Also consider that RDF, which describes directed graphs, is quite easily expressed in XML; there's nothing to say that you can't describe a graph and reference actual elements with IDREFs. I don't think you've really thought about this.
Nothing against Mozilla at all - it's my browser of choice in Linux and Windows. I just want a lightweight browser on my Mac - I don't have much screen-size to work with, and the iBook also isn't the world's fastest machine.
I think you mean Firebird - Thunderbird is the mail client. But a good suggestion nonetheless.
Nonono, they're the best part! Having a D-pad, Home, OK, and Cancel buttons mean that you can use the device one-handed (or at least without using a stylus). Switching to a P800 was a big jump, as was using an iPAQ again - you really notice the fact that to get anything done you have to reach for the stylus. This is a real pain on the P800 - to get anything done AT ALL needs the screen.
I liked pressing Home to get to the launcher, picking an app with the great D-pad, and performing actions with the Menu, OK and Cancel buttons. That works for me.
Not to mention the keyboard... and I don't think the size is bad, particularly given that at the time a dual-slot PDA was unusual. Certainly competitive with the iPAQ of the time, and that didn't have a keyboard or any slots!
Unfortunately, infoSyncWorld is down for maintenance at the moment, so I can't check up. I'm sure they've just launched a new range - I thought that it was that low, but I may be wrong.
Brighthand have this interesting snippet about how the Axim X5 (one of the earlier models) affected the industry: The Axim X5 Basic offered what had previously been considered high-end features but for an entry-level price, only $200 after a rebate. This put tremendous price pressure on the competition and we're still feeling the effects. I sincerely believe that if the X5 series had not been released, every handheld currently available would cost $100 more than it does now.
That $230 unit still trashes my iPAQ, and competes with my Zaurus. Amazing indeed - and it's got a great screen and incredible battery life, especially compared to the Zaurus.
I think that actually, the Zaurus' features aren't enough to allow it to compete. I had to charge mine several times a day, and the screen was appalling. It doesn't matter how amazing it is having a portable Linux system - I'm still chained to a power supply. The newer PocketPCs get 8+ hours of usage, and the screens are astonishing.
I will be intrigued to see how this new model compares on those points.
I'll be very interested (as a former Zaurus user) to see how this competes against the Axims of this world. It's amazing how prices have fallen since I got my iPAQ 3630 - you can now get a WiFi-enabled Axim for less than $200 (equivalent prices here). That's crazy!
PocketPCs (largely because of Dell) are swamping the markets at several price points. It will take a very competitive pricing strategy to compete.
Except that on a great many shows (certainly CSI, and I think Stargate SG1 and 24 as well) the logo is often masked - the TiBook was the best example, which looked good with a metal crest design instead of the apple.
Possibly to avoid some kind of licensing cost, but probably just for suspension of disbelief.
I think that most producers or set designers will choose whatever fits, or looks coolest. At present, that's not Microsoft.
Firstly we could consider the enormous body of work currently available in other languages. Having this able to be translated into English or other languages could be very valuable for scholars.
Secondly, English is not the primary tongue for the majority of people on the planet - to suggest that because a lot of people can manage to converse in it that the ability to translate between other languages isn't valuable is foolish.
Also note that the article specifically mentions Arabic and Chinese, which I don't think crossed your mind. China has the largest population on the planet, remember.
Translation is far from obsolete, especially given that the majority of the Western world, and especially America, is piss poor at being bilingual.
I remember seeing when Microsoft visited my University some time ago a video about the TabletPC in academia.
There was a lecture, and the lecturer had his TabletPC wirelessly connected to MSN Messenger. Students sitting maybe 20 feet away would tap in IMs to him to look at while lecturing, rather than actually speak! I thought it was incredibly stupid, like people sitting next to each other and using Net Send rather than talking. Jesus, just stick your hand up and ask!
Later on, one of the students was sitting in his very nice room (you could tell it wasn't real just from that:)), asking the professor a question over Messenger. Much jokey banter about "hey, it's so great how you love my lectures, but how about waiting until tomorrow!?". I'd never seen a lecturer use a smiley until then, which only added to the false feeling.
According to one definition (Capra's, for a start, and others) for a biological entity to be 'alive' it must have some encoding for reproduction (DNA/RNA, or other), and a metabolism.
Viruses require an external metabolism to do the reproduction, so they are not alive. Think of them as nasty messages.
If they put all that stuff in the iBook, it would be competing against the pro model.
The model you describe would even have more RAM and a higher processor speed (though no AltiVec).
It would be a foolish move from a marketing point of view, and the internals would probably need a significant redesign to fit the differently-sized Airport Extreme card.
The SL-5600 (the successor) supposedly is truly multi-user, and therefore much safer. I don't know how PDA users will react to having to put in a password to install software though...
Just in case someone misunderstands, to quote from the page:
" All the functionality of TextWrangler, plus..."
So BBEdit has everything.
As to why to limit it to programming stuff: programmers are cheap bastards, web designers aren't. At least, that's what I expect (being a programmer!). I also would assume a text editor to have C/C++ highlighting - but not necessarily HTML highlighting.
BB stands for 'Bare Bones', the name of the company.
... here in the UK, ~ is above #, which is next to the Return key.
` is shared with , and is therefore pretty much useless. I use all the keys on the keyboard except that one. So the original poster is correct - and I use terminals all the time.
The UK has not yet implemented it. They missed the deadline, but it is planned to pass into law in March.
I repeat, it has not been dropped in the UK, only slightly delayed. This does allow some leeway in the provisions - but they probably won't be taken. Unfortunately.
He proposes that we look for a system where a minor change can only have minor results, whether good or bad.
But consider another system that relies on accurate output from that previous system.
If the previous system has been found to "work well enough" (because the small errors have only small effects on the output), but those small errors cascade through the system, several steps down the chain (e.g. writing programs using services) you will be getting problems that are inexplicable - emergent results of the combination of erroneous systems.
The only way to have predictable outputs is to have properly specified execution - the program should do exactly what you intend, not a robust interpretation of what you intend.
The author suggests flexible pattern recognition for interfaces. This is fine for a situation where it is suitable, such as recognition of real signals. Within the computational domain, however, such flexibility provides far more risk than benefit.
Evolutionary solutions to problems are often very hard to certify (automatic pilots, for example), because boundary-case analysis is often worthless. If you cannot explain a solution, you cannot rely on it in a critical situation.
Fuzzy speech recognition good; formal methods on flight computers good; just don't mix them.
The important thing to look at is how files became the standard. It just happened that UNIX had them, IBM mainframes had them, DOS had them, and then Windows. And then Macintosh came out with them. And with the Internet, because of the UNIX heritage, we ended up thinking in terms of moving files around and file- oriented protocols like FTP. And what happened is that the file just became a universal idea, even though it didn't start out as one.
Macintosh launched January 1984 (link).
Windows 1.0 released November 1985 (link).
Not to mention that what he's saying is waffle... where do they dig up these guys?
... this guy doesn't seem to really know what he's talking about.
As someone else has mentioned, life in many respects isn't robust - and where it is, it's not relevant.
For instance, genetic code is mutable - but try doing that with machine instructions. That's why Tierra creatures are written in its own pseudo-machine language.
If there's one thing that I don't want happening in code, its tiny errors causing almost-reasonable behaviour. Brittle code is code that's easy to debug.
What he really wants is lots of small, well-defined objects or procedures doing their one task well. If you decompose a design well enough, there's nothing to limit scalability. Good design is the answer.
Not in the UK it won't... prices are slightly higher here anyway, and they're fairly uniform - the online store is cheaper overall for a student. Sales tax (VAT) is a uniform 17.5% in the UK.
The point I was making was that it doesn't matter if the customer buys from an Apple Store, or from Apple online - Apple get the money anyway.
The stores have two purposes: if someone buys an Apple product because of having played with it in the store, then the store has succeeded, regardless of where they buy it. They also allows people to buy when they wouldn't order online; important when some places don't otherwise have a store/shop that sells Macs.
Ultimately, though, the revenue gained directly from sales in the stores is not a true measure of their success - exactly my point.
Slashdot Mirror
e.g. IBM's take.
You can link between XML entities quite easily.
Also consider that RDF, which describes directed graphs, is quite easily expressed in XML; there's nothing to say that you can't describe a graph and reference actual elements with IDREFs. I don't think you've really thought about this.
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/4237.html
Pictures, and running a damn sight faster than Nokia's site for me!
Nothing against Mozilla at all - it's my browser of choice in Linux and Windows. I just want a lightweight browser on my Mac - I don't have much screen-size to work with, and the iBook also isn't the world's fastest machine.
I think you mean Firebird - Thunderbird is the mail client. But a good suggestion nonetheless.
Nonono, they're the best part! Having a D-pad, Home, OK, and Cancel buttons mean that you can use the device one-handed (or at least without using a stylus). Switching to a P800 was a big jump, as was using an iPAQ again - you really notice the fact that to get anything done you have to reach for the stylus. This is a real pain on the P800 - to get anything done AT ALL needs the screen.
I liked pressing Home to get to the launcher, picking an app with the great D-pad, and performing actions with the Menu, OK and Cancel buttons. That works for me.
Not to mention the keyboard... and I don't think the size is bad, particularly given that at the time a dual-slot PDA was unusual. Certainly competitive with the iPAQ of the time, and that didn't have a keyboard or any slots!
Unfortunately, infoSyncWorld is down for maintenance at the moment, so I can't check up. I'm sure they've just launched a new range - I thought that it was that low, but I may be wrong.
Brighthand have this interesting snippet about how the Axim X5 (one of the earlier models) affected the industry:
The Axim X5 Basic offered what had previously been considered high-end features but for an entry-level price, only $200 after a rebate. This put tremendous price pressure on the competition and we're still feeling the effects. I sincerely believe that if the X5 series had not been released, every handheld currently available would cost $100 more than it does now.
That $230 unit still trashes my iPAQ, and competes with my Zaurus. Amazing indeed - and it's got a great screen and incredible battery life, especially compared to the Zaurus.
I think that actually, the Zaurus' features aren't enough to allow it to compete. I had to charge mine several times a day, and the screen was appalling. It doesn't matter how amazing it is having a portable Linux system - I'm still chained to a power supply. The newer PocketPCs get 8+ hours of usage, and the screens are astonishing.
I will be intrigued to see how this new model compares on those points.
It doesn't seem to work. I get some joy using IE, but that's a real step back in my view.
It still doesn't layout correctly though! The page text comes below the sidebars.
Tip: if it's not working in Safari, bite the bullet and try IE.
(no, I'm not going to put Mozilla on my iBook.)
(their MySQL DB is freaking out now... good old Slashdot.)
Wow, and there's only one comment!
I'll be very interested (as a former Zaurus user) to see how this competes against the Axims of this world. It's amazing how prices have fallen since I got my iPAQ 3630 - you can now get a WiFi-enabled Axim for less than $200 (equivalent prices here). That's crazy!
PocketPCs (largely because of Dell) are swamping the markets at several price points. It will take a very competitive pricing strategy to compete.
I want one.
Except that on a great many shows (certainly CSI, and I think Stargate SG1 and 24 as well) the logo is often masked - the TiBook was the best example, which looked good with a metal crest design instead of the apple.
Possibly to avoid some kind of licensing cost, but probably just for suspension of disbelief.
I think that most producers or set designers will choose whatever fits, or looks coolest. At present, that's not Microsoft.
Firstly we could consider the enormous body of work currently available in other languages.
Having this able to be translated into English or other languages could be very valuable for scholars.
Secondly, English is not the primary tongue for the majority of people on the planet - to suggest that because a lot of people can manage to converse in it that the ability to translate between other languages isn't valuable is foolish.
Also note that the article specifically mentions Arabic and Chinese, which I don't think crossed your mind. China has the largest population on the planet, remember.
Translation is far from obsolete, especially given that the majority of the Western world, and especially America, is piss poor at being bilingual.
How is a post about the use of TabletPCs for messaging in lectures "Offtopic" in a discussion on messaging and questions in lectures?
Whoever moderated this, please wake up. Thanks!
I remember seeing when Microsoft visited my University some time ago a video about the TabletPC in academia.
:)), asking the professor a question over Messenger.
There was a lecture, and the lecturer had his TabletPC wirelessly connected to MSN Messenger. Students sitting maybe 20 feet away would tap in IMs to him to look at while lecturing, rather than actually speak!
I thought it was incredibly stupid, like people sitting next to each other and using Net Send rather than talking. Jesus, just stick your hand up and ask!
Later on, one of the students was sitting in his very nice room (you could tell it wasn't real just from that
Much jokey banter about "hey, it's so great how you love my lectures, but how about waiting until tomorrow!?". I'd never seen a lecturer use a smiley until then, which only added to the false feeling.
Ah, Microsoft. Dig yourself a market.
According to one definition (Capra's, for a start, and others) for a biological entity to be 'alive' it must have some encoding for reproduction (DNA/RNA, or other), and a metabolism.
Viruses require an external metabolism to do the reproduction, so they are not alive. Think of them as nasty messages.
If they put all that stuff in the iBook, it would be competing against the pro model.
The model you describe would even have more RAM and a higher processor speed (though no AltiVec).
It would be a foolish move from a marketing point of view, and the internals would probably need a significant redesign to fit the differently-sized Airport Extreme card.
So that's why.
The SL-5600 (the successor) supposedly is truly multi-user, and therefore much safer. I don't know how PDA users will react to having to put in a password to install software though...
Just in case someone misunderstands, to quote from the page:
" All the functionality of TextWrangler, plus..."
So BBEdit has everything.
As to why to limit it to programming stuff: programmers are cheap bastards, web designers aren't. At least, that's what I expect (being a programmer!). I also would assume a text editor to have C/C++ highlighting - but not necessarily HTML highlighting.
BB stands for 'Bare Bones', the name of the company.
... here in the UK, ~ is above #, which is next to the Return key.
` is shared with , and is therefore pretty much useless. I use all the keys on the keyboard except that one. So the original poster is correct - and I use terminals all the time.
As far as I recall, Opera has the stop/reload button combination, and has had for years.
It's a good idea in some respects, but it also takes me a little while to get used to - I like it when buttons are discrete.
This is familiar... see here:
old news
The point they are upset about is that the file sharing services are targeted, and not the users of those services.
They're complaining that the users themselves aren't punished for it - only the service.
Of course, I don't think they share our viewpoint.
The UK has not yet implemented it. They missed the deadline, but it is planned to pass into law in March.
I repeat, it has not been dropped in the UK, only slightly delayed. This does allow some leeway in the provisions - but they probably won't be taken. Unfortunately.
But consider another system that relies on accurate output from that previous system.
If the previous system has been found to "work well enough" (because the small errors have only small effects on the output), but those small errors cascade through the system, several steps down the chain (e.g. writing programs using services) you will be getting problems that are inexplicable - emergent results of the combination of erroneous systems.
The only way to have predictable outputs is to have properly specified execution - the program should do exactly what you intend, not a robust interpretation of what you intend.
The author suggests flexible pattern recognition for interfaces. This is fine for a situation where it is suitable, such as recognition of real signals. Within the computational domain, however, such flexibility provides far more risk than benefit.
Evolutionary solutions to problems are often very hard to certify (automatic pilots, for example), because boundary-case analysis is often worthless. If you cannot explain a solution, you cannot rely on it in a critical situation.
Fuzzy speech recognition good; formal methods on flight computers good; just don't mix them.
Macintosh launched January 1984 (link).
Windows 1.0 released November 1985 (link).
Not to mention that what he's saying is waffle... where do they dig up these guys?
... this guy doesn't seem to really know what he's talking about.
As someone else has mentioned, life in many respects isn't robust - and where it is, it's not relevant.
For instance, genetic code is mutable - but try doing that with machine instructions. That's why Tierra creatures are written in its own pseudo-machine language.
If there's one thing that I don't want happening in code, its tiny errors causing almost-reasonable behaviour. Brittle code is code that's easy to debug.
What he really wants is lots of small, well-defined objects or procedures doing their one task well. If you decompose a design well enough, there's nothing to limit scalability.
Good design is the answer.
"people don't photocopy newspapers".
I was going to write more, about how there is an optimum price, la di da, but I think that sums it up if you think about it.
Not in the UK it won't... prices are slightly higher here anyway, and they're fairly uniform - the online store is cheaper overall for a student.
Sales tax (VAT) is a uniform 17.5% in the UK.
The point I was making was that it doesn't matter if the customer buys from an Apple Store, or from Apple online - Apple get the money anyway.
The stores have two purposes: if someone buys an Apple product because of having played with it in the store, then the store has succeeded, regardless of where they buy it.
They also allows people to buy when they wouldn't order online; important when some places don't otherwise have a store/shop that sells Macs.
Ultimately, though, the revenue gained directly from sales in the stores is not a true measure of their success - exactly my point.