They are including "widgets" in Tiger, which is now accomplished by a 3rd party utility called Konfabulator, who will not be able to sell any more software when Tiger starts shipping.
Except that Konfabulator is a rip off of Apple's earlier idea of Desk Accessories. OS X didn't include such functionality, so Konfabulator filled the hole. Now Apple has come back to implement the feature again in a more modern way. Konfabulator "will not be able to sell any more software" unless they can make their version better and thus worth using and paying for. Sure, Apple has the unfair advantage that it's their OS and they can build it in to every system, but in this case the idea was theirs originally... And they never said Desk Accessories would not come back in some form.
That's the risk you run when you make a clone or modernization of an earlier idea - the original creator may come back and one-up you, or someone else may simply do it better. Unless Konfabulator can improve so drastically that it outweighs the benefits of Apple's approach, it likely will fade into the background. And don't tell me it's impossible. Consider Safari. It hasn't exactly killed OmniWeb, or Mozilla, or Opera, or even iCab. It's bundled, but that doesn't mean every OS X user will bow down and use it just because.
This applies not just to Windows updates, but ALL downloads from Microsoft's site, including (supposedly) documentation and (I'd imagine) Internet Explorer, which some Wine users do use...
One problem with convergence is where you have a device that does X, Y, and Z, and you go to a place that doesn't allow one of those things. For example, there was some brouhaha in my area recently over gyms kicking people out for bringing in their cell phones that happened to have cameras built in (the gyms in question did not allow cameras). This could become a real problem if you have total convergence. Suddenly that iPod you like to use while you're at the gym is banned because you might potentially take a picture of some chick with its built-in camera function.
Every single computer scientist in training should have a fundamental understanding of computer security. And if learning means doing, then computer scientists should be taught how to write viruses, send spam and remotely 0wn b0xes. And don't let them graduate if they can't.
Amen to that. I took a "network troubleshooting" class which was part of the final semester at a Cisco Academy. Along the way, we learned how to recover passwords from a router or switch that we otherwise had lost access too. As a consequence (accidental at first, but then on purpose as the instructor realized it was happening), my fellow students gained an understanding that security is not just locking down ports and services, but also considering physical access as well. To drive that point home, I offered to the instructor to do a demonstration on one of the Linux servers in our lab, and showed just how easy it is to compromise a "secure" UNIX system with physical access... And how quickly it can be done.
We all walked away from that class with a greater understanding of not just the networking crap on the syllabus, but also the scope of security and snooping. Props go to that instructor for not just teaching the raw facts, but for driving home intuitive points and fundamental concepts like that. The world (especially the comp-sci world) could use a lot more instructors of that quality.
which would be good in some sense because they'd have to put more soda in there..
I doubt Pepsi intends to suddenly change the amount of soda they include in the bottle, rewrite all their labels to that effect, etc. Especially since they could just have a removable, opaque thing inside the cap that you remove with a tab after you open the cap. That'd make it pretty cheat proof.
Yes, but the disappointing thing here is that the primary OpenOffice developers have officially washed their hands of Aqua support, not that they ever cared much for it anyway. That's where most of the development muscle and money is, in the main OpenOffice project. NeoOffice is only being done by a couple of people, and because it is not really an official project, it is always a step behind. They will constantly have to pick up the pieces every time a new release comes out and breaks something in NeoOffice. It's like how Wine tries to make Windows apps fit into Linux - it'll never be perfect, because it's a moving target.
Don't get me wrong, NeoOffice is an amazing project and it works extremely well, especially given the limited number of developers behind it. I remember one of the NeoOffice folks posted before that OpenOffice 2.0 was supposed to be a total redesign that would take into consideration the model of Aqua/Cocoa apps, to make porting easier. Apparently that idea was nixed, hence the official plans for support being dropped. Now the NeoOffice people will be stuck with trying to fit the square peg of OO2 into the round hole of Aqua, as they've been trying to do with the 1.x series. What was originally a temporary and experimental project has now become the only hope for decent OpenOffice on the Mac.
Ah well... No offense to NeoOffice or OpenOffice, but I will be grabbing a copy of iWork soon, so I won't have to worry about it much except when I have one of those (very rare) needs for a spreadsheet.:)
If you know Emacs, or learned Emacs keystrokes in another application that uses them (I learned them in Pine and the Bash shell, personally), then you can transfer that finger memory to huge chunks of OSX.
So... yeah. Emacs out of place on a Mac? Probably not...:-)
That's like saying because Windows apps have buttons, and Cocoa apps also have buttons, that you can transfer that finger memory to huge chunks of OS X, and thus Windows apps won't seem out of place. Just because Apple decided to implement something that is actually quite common in the UNIX world (emacs style bindings - check out the shell, midnight commander, pretty much any IRC client, etc. for examples of this) doesn't mean that all the baggage that goes with that something also fits.
Emacs feels out of place because it is not a native app - it doesn't use native widgets, native keybindings do not work consistently and without tweaking, native file dialogs (as of my last check) are not there, various levels of interaction with OS X on higher levels are non-existent, etc. This is not to say that Emacs is not worth using on OS X. On the contrary, I used it a lot for various things when I was doing a lot of programming. But that doesn't mean that it didn't feel out of place and cause finger cramps from the otherwise very un-OS X key combos and interface.
Yes, but if the rumours are wrong, they can damage how any real products might be perceived.
As an example of this, just before last year's MacWorld, rumors abound online about Apple's new, smaller iPods. The big rumor was just how cheap they would be - around $100, maybe $150. I was seriously excited by that prospect, and was ready to be first in line to order one of those babies. Then comes the keynote, and what do I see? A vastly smaller hard drive capacity, but only a $50 savings ($250 iPod mini). Sure, the mini is very cool, and I'm likely going to buy one anyway (or whatever fills that spot after this next MacWorld), but I was definitely disappointed initially by the high price when I was expecting something else.
The downside of Tabbrowser is that it slows Firefox down like crazy. I've seen many complaints about this, and it was extremely bad here on my Mac (Dual 1ghz). Firefox normally ran very chipper, but as soon as I installed Tabbrowser, it slogged things down so much that it took 1-2 seconds just to open a new, blank tab in a window. Not to mention adding about 10-15 seconds to the startup time of Firefox, and slowing down everything else the browser did.
I don't know if it's a flaw in Firefox, its extension model, or Tabbrowser itself. I suspect it's the later. At any rate, it was serious enough that I uninstalled the extension about 10 minutes after installing it. All the cool features it has are not worth that kind of a performance hit, and it just shouldn't happen on a fast machine.
Just a heads up for people that decide to try it, especially on slower machines where Firefox's lighter overhead is usually a big reason for using it.
I don't want any of my service providers scanning stuff for illegal activity without a good reason
The fact that you are using their service on their hardware for illegal activities is not a good reason? If you were Google, would you want to potentially be held accountable for someone else's illegal actions using your services?
Also, I don't see how this affects Google's honesty. Gmail is a privilege, not a right, and ultimately Google doesn't have to put up with crap from its users like warez trafficking. It's all in the TOS, anyway:
You agree that you will use the Service
in compliance with all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations, including any laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from your country of residence. You shall not, shall not agree to, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) use the Service to upload, transmit or otherwise distribute any content that is unlawful
(emphasis mine)
Anybody who doesn't like it is more than welcome to not use Gmail.
I have no idea if this is limited to my system, nor if it is a problem with the ATI driver update or the OpenGL update, but upgrading to 10.3.6 broke the UT2k4 demo on my system. 2D stuff works fine, but the 3D intro and the in-game graphics are completely screwed up - messed up or missing polygons, screwed up lighting, etc.
Other OpenGL apps and games display just fine, so I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies. Anybody else encountering this problem with 10.3.6?
why bother with a big clunky PDA when i can now get the same functionality in my cellphone ?
My reason: my Palm Zire syncs flawlessly with my Mac, while my phone does not. Sure, I can get a USB cable for my phone, but it will cost around $50, and there's no Mac support for it.
Oh yeah, I can also surf the web on my Palm and read ebooks without going blind reading 2 lines of text at a time, and without worrying about killing my battery for making and receiving calls.
And oh yeah, I can use my Palm on an airplane without getting bitched at for cell phone signals and interference and whatnot.
Yeah, except if someone sends a letter (even if it's bogus) to your domainsbyproxy.com address, they'll charge $20 just for telling you it arrived and where it's from. Then, if you want to actually READ the mail, you have to pay even more to have it actually forwarded or read through by a human being. Think hourly lawyer fees, because that's basically what you get with this service. If somebody sneezes in the general direction of your domain, some desk clerk will press a button and charge your credit card for it.
I had a domain through domainsbyproxy.com, and I ended up receiving a letter accusing me of infringing on a trademark (one that is easily proven to be common and in prior use via Google or Usenet archives, and even previous to the birth of the internet). I turned over the domain because I'm just a student who lacks the resources to challenge a trademark, no matter how obviously invalid, especially for a novelty domain. But I ended up eating that bogus $20 "you've got mail" cost. It's all in the domainsbyproxy.com contract of course, but it's definitely got its drawbacks that a lot of people might not be aware of.
A9 hijacks the functionality of clicking and dragging a link - it does this in such a way that the link can't be dragged out of the window. So, I can't drag links from the search results and drop them into a specific bookmarks folder, or someplace on my desktop, or onto the tab bar of a browsing window.
A lot of high-mod posts on here are totally missing the point. The point isn't so much that IE is finally getting the equivelant of an "I'm feeling lucky" text box, it's getting one that is (supposedly) intelligent. When Google thinks the "I'm feeling lucky" link is what you want, it will take you there. If not, it takes you to the regular search results. That is what makes this (albeit questionably) interesting.
Who would buy an iMac over a comparable laptop, and why?
Probably someone who...
Wants a G5 and/or doesn't want to spend $300+tax more for a laptop with an older, slower processor (1.3GHz G4 Powerbook), or
Doesn't want noisy laptop fans, or
Wants more hard drive space built-in, or
Wants a better GPU, or
Doesn't *need* a laptop, or
Any/all of the above
Then there's the screen size. As it stands now, a 17" PBook would cost $2800, and have a 1.5GHz G4 in it. For $1300, you get a 17" iMac with a 1.6GHz G5...
Oh, you say we have to clean our own house first? If we don't win this, cleanly or otherwise, we won't have a house left. Osama, Moqtada, and the mullahs in Iran would love nothing more than to see freedom fall.
IMHO, it's better to "fall" as what you are than it is to fall as what you are not. If freedom vanishes from the face of the earth, let it be because it was freedom to the bitter end. Better to die free than to live on with the blood of repression and the stain of hypocrisy on your hands.
So what happens when a virus gets into the seventy zillion unsecured windoze boxes out there, and drops every thermostat they can reach to fifty degrees in the middle of august?
I'd be happy with that... but then again, I live in New Mexico, and it's usually in the 80s and 90s here until October or November.:)
Slashdot Mirror
They are including "widgets" in Tiger, which is now accomplished by a 3rd party utility called Konfabulator, who will not be able to sell any more software when Tiger starts shipping.
Except that Konfabulator is a rip off of Apple's earlier idea of Desk Accessories. OS X didn't include such functionality, so Konfabulator filled the hole. Now Apple has come back to implement the feature again in a more modern way. Konfabulator "will not be able to sell any more software" unless they can make their version better and thus worth using and paying for. Sure, Apple has the unfair advantage that it's their OS and they can build it in to every system, but in this case the idea was theirs originally... And they never said Desk Accessories would not come back in some form.
That's the risk you run when you make a clone or modernization of an earlier idea - the original creator may come back and one-up you, or someone else may simply do it better. Unless Konfabulator can improve so drastically that it outweighs the benefits of Apple's approach, it likely will fade into the background. And don't tell me it's impossible. Consider Safari. It hasn't exactly killed OmniWeb, or Mozilla, or Opera, or even iCab. It's bundled, but that doesn't mean every OS X user will bow down and use it just because.
This applies not just to Windows updates, but ALL downloads from Microsoft's site, including (supposedly) documentation and (I'd imagine) Internet Explorer, which some Wine users do use...
One problem with convergence is where you have a device that does X, Y, and Z, and you go to a place that doesn't allow one of those things. For example, there was some brouhaha in my area recently over gyms kicking people out for bringing in their cell phones that happened to have cameras built in (the gyms in question did not allow cameras). This could become a real problem if you have total convergence. Suddenly that iPod you like to use while you're at the gym is banned because you might potentially take a picture of some chick with its built-in camera function.
Every single computer scientist in training should have a fundamental understanding of computer security. And if learning means doing, then computer scientists should be taught how to write viruses, send spam and remotely 0wn b0xes. And don't let them graduate if they can't.
Amen to that. I took a "network troubleshooting" class which was part of the final semester at a Cisco Academy. Along the way, we learned how to recover passwords from a router or switch that we otherwise had lost access too. As a consequence (accidental at first, but then on purpose as the instructor realized it was happening), my fellow students gained an understanding that security is not just locking down ports and services, but also considering physical access as well. To drive that point home, I offered to the instructor to do a demonstration on one of the Linux servers in our lab, and showed just how easy it is to compromise a "secure" UNIX system with physical access... And how quickly it can be done.
We all walked away from that class with a greater understanding of not just the networking crap on the syllabus, but also the scope of security and snooping. Props go to that instructor for not just teaching the raw facts, but for driving home intuitive points and fundamental concepts like that. The world (especially the comp-sci world) could use a lot more instructors of that quality.
which would be good in some sense because they'd have to put more soda in there..
I doubt Pepsi intends to suddenly change the amount of soda they include in the bottle, rewrite all their labels to that effect, etc. Especially since they could just have a removable, opaque thing inside the cap that you remove with a tab after you open the cap. That'd make it pretty cheat proof.
Yes, but the disappointing thing here is that the primary OpenOffice developers have officially washed their hands of Aqua support, not that they ever cared much for it anyway. That's where most of the development muscle and money is, in the main OpenOffice project. NeoOffice is only being done by a couple of people, and because it is not really an official project, it is always a step behind. They will constantly have to pick up the pieces every time a new release comes out and breaks something in NeoOffice. It's like how Wine tries to make Windows apps fit into Linux - it'll never be perfect, because it's a moving target.
:)
Don't get me wrong, NeoOffice is an amazing project and it works extremely well, especially given the limited number of developers behind it. I remember one of the NeoOffice folks posted before that OpenOffice 2.0 was supposed to be a total redesign that would take into consideration the model of Aqua/Cocoa apps, to make porting easier. Apparently that idea was nixed, hence the official plans for support being dropped. Now the NeoOffice people will be stuck with trying to fit the square peg of OO2 into the round hole of Aqua, as they've been trying to do with the 1.x series. What was originally a temporary and experimental project has now become the only hope for decent OpenOffice on the Mac.
Ah well... No offense to NeoOffice or OpenOffice, but I will be grabbing a copy of iWork soon, so I won't have to worry about it much except when I have one of those (very rare) needs for a spreadsheet.
Looks like adding a photo to a page of text will be very easy in Pages, with the text adapting automatically.
The text flow is done in real time, as was demonstrated during the keynote. It looks very slick.
If you know Emacs, or learned Emacs keystrokes in another application that uses them (I learned them in Pine and the Bash shell, personally), then you can transfer that finger memory to huge chunks of OSX.
:-)
So... yeah. Emacs out of place on a Mac? Probably not...
That's like saying because Windows apps have buttons, and Cocoa apps also have buttons, that you can transfer that finger memory to huge chunks of OS X, and thus Windows apps won't seem out of place. Just because Apple decided to implement something that is actually quite common in the UNIX world (emacs style bindings - check out the shell, midnight commander, pretty much any IRC client, etc. for examples of this) doesn't mean that all the baggage that goes with that something also fits.
Emacs feels out of place because it is not a native app - it doesn't use native widgets, native keybindings do not work consistently and without tweaking, native file dialogs (as of my last check) are not there, various levels of interaction with OS X on higher levels are non-existent, etc. This is not to say that Emacs is not worth using on OS X. On the contrary, I used it a lot for various things when I was doing a lot of programming. But that doesn't mean that it didn't feel out of place and cause finger cramps from the otherwise very un-OS X key combos and interface.
Great business sense, Stanistani.
Remember when you and your friends were just CEOs of a company with stockholders to answer to?
Apparently not...
Yes, but if the rumours are wrong, they can damage how any real products might be perceived.
As an example of this, just before last year's MacWorld, rumors abound online about Apple's new, smaller iPods. The big rumor was just how cheap they would be - around $100, maybe $150. I was seriously excited by that prospect, and was ready to be first in line to order one of those babies. Then comes the keynote, and what do I see? A vastly smaller hard drive capacity, but only a $50 savings ($250 iPod mini). Sure, the mini is very cool, and I'm likely going to buy one anyway (or whatever fills that spot after this next MacWorld), but I was definitely disappointed initially by the high price when I was expecting something else.
The downside of Tabbrowser is that it slows Firefox down like crazy. I've seen many complaints about this, and it was extremely bad here on my Mac (Dual 1ghz). Firefox normally ran very chipper, but as soon as I installed Tabbrowser, it slogged things down so much that it took 1-2 seconds just to open a new, blank tab in a window. Not to mention adding about 10-15 seconds to the startup time of Firefox, and slowing down everything else the browser did.
I don't know if it's a flaw in Firefox, its extension model, or Tabbrowser itself. I suspect it's the later. At any rate, it was serious enough that I uninstalled the extension about 10 minutes after installing it. All the cool features it has are not worth that kind of a performance hit, and it just shouldn't happen on a fast machine.
Just a heads up for people that decide to try it, especially on slower machines where Firefox's lighter overhead is usually a big reason for using it.
it gives Linux users the ability to run one of their flagship pieces of software in a broken and semi-functional sort of way.
And this is different from it running on Windows... how? ;)
There is a small Firefox extension called SlashFix, which takes care of this problem. It's a hack, but it works. :) Good enough till 1.1 comes out...
That means very little, except that the Mozilla Foundation struck a deal with Google. Google "embraces" Internet Explorer, too.
1 year = 52.177457 weeks
So 72 weeks is 1 year plus 19.822543 weeks.
No, the grandparent poster was correct - 72 weeks is 1 year plus 2 weeks, if you're using Canadian years.
I don't want any of my service providers scanning stuff for illegal activity without a good reason
The fact that you are using their service on their hardware for illegal activities is not a good reason? If you were Google, would you want to potentially be held accountable for someone else's illegal actions using your services?
Also, I don't see how this affects Google's honesty. Gmail is a privilege, not a right, and ultimately Google doesn't have to put up with crap from its users like warez trafficking. It's all in the TOS, anyway:
(emphasis mine)
Anybody who doesn't like it is more than welcome to not use Gmail.
I have no idea if this is limited to my system, nor if it is a problem with the ATI driver update or the OpenGL update, but upgrading to 10.3.6 broke the UT2k4 demo on my system. 2D stuff works fine, but the 3D intro and the in-game graphics are completely screwed up - messed up or missing polygons, screwed up lighting, etc.
Other OpenGL apps and games display just fine, so I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies. Anybody else encountering this problem with 10.3.6?
why bother with a big clunky PDA when i can now get the same functionality in my cellphone ?
My reason: my Palm Zire syncs flawlessly with my Mac, while my phone does not. Sure, I can get a USB cable for my phone, but it will cost around $50, and there's no Mac support for it.
Oh yeah, I can also surf the web on my Palm and read ebooks without going blind reading 2 lines of text at a time, and without worrying about killing my battery for making and receiving calls.
And oh yeah, I can use my Palm on an airplane without getting bitched at for cell phone signals and interference and whatnot.
Yeah, except if someone sends a letter (even if it's bogus) to your domainsbyproxy.com address, they'll charge $20 just for telling you it arrived and where it's from. Then, if you want to actually READ the mail, you have to pay even more to have it actually forwarded or read through by a human being. Think hourly lawyer fees, because that's basically what you get with this service. If somebody sneezes in the general direction of your domain, some desk clerk will press a button and charge your credit card for it.
I had a domain through domainsbyproxy.com, and I ended up receiving a letter accusing me of infringing on a trademark (one that is easily proven to be common and in prior use via Google or Usenet archives, and even previous to the birth of the internet). I turned over the domain because I'm just a student who lacks the resources to challenge a trademark, no matter how obviously invalid, especially for a novelty domain. But I ended up eating that bogus $20 "you've got mail" cost. It's all in the domainsbyproxy.com contract of course, but it's definitely got its drawbacks that a lot of people might not be aware of.
A9 hijacks the functionality of clicking and dragging a link - it does this in such a way that the link can't be dragged out of the window. So, I can't drag links from the search results and drop them into a specific bookmarks folder, or someplace on my desktop, or onto the tab bar of a browsing window.
A lot of high-mod posts on here are totally missing the point. The point isn't so much that IE is finally getting the equivelant of an "I'm feeling lucky" text box, it's getting one that is (supposedly) intelligent. When Google thinks the "I'm feeling lucky" link is what you want, it will take you there. If not, it takes you to the regular search results. That is what makes this (albeit questionably) interesting.
Who would buy an iMac over a comparable laptop, and why?
Probably someone who...
Then there's the screen size. As it stands now, a 17" PBook would cost $2800, and have a 1.5GHz G4 in it. For $1300, you get a 17" iMac with a 1.6GHz G5...
The possessive is "thy" and not "thou." "Oh vanity, you name is..." doesn't make much sense, now does it? ;)
(yes, I am an English major...)
Oh, you say we have to clean our own house first? If we don't win this, cleanly or otherwise, we won't have a house left. Osama, Moqtada, and the mullahs in Iran would love nothing more than to see freedom fall.
IMHO, it's better to "fall" as what you are than it is to fall as what you are not. If freedom vanishes from the face of the earth, let it be because it was freedom to the bitter end. Better to die free than to live on with the blood of repression and the stain of hypocrisy on your hands.
So what happens when a virus gets into the seventy zillion unsecured windoze boxes out there, and drops every thermostat they can reach to fifty degrees in the middle of august?
I'd be happy with that... but then again, I live in New Mexico, and it's usually in the 80s and 90s here until October or November. :)