I picked up Phoenix comparatively late - prior to that, I preferred to build my own browser-only version of Mozilla (i.e. without the mail client, webpage editor and kitchen sink). That consistently out-performed Phoenix and early versions of Firefox.
But current versions of Firefox are fine - at least on Linux, Mac and BSD. I have no information on how it works on that other operating system, but I don't believe anyone really uses that, since it's not ready for the desktop yet.;-) And I have never (ever) had any problems with the browser's stability.
Since those who whine about bloat are usually also the first to complain about missing features, I'm not sure we should bother listening. If you want more features, you have to put up with more codespace. Simple as that.
In these modern, politically correct times it seems like people intertwine the concepts of agression and bullying.
And you will notice that I did not. That's why I used two words rather than one. Pursuit of your passion (if that's what you want to call it) to the extent that you eat your competitor's heart after he has been vanquished, or obliterating an infant that stands in your way are not acceptable.
Obviously I exaggerate, but Jobs, despite his more endearing characteristics (whatever they may be) has clearly gone beyond what most of us will agree is an acceptable degree of competitive agression.
Note, I am not writing from a fanboy perspective here: I use Linux on my desktop machines, but my laptop is a MacBook. But the sheer nastiness with which Jobs pursues his vision leaves an unpleasant flavour in my mouth, and my next laptop will probably be another Linux box.
Change tracking is just one issue, and it isn't always as important as some people seem to insist.
FTS: "Docs makes Office 2003 and 2007 better because users can store Microsoft Office documents in Google's cloud and share them in their original format."
For once, they're correct, but mostly because Google Docs' formatting capabilities are so weak, one might as well just use a text editor. If you want to be specific about your formatting, just about any desktop WP program is better.
Do you honestly believe Steve Jobs would let some underling represent themselves as him and write replies which, most likely, will end up being heavily viewed and analyzed?
And let's face it, he isn't saying anything here that he hasn't said in other words before. And in his defence (which is something I rarely do), most of his points are fair enough in themselves. The trouble is, when you put them all together, and embody them in an agressive, bullying corporate policy, they morph into something very ugly.
That would have been fatal - the German government was either on a fishing expedition or already knew what was being collected. For Google to have deliberately deleted data in response to a Government request would have been insane - going to prison, massive fines and "they're evil" type of insanity.
How would anybody know? It's not as if packet sniffing is exactly obvious to the whole world. The only way in which Google could be caught with their pants down is if an employee were to spill the beans.
Gawd Lewd, let me see if I am too drunk to understand it: Google was caught sniffing someone's open WiFi hotspot using a 4G stolen iPhone while doing a man-in-the-middle attack in a drunk naked girl that had passed out on a lawn while reading a postman's postcard?
I hope so, otherwise you're just too stupid to understand it.
Unlike broadcast networks, wireless clients running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Server® 2003 with Service Pack 1 that are configured to connect to non-broadcast networks are constantly disclosing the SSID of those networks, even when those networks are not in range.
While I agree with your point, this sounds very much like Microsoft telling us that the only difference between their software and a bucket of shit is the bucket.
Previous discussions on this topic have often led me to wonder what kind of specific data Google was collecting: All broadcast SSIDs? Open networks? Or were they going as far as to sniff around for "hidden" SSIDs? (Aside from the fact that my WiFi network is on WPA2 PSK, I've stopped hiding my SSID since a couple of members of my extended household have problems reconnecting their defective Windows boxes to it, and I've been a little bothered about security implications of that.)
Hopefully this statement answers that particular question, but of course who's to say Google isn't lying?
There are also non-javascript tools that have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. A particular favourite of mine, specifically devoted to lute tablature, is to be found here. This OSS program has been around for many years, and does not generate modern music notation, but it illustrates just how powerful PostScript can be when used for the purpose.
The thing they need most is a name that's not "diaspora" the streak of horribly named open source projects continued.
I have no opinion about the merits or demerits of Diaspora, but forums (fora?) thrive or survive on what fills a given purpose at a given time. Take Slashdot, for instance. This is focused towards those of us with what is essentially a 1990s mindset, with marginal respect paid to the thrills and spills of the so-called "Web 2.0" junk peddled by other sites.
Facebook is for now the leader among these fora, since it ostensibly offers many people (I am not among their number) the kind of connectivity that they seem to want right now. But nobody should be surprised if Facebook gets supplanted by something else if it becomes seen to be lacking in something (e.g. security or privacy safeguards) regarded as necessary. It's all part of the normal rise and fall of eminence in software (as in other things). Evolution happens online just as much as in meat-space.
But getting back to the topic: I wonder how long Apple is going to kid itself that anyone really cares about the latest iPhone. Their first offering was (from the objective viewpoint of someone who uses a phone to make calls) shiny and had the advantage of novelty, but Apple has made little material improvement on that.
People can only take so much novelty (however well-directed) in a given direction before it becomes old hat. For instance, the iPod has by far the most effective and intuitive interface of any mp3 player, but has become regarded as dated and treated as an also-ran by comparison with the iPhone, despite the fact that the latter is arguably not very good at playing and managing a music library.
Apple can send in all the swat teams they want (provided they don't care about the karma hit) to defend their pre-release secrecy, but it won't do them a damn bit of good if their product is just more of the same - which is what it looks like.
Despite my earlier post on this page, I have to hand it to Apple for their warranty policy. My wife's old iBook G4 was an irresistible object to our British Blue pussycat, who systematically pulled off most of the keys and chewed them. The Apple shop happily replaced the keyboard at no charge, despite the fact that the issue was not their problem.
How many Gs does the inertia reel seatbelts lock on a car? The consumer doesn't need to know. They just need to know that they are inertia reel seat belts.
I hate those "Fixed That" posts, but the only time it is ever difficult to pull that damn seatbelt off the reel is when you're trying to fasten the damn thing in the first place.
Though Apple is present here in Brazil, though, it's almost as it never existed.
I can understand that, although my location (Australia) is a more saturated market for Apple. In my case, though, my second-hand (and Free) MacBook laptop is unlikely to be replaced with another Apple product. I like having a species of Unix under the hood, with its associated CLIs that make life easy for me, but Apple (and Steve Jobs in particular) are being such obnoxious assholes, I have very little interest in supporting Apple's predatory business model.
Time was when using a Linux-based laptop machine on multiple wireless networks was a bit of an anal pain (I've been using Linux on my desktop machines since the mid-'90s), but I'm quite sure I can manage to work it out.
I'm with you. Sitting through interminable advertisements and putting up with TV stations arbitrarily dicking around with their timetables is not for me.
Indeed. Some of us even pay for legal CDs. I do so because I'm picky about the noises that I want from a sound system which I've spent a reasonable amount of money and consideration in building, and I prefer to encode my own MP3s for my iPod.
Yes, I am guilty of making the occasional (admittedly illegal) copy of CDs I have bought, and friends of mine are equally so. But in both cases, these copies have led to further sales from those artists, so everybody (including the recording companies) has something to gain from this cross-pollination of musical ideas.
I could spend forever trawling through torrents to find feeds that are in concordance with my particular musical interests, usually spending much of my time rejecting poisoned, poorly encoded or or mislabelled files, but in practice, what is available through these channels tends to be useless to anyone whose musical tastes extend much beyond the works of Abba or the Bay City Rollers.
As far as I'm concerned, my time is better spent finding a good deal on legitimate media without the headaches.
Having learned to use the GIMP before I ever came into contact with PhotoShop, I often find the latter's UI counter-intuitive and clunky. That doesn't mean Photoshop is a shitty product (it clearly isn't).
But I get very tired of reading posts from self-styled or wannabe graphic artists claiming that the GIMP is a pile of shit when they clearly haven't taken the trouble to learn how to use it.
The more powerful a tool is, the more time it takes to learn how to use it.
I think disallowing online access for the duration of the trial is a pretty reasonable restriction.
Agreed. But as an aside, I think too much tends to be made of the public's so-called "right to know". Matters of public record like court cases are perfectly admissible, while prurient spying on individuals is an entirely different issue.
Fake!! You can't use the mouse, it has to be a very LOUD keyboard.
Nothing wrong with loud, clacky keyboards. The best ones seem to have been made in about the 1930s.;-)
...Which for some reason brings to mind the show-characters-as-you-type thing mentioned in the (irritatingly second page of the) article:
No IM system in popular use does this because it makes it harder to edit a response, people can see your response as you edit it, and if you accidentally type something into the chat window, such as a password for your email account, you've got time to delete it before the other person sees it.
I can name one chat client that does that by default: Skype. Yes, I know you can tell it not to, but it isn't nice to find that out the hard way. And yes, I know Skype is primarily meant to be a VOIP client, but as a result of its ubiquity, it's convenient for IM.
Slashdot Mirror
I picked up Phoenix comparatively late - prior to that, I preferred to build my own browser-only version of Mozilla (i.e. without the mail client, webpage editor and kitchen sink). That consistently out-performed Phoenix and early versions of Firefox.
;-) And I have never (ever) had any problems with the browser's stability.
But current versions of Firefox are fine - at least on Linux, Mac and BSD. I have no information on how it works on that other operating system, but I don't believe anyone really uses that, since it's not ready for the desktop yet.
Since those who whine about bloat are usually also the first to complain about missing features, I'm not sure we should bother listening. If you want more features, you have to put up with more codespace. Simple as that.
In these modern, politically correct times it seems like people intertwine the concepts of agression and bullying.
And you will notice that I did not. That's why I used two words rather than one. Pursuit of your passion (if that's what you want to call it) to the extent that you eat your competitor's heart after he has been vanquished, or obliterating an infant that stands in your way are not acceptable.
Obviously I exaggerate, but Jobs, despite his more endearing characteristics (whatever they may be) has clearly gone beyond what most of us will agree is an acceptable degree of competitive agression.
Note, I am not writing from a fanboy perspective here: I use Linux on my desktop machines, but my laptop is a MacBook. But the sheer nastiness with which Jobs pursues his vision leaves an unpleasant flavour in my mouth, and my next laptop will probably be another Linux box.
Change tracking is just one issue, and it isn't always as important as some people seem to insist.
FTS: "Docs makes Office 2003 and 2007 better because users can store Microsoft Office documents in Google's cloud and share them in their original format."
For once, they're correct, but mostly because Google Docs' formatting capabilities are so weak, one might as well just use a text editor. If you want to be specific about your formatting, just about any desktop WP program is better.
Do you honestly believe Steve Jobs would let some underling represent themselves as him and write replies which, most likely, will end up being heavily viewed and analyzed?
And let's face it, he isn't saying anything here that he hasn't said in other words before. And in his defence (which is something I rarely do), most of his points are fair enough in themselves. The trouble is, when you put them all together, and embody them in an agressive, bullying corporate policy, they morph into something very ugly.
By tying a WiFi MAC to a GPS Coordinate you can use wifi as a sudo-gps solution.
sudo != pseudo.
That would have been fatal - the German government was either on a fishing expedition or already knew what was being collected. For Google to have deliberately deleted data in response to a Government request would have been insane - going to prison, massive fines and "they're evil" type of insanity.
How would anybody know? It's not as if packet sniffing is exactly obvious to the whole world. The only way in which Google could be caught with their pants down is if an employee were to spill the beans.
Gawd Lewd, let me see if I am too drunk to understand it: Google was caught sniffing someone's open WiFi hotspot using a 4G stolen iPhone while doing a man-in-the-middle attack in a drunk naked girl that had passed out on a lawn while reading a postman's postcard?
I hope so, otherwise you're just too stupid to understand it.
disabling SSID broadcast does little: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb726942.aspx
From the article you mention:
Unlike broadcast networks, wireless clients running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Server® 2003 with Service Pack 1 that are configured to connect to non-broadcast networks are constantly disclosing the SSID of those networks, even when those networks are not in range.
While I agree with your point, this sounds very much like Microsoft telling us that the only difference between their software and a bucket of shit is the bucket.
Previous discussions on this topic have often led me to wonder what kind of specific data Google was collecting: All broadcast SSIDs? Open networks? Or were they going as far as to sniff around for "hidden" SSIDs? (Aside from the fact that my WiFi network is on WPA2 PSK, I've stopped hiding my SSID since a couple of members of my extended household have problems reconnecting their defective Windows boxes to it, and I've been a little bothered about security implications of that.)
Hopefully this statement answers that particular question, but of course who's to say Google isn't lying?
People are already playing with some parts of it
There are also non-javascript tools that have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. A particular favourite of mine, specifically devoted to lute tablature, is to be found here. This OSS program has been around for many years, and does not generate modern music notation, but it illustrates just how powerful PostScript can be when used for the purpose.
The thing they need most is a name that's not "diaspora" the streak of horribly named open source projects continued.
I have no opinion about the merits or demerits of Diaspora, but forums (fora?) thrive or survive on what fills a given purpose at a given time. Take Slashdot, for instance. This is focused towards those of us with what is essentially a 1990s mindset, with marginal respect paid to the thrills and spills of the so-called "Web 2.0" junk peddled by other sites.
Facebook is for now the leader among these fora, since it ostensibly offers many people (I am not among their number) the kind of connectivity that they seem to want right now. But nobody should be surprised if Facebook gets supplanted by something else if it becomes seen to be lacking in something (e.g. security or privacy safeguards) regarded as necessary. It's all part of the normal rise and fall of eminence in software (as in other things). Evolution happens online just as much as in meat-space.
we don't need to use incorrect verbage in order to illicit an emotion response to understand when something is wrong.
Exactly true. I think the correct verb for which you seek is "elicit".
Isn't that called burglarized?
Only if you like to manglerize your language.
But getting back to the topic: I wonder how long Apple is going to kid itself that anyone really cares about the latest iPhone. Their first offering was (from the objective viewpoint of someone who uses a phone to make calls) shiny and had the advantage of novelty, but Apple has made little material improvement on that.
People can only take so much novelty (however well-directed) in a given direction before it becomes old hat. For instance, the iPod has by far the most effective and intuitive interface of any mp3 player, but has become regarded as dated and treated as an also-ran by comparison with the iPhone, despite the fact that the latter is arguably not very good at playing and managing a music library.
Apple can send in all the swat teams they want (provided they don't care about the karma hit) to defend their pre-release secrecy, but it won't do them a damn bit of good if their product is just more of the same - which is what it looks like.
...getting heavier and heavier as it goes, until it is slowly drug down and burns up in the atmosphere.
Unless, of course, it just swang straight past.
Despite my earlier post on this page, I have to hand it to Apple for their warranty policy. My wife's old iBook G4 was an irresistible object to our British Blue pussycat, who systematically pulled off most of the keys and chewed them. The Apple shop happily replaced the keyboard at no charge, despite the fact that the issue was not their problem.
How many Gs does the inertia reel seatbelts lock on a car? The consumer doesn't need to know. They just need to know that they are inertia reel seat belts.
I hate those "Fixed That" posts, but the only time it is ever difficult to pull that damn seatbelt off the reel is when you're trying to fasten the damn thing in the first place.
Though Apple is present here in Brazil, though, it's almost as it never existed.
I can understand that, although my location (Australia) is a more saturated market for Apple. In my case, though, my second-hand (and Free) MacBook laptop is unlikely to be replaced with another Apple product. I like having a species of Unix under the hood, with its associated CLIs that make life easy for me, but Apple (and Steve Jobs in particular) are being such obnoxious assholes, I have very little interest in supporting Apple's predatory business model.
Time was when using a Linux-based laptop machine on multiple wireless networks was a bit of an anal pain (I've been using Linux on my desktop machines since the mid-'90s), but I'm quite sure I can manage to work it out.
Well, apart from paying Monsanto for the Roundup, of course - Muah-ha-ha!
Nope. Glyphosate herbicides are now out of patent.
I only watch TV on DVD.
I'm with you. Sitting through interminable advertisements and putting up with TV stations arbitrarily dicking around with their timetables is not for me.
We DO pay for legal downloads. What the fuck?
Indeed. Some of us even pay for legal CDs. I do so because I'm picky about the noises that I want from a sound system which I've spent a reasonable amount of money and consideration in building, and I prefer to encode my own MP3s for my iPod.
Yes, I am guilty of making the occasional (admittedly illegal) copy of CDs I have bought, and friends of mine are equally so. But in both cases, these copies have led to further sales from those artists, so everybody (including the recording companies) has something to gain from this cross-pollination of musical ideas.
I could spend forever trawling through torrents to find feeds that are in concordance with my particular musical interests, usually spending much of my time rejecting poisoned, poorly encoded or or mislabelled files, but in practice, what is available through these channels tends to be useless to anyone whose musical tastes extend much beyond the works of Abba or the Bay City Rollers.
As far as I'm concerned, my time is better spent finding a good deal on legitimate media without the headaches.
Irony! You are talking about UI usefulness in fixed width fonts? At least increase the size to make it, you know, useful.
No. His abuse of the TT tag is simply a puerile, trollish and successful attempt at gaining your attention.
Having learned to use the GIMP before I ever came into contact with PhotoShop, I often find the latter's UI counter-intuitive and clunky. That doesn't mean Photoshop is a shitty product (it clearly isn't).
But I get very tired of reading posts from self-styled or wannabe graphic artists claiming that the GIMP is a pile of shit when they clearly haven't taken the trouble to learn how to use it.
The more powerful a tool is, the more time it takes to learn how to use it.
Because PS allows CMYK.
And so does the GIMP.
I think disallowing online access for the duration of the trial is a pretty reasonable restriction.
Agreed. But as an aside, I think too much tends to be made of the public's so-called "right to know". Matters of public record like court cases are perfectly admissible, while prurient spying on individuals is an entirely different issue.
Fake!! You can't use the mouse, it has to be a very LOUD keyboard.
;-)
...Which for some reason brings to mind the show-characters-as-you-type thing mentioned in the (irritatingly second page of the) article:
Nothing wrong with loud, clacky keyboards. The best ones seem to have been made in about the 1930s.
No IM system in popular use does this because it makes it harder to edit a response, people can see your response as you edit it, and if you accidentally type something into the chat window, such as a password for your email account, you've got time to delete it before the other person sees it.
I can name one chat client that does that by default: Skype. Yes, I know you can tell it not to, but it isn't nice to find that out the hard way. And yes, I know Skype is primarily meant to be a VOIP client, but as a result of its ubiquity, it's convenient for IM.