Ditto with the above post. A touch screen contextual interface makes a lot of sense, as you can't really use the majority of the buttons on your remote without looking at it anyway.
Besides, I'm pretty sure I could design a system such that the most common operations were gesture-based. Take an iPhone, for example. Keep the edge volume control, and implement a menuing system that drilled down into context buttons for each known device. But on any screen, support a two-finger scroll "channel change" and a two-finger tap "menu" button and a triple-finger tap "last"... or whatever.
Or maybe you need a half-dozen physical buttons, and all of the complex stuff is done via touch screen. (Like the Sony LCD remote.)
"Touchscreens only make sense for complicated or multi-function devices..."
Like TV/Cable/DVD/DVR/AppleTV/Surround-sound systems?
A finger is a rather clumsy interface device compared to the pinpoint precision offered by a mouse. And when the OS and all of the software on that platform is designed for a keyboard and a mouse, then change becomes hard.
Read Apple's user interface guidelines for developing applications and web applications for the iPhone. Touch screen interfaces truly require (to overuse the phrase once again) a new interface paradigm.
Multitouch trackpads, on the other hand, simply overlay gestures on top of existing mechanisms. A two-finger tap is a "right click". A two-finger scrolling gesture translates easily into "scroll wheel" input. All events which existing systems and software understand.
A "pinch", however, is a new type of input that has no translation. As such, software has to be reprogramed to understand that type of event, and then perform the appropriate behavior.
"... if they can't prove there is a hidden volume they can't do anything."
Right.... and if you really believe that, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. Put a toll booth on it and you could make a fortune.
Seriously, you've already singled yourself out of the crowd by encrypting data. Further, you've chosen that specific software with which to do it, as opposed to using standard tools like BitLocker on Windows or FileVault on a Mac.
So you're already in the highly suspicious category. Fail to "cooperate" and it's likely that they're going to seize the laptop. At a minimum.
Forget about being deprived. The people with the copy have now OBTAINED something of value.
In the case of the laptop it may be company secrets, business transaction data, or marketing or product plans. It may be account numbers, passwords, and SSNs. It may be self-incriminating like copies of finacial records or tax returns or emails, or embarassing (and potentially blackmailable) personal information, photos, etc..
And once that information has been obtained, it can most certainly be used to DEPRIVE you of your lievelyhood, your savings, your property, and in many not-so extreme cases, your freedom.
"... illegal, embarrassing or confidential you're not going to want it open on a plane anyway, so it's not an issue either."
Ah, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we usually get on airplanes to go somewhere else? Someplace where you actually might want or need to use the information you brought with you?
Further, most people only own or use ONE laptop. And in many cases it's their only computer.
"... but I burn through too much space to deal with that level of pain with a hard drive upgrade..."
So? I bought a 24" iMac with a 500GB drive and then upgraded the RAM to 4GB. And not everything has to be on the internal drive. In fact, I also have two 2TB WD drives daisy-chained to it via FW-800.
And just what about a dual quad-core Mac Pro ISN'T functional?
"...form means little to us, we just want it to work."
And just who is "us"? Speak for yourself. I, personally, want my tools to work AND be a pleasure to use.
BTW, have you checked out the "reburbished" section of the online Apple store? One can often find Mac Pros for reduced prices that don't "list every top end product standard Intel has in its books".
Then again, people who buy Mac Pros are doing professional photo editing and management, or producing a film using Final Cut, or something else that demands all of the performance they can get.
"It's the same guts, the same audio chips, the same northbridge chips and so on."
I covered this when Apple acquired PA Semiconductor, as I believe its a first step towards adding custom chips to do video processing, encryption acceleration, and so on. All of which would then clearly differentiate Apple's hardware and also serve to ensure that OS X only runs on Macs.
BTW, when discussing components built into Macs you also need to talk about accelerometers, light sensors, multi-touch trackpad controllers, FW-800 controllers, MagSafe connectors, and other things typically not built into your average plastic Dell or HP box.
Though HP does compensate by adding a LOT of blue LEDs and keyboard buttons for every piece of crapware shipped with the machine. You also get a lot of nifty "Intel Inside" and "Nvidia Inside" stickers on the case too.
Amazon needs to support other devices, most notably the iPhone and its descendents. With a high pixel density screen, good backlighting, and decent battery life it would make a nice reader, much better than my old HP iPaq. And in doing so wouldn't cause its owners to have to spring for yet another device.
"Oh, the phone that I've already paid for can do books too? Cool!"
BTW, speaking of eInk, I absolutely, positively HATE that annoying flip-all-of-the-pixels-to-black-then-white thing it does every time you "turn" the page.
From my perspective eInk has almost nothing going for it OTHER than battery life. As we come up with more efficient display technologies, like OLEDs, eInk will be little more than an amusing footnote in the digital history books.
Then again, I used to read ebooks on a iPaq PDA and found the backlighting to be extremely useful in places like restaurants, planes, cars, and other places where it was too dim or dark to be able to read a real book, much less a low-contrast eInk display. No headaches either.
These days, most of my "reading" is done with audiobooks. I can "read" while doing other things, like working out at the gym, walking to work, and so on.
Most of what you say applied to then, not now. Buy a new computer today, and the first thing you do is copy your files over to your new machine. My old computer had an SATA hard drive. My new one has a SSD. Entirely different technologies, but the files copied over just fine.
So do you think that, 20 years from now, we still won't be using, or be able to read ASCII text? Be able to import a JPG? Display HTML? A PDF? MPEGs?
And I too have "15 year old cruft" (older, actually), but since most of it is text I can still read it. And keeping space for items created in the days of 20MB hard drives simply isn't an issue. Especially when my current desktop has over 4TB of working space.
Now, on the flip side, how many faded family photos are disappearing due to bad chemistry from prints made at one hour photo labs? How many negatives are NOT stored in optimal conditions, and are succumbing to the same problems, or to the damp and fungi? I have quite a few paperbacks that are now decades old, and attempting to read them now would break hardened spines and crumble brittle and browned acid-based papers. How many audio cassettes and LPs and 45s can you still play? 8 or 16mm home movies?
Next, what happens to your "archival" library in the case of fire? Flood? Water damage from storms, tornados or hurricanes? How many books stuck in boxes and on shelves are in fact protected from mice and beetles and silverfish? Have you looked?
And how many copies do you have of your physical books, CDs, DVDs, and photos? Are they stored offsite?
Sorry, but much of what you think is permanent is far from it, unless you've devoted one room of your house to a sealed, darkened, temperature and humidity controlled storage environment.
MySQL is a perfect example, in that it's free and extremely easy to get started with. It also maintains a running list of hundreds of bugs, and can be extremely complex to setup clustering or several kinds of replication environments.
So to continue the thread around your thought, it only has to be easy enough to suck people in and build a dependency on it. While at the same time not being so complex or unstable that people give up on it and go elsewhere (PostgreSQL).
Just in case you're interested, Lyris is yet another example of a company walking that same tightrope. When it works, it works extremely well. But their customers DEFINITELY need to pay for support and maintenance.
Again, that applies only in some cases. IBM is doing the same thing, using OSS and then selling hardware and consulting services.
And as you said, it "increases the opportunity for Sun to sell more of other stuff". No guarantees. He thinks it will generate move revenue than it consumes. Maybe. Only time will tell.
But that still assumes, like the give-music-away-and-sell-the-t-shirts model, that you have SOMETHING else to sell. What happens when someone spends a year writing a program and that's ALL he has to sell? No t-shirts. No servers. And no consulting and support fees because he just happened to do an exceptional job making his software stable and easy to use.
Well, as in many things it would seem that there's a loophole or two involved. While there are many restrictions placed on government in terms of data collection and data mining, there are few placed on individual businesses who do the same thing (think credit agencies). As such, there's little stopping the government from simply contracting out its needs to private companies.
"....opensourcing your products increases your revenue stream in the long term."
In some cases. Here, the hope was that they'll buy a license and support package. If they don't, no revenue.
Further, I'd argue that basing a business on support fees and licenses means that it's against your best interests to ever create a powerful easy-to-use product that DOESN'T need support. If you want income, then complexity and bugs are your friends.
One special case in which odd/even line zebra striping can make a HUGE difference in readibility lies in detail sections where each item consists of two or more lines.
Michael Long yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada Doctor yada James Brown yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada Musician yada Robert Downy yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada Actor yada
In such cases, zerbra striping can make a huge difference in determining that the information in line 4 actually goes with the information in line 3.
I think this sets a bad precedent. The internet is a global mechanism, and I think this has the potential to start a land grab for "confusing" names. Just as an example, how many "Golden Dragon" Chinese restaraunts are there in the entire US? Or Golden Pheasants? Or Red Dragons? Or all three in the same city? Who sues to get a lock on "Golden" and who ensures that no one else anywhere can use "Dragon"?
And don't even get me started on AA Locksmiths, AAA Locksmiths, and AAAA Locksmiths...
"If she were to do more relating to Harry & Co it would be an encyclopedia of sorts with extra character information..."
So? The current book is nothing more than a set of facts about the books and movies. And IF she were to do another book, with extra information about the characters and so forth, does she think for one second that any fan desparate enough to buy the first book wouldn't ALSO buy hers in a heartbeat?
"...when we could be going to concerts, drinking, getting high, and partying 24/7 for the rest of our lives."
Actually, you only THINK you're going to be partying 24/7 for the rest of your life. What will probably happen is that after the party you'll get some girl you kind of like pregnant, get pressured into getting married, and then find out you're totally unsuited for any job whatsoever, including greeting people at WalMart.
And actually, you're assuming that someone's dream job requires a MBA and means that you'll be "make the money".
Just an FYI, but dream jobs vary per person. Some might think their dream job is cooking and being a chef, or building boats or motorcycles, or being a firefighter, or working as a park ranger, or being a counselor or a social worker or a teacher or... whatever.
"I cannot have (corporate) push-email, it does not sync with the corporate calendar and so on. So, its use is immensely limited to me as a business user. On top of that, IT is leery of the iPhone from a security perspective (mostly because they cannot push their security policies on your phone)."
Push, Exchange support, policies, wiping, etc., are coming to all iPhones in June (EDGE and 3G alike) when 2.0 is released.
Slashdot Mirror
Ditto with the above post. A touch screen contextual interface makes a lot of sense, as you can't really use the majority of the buttons on your remote without looking at it anyway.
... or whatever.
Besides, I'm pretty sure I could design a system such that the most common operations were gesture-based. Take an iPhone, for example. Keep the edge volume control, and implement a menuing system that drilled down into context buttons for each known device. But on any screen, support a two-finger scroll "channel change" and a two-finger tap "menu" button and a triple-finger tap "last"
Or maybe you need a half-dozen physical buttons, and all of the complex stuff is done via touch screen. (Like the Sony LCD remote.)
"Touchscreens only make sense for complicated or multi-function devices..."
Like TV/Cable/DVD/DVR/AppleTV/Surround-sound systems?
A finger is a rather clumsy interface device compared to the pinpoint precision offered by a mouse. And when the OS and all of the software on that platform is designed for a keyboard and a mouse, then change becomes hard.
Read Apple's user interface guidelines for developing applications and web applications for the iPhone. Touch screen interfaces truly require (to overuse the phrase once again) a new interface paradigm.
Multitouch trackpads, on the other hand, simply overlay gestures on top of existing mechanisms. A two-finger tap is a "right click". A two-finger scrolling gesture translates easily into "scroll wheel" input. All events which existing systems and software understand.
A "pinch", however, is a new type of input that has no translation. As such, software has to be reprogramed to understand that type of event, and then perform the appropriate behavior.
"... if they can't prove there is a hidden volume they can't do anything."
Right.... and if you really believe that, I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. Put a toll booth on it and you could make a fortune.
Seriously, you've already singled yourself out of the crowd by encrypting data. Further, you've chosen that specific software with which to do it, as opposed to using standard tools like BitLocker on Windows or FileVault on a Mac.
So you're already in the highly suspicious category. Fail to "cooperate" and it's likely that they're going to seize the laptop. At a minimum.
Forget about being deprived. The people with the copy have now OBTAINED something of value.
In the case of the laptop it may be company secrets, business transaction data, or marketing or product plans. It may be account numbers, passwords, and SSNs. It may be self-incriminating like copies of finacial records or tax returns or emails, or embarassing (and potentially blackmailable) personal information, photos, etc..
And once that information has been obtained, it can most certainly be used to DEPRIVE you of your lievelyhood, your savings, your property, and in many not-so extreme cases, your freedom.
"... illegal, embarrassing or confidential you're not going to want it open on a plane anyway, so it's not an issue either."
Ah, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we usually get on airplanes to go somewhere else? Someplace where you actually might want or need to use the information you brought with you?
Further, most people only own or use ONE laptop. And in many cases it's their only computer.
So now we have to sanitize it before every trip?
"Ah, you have a TrueCrypt disk image on your machine. Give me the password."
"Okay, it's 12345."
"Thank you. Now get me the password for the hidden partition that everyone knows about because it's advertised on their site."
"There isn't one."
"Prove it."
"... but I burn through too much space to deal with that level of pain with a hard drive upgrade ..."
So? I bought a 24" iMac with a 500GB drive and then upgraded the RAM to 4GB. And not everything has to be on the internal drive. In fact, I also have two 2TB WD drives daisy-chained to it via FW-800.
That's 4.5TB. How much space do you need?
'Make the "Pro" line all about function..."
And just what about a dual quad-core Mac Pro ISN'T functional?
"...form means little to us, we just want it to work."
And just who is "us"? Speak for yourself. I, personally, want my tools to work AND be a pleasure to use.
BTW, have you checked out the "reburbished" section of the online Apple store? One can often find Mac Pros for reduced prices that don't "list every top end product standard Intel has in its books".
Then again, people who buy Mac Pros are doing professional photo editing and management, or producing a film using Final Cut, or something else that demands all of the performance they can get.
"It's the same guts, the same audio chips, the same northbridge chips and so on."
I covered this when Apple acquired PA Semiconductor, as I believe its a first step towards adding custom chips to do video processing, encryption acceleration, and so on. All of which would then clearly differentiate Apple's hardware and also serve to ensure that OS X only runs on Macs.
BTW, when discussing components built into Macs you also need to talk about accelerometers, light sensors, multi-touch trackpad controllers, FW-800 controllers, MagSafe connectors, and other things typically not built into your average plastic Dell or HP box.
Though HP does compensate by adding a LOT of blue LEDs and keyboard buttons for every piece of crapware shipped with the machine. You also get a lot of nifty "Intel Inside" and "Nvidia Inside" stickers on the case too.
"... is that it is easily readable even under direct sunlight."
And as I said, unreadable under low-light or no-light conditions.
Amazon needs to support other devices, most notably the iPhone and its descendents. With a high pixel density screen, good backlighting, and decent battery life it would make a nice reader, much better than my old HP iPaq. And in doing so wouldn't cause its owners to have to spring for yet another device.
"Oh, the phone that I've already paid for can do books too? Cool!"
BTW, speaking of eInk, I absolutely, positively HATE that annoying flip-all-of-the-pixels-to-black-then-white thing it does every time you "turn" the page.
From my perspective eInk has almost nothing going for it OTHER than battery life. As we come up with more efficient display technologies, like OLEDs, eInk will be little more than an amusing footnote in the digital history books.
Then again, I used to read ebooks on a iPaq PDA and found the backlighting to be extremely useful in places like restaurants, planes, cars, and other places where it was too dim or dark to be able to read a real book, much less a low-contrast eInk display. No headaches either.
These days, most of my "reading" is done with audiobooks. I can "read" while doing other things, like working out at the gym, walking to work, and so on.
Feeling insecure, are we? (grin)
Most of what you say applied to then, not now. Buy a new computer today, and the first thing you do is copy your files over to your new machine. My old computer had an SATA hard drive. My new one has a SSD. Entirely different technologies, but the files copied over just fine.
So do you think that, 20 years from now, we still won't be using, or be able to read ASCII text? Be able to import a JPG? Display HTML? A PDF? MPEGs?
And I too have "15 year old cruft" (older, actually), but since most of it is text I can still read it. And keeping space for items created in the days of 20MB hard drives simply isn't an issue. Especially when my current desktop has over 4TB of working space.
Now, on the flip side, how many faded family photos are disappearing due to bad chemistry from prints made at one hour photo labs? How many negatives are NOT stored in optimal conditions, and are succumbing to the same problems, or to the damp and fungi? I have quite a few paperbacks that are now decades old, and attempting to read them now would break hardened spines and crumble brittle and browned acid-based papers. How many audio cassettes and LPs and 45s can you still play? 8 or 16mm home movies?
Next, what happens to your "archival" library in the case of fire? Flood? Water damage from storms, tornados or hurricanes? How many books stuck in boxes and on shelves are in fact protected from mice and beetles and silverfish? Have you looked?
And how many copies do you have of your physical books, CDs, DVDs, and photos? Are they stored offsite?
Sorry, but much of what you think is permanent is far from it, unless you've devoted one room of your house to a sealed, darkened, temperature and humidity controlled storage environment.
Digital is the future my friend. Deal with it.
MySQL is a perfect example, in that it's free and extremely easy to get started with. It also maintains a running list of hundreds of bugs, and can be extremely complex to setup clustering or several kinds of replication environments.
So to continue the thread around your thought, it only has to be easy enough to suck people in and build a dependency on it. While at the same time not being so complex or unstable that people give up on it and go elsewhere (PostgreSQL).
Just in case you're interested, Lyris is yet another example of a company walking that same tightrope. When it works, it works extremely well. But their customers DEFINITELY need to pay for support and maintenance.
Again, that applies only in some cases. IBM is doing the same thing, using OSS and then selling hardware and consulting services.
And as you said, it "increases the opportunity for Sun to sell more of other stuff". No guarantees. He thinks it will generate move revenue than it consumes. Maybe. Only time will tell.
But that still assumes, like the give-music-away-and-sell-the-t-shirts model, that you have SOMETHING else to sell. What happens when someone spends a year writing a program and that's ALL he has to sell? No t-shirts. No servers. And no consulting and support fees because he just happened to do an exceptional job making his software stable and easy to use.
So to borrow a quote, "You don't see far enough."
Well, as in many things it would seem that there's a loophole or two involved. While there are many restrictions placed on government in terms of data collection and data mining, there are few placed on individual businesses who do the same thing (think credit agencies). As such, there's little stopping the government from simply contracting out its needs to private companies.
"....opensourcing your products increases your revenue stream in the long term."
In some cases. Here, the hope was that they'll buy a license and support package. If they don't, no revenue.
Further, I'd argue that basing a business on support fees and licenses means that it's against your best interests to ever create a powerful easy-to-use product that DOESN'T need support. If you want income, then complexity and bugs are your friends.
One special case in which odd/even line zebra striping can make a HUGE difference in readibility lies in detail sections where each item consists of two or more lines.
Michael Long yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada
Doctor yada
James Brown yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada
Musician yada
Robert Downy yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada
Actor yada
In such cases, zerbra striping can make a huge difference in determining that the information in line 4 actually goes with the information in line 3.
I think this sets a bad precedent. The internet is a global mechanism, and I think this has the potential to start a land grab for "confusing" names. Just as an example, how many "Golden Dragon" Chinese restaraunts are there in the entire US? Or Golden Pheasants? Or Red Dragons? Or all three in the same city? Who sues to get a lock on "Golden" and who ensures that no one else anywhere can use "Dragon"?
And don't even get me started on AA Locksmiths, AAA Locksmiths, and AAAA Locksmiths...
"... that would comprehensively prove the "Creation Theory"".
Or the life in our galaxy seeded by space aliens theory.
"If she were to do more relating to Harry & Co it would be an encyclopedia of sorts with extra character information..."
So? The current book is nothing more than a set of facts about the books and movies. And IF she were to do another book, with extra information about the characters and so forth, does she think for one second that any fan desparate enough to buy the first book wouldn't ALSO buy hers in a heartbeat?
"...when we could be going to concerts, drinking, getting high, and partying 24/7 for the rest of our lives."
Actually, you only THINK you're going to be partying 24/7 for the rest of your life. What will probably happen is that after the party you'll get some girl you kind of like pregnant, get pressured into getting married, and then find out you're totally unsuited for any job whatsoever, including greeting people at WalMart.
And actually, you're assuming that someone's dream job requires a MBA and means that you'll be "make the money".
Just an FYI, but dream jobs vary per person. Some might think their dream job is cooking and being a chef, or building boats or motorcycles, or being a firefighter, or working as a park ranger, or being a counselor or a social worker or a teacher or... whatever.
Dream jobs can be rewarding in many ways.
"I cannot have (corporate) push-email, it does not sync with the corporate calendar and so on. So, its use is immensely limited to me as a business user. On top of that, IT is leery of the iPhone from a security perspective (mostly because they cannot push their security policies on your phone)."
Push, Exchange support, policies, wiping, etc., are coming to all iPhones in June (EDGE and 3G alike) when 2.0 is released.