all needed by IT Pro's to hook into existing networking gear, and to provide legacy support.
3) The battery sucks relative to previous PC laptops I've had (2-3 hours use vs. 5-6 on a PC laptop).
4) No floppy drive.
Ready for Corporate IT land? It still has a long ways to go. For a power user like myself? Yeah, it fits nicely.
Ah, clever! I never thought of that. It's something I'll have to try, assuming I buy Parallels. It becomes more and more tempting every day...
Does anyone know if VMWare Fusion (for Mac) is going to have something like the "Coherency" feature? Also, is the Parallels Coherency feature for Windows-only, or can it be used with Linux in, say, an X/KDE or X/GNOME configuration?
How do you recommend it should be done then? Tell kids to believe in something because I say so? If that's the case, how do I prevent children from being told a lie?
I'm not familiar with the disputatio. Can you point out how what I wrote relates to it, and why, as you seem to suggest, it's a bad thing?
Science has accepted the fact that our view on the universe is a limited one, and doesn't state something as "fact" or "fiction." Thus you are correct about the "phenomenon" observation, and scientists do indeed follow Instrumentalism today.
It's end goal, however, is to draw out reality for what it actually is. It's openness to question itself is a quality seen in no religion I'm aware of (perhaps Buddhism is an exception).
It seems to be winning ideology for the time being, when you look at what it has accomplished in the recent 100 years (computers, rocket ships to the moon, medicine, etc...). Religious ideologies have been praying for centuries, but it has been scientifically shown that the power of prayer to be bogus. Their credence is much less.
A true scientist is acceptant of perfectly reasonable counter-arguments. Those arguments will have to offer proof, and be held accountable, however, for them to hold. Tests like this prevent people from simply making something up and saying it's true. If such a loophole is allowed in an ideology, it's destine to fail.
Most born-again christians interpret the bible in its literal sense. Other non-literal interpretations require a constant re-interpreting of the bible as new things are learned about the world. This exists because of the vagueness the bible, and other religious texts, contain.
They are written in such a way that they avoid being able to be held accountable. The few times they have stated specific events (Noah's Ark, Adam & Eve, for instance), and have been proven incorrect through scientific means, credibility is shattered, and new explanations have to be created by humans (like Intelligent Design).
This is no different than a criminal giving different stories of his crime to the police. "CRIMINAL: I wasn't at the scene of the crime like I said earlier. I was at home, sleeping. POLICE: The murder occurred in your house. CRIMINAL: I was actually in the mall, shopping instead."
It'll open the possibility that life had emerged from non-life, naturally, billions of years ago on this planet (that's the theory, anyway). Human Intelligent Design, which is seen throughout society today, appears to be the product of Natura
A school's job is not meant to brainwash people into believing something, whether that be Science or Jesus. It's job is to teach them how to gather evidence from all points of view, and then come to logical conclusions about that evidence using critical analysis, sound reasoning, valid thought processes, and logic.
Individuals who promote a certain viewpoint, whether that be religious, political, scientific, or whatever, must be able to back their viewpoints with such reasoning and evidence. Otherwise their thoughts are little more than opinions and/or delusions, whether theirs or someone else's, that lack justification, accountability, and credibility.
The idea is that by providing people with valid, unbiased thought-processes through proper schooling, they will be able to draw their own conclusions, and a perception of reality for what it actually is will emerge. This would eliminate the ability for people to be easily manipulated, and/or brainwashed into believing non-truths, fairy tales, and superstition.
Any such schooling is a direct threat to organizations based upon such fantasies, like religions. It becomes next to impossible to make someone believe in something without being able to offer them a whole-hearted explanation, taking all relevant factors into account.
Because of this, fantasy-based organizations become threatened with this type of schooling. The chessboard needs an ample supply of pawns, if you will, and if those pawns disappear, so does the religion. It's not surprising then to see members of a religious cult, such as Jesus Teacher Lady here, lash out against a student in her class.
There will be more lashing out in the years to come, especially seeing as science is starting to exponentially increase its speed of discovering new things about the world around us, many of which completely contradict the bible.
I predict that within the next 30 years, scientists will be able to create life from non-life in a lab. It'll mark a definitive moment in human history, shattering religions to shreds. You can expect protest far greater than Jesus Teacher Lady, and quite possibly far more dangerous.
Both Blue Ray and HD-DVD have a lot going against them. Both formats are brand new to the consumer market. In quick summary, most people are going to wait 3-5 years before adopting either of these formats, if they take off. Buying one today means either you've got a lot of money to burn (paypal@dave-gallagher.net please), or you're easily influenced by marketing.
Let's look at the history of DVD's:
Other notable mentions during this time period:
This took from 1997 to 2006 to accomplish. It's almost a ten-year old format. To say either Blue Ray or HD-DVD will take off in a short period of time (1-2 years) is blasphemy. It'll take at least 3, but probably around 5 years, before either format becomes mainstream. IF either format survives, that is.
Things going against Blue Ray & HD-DVD:
By the time it takes for Blue Ray/HD-DVD to catch on (3-5 years), if they catch on, there will be:
Neither format is proven (asides from looking and sounding good, with the right equipment), and the VAST majority of consumers won't see a benefit from either of them today. What has to happen for consumers to benefit is:
Thanks for the links! I'll definitely check them out.
Son of a bitch. Thank you so much for that! I humbly retract most of my previous comments. :)
I completely agree with the Mouse Acceleration issue. If you use nothing but a Mac, you get use to it. But if you switch back and forth between PC/Linux/MacOS X, it's a HUGE pain.
Another big concern is that you can't change the system-wide font sizes on a Mac. I'm stuck having to upgrade my grandparents 17" LCD (1280x1024) to a larger 19 or 20 inch screen.
Why? They can't read the system-wide fonts, and there is no way to increase the system-wide font size except for dropping the screen resolution down. Of course if you go too low, you lose out on desktop space. The only option for me anyway is to buy my grandparents a larger monitor and run it in 1024x768 so they have larger fonts, or switch them back to Windows.
I feel sad for people who invested in those 30" Apple LCD's (which are overpriced now compared to the Dell's - ~$1250@ Dell, or $2000@ Apple). You've got this glorious amount of workspace, made impossible to read by tiny-text.
Windows does a VERY good job with handicap-assisted features. It has themes and font-styles built in for hard-of-site users. Apple has some features (magnifier, read-text-aloud), but they still lag severely behind Windows and even Linux (KDE and Gnome have most of the features seen in Windows, plus you can change system-wide font sizes).
I have a hunch that design has taken a step ahead on usability on this front, particularly seeing that Microsoft has had this stuff in Windows for more than a decade, debuting in Windows 95/98.