I know a fellow who graduated with a 4-year CS degree, and couldn't write a program to save his life. When he was in school (a fairly prestigious southeastern university) all of his programming assignments were group efforts. So he just got in the groups with the best programmers, then offered to do the jobs no one else wanted (documentation and presentation). On the rare occasion that he had an individual assignment his friend, a brilliant programmer, would "help" him with his assignment. Today, he has a nice shiny degree hanging on his wall, that most would agree is worth no more than the MCSE of a "Transcender Afficianado".
Do you think he is a unique case?
While there are a lot of paper-toting know-nothings in the world, there are also quite a lot of certified developers and administrators who, while lacking financial means to attend college, had the drive and initiative to master their skills through self-study, and used certification simply as a metric to demonstrate their knowledge. Let's not start blindly lumping people into categories of academic haves and have nots.
While perhaps not a shining star to point to (especially on Slashdot) Bill Gates could serve well as an example of someone who rose to greatness without the help of an academic degree. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to found Microsoft. Would he somehow have been a better programmer or businessman if he had spent an extra two and a half years drinking and playing cards, and left with a piece of paper?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but most medical students don't receive a whole lot of real hands-on experience until they graduate and do their internship. The only patients pre-intern medical students usually work on are the dead ones (cadavers). I don't see much difference in terms of "experience" between an intern who went to 8 years of school and passed all the requisite exams, and an intern who passed all the requisite exams on his own.
Most new teachers are also required to complete an intership before they can complete their state board exams. Same situation.
I have to agree with this. Having developed both desktop applications and web applications, I would definitely say the web applications were more challenging to architect and implement. Web development has a whole host of issues that desktop development takes for granted (things like security of interface and session management, or state maintenance). With most desktop applications, for instance, it's not usually possible for a malicious user to call a specific piece of your application and send arbitrary information to it in ways you had not intended. With web development, a malicious user can call any individual page of your application and submit data in an attempt to crowbar your application into doing something it shouldn't (for instance, sending arbitrary SQL queries to your database). There are also circumstances where performing a common programming task requires the web developer to jump through several hoops to get it done, where as for the desktop developer, it is implemented in a single function.
You keep mentioning "mega-businesses", but I think you've missed the point entirely. Did you know that over 96% of all of the businesses in the United States fall under the government classification of "small business". So when you say "It's only mid-size and wanna-be companies that have to rely on off-the-shelf solutions" you are really saying that over 96% of the businesses in America have to rely on off-the-shelf products to run their business. So by your own admission, "Macs are at a disadvantage" for use in 96% of the businesses in the US. It seems to me that Apple might want to address this shortfall.
As for making up for lack of applications with ease of use and maintainability, it doesn't matter if it's easy to use if it can't do what you need to do. Most businesses need the following tasks: Email, Contact Management, Accounting, Scheduling, and Document Management (in MS-compatible formats). On the Apple platform, you've got MS Office for Document Management, Email and Scheduling (with Entourage, although Exchange-functionality isn't there), but the selection for Accounting software is incredibly limited (you get to choose between MYOB and an outdated version of Quickbooks). Peachtree, arguably the standard in small business accounting, is not available on the Mac platform, nor are any of the vertical-specific solutions, or any of the higher-end mid-sized solutions like Dynamics or JD Edwards. Contact management is the same situation, since neither of the two major packages (Goldmine and ACT!) run on the Apple platform.
Now, you can put your nose in the air and say, "Look Rockefeller, I'm a consumer guy", but you're just avoiding the issue. You don't have to be Rockefeller to need good business tools. Even a small home-based business selling products over the Internet needs to process orders, maintain inventory, file taxes, keep customer records, send out marketing material, and cut payroll. If you happen to be a CPA, maybe you can do that all on paper ledgers or Excel spreadsheets, but when it comes time to run your GL at the end of the month, it'll take you 10 times as long as any off the shelf product.
Now, let me address the topic that started this thread: switching from Windows to Mac, and the costs thereof. I'll give you MY story. Recently, with the release of Jaguar, I seriously considered "switching". I was very interested in all the new, cool features in OSX.2. So I went to the Apple store online, and started putting together an order. PowerBook G4 decked out, $3500. Okay, some accessories and an iPod. Now we're up to $4500. A little steep, but no more than I spent on a top-of-the-line Inspiron two years ago (and I didn't get an iPod with that!). But let's look at software. Since I have all PC versions, and since nobody gives you the ability to upgrade cross-platform, I needed to buy full versions of all of the tools I use.
MS Office, Quicken, Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, GoLive, Norton AV, and a few others. Now, I run my own consulting and design business, so I need some business tools. Hmm. No Peachtree. No ACT!. No MS Project. No Visio. There's MYOB, but it's pretty limited (and of course, I'd have to export and convert all my financials - eeewww). I have an Exchange server for messaging and collaboration, but Entourage doesn't have an Exchange connector, and the OS9 version of Outlook 2001 (which does) doesn't work well under OSX.2 (I know this from experimentation on a client's PB). Guess I'll need VirtualPC as well to run all my business stuff.
So now I've got an extra $2500 or so in software (over half the price of the hardware), and half of my stuff (Peachtree, ACT!, Project, Visio, and Outlook) I'll have to keep running in a VirtualPC. Hmm. $7000 later, and I can't even make a clean "switch". I guess I don't have to tell you that I decided not to do it.
As a side note:
Right... I'm sure you erased everything off there you don't use, including all the megabytes of bloat and obscure utilities included in a clean Windows-install.
Uh, excuse me. Jaguar comes on 2 CDs and installs a hell of a lot of bloat and cruft by default. There's an old saying you might want to think about. Something about throwing stones from the balcony of your glass house...
What if you signed a contract saying you can't sue the company, then they fail to give you your severance pay? Can you sue them for breach of contract if you sign a contract relinquishing your right to sue?
Or another possibility: what if you sign the contract, they give you your severance, then on your way out of the building you slip on a freshly mopped floor and go flying down a flight of stairs. You wake up in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down, only to remember that you can't sue your former employer.
Giving up your right to pursue compensation in court is pretty extreme. Personally, I would refuse to sign the contract, then I'd hire a lawyer and sue them for your severance plus legal fees. Even the threat of a legal suit would probably get you your severance, and you would likely be out less than $500 to file the paperwork. Of course, if it goes to court and you lose, you lose your severance PLUS you now have a big bill for legal services. It's a gamble. Like pretty much everything in life.
If a man walks down the street dragging a $100 bill on a 50' length of thread, and someone steals it, the man is to blame for being careless with his money.
If a woman decides to take a 3am stroll through the ghetto wearing a g-string bikini, and she is sexually molested, the woman is to blame for being careless with her body.
While both of these are extreme examples, if a person fails to take reasonable precautions to protect themselves or their property, can they really cast blame when they become victims to their own carelessness?
Setting up a wireless network without using encryption is like a Playboy centerfold strutting naked through the ghetto at 3am pushing a wheelbarrow full of crisp $100 bills and calling on a blowhorn "COME AND GET IT!!!".
If you fail to take even the basest of precautions to secure your property (locking your wall locker, locking your house, encrypting your wireless network) you have no one to blame but yourself when someone comes along and takes advantage of you.
Wrong. They only have to replace all the software they actually use.
Well, I don't know about you, but the only software I have on my PC is the stuff I use.
And sometimes the Mac version comes free with the computer!
Yeah? Did Apple start shipping MS Office free with new Macs? Or Photoshop? Or Quicken? I must have missed that press release...
Additionally, the user may have to say goodbye to that 80's-vintage DOS accounting software, but can say hello to DV editing software that won't even exist in beta form on the P.C. for another two or three years.
Well, that's great if he wants to edit video! But what if he wants to do his books? Gee, that 80's vintage DOS accounting software might be useful, huh? That statement makes one thing obvious: you've never run a business or worked closely with people who do. If you had, you'd know that there are a whole lot of businesses running on old DOS accounting systems. Why? Because there is no nightmare in hell like switching accounting systems. Especially when you have 10+ years of financials. Couple that with the fact that your off-the-shelf accounting packages (Peachtree, Quickbooks, MYOB) simply don't work for a lot of businesses, service businesses in particular. There are a lot of highly specialized accounting packages designed for specific vertical markets (HVAC, Plumbing, Contracting), and these packages usually START at $10,000 and go up from there. And I have never seen a SINGLE ONE for the Mac platform.
So, while it's nifty that you can edit home movies, it won't replace the need to run your business, and business-related software is one area that Apple falls flat on its face.
Excuse me, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one. Less than 3 weeks ago, I set up a brand-new PowerBook G4 800Mhz/512MB/OSX.2 for a client who was trying to streamline from 2 laptops (1 Intel, 1 older PB) to one laptop. Since there is no VirtualMac, Apple was the way to go. We setup the new PB with all of her apps, then installed VirtualPC 5 and Windows 2000 Pro.
It ran like an absolute dog. I spent days tweaking the settings trying to squeeze out better performance, but to no avail. Long pauses of watching the beach ball spin became real old real fast. And this was just with VirtualPC running. Once, she tried opening Photoshop at the same time to drag a file from the PC to the Mac and edit it. Long pause, then crash. The whole machine went down.
She worked with it for about a week, and finally became so frustrated that she went back to carrying two computers.
Maybe if you've got a DP 1GHz with a gig of ram, VirtualPC is usable, but on a uni-proc, even with tons of memory, VPC blows chunks. At least, that's been my experience.
is we can spot a 14 billion year old flicker of light, but no one can prove definitively who killed John F. Kennedy in 1963 or who sent anthrax through the mail just last year.
Scientists: the only time they figure anything out is when it doesn't matter anymore.
1) That "state-o-the-art" Powerbook you just bought won't run the next version of the OS.
Maybe, but then again it might just be a different version (like Windows XP has both a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version).
2) All of your current software will still work but in some sort of wierd "Compatibility Mode" that is ten times slower than it runs today.
Not likely. Just as the forthcoming AMD Hammer will have 32-bit backwards compatibility, I expect the IBM/Apple proc would do the same. You won't have to boot to "32-bit mode" it will just run 32-bit apps. And while it won't run them as fast as the 64-bit apps, it should run them at least as fast as a native 32-bit processor.
3) Developers will get screwed (again).
Only in the sense that they may have to decide whether to program only in 32-bit (for the widest compatibility with the least effort) or expend the extra effort to support two versions.
Yes, a new 64-bit PPC processor would be great, because the G4 is really showing its age. But I don't think this will be something to drive Wintel users over to Apple. If anything, it will just help Apple hang on to its existing marketshare.
The thing to remember is that "switching" is expensive, and not just for the new hardware. When a longtime PC user switches to Apple, they have to replace all of their software with Mac versions (and in a lot of cases, say goodbye to certain titles altogether). A new PPC processor isn't going to make that any less of a reality (unless of course, it allows VirtualPC to run fast enough that it's actually usable).
A 64-bit PPC would almost assuredly be backwards compatible with 32-bit PPC applications so for current Apple users, it will be a big boost in speed without having to reinvest in all of their software immediately (although, if you want the most speed, you'll eventually need to upgrade to the 64-bit versions of your apps).
Great news for Apple, but it's not a "Windows killer".
they didn't make any negative strangelets. I've got plans this weekend, and it would really suck if the world blew up tomorrow. But next week is fine, I can pencil it in. Just need to find me a space shuttle and four idiots...
Read the first reply, timestamped 6 minutes after my post. It was a typo. I was thinking about having italian for lunch when I wrote it. And four hours later, I had italian for lunch. I must be psychoti-- I mean psychic!
The Hubble space telescope cost around $2 BILLION and took almost a decade to design and construct. Hubble launched with a faulty mirror that NASA paid an enormous amount of money for (don't know the exact amount, but it was in the 9 digit range). It then cost quite a few more millions to send follow-up missions to Hubble to install corrective devices to compensate for the faulty mirror. And even with the corrective measures, the image quality and range are not what the original design would have produced with true optics.
BUT, the contractor still got paid in full for the mirror, and not only did they not have to foot the bill for the expenses to repair Hubble, but got sourced for the repair parts.
When I was in the Army (specifically, in Basic Training), there were few things that would bring down such harsh retribution from the drills as an unlocked wall locker. A friend of mine once got pt'd to unconsciousness because he had a bad habit of putting the lock on his locker but forgetting to click it shut. He never forgot that lesson, and after that he would often run back to double-check the lock, just to be sure.
This might sound harse to the uninitiated, but the philosophy was simple: thievery is the fault of the victim. If everyone would secure their belongings properly, there would be no theft (because there would be nothing lying around to steal). While admittedly simplistic (hey, the Army thought it up, how complex could it be?) it is a philosophy not without merit.
People who install wireless networks should secure them, lest someone come along and take advantage of them. Of course, many will probably need to get pt'd a little before they learn that lesson. But you can't blame the drills for giving "corrective training" to bring your attention to the problem.
Just goes to show how the NASA bureaucracy is wasting tax payer dollars. Don't misunderstand me, I think the idea of a government-funded space program for the purposes of non-commercial research is a necessary thing. But the agency running it so wasteful.
They throw millions/billions of dollars to contractors to produce shoddy equipment (anyone remember the Hubble?). They plan important scientific missions to Mars and then forget to convert from imperial to metric?? They remotely turn off a probe, and then (surprise) they can't turn it back on.
I guess no one there was ever a network administrator. Anyone who's ever run a server farm can tell you it's generally not a good idea to reboot a vital server from remote (because it might not come back up again). It's bad when you are 10 miles across town, it's really bad when you are a couple million miles away.
And after all of this, you don't hear about the director of operations getting fired, or resigning in shame. They just shrug. Oh, well. Lost another one. Only 350 million dollars. No big deal.
The Italians successfully put a satellite in space for what amounts to government pocket change. Maybe this sort of thing will be wave of the future. Built for cheap, launched for cheap. Shoestring everything. We shouldn't make fun of Italy for being cost-conscious. If it works, we should be applauding them, and trying to follow their example. If we could have built the ISS for 1/12 the cost, maybe it would have been completed 5 years ago and we'd be on our way to building a station on the moon.
Ask yourself how it takes place between your browser and some e-commerce site. Certs. You don't do one goddamn thing to set up keys and encryption, etc., to be able to have a secure encrypted channel to amazon.com. Why should email be any different?
In a client-to-server connection, SSL operates by exchanging certs between two directly connected parties. Email is a different form of transfer, since there is at least one intermediary (a server) between any two clients. A client uploads a mail to a server, another client downloads the mail from the server. Often times, mail is routed from one server to another. Any of the client-to-server or server-to-server connections could be protected by SSL (in fact, this is a growing trend). HOWEVER, the mail itself is still in the form of clear text when it is hosted on, or passes through, a server. The mail could be intercepted by anyone with access to that server (lawful or unlawful). In fact, I've known several mail administrators who have written custom sendmail scripts to blind copy mail sent by or to a specific user for the purposes of investigating that user's activities and establishing evidence of wrongdoing.
When you look at IMAP, where messages are stored on the server itself, all one needs is administrative access to a particular mailbox, and you can read all of that person's mail.
This is why we use PKI to encrypt mail. You aren't encrypting a connection, you are encrypting the message itself so that whether the connection between client and server or server and server is secure or not, the message contents are secure and ONLY readable by the indended recipient. In order to do that, you have to have key exchange. You can't do it automagically, because the endpoints of a conversation are not communicating directly.
Like I said, the best way to make it easy enough for the average user is to issue them a card and PIN (like banks have been doing for years and most people seem to "get it"), and provide a central repository for public keys and software that automates the retrieval of the key. People simply carry their secret key with them to electronically sign their documents, or decrypt documents sent to them. Public keys are stored centrally, and the mail software automatically looks up the email address and downloads the associated key, probably through an SSL protected connection to prevent a man-in-the-middle spoof from providing a false key.
Since the public keys aren't cached or manually stored in a keyring, if someone looses their secret key or it is stolen, they report it to the issuing body, the key is immediately revoked, a new key pair is created, a new card is issued, and the repository is updated with the new public key. The old key becomes worthless immediately.
Of course those with power get to do whatever they want. That is why people strive to gain power. This is the way it has always been, and likely will always be. Every once in a while you have a "revolution" where one group rests power from another, but it is just an exchange. You still have those with power and those without.
In the United States, we have a lot of niave people. They have yet to realize that corporations run the world, and that those corporations exercise their power by buying and selling political officials. It's not a democracy. It's a system of government whereby the party with the most cash dictates the rules. As a private individual (a "consumer"), you only have as much power as they deem to give you, which is to say, next to none.
Why does this work? Because Americans don't care. As long as we can get our Big Macs and our DVDs and our TiVo and our Internet porn and drive our fuel-sucking SUVs, we're happy. Sure, we might make a little token gesture of protest every once in a while to protect some petty personal interest (like keeping that rehap clinic from being built in your neighborhood). But other than that, we're cattle. Moo.
Power goes to those with the balls to take it and the balls to keep it, and there are a lot of nutless people in the world. Huxley had it dead on the money. Brave New World, here we are.
More likely, those traits can be attributed to some form of transferance when Voldemort tried to kill Harry. I mean, it damn near killed You-Know-Who, so that would seem to indicate that his "power" for lack of a better word, went somewhere (like into Harry). It would also explain why Harry's scar burns when Voldemort is near. They are linked magically.
While Voldemort was adopted, his lineage is clearly known: his mother was a wizard, his father a muggle. Harry's lineage is also well known. If there is any connection between the two, it would have to be pretty far up the line.
So I doubt we'll be seeing any kind of "I'm your father, Luke" moments come out of books 5-7. If we do, it'll be pretty lame.
Slashdot Mirror
You are making a HUGE generalization.
I know a fellow who graduated with a 4-year CS degree, and couldn't write a program to save his life. When he was in school (a fairly prestigious southeastern university) all of his programming assignments were group efforts. So he just got in the groups with the best programmers, then offered to do the jobs no one else wanted (documentation and presentation). On the rare occasion that he had an individual assignment his friend, a brilliant programmer, would "help" him with his assignment. Today, he has a nice shiny degree hanging on his wall, that most would agree is worth no more than the MCSE of a "Transcender Afficianado".
Do you think he is a unique case?
While there are a lot of paper-toting know-nothings in the world, there are also quite a lot of certified developers and administrators who, while lacking financial means to attend college, had the drive and initiative to master their skills through self-study, and used certification simply as a metric to demonstrate their knowledge. Let's not start blindly lumping people into categories of academic haves and have nots.
While perhaps not a shining star to point to (especially on Slashdot) Bill Gates could serve well as an example of someone who rose to greatness without the help of an academic degree. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to found Microsoft. Would he somehow have been a better programmer or businessman if he had spent an extra two and a half years drinking and playing cards, and left with a piece of paper?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but most medical students don't receive a whole lot of real hands-on experience until they graduate and do their internship. The only patients pre-intern medical students usually work on are the dead ones (cadavers). I don't see much difference in terms of "experience" between an intern who went to 8 years of school and passed all the requisite exams, and an intern who passed all the requisite exams on his own.
Most new teachers are also required to complete an intership before they can complete their state board exams. Same situation.
I have to agree with this. Having developed both desktop applications and web applications, I would definitely say the web applications were more challenging to architect and implement. Web development has a whole host of issues that desktop development takes for granted (things like security of interface and session management, or state maintenance). With most desktop applications, for instance, it's not usually possible for a malicious user to call a specific piece of your application and send arbitrary information to it in ways you had not intended. With web development, a malicious user can call any individual page of your application and submit data in an attempt to crowbar your application into doing something it shouldn't (for instance, sending arbitrary SQL queries to your database). There are also circumstances where performing a common programming task requires the web developer to jump through several hoops to get it done, where as for the desktop developer, it is implemented in a single function.
that what modern man knows of the ancient world is just a bucket of water next to the ocean. And the water in the bucket is pretty cloudy.
You keep mentioning "mega-businesses", but I think you've missed the point entirely. Did you know that over 96% of all of the businesses in the United States fall under the government classification of "small business". So when you say "It's only mid-size and wanna-be companies that have to rely on off-the-shelf solutions" you are really saying that over 96% of the businesses in America have to rely on off-the-shelf products to run their business. So by your own admission, "Macs are at a disadvantage" for use in 96% of the businesses in the US. It seems to me that Apple might want to address this shortfall.
As for making up for lack of applications with ease of use and maintainability, it doesn't matter if it's easy to use if it can't do what you need to do. Most businesses need the following tasks: Email, Contact Management, Accounting, Scheduling, and Document Management (in MS-compatible formats). On the Apple platform, you've got MS Office for Document Management, Email and Scheduling (with Entourage, although Exchange-functionality isn't there), but the selection for Accounting software is incredibly limited (you get to choose between MYOB and an outdated version of Quickbooks). Peachtree, arguably the standard in small business accounting, is not available on the Mac platform, nor are any of the vertical-specific solutions, or any of the higher-end mid-sized solutions like Dynamics or JD Edwards. Contact management is the same situation, since neither of the two major packages (Goldmine and ACT!) run on the Apple platform.
Now, you can put your nose in the air and say, "Look Rockefeller, I'm a consumer guy", but you're just avoiding the issue. You don't have to be Rockefeller to need good business tools. Even a small home-based business selling products over the Internet needs to process orders, maintain inventory, file taxes, keep customer records, send out marketing material, and cut payroll. If you happen to be a CPA, maybe you can do that all on paper ledgers or Excel spreadsheets, but when it comes time to run your GL at the end of the month, it'll take you 10 times as long as any off the shelf product.
Now, let me address the topic that started this thread: switching from Windows to Mac, and the costs thereof. I'll give you MY story. Recently, with the release of Jaguar, I seriously considered "switching". I was very interested in all the new, cool features in OSX.2. So I went to the Apple store online, and started putting together an order. PowerBook G4 decked out, $3500. Okay, some accessories and an iPod. Now we're up to $4500. A little steep, but no more than I spent on a top-of-the-line Inspiron two years ago (and I didn't get an iPod with that!). But let's look at software. Since I have all PC versions, and since nobody gives you the ability to upgrade cross-platform, I needed to buy full versions of all of the tools I use.
MS Office, Quicken, Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, GoLive, Norton AV, and a few others. Now, I run my own consulting and design business, so I need some business tools. Hmm. No Peachtree. No ACT!. No MS Project. No Visio. There's MYOB, but it's pretty limited (and of course, I'd have to export and convert all my financials - eeewww). I have an Exchange server for messaging and collaboration, but Entourage doesn't have an Exchange connector, and the OS9 version of Outlook 2001 (which does) doesn't work well under OSX.2 (I know this from experimentation on a client's PB). Guess I'll need VirtualPC as well to run all my business stuff.
So now I've got an extra $2500 or so in software (over half the price of the hardware), and half of my stuff (Peachtree, ACT!, Project, Visio, and Outlook) I'll have to keep running in a VirtualPC. Hmm. $7000 later, and I can't even make a clean "switch". I guess I don't have to tell you that I decided not to do it.
As a side note:
Right... I'm sure you erased everything off there you don't use, including all the megabytes of bloat and obscure utilities included in a clean Windows-install.
Uh, excuse me. Jaguar comes on 2 CDs and installs a hell of a lot of bloat and cruft by default. There's an old saying you might want to think about. Something about throwing stones from the balcony of your glass house...
What if you signed a contract saying you can't sue the company, then they fail to give you your severance pay? Can you sue them for breach of contract if you sign a contract relinquishing your right to sue?
Or another possibility: what if you sign the contract, they give you your severance, then on your way out of the building you slip on a freshly mopped floor and go flying down a flight of stairs. You wake up in the hospital, paralyzed from the waist down, only to remember that you can't sue your former employer.
Giving up your right to pursue compensation in court is pretty extreme. Personally, I would refuse to sign the contract, then I'd hire a lawyer and sue them for your severance plus legal fees. Even the threat of a legal suit would probably get you your severance, and you would likely be out less than $500 to file the paperwork. Of course, if it goes to court and you lose, you lose your severance PLUS you now have a big bill for legal services. It's a gamble. Like pretty much everything in life.
If a man walks down the street dragging a $100 bill on a 50' length of thread, and someone steals it, the man is to blame for being careless with his money.
If a woman decides to take a 3am stroll through the ghetto wearing a g-string bikini, and she is sexually molested, the woman is to blame for being careless with her body.
While both of these are extreme examples, if a person fails to take reasonable precautions to protect themselves or their property, can they really cast blame when they become victims to their own carelessness?
Setting up a wireless network without using encryption is like a Playboy centerfold strutting naked through the ghetto at 3am pushing a wheelbarrow full of crisp $100 bills and calling on a blowhorn "COME AND GET IT!!!".
If you fail to take even the basest of precautions to secure your property (locking your wall locker, locking your house, encrypting your wireless network) you have no one to blame but yourself when someone comes along and takes advantage of you.
And that is EXACTLY the way the world works.
Wrong. They only have to replace all the software they actually use.
Well, I don't know about you, but the only software I have on my PC is the stuff I use.
And sometimes the Mac version comes free with the computer!
Yeah? Did Apple start shipping MS Office free with new Macs? Or Photoshop? Or Quicken? I must have missed that press release...
Additionally, the user may have to say goodbye to that 80's-vintage DOS accounting software, but can say hello to DV editing software that won't even exist in beta form on the P.C. for another two or three years.
Well, that's great if he wants to edit video! But what if he wants to do his books? Gee, that 80's vintage DOS accounting software might be useful, huh? That statement makes one thing obvious: you've never run a business or worked closely with people who do. If you had, you'd know that there are a whole lot of businesses running on old DOS accounting systems. Why? Because there is no nightmare in hell like switching accounting systems. Especially when you have 10+ years of financials. Couple that with the fact that your off-the-shelf accounting packages (Peachtree, Quickbooks, MYOB) simply don't work for a lot of businesses, service businesses in particular. There are a lot of highly specialized accounting packages designed for specific vertical markets (HVAC, Plumbing, Contracting), and these packages usually START at $10,000 and go up from there. And I have never seen a SINGLE ONE for the Mac platform.
So, while it's nifty that you can edit home movies, it won't replace the need to run your business, and business-related software is one area that Apple falls flat on its face.
Excuse me, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one. Less than 3 weeks ago, I set up a brand-new PowerBook G4 800Mhz/512MB/OSX.2 for a client who was trying to streamline from 2 laptops (1 Intel, 1 older PB) to one laptop. Since there is no VirtualMac, Apple was the way to go. We setup the new PB with all of her apps, then installed VirtualPC 5 and Windows 2000 Pro.
It ran like an absolute dog. I spent days tweaking the settings trying to squeeze out better performance, but to no avail. Long pauses of watching the beach ball spin became real old real fast. And this was just with VirtualPC running. Once, she tried opening Photoshop at the same time to drag a file from the PC to the Mac and edit it. Long pause, then crash. The whole machine went down.
She worked with it for about a week, and finally became so frustrated that she went back to carrying two computers.
Maybe if you've got a DP 1GHz with a gig of ram, VirtualPC is usable, but on a uni-proc, even with tons of memory, VPC blows chunks. At least, that's been my experience.
Those LE people in charge of figuring out criminal things are forensic *scientists*. So it's okay to mock them. I checked.
I wouldn't bother coming to Earth.
is we can spot a 14 billion year old flicker of light, but no one can prove definitively who killed John F. Kennedy in 1963 or who sent anthrax through the mail just last year.
Scientists: the only time they figure anything out is when it doesn't matter anymore.
1) That "state-o-the-art" Powerbook you just bought won't run the next version of the OS.
Maybe, but then again it might just be a different version (like Windows XP has both a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version).
2) All of your current software will still work but in some sort of wierd "Compatibility Mode" that is ten times slower than it runs today.
Not likely. Just as the forthcoming AMD Hammer will have 32-bit backwards compatibility, I expect the IBM/Apple proc would do the same. You won't have to boot to "32-bit mode" it will just run 32-bit apps. And while it won't run them as fast as the 64-bit apps, it should run them at least as fast as a native 32-bit processor.
3) Developers will get screwed (again).
Only in the sense that they may have to decide whether to program only in 32-bit (for the widest compatibility with the least effort) or expend the extra effort to support two versions.
Yes, a new 64-bit PPC processor would be great, because the G4 is really showing its age. But I don't think this will be something to drive Wintel users over to Apple. If anything, it will just help Apple hang on to its existing marketshare.
The thing to remember is that "switching" is expensive, and not just for the new hardware. When a longtime PC user switches to Apple, they have to replace all of their software with Mac versions (and in a lot of cases, say goodbye to certain titles altogether). A new PPC processor isn't going to make that any less of a reality (unless of course, it allows VirtualPC to run fast enough that it's actually usable).
A 64-bit PPC would almost assuredly be backwards compatible with 32-bit PPC applications so for current Apple users, it will be a big boost in speed without having to reinvest in all of their software immediately (although, if you want the most speed, you'll eventually need to upgrade to the 64-bit versions of your apps).
Great news for Apple, but it's not a "Windows killer".
they didn't make any negative strangelets. I've got plans this weekend, and it would really suck if the world blew up tomorrow. But next week is fine, I can pencil it in. Just need to find me a space shuttle and four idiots...
Read the first reply, timestamped 6 minutes after my post. It was a typo. I was thinking about having italian for lunch when I wrote it. And four hours later, I had italian for lunch. I must be psychoti-- I mean psychic!
The Hubble space telescope cost around $2 BILLION and took almost a decade to design and construct. Hubble launched with a faulty mirror that NASA paid an enormous amount of money for (don't know the exact amount, but it was in the 9 digit range). It then cost quite a few more millions to send follow-up missions to Hubble to install corrective devices to compensate for the faulty mirror. And even with the corrective measures, the image quality and range are not what the original design would have produced with true optics.
BUT, the contractor still got paid in full for the mirror, and not only did they not have to foot the bill for the expenses to repair Hubble, but got sourced for the repair parts.
And this is a NASA "success".
When I was in the Army (specifically, in Basic Training), there were few things that would bring down such harsh retribution from the drills as an unlocked wall locker. A friend of mine once got pt'd to unconsciousness because he had a bad habit of putting the lock on his locker but forgetting to click it shut. He never forgot that lesson, and after that he would often run back to double-check the lock, just to be sure.
This might sound harse to the uninitiated, but the philosophy was simple: thievery is the fault of the victim. If everyone would secure their belongings properly, there would be no theft (because there would be nothing lying around to steal). While admittedly simplistic (hey, the Army thought it up, how complex could it be?) it is a philosophy not without merit.
People who install wireless networks should secure them, lest someone come along and take advantage of them. Of course, many will probably need to get pt'd a little before they learn that lesson. But you can't blame the drills for giving "corrective training" to bring your attention to the problem.
Duly noted.
I guess there's only so many times you can run the story, "CEO Steals Candy from Baby" before it all just sort of fades into the static.
Wrong nationality. I was thinking Indians and wrote Italians. I must have fettuccini on my mind or something. Red Warrior needs pizza badly.
Just goes to show how the NASA bureaucracy is wasting tax payer dollars. Don't misunderstand me, I think the idea of a government-funded space program for the purposes of non-commercial research is a necessary thing. But the agency running it so wasteful.
They throw millions/billions of dollars to contractors to produce shoddy equipment (anyone remember the Hubble?). They plan important scientific missions to Mars and then forget to convert from imperial to metric?? They remotely turn off a probe, and then (surprise) they can't turn it back on.
I guess no one there was ever a network administrator. Anyone who's ever run a server farm can tell you it's generally not a good idea to reboot a vital server from remote (because it might not come back up again). It's bad when you are 10 miles across town, it's really bad when you are a couple million miles away.
And after all of this, you don't hear about the director of operations getting fired, or resigning in shame. They just shrug. Oh, well. Lost another one. Only 350 million dollars. No big deal.
The Italians successfully put a satellite in space for what amounts to government pocket change. Maybe this sort of thing will be wave of the future. Built for cheap, launched for cheap. Shoestring everything. We shouldn't make fun of Italy for being cost-conscious. If it works, we should be applauding them, and trying to follow their example. If we could have built the ISS for 1/12 the cost, maybe it would have been completed 5 years ago and we'd be on our way to building a station on the moon.
Ask yourself how it takes place between your browser and some e-commerce site. Certs. You don't do one goddamn thing to set up keys and encryption, etc., to be able to have a secure encrypted channel to amazon.com. Why should email be any different?
In a client-to-server connection, SSL operates by exchanging certs between two directly connected parties. Email is a different form of transfer, since there is at least one intermediary (a server) between any two clients. A client uploads a mail to a server, another client downloads the mail from the server. Often times, mail is routed from one server to another. Any of the client-to-server or server-to-server connections could be protected by SSL (in fact, this is a growing trend). HOWEVER, the mail itself is still in the form of clear text when it is hosted on, or passes through, a server. The mail could be intercepted by anyone with access to that server (lawful or unlawful). In fact, I've known several mail administrators who have written custom sendmail scripts to blind copy mail sent by or to a specific user for the purposes of investigating that user's activities and establishing evidence of wrongdoing.
When you look at IMAP, where messages are stored on the server itself, all one needs is administrative access to a particular mailbox, and you can read all of that person's mail.
This is why we use PKI to encrypt mail. You aren't encrypting a connection, you are encrypting the message itself so that whether the connection between client and server or server and server is secure or not, the message contents are secure and ONLY readable by the indended recipient. In order to do that, you have to have key exchange. You can't do it automagically, because the endpoints of a conversation are not communicating directly.
Like I said, the best way to make it easy enough for the average user is to issue them a card and PIN (like banks have been doing for years and most people seem to "get it"), and provide a central repository for public keys and software that automates the retrieval of the key. People simply carry their secret key with them to electronically sign their documents, or decrypt documents sent to them. Public keys are stored centrally, and the mail software automatically looks up the email address and downloads the associated key, probably through an SSL protected connection to prevent a man-in-the-middle spoof from providing a false key.
Since the public keys aren't cached or manually stored in a keyring, if someone looses their secret key or it is stolen, they report it to the issuing body, the key is immediately revoked, a new key pair is created, a new card is issued, and the repository is updated with the new public key. The old key becomes worthless immediately.
Of course those with power get to do whatever they want. That is why people strive to gain power. This is the way it has always been, and likely will always be. Every once in a while you have a "revolution" where one group rests power from another, but it is just an exchange. You still have those with power and those without.
In the United States, we have a lot of niave people. They have yet to realize that corporations run the world, and that those corporations exercise their power by buying and selling political officials. It's not a democracy. It's a system of government whereby the party with the most cash dictates the rules. As a private individual (a "consumer"), you only have as much power as they deem to give you, which is to say, next to none.
Why does this work? Because Americans don't care. As long as we can get our Big Macs and our DVDs and our TiVo and our Internet porn and drive our fuel-sucking SUVs, we're happy. Sure, we might make a little token gesture of protest every once in a while to protect some petty personal interest (like keeping that rehap clinic from being built in your neighborhood). But other than that, we're cattle. Moo.
Power goes to those with the balls to take it and the balls to keep it, and there are a lot of nutless people in the world. Huxley had it dead on the money. Brave New World, here we are.
More likely, those traits can be attributed to some form of transferance when Voldemort tried to kill Harry. I mean, it damn near killed You-Know-Who, so that would seem to indicate that his "power" for lack of a better word, went somewhere (like into Harry). It would also explain why Harry's scar burns when Voldemort is near. They are linked magically.
While Voldemort was adopted, his lineage is clearly known: his mother was a wizard, his father a muggle. Harry's lineage is also well known. If there is any connection between the two, it would have to be pretty far up the line.
So I doubt we'll be seeing any kind of "I'm your father, Luke" moments come out of books 5-7. If we do, it'll be pretty lame.