Actually, it is part of the OS X update, according to the knowledge base article. The separate security patch is probably for people who want the security fix without the risk of a brand new system update that hasn't been widely tested yet.
Drop softcover prices down to a sane $4 and hardcover to $12 and we'll see an increase in reading again.
No kidding. $9+ for a puny 200 page novel? I don't care if it's by Crichton or Grisham, that's ridiculous. My solution to this is to buy most such books second hand. There's a great used bookstore here, and there's a huge dealer spot at the flea market where you can get paperbacks for $1 a piece. Considering that most people only read these books once and then toss them out, they're almost always in good condition.
It's been years since I paid full price for a fiction book... and thanks to Amazon, Barnes & Noble discounts, etc. I rarely pay full price for non-fiction books as well. Now if I could just find a way to not get ripped off every semester for crappy, useless college textbooks...
When I drive my Subaru it doesn't pop-up ads for Ford.
When I drink my Starbucks I don't get told that I could also be drinking Folgers.
Bad analogy. Even fairly clueless people know that there are different brands of cars, coffee, etc. That's because there is competition, and face it - people probably put more thought into what they want in a car than they do with computers. A computer, to the "mothers" of the world, is an appliance. Until people realize that computers, like cars, require smart buying, maintenance, and can vary widely in terms of quality, that's the way it will be.
Even with the appliance analogy, however, there is a problem. Most people realize that if you don't clean, maintain, and intelligently use an appliance, it is not going to work very well or for very long. If I don't use my toaster properly, I'll probably set my kitchen on fire. Similarly, if I don't use my computer properly, I could end up losing all my data or having my credit card # hijacked.
Anyway, I got sidetracked there. Just keep in mind that when a monopoly has a stranglehold on a market, all the rules change. Microsoft doesn't necessarily have to advertise competing products, but the rules are different when the market is not totally or even mostly free. And there's no excuse for providing a crappy, security breach of a product, monopoly or no...
Not intuitive, but the grandparent didn't claim it was. They were just merely offering a solution. Sheesh... If sarcastic replies like this is why people are hesitant to help sometimes, I don't blame them.
Yes, but note that I said reasonably expected. 100% security is not reasonable to expect. Expecting timely response to security holes, however, is reasonable.
I don't see what's so "bizarre" about the middle button working in Safari. After all, the right mouse button works all over the place for context menus. I think it fits in nicely with the OS X attitude of keeping things simple, but allowing for some flexibility for those that are aware of it or need it. Witness multi-button support, AppleScript GUI scripting, the underlying UNIX core, etc.
The problem with that analogy is that the very nature of a window is inherently insecure in various ways. If you can make it 100% (or 99%) secure, it's probably not a window anymore. But there's no such attribute of an operating system and its applications - it is not a given that software is reasonably expected to be insecure, especially a many $$$ operating system. And when there are security flaws that can be fixed and they are left unfixed, that is a heckuva lot more worthy of a lawsuit than windows not made out of "1/4-inch steel".
I'd like to point out that there is a semi-native hack for OpenOffice called NeoOffice. It wraps OpenOffice in Java, which means you don't need to run X11 first, you can use native key bindings for everything, the system clipboard works properly, and (best of all) the native OS X print system is used.
Sure, the UI is still an ugly Windows-esque menu-in-the-window scheme, but it's better than nothing.:) I've been using it for my work and school papers, and found it to be as stable as an official OpenOffice build for OS X. It also seems to be a lot faster... initial startup time (because of Java) is as crappy as ever, but once it's running, it's a lot smoother.
There's a reason why we see PS1 games still on the shelfs at stores like Bestbuy, while we don't see Dreamcast, Saturn, etc. There are a legion of casual gamers out there that are happy with PS1 games.
Yeah, when even stores like Wal-Mart still carry PS1 games, it means SOMEBODY is buying them. Hell, each of the last two times I was browsing around in that spawn-of-satan store, I saw people asking for PS1 games off the shelf.
Now the cacti will have wifi and I still don't, this is a huge step for mankind
Just so you know, Arizona is the one with all the cacti.;) New Mexico has very little in the way of natural growing cactus plants, certainly nothing on the scale of the Siguaro National Park. This is probably because of our altitude and overall climate. The closest thing to a cactus we have in abundance is Yucca plants.:)
... that one of the key ideas being missed here is that many functions (especially ones we work with a lot) on a computer are moving away from item-specific windows to task-specific windows. I have a browser window that I browse with, a Finder window that I manage files with, etc. Tabs, tree/column views, and so forth allow me to confine a given task within one window, rather than littering my desktop with a dozen windows.
However, I still have the freedom of opening additional windows if I want to to further separate tasks. For example, a browser window with a bunch of tabs for a research project, and another window with a bunch of tabs for news articles or Slashdot surfing.:)
lots of old kruft on the Debian tree [...] How many text editors would a non-techie need?
How is providing choice "kruft"? Nobody, non-techie or otherwise, has to install the 500 text editors Debian provides. Most non-techies don't really know what a text editor is, whether they have any installed, etc. So how again is this "kruft" or otherwise some failing of Debian?
Or we could just make ISP's responsible for disconnecting any customer who has an infected machine connected. When the machine is cleaned, then they could reconnect, not before.
And how does your average user "clean" their machine without a net connection? They can't get to Windows update, they can't get virus updates, they can't find how-to documents on locking down the box until a patch arrives, etc. Even assuming these users had access to a PC on another connection, would they be able to get the patch/data they need and stick it on their own PC? Do they have the knowledge (or the equipment - access to another PC with a CD burner to stick a bunch of patches on, for example) to do so? Would they even know what was wrong? Short of having some app sitting on the user's machine (spyware risks, anyone?) that will pop up a dialog telling them what happened, how would they know?
A perhaps better approach would be to restrict that PC's line to connections to Windows Update, and maybe the ISP's own mirror of the latest virus data. Hell, they could redirect all HTTP connections to a page they host, explaining the problem and what to do about it to get their connection restored to normal.
I haven't looked at the details of the virus, but there are many ways these results could be "sent back." They could be posted to some anonymous FTP, or free hosting on . Or maybe the info could be injected into Freenet or some P2P network. Hell, the stuff could just be e-mailed to some random free e-mail accounts to - set up a bunch of bogus Yahoo, Hotmail, and Hushmail accounts, and have the data sent to all of them. Odds are you'd end up getting at least SOME juicy data before your provider(s) shut you down...
I'm sure smarter people than me can come up with more ideas to post here as well.:)
Seriously, why are we worried about the "future" of inconvenient input formats?
How is RPN inconvenient? Sure, it requires a change of thinking initially, but the gains are traditionally a lot more than the initial effort required. Even just in my limited use of RPN in a college environment, I have seen the benefits as far as speed and yes, convenience.
In one of my recent math classes, the instructor spent 20 minutes helping people to enter a semi-complex formula with parenthetical notation. With RPN, I didn't have to deal with messy parenthesis, I just got the work done. As an added bonus, I got to spend those 20 minutes practicing my written Chinese.:)
Sure, prebinding does speed up loading, but it also breaks everything from tripwire, to backup
Yeah, because I know tons of Mac users who run tripwire on their machines.:) Now, for Mac OS X Server, this could be a problem... But I don't know to what extent it uses prebinding compared to regular OS X.
The goal is to produce music that the masses will listen to, but that makes geeks and audiophiles sick
So, what's this new plan of theirs, then?
Re:I'm with linus torvalds on this one
on
Browser Wars Mark II
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Well, let's see... Here are some of the most obvious problems with sites that use all or mostly Flash-based content:
How do you "bookmark" a section of a Flash movie? If I find something interesting in a Flash-based web site, and I want to come back to it later, I have to remember all the cutesy menus I had to go through just to get back there.
Most Flash pages do not allow copying of text. So, not only can I not easily bookmark the information I want, I can't copy it either unless I whip out a text editor and re-type everything myself.
Accessibility! Perhaps Macromedia or someone else has a solution for this, but I've yet to hear of such a thing. How accessible are Flash sites to, say, blind people? If your computer can't access the information as text, how can it read it to you or present it in Braille?
Time for a geeky one: it's a closed standard. Unlike HTML, and JPEG, and PNG, and XML, and CSS, etc. Flash is not really an open standard. You have to use Macromedia's tools if you want to do anything serious with the format. If Macromedia goes out of business tomorrow, and you can't get Flash for Windows Longhorn or Mac OS X Tiger, oh well you're screwed. And what happens if they decide they want royalties for every.swf you put on your web site?
I'll admit, the last point is a bit over the top, but it is one of the complaints commonly found on Slashdot. The first three points comprise my main beef with Flash. Flash is a good technology, but it is not a replacement for open, standardized, and accessible formats like HTML, XML, and CSS.
Slashdot Mirror
internet
<networking> (Note: capital "I"). The Internet is the largest internet (with a small "i") in the world.
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2004 Denis Howe
(courtesy of dictionary.com)
Can't you innovate?
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Apple can't innovate for crap.
Nice try though.
Actually, it is part of the OS X update, according to the knowledge base article. The separate security patch is probably for people who want the security fix without the risk of a brand new system update that hasn't been widely tested yet.
Drop softcover prices down to a sane $4 and hardcover to $12 and we'll see an increase in reading again.
No kidding. $9+ for a puny 200 page novel? I don't care if it's by Crichton or Grisham, that's ridiculous. My solution to this is to buy most such books second hand. There's a great used bookstore here, and there's a huge dealer spot at the flea market where you can get paperbacks for $1 a piece. Considering that most people only read these books once and then toss them out, they're almost always in good condition.
It's been years since I paid full price for a fiction book... and thanks to Amazon, Barnes & Noble discounts, etc. I rarely pay full price for non-fiction books as well. Now if I could just find a way to not get ripped off every semester for crappy, useless college textbooks...
When I drive my Subaru it doesn't pop-up ads for Ford.
When I drink my Starbucks I don't get told that I could also be drinking Folgers.
Bad analogy. Even fairly clueless people know that there are different brands of cars, coffee, etc. That's because there is competition, and face it - people probably put more thought into what they want in a car than they do with computers. A computer, to the "mothers" of the world, is an appliance. Until people realize that computers, like cars, require smart buying, maintenance, and can vary widely in terms of quality, that's the way it will be.
Even with the appliance analogy, however, there is a problem. Most people realize that if you don't clean, maintain, and intelligently use an appliance, it is not going to work very well or for very long. If I don't use my toaster properly, I'll probably set my kitchen on fire. Similarly, if I don't use my computer properly, I could end up losing all my data or having my credit card # hijacked.
Anyway, I got sidetracked there. Just keep in mind that when a monopoly has a stranglehold on a market, all the rules change. Microsoft doesn't necessarily have to advertise competing products, but the rules are different when the market is not totally or even mostly free. And there's no excuse for providing a crappy, security breach of a product, monopoly or no...
Not intuitive, but the grandparent didn't claim it was. They were just merely offering a solution. Sheesh... If sarcastic replies like this is why people are hesitant to help sometimes, I don't blame them.
Yes, but note that I said reasonably expected. 100% security is not reasonable to expect. Expecting timely response to security holes, however, is reasonable.
I don't see what's so "bizarre" about the middle button working in Safari. After all, the right mouse button works all over the place for context menus. I think it fits in nicely with the OS X attitude of keeping things simple, but allowing for some flexibility for those that are aware of it or need it. Witness multi-button support, AppleScript GUI scripting, the underlying UNIX core, etc.
The problem with that analogy is that the very nature of a window is inherently insecure in various ways. If you can make it 100% (or 99%) secure, it's probably not a window anymore. But there's no such attribute of an operating system and its applications - it is not a given that software is reasonably expected to be insecure, especially a many $$$ operating system. And when there are security flaws that can be fixed and they are left unfixed, that is a heckuva lot more worthy of a lawsuit than windows not made out of "1/4-inch steel".
I'd like to point out that there is a semi-native hack for OpenOffice called NeoOffice. It wraps OpenOffice in Java, which means you don't need to run X11 first, you can use native key bindings for everything, the system clipboard works properly, and (best of all) the native OS X print system is used.
Sure, the UI is still an ugly Windows-esque menu-in-the-window scheme, but it's better than nothing. :) I've been using it for my work and school papers, and found it to be as stable as an official OpenOffice build for OS X. It also seems to be a lot faster... initial startup time (because of Java) is as crappy as ever, but once it's running, it's a lot smoother.
There's a reason why we see PS1 games still on the shelfs at stores like Bestbuy, while we don't see Dreamcast, Saturn, etc. There are a legion of casual gamers out there that are happy with PS1 games.
Yeah, when even stores like Wal-Mart still carry PS1 games, it means SOMEBODY is buying them. Hell, each of the last two times I was browsing around in that spawn-of-satan store, I saw people asking for PS1 games off the shelf.
And here and here and here. :)
Now the cacti will have wifi and I still don't, this is a huge step for mankind
Just so you know, Arizona is the one with all the cacti. ;) New Mexico has very little in the way of natural growing cactus plants, certainly nothing on the scale of the Siguaro National Park. This is probably because of our altitude and overall climate. The closest thing to a cactus we have in abundance is Yucca plants. :)
Am I the only one who sees this as a great pick up line? .]
[. .
Random gal: *SLAP*
This is why us geeks can't get chicks. Our definition of a "great" pickup line is the one that generates the hardest slap. :)
Can you hack me now? ...
Good!
... that one of the key ideas being missed here is that many functions (especially ones we work with a lot) on a computer are moving away from item-specific windows to task-specific windows. I have a browser window that I browse with, a Finder window that I manage files with, etc. Tabs, tree/column views, and so forth allow me to confine a given task within one window, rather than littering my desktop with a dozen windows.
:)
However, I still have the freedom of opening additional windows if I want to to further separate tasks. For example, a browser window with a bunch of tabs for a research project, and another window with a bunch of tabs for news articles or Slashdot surfing.
Just my 2 cents.
lots of old kruft on the Debian tree [...] How many text editors would a non-techie need?
How is providing choice "kruft"? Nobody, non-techie or otherwise, has to install the 500 text editors Debian provides. Most non-techies don't really know what a text editor is, whether they have any installed, etc. So how again is this "kruft" or otherwise some failing of Debian?
Or we could just make ISP's responsible for disconnecting any customer who has an infected machine connected. When the machine is cleaned, then they could reconnect, not before.
And how does your average user "clean" their machine without a net connection? They can't get to Windows update, they can't get virus updates, they can't find how-to documents on locking down the box until a patch arrives, etc. Even assuming these users had access to a PC on another connection, would they be able to get the patch/data they need and stick it on their own PC? Do they have the knowledge (or the equipment - access to another PC with a CD burner to stick a bunch of patches on, for example) to do so? Would they even know what was wrong? Short of having some app sitting on the user's machine (spyware risks, anyone?) that will pop up a dialog telling them what happened, how would they know?
A perhaps better approach would be to restrict that PC's line to connections to Windows Update, and maybe the ISP's own mirror of the latest virus data. Hell, they could redirect all HTTP connections to a page they host, explaining the problem and what to do about it to get their connection restored to normal.
I'm sure smarter people than me can come up with more ideas to post here as well. :)
Probably more than a replacement Archos.
Seriously, why are we worried about the "future" of inconvenient input formats?
How is RPN inconvenient? Sure, it requires a change of thinking initially, but the gains are traditionally a lot more than the initial effort required. Even just in my limited use of RPN in a college environment, I have seen the benefits as far as speed and yes, convenience.
In one of my recent math classes, the instructor spent 20 minutes helping people to enter a semi-complex formula with parenthetical notation. With RPN, I didn't have to deal with messy parenthesis, I just got the work done. As an added bonus, I got to spend those 20 minutes practicing my written Chinese. :)
Sure, prebinding does speed up loading, but it also breaks everything from tripwire, to backup
Yeah, because I know tons of Mac users who run tripwire on their machines. :) Now, for Mac OS X Server, this could be a problem... But I don't know to what extent it uses prebinding compared to regular OS X.
11. Let's get this out of the way...
The goal is to produce music that the masses will listen to, but that makes geeks and audiophiles sick
So, what's this new plan of theirs, then?
Well, let's see... Here are some of the most obvious problems with sites that use all or mostly Flash-based content:
I'll admit, the last point is a bit over the top, but it is one of the complaints commonly found on Slashdot. The first three points comprise my main beef with Flash. Flash is a good technology, but it is not a replacement for open, standardized, and accessible formats like HTML, XML, and CSS.