I bought a refurbed 3G iPod in early January. In late February, the HD would clunk and the iPod would lock up trying to read certain songs and files. Rather than risk it, as I use my iPod for moving data as well as music, I contacted Apple for an RMA.
I filled out the RMA form on the website, the next day, DHL dropped off a box of my doorstep. I put the iPod in the box, called DHL, and they came back to pick it up about 20 minutes later. I got my iPod back about 3 days later.
There's no need to know the guy at the returns counter, AppleCare is how warranties should be. The only better experience I've had even close was when I RMA'd my Sony Ericsson phone, but I had to actually drive that to the post office myself.:)
You apparently don't understand how Applications are handled in OS X. You're not 'wantonly deleting executables,' you're moving and deleting the entire application. The Application you see (an.app) is really just a container.
If you drop out to the CLI and take a look at.apps, you'll find that they're just a directory that the GUI in OS X treats like a single file. Inside is the entire directory tree for the program and all its files, but the user (as you've clearly demonstrated) doesn't have to know this, because there's no need for them to know about it.
To me, it's a great example of transparency done right. You've just been engrained with the idea that files are scattered everywhere and need to be purged, as you put it. That's not the case at all. It's not a matter of dumbing down so much as abstracting things that don't really serve the user any better spelled out. *THAT'S* why it's 'Applications' and not '/Applications.'
And my retort is this: Why does every professor feel the need to write and publish their own textbook? It's not the dificulty about it so much as the ridiculous duplication of effort that annoys me so much about it. While there are exceptions to any rule, some of the *worst* textbooks I've ever used were written by the course's instructor.
So yes, writing textbooks is hard work and deserves compensation, but every professor writing their own textbook that all have the same information and requiring *THAT* text book for the course is what makes it both unreasonably expensive and unfair for the students.
Gnome is a GTK based desktop environment with a focus on usability and simplicity, at times to a near detrimental level. Philosophically, it's a solid approach, but developers and users do butt heads from time to time. It's generally considered more 'Mac-like.' (More MacOS = OS 9 than X).
KDE is a QT based destkop environment which focuses primarily on flexibility and a high degree of customization. KDE focuses more on giving those that consider themselves power a larger degree of control. This degree of control does, however, lead to an increased level of complexity. Interface wise, it's the more Windows-like of the two.
And it's this point that has me slightly confused with the Kubuntu project. If you spend any time around the forums, you'll pick up that Ubuntu is built around an almost severely strict regimine of usibility. For example, in one thread I was watching, the idea of using red/green to indicate OK/Fail during boot up was shot down on the grounds that it could cause problems for people with color blindness.
While I appreciate that some people honestly prefer KDE as an environment, I don't quite see where it fits into Ubuntu's philosophy. Ubuntu is almost painfully easy to use - I have a friend who is a geek and a bit of a Macintosh zealot who's previously expressed a rather strong dislike for Linux, and even he's fallen in love with this distribution. I just don't see how it can maintain its character on KDE without pruning away many of the things the KDE advocates really like.
Do the mods really not understand capitalism to the point that this troll actually got modded up? Capitalism in its unregulated form trends toward cartels and monopoly. It's hard for the consumer to make a choice when there isn't another one that's doing anything differently.
That's where the problem lies, and why your parent poster stated that capitalism needs some level of governmental regulation to be successful. Or would it be better if Standard Oil and AT&T hadn't been split up?
I run Ubuntu's development build. It's update daemon checks for updates and notifies me of them as soon as they show up. Does this mean Ubuntu is unsecure?
Jesus, I don't want to be harsh, but you really need to get a clue. RH, MDK, and SuSE are all great distributions, I don't personally care for them because I don't like RPMs, but my knock most certainly isn't about their security and definitely not because of system updates.
Here's a little fragment of a clue for you - those 'commercial' distributions runs largely the *EXACT* same software that your community distros do. So if they update to the latest patched version of a piece of software and you don't, you're somehow more secure? Get real. There's a reason why people give Windows admins that don't update a hard time around here.
And just an FYI: You may want to consider moving your family to Ubuntu instead. I love Slack and run it on several machines, but it's a bit more hardcore than I'd try to have my computer-illiterate relatives run (even with the *EXCELLENT* Dropline metadistribution installed). Ubuntu, on the other hand, is so simple I've had a Mac zealot fall in love with it on me in the past week.:-)
Michael: You know, Stallman helped Linus in his career.
Kay Adams: Really? How?
Michael:...Let's listen to this song.
Kay Adams: Please, Michael. Tell me.
Michael:...Well when Linus was first starting out, he was signed to this contract with a big-band leader. And as his career got better and better he wanted to get out of it. Now, Linus is Stallman's godson. Stallman went to see the bandleader, with a contract for $10,000 to let Linus go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, RMS went to see the bandleader again, only this time with Eric Raymond. Within an hour, the bandleader signed the release, with a certified check of $1000.
Kay Adams: How did he do that?
Michael: Stallman made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Kay Adams: What was it?
Michael: Eric Raymond held a gun to his head, and Stallman assured the bandleader, that either his signiture or his brains would be on the contract.
Kay Adams:...
Michael:...That's a true story.
[cut to Linus singing again for about 10 more seconds before going back to Michael]
The University in my town still teaches COBOL, but the fact that Synovous/Total Systems (a major credit card processing firm) is headquartered here could have something to do with it.:)
Most consumer routers don't block outgoing ports anyway, so if you're hoping to stop malicious outbound traffic, you're looking to the wrong product. For another, almost every router I've seen has the explicit option to disable UPnP if it *really* bothers you that much.
I can't speak for the other issues, but installing Atheros support on Ubuntu is fairly simple compared to other distributions I've used.
I'm doing this from memory, but the basic process should be open Synaptic, go to the "Base System (Restricted)" category, and then install the restricted modules for whichever kernel you're using.
The reason they're distributed in restricted is because MadWifi uses a closed source HAL since it's a software controlled-radio and would run the risk of running foul of the FCC and FAA otherwise. (Apparently something to do with concerns about being able to overlap ATC radar by fiddling with the frequencies in software. Never delved into it too much though, so that could be a vast over-simplification).
I have an old Powerbook 145 I was given recently. It shipped with OS7, and actually has two distinct mouse buttons, though I think they both do the same thing.:-)
Another poster already pointed this out, but for most users, the X cut and paste model is pretty confusing, and even as someone who does find it useful, I've also found it frustrating as often as not. While it's great for moving text between windows (Which OS X accomplishes by dragging and dropping, though it's somewhat inconsistent in this regard at times), when it comes time that you need to *replace* existing text/objects/whatever, it's actually a very poor model.
Either way, it certainly doesn't fit Apple's model of usability, and I can't see them adding it. Now somebody creating a 3rd-party hack for people like yourself, that's entirely possible.:-)
If the mobile Xpress 200 is anything like the desktop Xpress 200 I've played with, it's about analogous to a Radeon 9600 Pro. Which most certainly beats the pants off anything "Intel Extreme."
Others have already pointed out Azureus' warning about not having seeded enough.
Also, Azureus is UPnP aware. This means if you have a relatively new router (everything I've used in the last year or so has been UPnP compliant) Azureus should go ahead and punch the holes it needs in the firewall for you. It's always worked well for me.
My post wasn't all encompassing, and yes, it depends on context. As far as the protocol goes, yes, leechers are those who haven't finished downloading the full torrent.
However, in a "social" context, the *act* of leeching is pretty much as I described it - taking without giving back an equal amount. This is the usage intended when you read about sites requiring users to maintain a minimum share ratio.
Most home connections are asynchronous and have a far higher download rate than upload rate. Leeching is when someone finishes a download, and doesn't seed back at least as much as they took.
What you described is pretty much the way I've always used a phone. Although, the major variation with cell phones is that a lot of times the conversation will pick up at "Hey what's up?" since caller ID lets you know who's calling before you ever pick up.
I've certainly never encountered that awkward silence like you've described though.:)
The problem with every company you've referenced so far as making money off GPL'd software is that they do so through selling support contracts for said software. That just simply doesn't happen with consumer oriented software like Nero where people just buy it once and then use it. In that sense, there business model most certainly isn't compatible with the GPL.
Yes, your parent poster was being a bit ridiculous, but you aren't exactly being entirely rational yourself.
Or maybe some of us are able to be somewhat rational? Personally, if Microsoft had been in Apple's shoes, I'd have felt the same way about the ThinkSecret case, and I'm anything but a Microsoft appologist (IE: I firmly believe the DoJ should have broken up the company).
The Apple vs Does case is more about reaffirming trade secret law that's already on the books and has already been affirmed by the courts many, many times. So no, I don't really see it as a 'victory against journalism.' No one is facing penalties for what they've printed at this point - and this isn't exactly a whistle blower case that deserves special privelege. But feel free to check my comment history on the subject - I've been consistent in my viewpoint and after reading the judge's opinion yesterday, I seem to have had it about pegged.
On topic, Tiger's looking to be a rather interesting release. Apple's putting metadata to good use with Spotlight, and I'm interested to see how Dashboard's ended up looking. The real story, I think, may end up being the behind the scenes part of the OS - CoreImage. It truly opens the door for a first-party Apple Photoshop killer, if Adobe refuses to adopt the interface. Remember iMovie and FCP are only really around because Adobe declined to make a good consumer oriented video editing system, so Apple did it themselves. Could we be seeing this happen again?
If you'd actually read the judge's opinion, you would realize that this ruling *FOLLOWS* precedent set both by California courts and the US Supreme Courts far more than it sets it.
As the Judge stated, the evidence was strong enough to suggest that the subpeona should go forward, and met the criteria set by a court in an earlier case for compelling journalists to identify their sources.
But that may have taken more than 30 seconds of reading and a knee jerk reaction, right?
On your second point, the bloggers aren't heing forced to not speak in this case, only to reveal where the information came from. If you read the decision, there's no order for them to remove the order, only for the subpeonas for the names of their sources to move forward.
I've seen this argument made by yourself and several other posters, and I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
From the Judge's opinion, posted on the EFF's site:
The posting by Mr. O'Grady contained an exact copy of a detailed drawing of "Asteroid" created by Apple. The drawing was taken from a confidential set of slides clearly labeled "Apple Need-to-Knox Confidential." In addition, technical specifications were copied verbatim from the confidential slide set and posted on the online site. These postings by Mr. O'Grady were spread over three days, November 19, 22 and 23, 2004. The Court is convinced by Apple's presentation, including the materials produced
in camera that this action has passed the necessary thresholds for discovery to proceed.
In short, Apple had strong enough evidence that this information wasn't just accidently leaked to convince the court that trade secret laws had been violated and for the subpeonas to go forward.
You know, I actually laughed out loud when I read this comment, because I switched from KDE to Gnome for the exact reasons you did the opposite. Guess it goes to show how tastes vary.:-)
IMO, Gnome is very focused on making things easy for the user, and very usability-test centric. The developers seem to want to stick to usability testing and the Sun-funded HIG almost to a fault at times. To the point that they *do* listen to usability tests more so than the users. There are times where this is bad, but at the same time, there are times that it's the only way to actually get a feature implemented.
Has KDE developed a comprehensive HIG and/or UI guidelines for its DE? I honestly don't know. I'd always assumed not because K apps tend to do things their own way and I've never been able to find much consistency between them.
Again, I don't think KDE is a bad enviro, I think it's largely a matter of taste. Gnome leans toward a very simple, sparse environment, whereas KDE these days leans towards a complex, but highly customizable enivornement. I personally find the former easier to use, but there are certainly arguments for the latter.
Actually, it's silly to say any drive manufacturer 'invented' fluid bearings. First example that pops to my mind is their use in turbo and supercharging applications for decades now.:-)
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I bought a refurbed 3G iPod in early January. In late February, the HD would clunk and the iPod would lock up trying to read certain songs and files. Rather than risk it, as I use my iPod for moving data as well as music, I contacted Apple for an RMA.
:)
I filled out the RMA form on the website, the next day, DHL dropped off a box of my doorstep. I put the iPod in the box, called DHL, and they came back to pick it up about 20 minutes later. I got my iPod back about 3 days later.
There's no need to know the guy at the returns counter, AppleCare is how warranties should be. The only better experience I've had even close was when I RMA'd my Sony Ericsson phone, but I had to actually drive that to the post office myself.
You apparently don't understand how Applications are handled in OS X. You're not 'wantonly deleting executables,' you're moving and deleting the entire application. The Application you see (an .app) is really just a container.
.apps, you'll find that they're just a directory that the GUI in OS X treats like a single file. Inside is the entire directory tree for the program and all its files, but the user (as you've clearly demonstrated) doesn't have to know this, because there's no need for them to know about it.
If you drop out to the CLI and take a look at
To me, it's a great example of transparency done right. You've just been engrained with the idea that files are scattered everywhere and need to be purged, as you put it. That's not the case at all. It's not a matter of dumbing down so much as abstracting things that don't really serve the user any better spelled out. *THAT'S* why it's 'Applications' and not '/Applications.'
And my retort is this: Why does every professor feel the need to write and publish their own textbook? It's not the dificulty about it so much as the ridiculous duplication of effort that annoys me so much about it. While there are exceptions to any rule, some of the *worst* textbooks I've ever used were written by the course's instructor.
So yes, writing textbooks is hard work and deserves compensation, but every professor writing their own textbook that all have the same information and requiring *THAT* text book for the course is what makes it both unreasonably expensive and unfair for the students.
Basic rundown:
Gnome is a GTK based desktop environment with a focus on usability and simplicity, at times to a near detrimental level. Philosophically, it's a solid approach, but developers and users do butt heads from time to time. It's generally considered more 'Mac-like.' (More MacOS = OS 9 than X).
KDE is a QT based destkop environment which focuses primarily on flexibility and a high degree of customization. KDE focuses more on giving those that consider themselves power a larger degree of control. This degree of control does, however, lead to an increased level of complexity. Interface wise, it's the more Windows-like of the two.
And it's this point that has me slightly confused with the Kubuntu project. If you spend any time around the forums, you'll pick up that Ubuntu is built around an almost severely strict regimine of usibility. For example, in one thread I was watching, the idea of using red/green to indicate OK/Fail during boot up was shot down on the grounds that it could cause problems for people with color blindness.
While I appreciate that some people honestly prefer KDE as an environment, I don't quite see where it fits into Ubuntu's philosophy. Ubuntu is almost painfully easy to use - I have a friend who is a geek and a bit of a Macintosh zealot who's previously expressed a rather strong dislike for Linux, and even he's fallen in love with this distribution. I just don't see how it can maintain its character on KDE without pruning away many of the things the KDE advocates really like.
Do the mods really not understand capitalism to the point that this troll actually got modded up? Capitalism in its unregulated form trends toward cartels and monopoly. It's hard for the consumer to make a choice when there isn't another one that's doing anything differently.
That's where the problem lies, and why your parent poster stated that capitalism needs some level of governmental regulation to be successful. Or would it be better if Standard Oil and AT&T hadn't been split up?
I run Ubuntu's development build. It's update daemon checks for updates and notifies me of them as soon as they show up. Does this mean Ubuntu is unsecure?
:-)
Jesus, I don't want to be harsh, but you really need to get a clue. RH, MDK, and SuSE are all great distributions, I don't personally care for them because I don't like RPMs, but my knock most certainly isn't about their security and definitely not because of system updates.
Here's a little fragment of a clue for you - those 'commercial' distributions runs largely the *EXACT* same software that your community distros do. So if they update to the latest patched version of a piece of software and you don't, you're somehow more secure? Get real. There's a reason why people give Windows admins that don't update a hard time around here.
And just an FYI: You may want to consider moving your family to Ubuntu instead. I love Slack and run it on several machines, but it's a bit more hardcore than I'd try to have my computer-illiterate relatives run (even with the *EXCELLENT* Dropline metadistribution installed). Ubuntu, on the other hand, is so simple I've had a Mac zealot fall in love with it on me in the past week.
Michael: You know, Stallman helped Linus in his career.
...Let's listen to this song.
...Well when Linus was first starting out, he was signed to this contract with a big-band leader. And as his career got better and better he wanted to get out of it. Now, Linus is Stallman's godson. Stallman went to see the bandleader, with a contract for $10,000 to let Linus go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, RMS went to see the bandleader again, only this time with Eric Raymond. Within an hour, the bandleader signed the release, with a certified check of $1000.
...
...That's a true story.
Kay Adams: Really? How?
Michael:
Kay Adams: Please, Michael. Tell me.
Michael:
Kay Adams: How did he do that?
Michael: Stallman made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
Kay Adams: What was it?
Michael: Eric Raymond held a gun to his head, and Stallman assured the bandleader, that either his signiture or his brains would be on the contract.
Kay Adams:
Michael:
[cut to Linus singing again for about 10 more seconds before going back to Michael]
Michael: That's my family Kay, it's not me.
The University in my town still teaches COBOL, but the fact that Synovous/Total Systems (a major credit card processing firm) is headquartered here could have something to do with it. :)
Most consumer routers don't block outgoing ports anyway, so if you're hoping to stop malicious outbound traffic, you're looking to the wrong product. For another, almost every router I've seen has the explicit option to disable UPnP if it *really* bothers you that much.
I can't speak for the other issues, but installing Atheros support on Ubuntu is fairly simple compared to other distributions I've used.
:-)
I'm doing this from memory, but the basic process should be open Synaptic, go to the "Base System (Restricted)" category, and then install the restricted modules for whichever kernel you're using.
The reason they're distributed in restricted is because MadWifi uses a closed source HAL since it's a software controlled-radio and would run the risk of running foul of the FCC and FAA otherwise. (Apparently something to do with concerns about being able to overlap ATC radar by fiddling with the frequencies in software. Never delved into it too much though, so that could be a vast over-simplification).
HTH.
I have an old Powerbook 145 I was given recently. It shipped with OS7, and actually has two distinct mouse buttons, though I think they both do the same thing. :-)
Another poster already pointed this out, but for most users, the X cut and paste model is pretty confusing, and even as someone who does find it useful, I've also found it frustrating as often as not. While it's great for moving text between windows (Which OS X accomplishes by dragging and dropping, though it's somewhat inconsistent in this regard at times), when it comes time that you need to *replace* existing text/objects/whatever, it's actually a very poor model.
:-)
Either way, it certainly doesn't fit Apple's model of usability, and I can't see them adding it. Now somebody creating a 3rd-party hack for people like yourself, that's entirely possible.
If the mobile Xpress 200 is anything like the desktop Xpress 200 I've played with, it's about analogous to a Radeon 9600 Pro. Which most certainly beats the pants off anything "Intel Extreme."
Others have already pointed out Azureus' warning about not having seeded enough.
Also, Azureus is UPnP aware. This means if you have a relatively new router (everything I've used in the last year or so has been UPnP compliant) Azureus should go ahead and punch the holes it needs in the firewall for you. It's always worked well for me.
You're right. I was in a hurry when I wrote that and got my terms crossed.
:-)
Somebody throw this guy a couple of mod points?
My post wasn't all encompassing, and yes, it depends on context. As far as the protocol goes, yes, leechers are those who haven't finished downloading the full torrent.
However, in a "social" context, the *act* of leeching is pretty much as I described it - taking without giving back an equal amount. This is the usage intended when you read about sites requiring users to maintain a minimum share ratio.
Most home connections are asynchronous and have a far higher download rate than upload rate. Leeching is when someone finishes a download, and doesn't seed back at least as much as they took.
What you described is pretty much the way I've always used a phone. Although, the major variation with cell phones is that a lot of times the conversation will pick up at "Hey what's up?" since caller ID lets you know who's calling before you ever pick up.
:)
I've certainly never encountered that awkward silence like you've described though.
The problem with every company you've referenced so far as making money off GPL'd software is that they do so through selling support contracts for said software. That just simply doesn't happen with consumer oriented software like Nero where people just buy it once and then use it. In that sense, there business model most certainly isn't compatible with the GPL.
Yes, your parent poster was being a bit ridiculous, but you aren't exactly being entirely rational yourself.
Or maybe some of us are able to be somewhat rational? Personally, if Microsoft had been in Apple's shoes, I'd have felt the same way about the ThinkSecret case, and I'm anything but a Microsoft appologist (IE: I firmly believe the DoJ should have broken up the company).
The Apple vs Does case is more about reaffirming trade secret law that's already on the books and has already been affirmed by the courts many, many times. So no, I don't really see it as a 'victory against journalism.' No one is facing penalties for what they've printed at this point - and this isn't exactly a whistle blower case that deserves special privelege. But feel free to check my comment history on the subject - I've been consistent in my viewpoint and after reading the judge's opinion yesterday, I seem to have had it about pegged.
On topic, Tiger's looking to be a rather interesting release. Apple's putting metadata to good use with Spotlight, and I'm interested to see how Dashboard's ended up looking. The real story, I think, may end up being the behind the scenes part of the OS - CoreImage. It truly opens the door for a first-party Apple Photoshop killer, if Adobe refuses to adopt the interface. Remember iMovie and FCP are only really around because Adobe declined to make a good consumer oriented video editing system, so Apple did it themselves. Could we be seeing this happen again?
If you'd actually read the judge's opinion, you would realize that this ruling *FOLLOWS* precedent set both by California courts and the US Supreme Courts far more than it sets it.
As the Judge stated, the evidence was strong enough to suggest that the subpeona should go forward, and met the criteria set by a court in an earlier case for compelling journalists to identify their sources.
But that may have taken more than 30 seconds of reading and a knee jerk reaction, right?
On your second point, the bloggers aren't heing forced to not speak in this case, only to reveal where the information came from. If you read the decision, there's no order for them to remove the order, only for the subpeonas for the names of their sources to move forward.
From the Judge's opinion, posted on the EFF's site:
In short, Apple had strong enough evidence that this information wasn't just accidently leaked to convince the court that trade secret laws had been violated and for the subpeonas to go forward.
You know, I actually laughed out loud when I read this comment, because I switched from KDE to Gnome for the exact reasons you did the opposite. Guess it goes to show how tastes vary. :-)
IMO, Gnome is very focused on making things easy for the user, and very usability-test centric. The developers seem to want to stick to usability testing and the Sun-funded HIG almost to a fault at times. To the point that they *do* listen to usability tests more so than the users. There are times where this is bad, but at the same time, there are times that it's the only way to actually get a feature implemented.
Has KDE developed a comprehensive HIG and/or UI guidelines for its DE? I honestly don't know. I'd always assumed not because K apps tend to do things their own way and I've never been able to find much consistency between them.
Again, I don't think KDE is a bad enviro, I think it's largely a matter of taste. Gnome leans toward a very simple, sparse environment, whereas KDE these days leans towards a complex, but highly customizable enivornement. I personally find the former easier to use, but there are certainly arguments for the latter.
Actually, it's silly to say any drive manufacturer 'invented' fluid bearings. First example that pops to my mind is their use in turbo and supercharging applications for decades now. :-)