One of these days, I'm going to go to Slashdot and see that Google has unvealed that all their services are now a WebOS.
I'm still not convinced a "WebOS" idea would fly. I think for certain things having a spreadsheet online is a great idea. The google blog post on the topic gives great examples of what it could be used for (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/its-nice-t o-share.html). However, if I wanted to use a spreadsheet to generate or track data that only I would ever want to view (say financial information), I don't really benefit from having the system web based.
I think the same goes for many other office type applications.
Now, in a corporate environment, the situation is slightly different as almost every document needs to be shared. However, I still think it would be much better to have a version of Word or OO.org that syncs to a central server automatically rather than a web app.
I suppose time will tell, but I don't really see an emergence of a "WebOS" from Google or any company for that matter.
While it might be nice to have unlimited space to save shows on, I'm wondering how bad the lag between input and reaction would be in a system like this. I've played around with Comcast's OnDemand and I can tell you that it is very hard to pause or fastforward or rewind a show. There is a few second lag time between when I press a button and there is any response by the system.
Also, a system like this seems ripe for enforcement of artifical viewing policies. Personally, I don't see what this service could really add for me as a user.
Well, I don't think having no prior knowledge of Windows would be necessary for the developers. In fact, I think just the opposite may be true. Chances are someone who knows Windows very well will also know what areas need improvement and what its faults are overall.
Of course, it would always be a danger that the developer would just create what they already know, but with good leadership and a focus on doing the research to create something better than what they know by avoiding all of the initial pitfalls then I think they could come up with a system better than what Windows XP is now.
I realize that this is what they did with NT, but I feel that it is time to do it again. From what I've read, it seems that MS has had a very difficult time just trying to understand Windows as a whole. I know they put a lot of resources into finding ways to reverse engineer the true architecture and dependencies of components with in the system.
I agree that NT seems to be a well designed kernel. I'm not convinced that it is an easy piece of software to modify and continue to develop. Thats not to say that any operating system is, but I get the feeling that NT is more difficult than others and that perhaps very few people at MS actually understand it in its entirety.
However, more than the troubles of developing NT I think the main hurdle is the concern with backwars compatibilty and it seems that you (and many others) agree to this. Mainly, I think that a fresh start would be best because backwards compatibility wouldn't be an issue and the engineers would be forced to rethink all of the issues that plague current versions of Windows. I suppose the next best solutions would be to delete everything except the NT kernel itself and build up to a complete system with fresh ideas for security and user-level APIs.
What I've never understood is why a company as large as Microsoft never tried to create a second operating systems team with the goal of having it produce a new operating system from a clean slate? The original Windows team could still remain active for the short term and produce the types of updates that they have been in order to at least keep some reveneu from operating systems. This way the second team can work as long as they need until they have a good product. Even if the second operating system is a complete failure, which I don't see happening at a company with so many smart engineers, they would still be able to salvage at least some of the technology for use in the currect Windows code base.
Microsoft spends a lot of money on R&D, so it doesn't seem completely far fetched that they would consider an approach like this. I know they have produced operating systems purely for research in the past (called Singularity, I think?), but why not create a second team to come up with something new, something that can avoid all the problems they've learned about developing Windows?
The NT codebase won't last forever (at least I hope not), so I find it odd that Microsoft hasn't at least tried to start fresh again. I can't see NT lasting much beyond Vista and in a lot of ways I think it was a mistake to build Vista on top of NT. There has to be some point to break backward compatibilty and now is as good as a time as any. With ownership of VirtualPC, it wouldn't be hard for MS to run previous versions of Windows along side whatever new system they built, much like Apple did with OS X and OS 9.
I think most power OS X users will agree that the Finder is a glaring weak point of OS X. My feeling is that 10.5 will have an update to Finder.
Other than fixing problems with hangs due to network drives, like you mention, one thing I would really like to see in a new Finder is better Spotlight integration. I'd like to be able to view, edit, and organize by metadata. From what I've read, it seems like Windows Vista will do most of the things I'd like to see from Finder in this regard. Since OS X 10.4 already has the framework for Spotlight, it shouldn't be that hard to give an interface update to Finder (although I'd be in favor of a complete re-write). As things stand right now, I even feel that Apple could implement and deliver this before Vista sees the light of day.
Re:Jackasses
on
Sun Grid DOS'd
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Sure, I'll bite.
I would say that any "white hat" hacker would notify the company of security vulnerabilities within their system instead of exploiting them with no warning. I think actually releasing or using exploits against a system that you do not own, operate, or have permission to run said exploits on would remove you from the "white hat" group. Believe it or not, some people are able to research software security without feeling the need to run exploits in the wild. Only those who are irresponsible or malicious would do that, and these types are typically not the ones creating the exploits to being with.
Sure Google is a good source of intelligence...if you want to find out what the average person does in the average day. It seems really doubtful that any terrorist would use Google or other unencrypted web services to send such sensitive data. It has been shown that terrorists have adapted to not using cell phones or other easily tapped forms of communication.
Sure Google's data may be interesting to the government for different reasons, but I doubt it would be a good source of intelligence related to terrorism or military actions.
I think this product is rather mundane after hearing all the hype about Origami, not that I really bought into it to begin with. Still, this doesn't really seem to fill a niche that wasn't already filled. It is certainly not the iPod killer some called it earlier.
Some problems I can see:
It doesn't really offer more or better functionality than a Nokia 770 or a tablet PC. In fact, I think I rather have a small tablet PC so I would have access to a keyboard. With a codename of Origami, you would think this would have some kind of fold out keyboard, wouldn't you?
The battery life seems short (about 3 hours according to Scoble). If this is supposed to go everywhere with me and be my constant companion, it should last for at least 8 hours.
For the size and price, I don't really see this causing a new usage pattern beyond what people use portable computers or PDAs for. I suppose there is some market where people wanted something more powerful than a PDA but smaller than current tablet PCs, but it doesn't seem like a big one.
"* It will not get you an automatic first post on Slashdot."
But with all of those processing elements...OMG..it will, like, write my posts for me so I won't even have to think! It will simply be amazing and be able to display graphics in a higher resolution than the human eye can see! There is nothing that the PS3 can't do!
Personally, I'm in favor of the shark program. I imagine one day being able to use my 2400 baud modem to hack into the computer controlling them, being asked if I want to play a game of chess, answering no and opting instead for the really cool shark sim game, and unknowingly unleashing a remote controlled shark army on the world.
Ah, the good days.
Personally, these two "worms" for OS X don't worry me too much. They both seem to require user interaction inorder to infect the system. What will really be of concern is a worm that can spread without the user being involved in any way. Personally, I think that OS X is much less likely to suffer from exploits of this type than Windows.
What about boy bands? Whenever I've heard that type of music (not by choice, mind you) I'm pretty sure I was damaged in some way. Scarred for life you might say.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how this message to not steal OS X would be a message to not run it on a non-Apple x86 box? Assuming that a legal copy was purchased and only installed on one computer, the software was not stolen no matter what type of computer the user tries to install it on.
"I read your post about 5 times in horror before I noticed the word "by" after "killed"."
"Sony VAIO N505VE: power connection killed by my son when he started learning to crawl and pull himself up things
...
(Those of you who are thinking, "Well, duh, just keep your laptop away from your kids" either don't have kids or don't have a serious computer addiction. And since you're on/. I'm guessing it's the kids thing.)
-- Carnage Blender [carnageblender.com]: Meet interesting people. Kill them."
I'm not sure where that idea came from...I suppose MySpace could be used to share files but that doesn't seem to be what the majority uses it for. I have an account and have never come across any profiles that seemed to be geared toward rampant file sharing.
Also, I've been able to use YouTube without any problems after having signed on to MySpace. Then again, I use Firefox so that may have something to do with things actually working correctly:)
I think you hit the nail on the head when you (and many other posters) said that programmers are asked to do the impossible. Now, I haven't been in the industry long, but I can see how shifting requirements would have a huge effect on the outcome of the project. One thing that stood out about Praxis was that they seemed to demand a lot from their customers when it came down to creating specifications. After all, how can one develop software to solve a problem that is not defined? Perhaps if this approach to software was more frequent in software industry, we would see better results.
I agree with what you said...I've tried linux as a desktop for home use for some time now and I've always ended up going back to Windows.
When I finally got an iBook, I realized that OS X is the perfect marriage of things I love about *nix and the desktop experience I've had with Windows. When it comes to running a desktop at home, what I want to do with it is usually different than say a desktop at the office. At home, my tasks involve around entertainment as well as being able to do things hassle free. I don't want to have to mess with installing drivers or configuring X server. I want to be able to watch videos and access other media easily. I want to be able to install programs using drag and drop. I want to be able to use Office and Photoshop. I want an advanced GUI. But I also want a *nix like environment because I feel that is the best way to learn things as a CS major. So far OS X has offered all of these things without any problems.
I also stayed away from Apple computers during the later 90s, OS 8 and 9 really didn't appeal to me. However, once I read about OS X and its Unix base, I became very interested and started following the system closely. After getting a chance to use it extensively at school, I was hooked. Personally, I think linux for a home desktop user should aspire to being closer to OS X. Even then, I feel that missing a lot of the other iLife type apps that Apple provides would still be a major drawback to running linux. Don't get me wrong, linux is great as far as being a free operating system that runs great for server type rolls and I find it adequate in my office's environment, I just don't think it has everything a home desktop user would want.
I wonder if CDMA networks would be less likely to be affected by this sort of attack since all data is sent on the same channel anyway. There is a quote in the article from Verizon (who uses a CDMA network) but it didn't really go into specifics.
How does this pass the nonobvious test?
You have to wonder if the Patent Office even reads the claims any more or just goes by the title. If I sort my books alphabetically and then by some arbitrary grouping, thats not worthy of a patent. Change books to mp3s and sort to display and you have Creative's patent.
While I agree that what you said is true, I don't think its the way things should be. Why shouldn't linux and the applications that run on it be designed with other users or normal users in mind? I think designing something with the intention that it should only satisfy myself is narrow minded. If you are designing an GUI and not taking other users into account that seems foolish, since the only purpose of the GUI is to provide a window into the application for people who don't know it too well. If you think about this code wise, would you really think highly of code that has an interface so poorly designed that it inhibits the use of the code, even though its functionality might be what you need? Sure you would probably still use it, but it would probably be a pain to get it working. Why should we accept anything less with GUIs?
Linux wasn't written with the "normal" user in mind...but maybe it should have been.
Slashdot Mirror
Because that 'V' was for Vendetta.
Format his drive, break his CDs, cut his ethernet connection, and replace his video card with one so crappy it can barely draw 1 polygon.
Nothing like forcing someone into quitting something cold turkey. If you care for this person, you will do it.
While it might be nice to have unlimited space to save shows on, I'm wondering how bad the lag between input and reaction would be in a system like this. I've played around with Comcast's OnDemand and I can tell you that it is very hard to pause or fastforward or rewind a show. There is a few second lag time between when I press a button and there is any response by the system. Also, a system like this seems ripe for enforcement of artifical viewing policies. Personally, I don't see what this service could really add for me as a user.
Well, I don't think having no prior knowledge of Windows would be necessary for the developers. In fact, I think just the opposite may be true. Chances are someone who knows Windows very well will also know what areas need improvement and what its faults are overall.
Of course, it would always be a danger that the developer would just create what they already know, but with good leadership and a focus on doing the research to create something better than what they know by avoiding all of the initial pitfalls then I think they could come up with a system better than what Windows XP is now.
I realize that this is what they did with NT, but I feel that it is time to do it again. From what I've read, it seems that MS has had a very difficult time just trying to understand Windows as a whole. I know they put a lot of resources into finding ways to reverse engineer the true architecture and dependencies of components with in the system.
I agree that NT seems to be a well designed kernel. I'm not convinced that it is an easy piece of software to modify and continue to develop. Thats not to say that any operating system is, but I get the feeling that NT is more difficult than others and that perhaps very few people at MS actually understand it in its entirety.
However, more than the troubles of developing NT I think the main hurdle is the concern with backwars compatibilty and it seems that you (and many others) agree to this. Mainly, I think that a fresh start would be best because backwards compatibility wouldn't be an issue and the engineers would be forced to rethink all of the issues that plague current versions of Windows. I suppose the next best solutions would be to delete everything except the NT kernel itself and build up to a complete system with fresh ideas for security and user-level APIs.
What I've never understood is why a company as large as Microsoft never tried to create a second operating systems team with the goal of having it produce a new operating system from a clean slate? The original Windows team could still remain active for the short term and produce the types of updates that they have been in order to at least keep some reveneu from operating systems. This way the second team can work as long as they need until they have a good product. Even if the second operating system is a complete failure, which I don't see happening at a company with so many smart engineers, they would still be able to salvage at least some of the technology for use in the currect Windows code base. Microsoft spends a lot of money on R&D, so it doesn't seem completely far fetched that they would consider an approach like this. I know they have produced operating systems purely for research in the past (called Singularity, I think?), but why not create a second team to come up with something new, something that can avoid all the problems they've learned about developing Windows? The NT codebase won't last forever (at least I hope not), so I find it odd that Microsoft hasn't at least tried to start fresh again. I can't see NT lasting much beyond Vista and in a lot of ways I think it was a mistake to build Vista on top of NT. There has to be some point to break backward compatibilty and now is as good as a time as any. With ownership of VirtualPC, it wouldn't be hard for MS to run previous versions of Windows along side whatever new system they built, much like Apple did with OS X and OS 9.
I think most power OS X users will agree that the Finder is a glaring weak point of OS X. My feeling is that 10.5 will have an update to Finder.
Other than fixing problems with hangs due to network drives, like you mention, one thing I would really like to see in a new Finder is better Spotlight integration. I'd like to be able to view, edit, and organize by metadata. From what I've read, it seems like Windows Vista will do most of the things I'd like to see from Finder in this regard. Since OS X 10.4 already has the framework for Spotlight, it shouldn't be that hard to give an interface update to Finder (although I'd be in favor of a complete re-write). As things stand right now, I even feel that Apple could implement and deliver this before Vista sees the light of day.
Sure, I'll bite. I would say that any "white hat" hacker would notify the company of security vulnerabilities within their system instead of exploiting them with no warning. I think actually releasing or using exploits against a system that you do not own, operate, or have permission to run said exploits on would remove you from the "white hat" group. Believe it or not, some people are able to research software security without feeling the need to run exploits in the wild. Only those who are irresponsible or malicious would do that, and these types are typically not the ones creating the exploits to being with.
Sure Google is a good source of intelligence...if you want to find out what the average person does in the average day. It seems really doubtful that any terrorist would use Google or other unencrypted web services to send such sensitive data. It has been shown that terrorists have adapted to not using cell phones or other easily tapped forms of communication.
Sure Google's data may be interesting to the government for different reasons, but I doubt it would be a good source of intelligence related to terrorism or military actions.
I think this product is rather mundane after hearing all the hype about Origami, not that I really bought into it to begin with. Still, this doesn't really seem to fill a niche that wasn't already filled. It is certainly not the iPod killer some called it earlier.
Some problems I can see:
It doesn't really offer more or better functionality than a Nokia 770 or a tablet PC. In fact, I think I rather have a small tablet PC so I would have access to a keyboard. With a codename of Origami, you would think this would have some kind of fold out keyboard, wouldn't you?
The battery life seems short (about 3 hours according to Scoble). If this is supposed to go everywhere with me and be my constant companion, it should last for at least 8 hours.
For the size and price, I don't really see this causing a new usage pattern beyond what people use portable computers or PDAs for. I suppose there is some market where people wanted something more powerful than a PDA but smaller than current tablet PCs, but it doesn't seem like a big one.
Not only does the satellite monitor the Earth's weather, but it can also fire a DEATH LASER!
I can hear the cash falling out of the government already.
"* It will not get you an automatic first post on Slashdot."
But with all of those processing elements...OMG..it will, like, write my posts for me so I won't even have to think! It will simply be amazing and be able to display graphics in a higher resolution than the human eye can see! There is nothing that the PS3 can't do!
Personally, I'm in favor of the shark program. I imagine one day being able to use my 2400 baud modem to hack into the computer controlling them, being asked if I want to play a game of chess, answering no and opting instead for the really cool shark sim game, and unknowingly unleashing a remote controlled shark army on the world. Ah, the good days.
Personally, these two "worms" for OS X don't worry me too much. They both seem to require user interaction inorder to infect the system. What will really be of concern is a worm that can spread without the user being involved in any way. Personally, I think that OS X is much less likely to suffer from exploits of this type than Windows.
Check the article and the website. This project is not affiliated with Google in any way I could tell.
What about boy bands? Whenever I've heard that type of music (not by choice, mind you) I'm pretty sure I was damaged in some way. Scarred for life you might say.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how this message to not steal OS X would be a message to not run it on a non-Apple x86 box? Assuming that a legal copy was purchased and only installed on one computer, the software was not stolen no matter what type of computer the user tries to install it on.
"I read your post about 5 times in horror before I noticed the word "by" after "killed"."
...
/. I'm guessing it's the kids thing.)
"Sony VAIO N505VE: power connection killed by my son when he started learning to crawl and pull himself up things
(Those of you who are thinking, "Well, duh, just keep your laptop away from your kids" either don't have kids or don't have a serious computer addiction. And since you're on
--
Carnage Blender [carnageblender.com]: Meet interesting people. Kill them."
Nah, that's what killed his kids.
I'm not sure where that idea came from...I suppose MySpace could be used to share files but that doesn't seem to be what the majority uses it for. I have an account and have never come across any profiles that seemed to be geared toward rampant file sharing.
:)
Also, I've been able to use YouTube without any problems after having signed on to MySpace. Then again, I use Firefox so that may have something to do with things actually working correctly
I think you hit the nail on the head when you (and many other posters) said that programmers are asked to do the impossible. Now, I haven't been in the industry long, but I can see how shifting requirements would have a huge effect on the outcome of the project. One thing that stood out about Praxis was that they seemed to demand a lot from their customers when it came down to creating specifications. After all, how can one develop software to solve a problem that is not defined? Perhaps if this approach to software was more frequent in software industry, we would see better results.
I agree with what you said...I've tried linux as a desktop for home use for some time now and I've always ended up going back to Windows. When I finally got an iBook, I realized that OS X is the perfect marriage of things I love about *nix and the desktop experience I've had with Windows. When it comes to running a desktop at home, what I want to do with it is usually different than say a desktop at the office. At home, my tasks involve around entertainment as well as being able to do things hassle free. I don't want to have to mess with installing drivers or configuring X server. I want to be able to watch videos and access other media easily. I want to be able to install programs using drag and drop. I want to be able to use Office and Photoshop. I want an advanced GUI. But I also want a *nix like environment because I feel that is the best way to learn things as a CS major. So far OS X has offered all of these things without any problems. I also stayed away from Apple computers during the later 90s, OS 8 and 9 really didn't appeal to me. However, once I read about OS X and its Unix base, I became very interested and started following the system closely. After getting a chance to use it extensively at school, I was hooked. Personally, I think linux for a home desktop user should aspire to being closer to OS X. Even then, I feel that missing a lot of the other iLife type apps that Apple provides would still be a major drawback to running linux. Don't get me wrong, linux is great as far as being a free operating system that runs great for server type rolls and I find it adequate in my office's environment, I just don't think it has everything a home desktop user would want.
I wonder if CDMA networks would be less likely to be affected by this sort of attack since all data is sent on the same channel anyway. There is a quote in the article from Verizon (who uses a CDMA network) but it didn't really go into specifics.
How does this pass the nonobvious test? You have to wonder if the Patent Office even reads the claims any more or just goes by the title. If I sort my books alphabetically and then by some arbitrary grouping, thats not worthy of a patent. Change books to mp3s and sort to display and you have Creative's patent.
While I agree that what you said is true, I don't think its the way things should be. Why shouldn't linux and the applications that run on it be designed with other users or normal users in mind? I think designing something with the intention that it should only satisfy myself is narrow minded. If you are designing an GUI and not taking other users into account that seems foolish, since the only purpose of the GUI is to provide a window into the application for people who don't know it too well. If you think about this code wise, would you really think highly of code that has an interface so poorly designed that it inhibits the use of the code, even though its functionality might be what you need? Sure you would probably still use it, but it would probably be a pain to get it working. Why should we accept anything less with GUIs?
Linux wasn't written with the "normal" user in mind...but maybe it should have been.