"A server is designed to serve data reliably, and has enterprise class components. That means no cheap-ass western digital hard drives. If you don't think there's a difference, you've never used Enterprise hardware."
I think Google would argue with you there. They designed their business around not using expensive hardware, but instead the principals of RAID applied across all of their hardware (they believe it's cheaper to have a LOT of less reliable, cheaper systems than a few, super reliable systems). And it seems to be working brilliantly for them.
I'm not saying it works in every case, but I think you're just complicating the issue; A server is a machine that serves data. Whether it be a $300 Dell box running a copy of Win2K serving up some libraries index server or a multimillion dollar, grid cluster of Apple XServes running OS X Server serving up a database for your customer service department, the key element here is that the machine is serving the data.
So, going back to the grandparent's issue, there really isn't much stopping a current PC from being a server. A server is a role not a item. In this specific case, the Sun Niagra Servers are high power, high throughput machines, tasked better for a mega dollar installation where speed is critical, or in your business where uptime seems to be the more desired feature. But as Google has shown us, it really isn't the box that makes the application, it's the programmers.
When you reduce the resolution of an image, you're throwing away data, so a thumbnail isn't just the whole image, it's an interpolated version of the original image.
Take a book in your hands. You know it's illegal to copy word for word out of that book, it violates copyright. So instead what you do is you take every 4th word from the book, and make a text out of it. This is essentially what a thumbnail is, only a thumbnail's message is more clear. (To be fair, a more accurate methodology would be to remove all occurrances of similar words in near contexts, but building an algorithm that would be sensible on a forum is just stupid, and I'm lazy).
The way around the issue is simply to show this in court. Take a gigantic billboard sized image, and start reducing the quality. Show exactly which pieces of data are completely destroyed by the shrinking of the image. Once a judge or a jury saw this, it's pretty irrefutable.
1) Every laptop has an identifier written on it when its shipped; when the school buys the machine, it records the number.
2) Certain computer vendors (IBM, Dell), have system setups where if a machine is reported stolen, whenever you plug it into the net next, it phones home.
Berea College (a full laptop school), does both of the above.
Hi. The school in my town does this. Berea College has a program called EDGE, where every student entering the school is given a Dell laptop with a fresh install of Windows.
Our school's a bit different in that the students work to pay for their own tuition, but inside of that is the hidden costs of the laptop, and network maintainance. That being said, how is it working?
Brilliantly. Every student is instantly on the same level; they've all got access to a computer, when they need it, in any section of the campus (and the very newest users even get to use Wireless out in the quads). Homework is often distributed by URL so that students who weren't in the class can still get it done. Emailing the professor is an OK method of turning in material. Etc, etc. Going to class is still required, however, as tests are often given in class. There are far fewer computers on campus (they needed to reduce the network presence, and licensing the OS is cheaper if you've actually physically got less machines to license. Some of the old machines are resold, some of the machines are going into beowolf-style file serving.)
It's a GOOD IDEA. The biggest problem Berea College had going to a full-computer network driven school is network traffic. The school jumped to fiber quickly, but it still has a problem with file sharing traffic (it used to have to have a caching proxy server for web traffic, but they dropped it for a transparent proxy, yay Linux).
It's x86 instruction-set on an x86 processor. It's possible, it just may be damn difficult.
Unless you work for ReactOS, hold a position at Microsoft in the Windows department, or have a copy of the Windows source code, I don't see any quick way of making it happen; the kinds of revisions that need to go into making Windows support the iMac are simply absurd.
You're talking about porting an operating system who's kernel is built around a technology that simply doesn't exist on the platform you're trying to port it to. EFI without a backward compatible ACPI-layer, is alien to BIOS or EFI with ACPI-Back-compat.
I've always been the voice of reason to say that if the bounty got large enough, someone at Microsoft would claim the money anomously as a one-time bonus check. But, he'd probably invalidate some NDAs, definitely release stolen work property, and get sued for more than it was worth to code it.
My earliest guess on what the patent speficially protected was something to do with either the interleave of the audio/video, or the vector quantization algorithm in MPEG-4. This guess stems from the specific timing of the attack; right after the SBC/AT&T merger, AT&T is settling back into being its old self again, and they're going through their old Bell Labs patent library to see what they can use to generate some instant income (of course, this goes along with why they're ending Google's/Microsoft's "Free Ride").
Specifically, I think it's got something to do with the specific quantizer because it only effects such a narrow band of the MPEG-4 standard (only MPEG-4 part 2 was effected). Very likely this quantizer algorithm was designed for voice communications (and at that, probably Mobile voice communications, my guess remains that the specific piece of IP is actually a Cingular patent, Google it), and for this reasoning, they're being a bit gunshy about giving the media the patent number (since AT&T only owns a 60% stake in Cingular, BellSouth owns the other 40%; it's likely that if BellSouth did the research and it was a Cingular patent, that they would actually recieve part of the commissions from any licensing, and this fishing expedition wouldn't bring home quite as many greenbacks).
But it's far too early, and far to alleged. For all we know, the patent could be over toothpaste named MPEG-4.
Well then they dropped the bombshell just seconds too late to hit Apple; their video store is just getting started, so there is still time to switch the specific coder they use for it, and with a firmware update to the iPod, they can some quickly into compliance, and not lose a dollar over it.
They should have kept this submarine under wraps for another year or so.
"I've been waiting a long time for this. And this, and this, and this."
GNOME Storage: Dead.
Beagle: Braindead.
Dashboard: oh dear christ.
The one thing about the whole GNOME project which is about to uproot me and make my move back to QT, is their extreme dependance on Mono. Not only does this put them in legal limbo, it doesn't fix the problems underneath, thus it's building a zoo on top of a house of cards.
I've played around with GNOME Storage, it was a disaster. (No wonder it died; installing a kernel CORBA object? You've gotta be KIDDING ME). I've played around with Beagle (as much as I could, C# makes me feel dirty on so many levels). I've watched demos of Dashboard. I hated all of them.
GNOME Storage was on the right path; use the database at daemon level, using a kernel patch to notify you of what's going on. Beagle adapts a tried and true method (Spotlight for GNOME!), but fails to realize that Lucene is simply an index server, that iNotify is only as powerful as the user who's using it, and that the daemon has to run as a per-user instance; not something you'd want to do on a server/multi-user computer. I don't even want to go there with Dashboard.. *shudder*
I presented as a design plan an idea to recode Beagle using ODBC for database abstraction, running a root-level database daemon, and storing the whole file system in the database, with the metadata extractor running at user level (which allows for a lot more flexibility in controlling what the user can/can't modify in terms of the file system). A system like this would allow for remote file storage (something Beagle doesn't allow for), much like "Roaming Profiles", only everything would roam. It would allow for less redundant storage (no need to keep local copies of anything except for cache). It would allow for a much simpler backup scheme (database replication). And performance would be based on how fast your database server and network connection were based, which granted is slower than your harddrive might be, but with all of the added advantages, I could see people wanting to go that direction.
It would be the killer business application; clients no longer need very complicated operating system installs, less complicated backup procedures, less complicated IT support (just blank the dumb client and reinstall the OS, something Windows users have been doing for ages). And it would be great for tracking metadata including copyright, permissions, etc. etc.
So why haven't I coded it? Because I have to LIVE!!! You can't do that kind of work for free. And I've still got to complete a degree, so until then, a dream of having a database file system still escapes me. *sigh*. Enough of my rant.
Well it really is as good as it's touted to be, but it's very limited and pretty buggy thanks to the fact that he is the sole developer on the project. I wouldn't mind it being closed source either if he actually had the money and staff to make it better, both of which he will never be getting as a closed-source project thanks to the 2 ton gorilla that is Adobe.
"In my opinion, rewriting GIMP from scratch and making it extensible would be the best choice."
I've been saying this for years. Everything usable out of the GIMP can be salvaged (it's written in C so it's rather straight forward to save blocks of the code; no deep bound objects to extract). On top of that, it wouldn't take long to implement a new editor like Pixel, or better yet, pressure this guy into Open Sourcing his projet with a fat check written by some Linux-friendly organization (Redhat? Ubuntu? Novell?).
First of all, I need to put this disclaimer here: I do hate Microsoft, but I hate them for all the right reasons, and I'm willing to make admissions to when Microsoft is doing right and when they're doing wrong.
However, I really truly feel that the Grandparent's point makes perfect sense, and is relevant to the discussion. First of all, he talks about how he is actually in the market, using both Java and.Net (two very similar platforms) side by side. Then, he speaks to why one platform performs better in the overall than the other. This is real world application. While the discussion might be about the.Net market, Java is an important part of that market (Because, after all,.Net and Java share the same market segment; rapid development and deployment environments).
I will conceed that I think.Net is seriously overblown (and seriously misnamed;.Net has very little to do with anything internet related other than ASP.Net, but I guess that's better than giving it an "X" name). It's yet another one of those situations where the market booms on a Microsoft platform paradigm shift (remember the huge COM+ boom? remember ActiveX and it's "Active" bretherin?). This time they struck gold, however, as Java was seeing slow adoption in the Windows market, and Microsoft didn't want to yield to actually having to license or strike a deal with Sun for Java.
But, I'm an opinionated, bias person. I have the right to believe what I believe. And I'm going to stand by GPs moderation tally, because biases aside, it's still a good point to be made.
It's night/day with me. A dual core system feels so much more responsive, effortlessly gliding from one application to the next as one is entirely isolated to one CPU and the other to the other.
Of course, I don't own a DC system anymore; the last dual processor system I owned was a dual proc 500mhz pentium III system (might've been xeon, I can't recall; it was my Dell) and I miss it. If it could run today's applications at any kind of speed I would still have it as it was such a smooth feeling..
Rapidly? Wow, I'm blindsided by this. As long as I've been alive I've ran a 32-bit Operating System, and I saw Alpha claim the 64-bit crown, I've seen Sun's offerings claim to be the best thing since sliced bread, and I'm now seeing AMD do the same thing. Guess what?
RAM will be the deciding factor for when we move to 64-bit processors.
Don't believe me? Ask yourself this: why is it all of the big room server clients wanted a 64-bit chip years and years ago? So that they can saturate their servers with multiple gigs of ram; CPU archetectures might change day to day almost, but RAM archetectures usually last a long, long time, and as time passes, prices go down. So that big iron server that you purchased with 4GB of extremely expensive ram at the time, you can now saturate with 16GB of dirt cheap ram and still be in the top 80% performance bracket.
How does this translate to home users? When home users hit, and can no longer exceed the 4GB limit, then and only then will we see a desktop push to 64-bit. And we've still got a lot of ground to cover until then; some top end computers are running 4GB now, but by and large 512MB is the standard, with 1GB now being the recommended ram total. Ram scaling-wise, I predict we won't hit that "need for 64-bit" number until 2009, but by 2008 or earlier, all desktop CPUs will be 100% 64-bit anyways.
How does that tie into today's discussion? Perfectly; by 2008, your laptop will be obsolete, that's a given. So that means purchasing a system now will likely carry you until the 64-bit revolution. All and all, this means that 64-bit is a non-selling point to a Laptop consumer at this date.
Who cares, who has a retail copy of 64-bit Windows Vista laying around. Oh, who's that? Nobody? Well then. And who will have a copy in a year? Who's that? Hardly anyone? That's right. Face it, 64-bit will be slow to adopt until we truly hit the 4GB ram barrier (right now we're averaging right under the 1GB mark; most PCs ship with 512, most recommend 1GB), and Vista will help that push, but we won't likely see a need for 64-bit Windows/OS X arrive until 2008 or later, which by then your laptop would be rather obsolete (a generation+ behind Moore's law anyway). And by then we'll also have 64-bit Yohans and Meroms..
"and the Intel GPUs the Centrino Duo notebooks usually use are very poor."
You speak as if there are many Centrino Duo notebooks on the market. There aren't. In fact, there are so few on the market, that finding reviews for them yet is pratically impossible (Tom's hardware did a good one.. that's all I've seen). On the flipside, the major purchaser so far (Apple) has paired it up with an extremely powerful GPU (X1600 Mobile), and at this point, I'm pretty sure that'd be the standard.
So, I think this user's just being a fanboy and not really considering reality. 64-Bit Linux is about the only thing that will run, and "PHB" 32-Bit Vista will be running on 90+% of the computers that upgrade to Vista in the next year (conceeding that they have it done in this year).
Oh hell yes it can, it can be entirely re-compiled into C, but it may not look exactly as it did before it met the compiler.
The compiler simply is a translator that turns a human-parsable programming language into a machine parsable instruction code. That being said, a translation in the other direction is just as easy.
However, compilers these days are more advanced than the golden old days of computing, and will do crazy things to optimize code (unrolling loops, replacing ineffecient operations with more effecient ones [i = i + 1; -> i++;]). Some of these operatons can't be reliably undone (especially the case with inline functions and macros, because often the code compiler will apply the inline, and then realize there's a way to make it more effecient, thus making the code slightly different than the inline function and causing it to not be reversable), at least without a little human interaction.
And there are open source code decompilers available for a number of languages (for C, as an example, there's DCC. Just don't go decompiling Windows and copying and pasting the code back into ReactOS;)
If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix?
I'll answer your question with one of my own; how often does Microsoft get a patch out of the door early, let alone "on time"? Why are there still bugs in Windows which were originally exposed over 3 years ago which haven't been fixed, when they're getting ready to release another version of Windows based on that exact same code?
Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver?
Because the driver sucks at dual core systems?
Could this issue affect Linux or Mac OSX users on those platforms?
It's a possibility, but adding it to the end of your article is called "flaming". It's a baseless accusation which you either placed their to bash Apple computers, when you have absolutely no proof or evidence to suggest they would be affected by this. If you said "This is definitively what caused the MacBook to be delayed, here's a link to some evidence", I would have probably agreed with you, but sadly, you have done nothing of the like, because nothing of the like currently exists to say that it happened that way. Thus, if I had the ability to mod this article, "Flamebait" is the only choice I'd have, until the anti-Apple remark was removed.
Bashing one company for another's gross incompetance isn't fair, is it?
Assuming a Watt is a Watt the world around, I'd say that it wouldn't be a wonder that the AMD laptop is only getting 1/2 the life, instead it's only getting 1/6th-1/8th the life.
Except for the fact that AAC isn't at all proprietary; AAC is a part of MPEG-2 meaning that it is highly standarized, and is a practical replacement for the MP3 codec as it offers better quality sound at a lower bitrate.
So what you really hate is the DRM emposed on the media, but guess what? No company is interested in selling their media these days without DRM. So you have a choice to make: boycott all companies that sell DRM'd media (basically your only option is Indie stuff, which if you're okay with that..), or buy into a DRM system that's incredible easy to crack (as FairPlay, Apple's Licensed DRM, is).
"Proprietary formats"? No, that's what WMA is. Microsoft's idea of creating their own standard just because they want a licencing cut of everyone using it. Apple's AAC-protected would be that way, only they've made it *perfectly* clear they are not interested in licencing it to anyone. (Hell, there's even a DRM module for OGG. Not that anyone would ever use it).
Well then your point is flawed, because as any manufacturer of CPUs will tell you, error will crop up after they are taped out and produced. AMD certainly is no stranger to it, neither is Freescale or IBM. Hell, there are smaller processors used in cellphones and calculators that have errors much worse than anything Intel's ever released, and yet you never hear about those. Why? Because these kinds of errors are trivial to fix in Software.
Secondly, no, these chips are probably revision 8 or 9 internally; they'll typically do a few runs at a time to make sure that yields are where they want them to be, and that mechanically the chip checks out. However, you can not do intrinsic debugging at this level, because of the simple supply problem; there are not enough chips made at this point to get all of your engineers looking at them. This is why most manufacturers won't catch an error until the first production run is underway, and by then it's far too late to go back to your design drafts, fix a bug, and re-tape the processor. It'd delay the product by 4-6 months; you've got to remake all of your lithograph templates and make sure they're all exactly created to spec, you've got to re-send out all of these plates to all of your fabs, you've got to then go through recert and make sure that the chips work (yes, that means you have to make more wafers of bad chips), and then you're still looking at debug time.
And for what? Your processor's accidentially got a single instruction that's lightly flawed which can be checked and fixed in software (if (value == (INTEL_DEBUG_VALUE && expected_value)) { intel_fix(); } ).
Lastly, if you need an example of any product shipping flawed, take a look over at the car industry. There are recalls, after recalls, after recalls on parts that are often bad, and require a new bolt to fix something. Think of this as the same thing, only you don't have to take your car into the garage; you are likely to never know, speak with, or hear of the people who are fixing the problems mentioned in this article. These are problems for OS developers, who are working in debug mode, who *might* run into this problem if and only if some crazy absurd bit-pattern is laid out just right in a register when a command is executed (for example).
So please, before you tell a Computer Engineer how to make a microprocessor, make sure you know what you're talking about. It's better that they catch these problems in the weeks after release so that the OS developers will have time to fix them before their next major version goes out and they actually have to release a patch to deal with it. It's better that they catch them before they run the next production run, just in case there is an error that warrants fixing (and they've only discovered ONE of such errors, and they are probably going to wait until Core Duo rev B to do it). And it's better that they catch them at all, instead of a year down the line when everyone starts to realize their floating point math is going screwy on their multimillion dollar simulations.
They didn't; this list of errata has been building since December 1st. It's too late to go back and correct a processor after tape-out and production starts, so they release errata on how to deal with the errors. Most of them are a simple software patch, some of them aren't even serious enough to need that. There was only one serious error Intel has found so far that they consider to be severe enough to fix in Revision B of the Core Duo chip, and it has to deal with a Power Saving level being disabled under an extreme set of circumstances.
Take a look at the error list for a second. Over 50% of them are caused by dropping the processor into Debug mode, with over 75% of them only being observed by Intel themselves. Now, certainly there are more bugs reported so far, but does that mean that there are actually more bugs, or that Intel is getting better at finding bugs and reporting them?
Apple is: A Consumer Electronics company first and foremost (iPods). Then it is a Computer Hardware design and manufacturing firm (Macs). Then it is a software design and creation firm (Mac OS X, iLife, iWork). Then it is a service and support company (AppleCare), and then it's a multimedia distribution company (iTunes).
Microsoft is: A Software design and creation firm (Windows, Office, games). Then it is a game computer design firm (XBox). Then it is a consumer electronics company (Mice, Wireless equipment).
Putting either company in a box and saying "This is what they do" is highly inaccurate. Apple's core business is designed around the user experience, and thus, their software must be bound to their hardware. Microsoft's gaming division is much the same way; their hardware must mate perfectly with their software in order for other programs (GAMES) to run on top of it. Microsoft sells the Xbox like Apple sells the Mac Mini, only they are targeted at two different audiences.
In finality, I'd like to point out that this article was on Digg.com about 8 times yesterday, and each time was debunked; Microsoft has no commercial interest in making an old operating system such as Windows XP run on hardware as new as the new iMacs. However, Vista already has the framework of support there, and by the year out (if Microsoft meets its goal, which at this point is a big if), both Apple's line will be fully Intel-ized, and Microsoft's operating system will be fully EFI compliant, most likely including Apple's specific implementation. As Microsoft's interest is in selling software licenses, they will probably not make the EFI patch retroactive, forcing users who buy a new Mac to also buy a new license for Windows, and thus filling Microsoft's coffers.
If I were this guy, I would have listened the first time someone said it was practically impossible, and improbable at best. Now he's got 2k in other people's cash, hoping his ill-fated idea pans out, and even IF he does return the money (and not just use it to pay for another new laptop aside his new Mac), what he could have done with those people's money in the time being makes me very ill. It would have been nice to see it go towards a better cause.
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"A server is designed to serve data reliably, and has enterprise class components. That means no cheap-ass western digital hard drives. If you don't think there's a difference, you've never used Enterprise hardware."
I think Google would argue with you there. They designed their business around not using expensive hardware, but instead the principals of RAID applied across all of their hardware (they believe it's cheaper to have a LOT of less reliable, cheaper systems than a few, super reliable systems). And it seems to be working brilliantly for them.
I'm not saying it works in every case, but I think you're just complicating the issue; A server is a machine that serves data. Whether it be a $300 Dell box running a copy of Win2K serving up some libraries index server or a multimillion dollar, grid cluster of Apple XServes running OS X Server serving up a database for your customer service department, the key element here is that the machine is serving the data.
So, going back to the grandparent's issue, there really isn't much stopping a current PC from being a server. A server is a role not a item. In this specific case, the Sun Niagra Servers are high power, high throughput machines, tasked better for a mega dollar installation where speed is critical, or in your business where uptime seems to be the more desired feature. But as Google has shown us, it really isn't the box that makes the application, it's the programmers.
When you reduce the resolution of an image, you're throwing away data, so a thumbnail isn't just the whole image, it's an interpolated version of the original image.
Take a book in your hands. You know it's illegal to copy word for word out of that book, it violates copyright. So instead what you do is you take every 4th word from the book, and make a text out of it. This is essentially what a thumbnail is, only a thumbnail's message is more clear. (To be fair, a more accurate methodology would be to remove all occurrances of similar words in near contexts, but building an algorithm that would be sensible on a forum is just stupid, and I'm lazy).
The way around the issue is simply to show this in court. Take a gigantic billboard sized image, and start reducing the quality. Show exactly which pieces of data are completely destroyed by the shrinking of the image. Once a judge or a jury saw this, it's pretty irrefutable.
1) Every laptop has an identifier written on it when its shipped; when the school buys the machine, it records the number.
2) Certain computer vendors (IBM, Dell), have system setups where if a machine is reported stolen, whenever you plug it into the net next, it phones home.
Berea College (a full laptop school), does both of the above.
Hi. The school in my town does this. Berea College has a program called EDGE, where every student entering the school is given a Dell laptop with a fresh install of Windows.
Our school's a bit different in that the students work to pay for their own tuition, but inside of that is the hidden costs of the laptop, and network maintainance. That being said, how is it working?
Brilliantly. Every student is instantly on the same level; they've all got access to a computer, when they need it, in any section of the campus (and the very newest users even get to use Wireless out in the quads). Homework is often distributed by URL so that students who weren't in the class can still get it done. Emailing the professor is an OK method of turning in material. Etc, etc. Going to class is still required, however, as tests are often given in class. There are far fewer computers on campus (they needed to reduce the network presence, and licensing the OS is cheaper if you've actually physically got less machines to license. Some of the old machines are resold, some of the machines are going into beowolf-style file serving.)
It's a GOOD IDEA. The biggest problem Berea College had going to a full-computer network driven school is network traffic. The school jumped to fiber quickly, but it still has a problem with file sharing traffic (it used to have to have a caching proxy server for web traffic, but they dropped it for a transparent proxy, yay Linux).
It's x86 instruction-set on an x86 processor. It's possible, it just may be damn difficult.
Unless you work for ReactOS, hold a position at Microsoft in the Windows department, or have a copy of the Windows source code, I don't see any quick way of making it happen; the kinds of revisions that need to go into making Windows support the iMac are simply absurd.
You're talking about porting an operating system who's kernel is built around a technology that simply doesn't exist on the platform you're trying to port it to. EFI without a backward compatible ACPI-layer, is alien to BIOS or EFI with ACPI-Back-compat.
I've always been the voice of reason to say that if the bounty got large enough, someone at Microsoft would claim the money anomously as a one-time bonus check. But, he'd probably invalidate some NDAs, definitely release stolen work property, and get sued for more than it was worth to code it.
My earliest guess on what the patent speficially protected was something to do with either the interleave of the audio/video, or the vector quantization algorithm in MPEG-4. This guess stems from the specific timing of the attack; right after the SBC/AT&T merger, AT&T is settling back into being its old self again, and they're going through their old Bell Labs patent library to see what they can use to generate some instant income (of course, this goes along with why they're ending Google's/Microsoft's "Free Ride").
Specifically, I think it's got something to do with the specific quantizer because it only effects such a narrow band of the MPEG-4 standard (only MPEG-4 part 2 was effected). Very likely this quantizer algorithm was designed for voice communications (and at that, probably Mobile voice communications, my guess remains that the specific piece of IP is actually a Cingular patent, Google it), and for this reasoning, they're being a bit gunshy about giving the media the patent number (since AT&T only owns a 60% stake in Cingular, BellSouth owns the other 40%; it's likely that if BellSouth did the research and it was a Cingular patent, that they would actually recieve part of the commissions from any licensing, and this fishing expedition wouldn't bring home quite as many greenbacks).
But it's far too early, and far to alleged. For all we know, the patent could be over toothpaste named MPEG-4.
Well then they dropped the bombshell just seconds too late to hit Apple; their video store is just getting started, so there is still time to switch the specific coder they use for it, and with a firmware update to the iPod, they can some quickly into compliance, and not lose a dollar over it.
They should have kept this submarine under wraps for another year or so.
"I've been waiting a long time for this. And this, and this, and this."
GNOME Storage: Dead.
Beagle: Braindead.
Dashboard: oh dear christ.
The one thing about the whole GNOME project which is about to uproot me and make my move back to QT, is their extreme dependance on Mono. Not only does this put them in legal limbo, it doesn't fix the problems underneath, thus it's building a zoo on top of a house of cards.
I've played around with GNOME Storage, it was a disaster. (No wonder it died; installing a kernel CORBA object? You've gotta be KIDDING ME). I've played around with Beagle (as much as I could, C# makes me feel dirty on so many levels). I've watched demos of Dashboard. I hated all of them.
GNOME Storage was on the right path; use the database at daemon level, using a kernel patch to notify you of what's going on. Beagle adapts a tried and true method (Spotlight for GNOME!), but fails to realize that Lucene is simply an index server, that iNotify is only as powerful as the user who's using it, and that the daemon has to run as a per-user instance; not something you'd want to do on a server/multi-user computer. I don't even want to go there with Dashboard.. *shudder*
I presented as a design plan an idea to recode Beagle using ODBC for database abstraction, running a root-level database daemon, and storing the whole file system in the database, with the metadata extractor running at user level (which allows for a lot more flexibility in controlling what the user can/can't modify in terms of the file system). A system like this would allow for remote file storage (something Beagle doesn't allow for), much like "Roaming Profiles", only everything would roam. It would allow for less redundant storage (no need to keep local copies of anything except for cache). It would allow for a much simpler backup scheme (database replication). And performance would be based on how fast your database server and network connection were based, which granted is slower than your harddrive might be, but with all of the added advantages, I could see people wanting to go that direction.
It would be the killer business application; clients no longer need very complicated operating system installs, less complicated backup procedures, less complicated IT support (just blank the dumb client and reinstall the OS, something Windows users have been doing for ages). And it would be great for tracking metadata including copyright, permissions, etc. etc.
So why haven't I coded it? Because I have to LIVE!!! You can't do that kind of work for free. And I've still got to complete a degree, so until then, a dream of having a database file system still escapes me. *sigh*. Enough of my rant.
Well it really is as good as it's touted to be, but it's very limited and pretty buggy thanks to the fact that he is the sole developer on the project. I wouldn't mind it being closed source either if he actually had the money and staff to make it better, both of which he will never be getting as a closed-source project thanks to the 2 ton gorilla that is Adobe.
"In my opinion, rewriting GIMP from scratch and making it extensible would be the best choice."
I've been saying this for years. Everything usable out of the GIMP can be salvaged (it's written in C so it's rather straight forward to save blocks of the code; no deep bound objects to extract). On top of that, it wouldn't take long to implement a new editor like Pixel, or better yet, pressure this guy into Open Sourcing his projet with a fat check written by some Linux-friendly organization (Redhat? Ubuntu? Novell?).
First of all, I need to put this disclaimer here: I do hate Microsoft, but I hate them for all the right reasons, and I'm willing to make admissions to when Microsoft is doing right and when they're doing wrong.
.Net (two very similar platforms) side by side. Then, he speaks to why one platform performs better in the overall than the other. This is real world application. While the discussion might be about the .Net market, Java is an important part of that market (Because, after all, .Net and Java share the same market segment; rapid development and deployment environments).
.Net is seriously overblown (and seriously misnamed; .Net has very little to do with anything internet related other than ASP.Net, but I guess that's better than giving it an "X" name). It's yet another one of those situations where the market booms on a Microsoft platform paradigm shift (remember the huge COM+ boom? remember ActiveX and it's "Active" bretherin?). This time they struck gold, however, as Java was seeing slow adoption in the Windows market, and Microsoft didn't want to yield to actually having to license or strike a deal with Sun for Java.
However, I really truly feel that the Grandparent's point makes perfect sense, and is relevant to the discussion. First of all, he talks about how he is actually in the market, using both Java and
I will conceed that I think
But, I'm an opinionated, bias person. I have the right to believe what I believe. And I'm going to stand by GPs moderation tally, because biases aside, it's still a good point to be made.
Ugh are you kidding me? The video quality of both YouTube and Google's Video looks.. downright disgusting.
Just got with torrents.
Not a big multitasker eh?
It's night/day with me. A dual core system feels so much more responsive, effortlessly gliding from one application to the next as one is entirely isolated to one CPU and the other to the other.
Of course, I don't own a DC system anymore; the last dual processor system I owned was a dual proc 500mhz pentium III system (might've been xeon, I can't recall; it was my Dell) and I miss it. If it could run today's applications at any kind of speed I would still have it as it was such a smooth feeling..
Rapidly? Wow, I'm blindsided by this. As long as I've been alive I've ran a 32-bit Operating System, and I saw Alpha claim the 64-bit crown, I've seen Sun's offerings claim to be the best thing since sliced bread, and I'm now seeing AMD do the same thing. Guess what?
RAM will be the deciding factor for when we move to 64-bit processors.
Don't believe me? Ask yourself this: why is it all of the big room server clients wanted a 64-bit chip years and years ago? So that they can saturate their servers with multiple gigs of ram; CPU archetectures might change day to day almost, but RAM archetectures usually last a long, long time, and as time passes, prices go down. So that big iron server that you purchased with 4GB of extremely expensive ram at the time, you can now saturate with 16GB of dirt cheap ram and still be in the top 80% performance bracket.
How does this translate to home users? When home users hit, and can no longer exceed the 4GB limit, then and only then will we see a desktop push to 64-bit. And we've still got a lot of ground to cover until then; some top end computers are running 4GB now, but by and large 512MB is the standard, with 1GB now being the recommended ram total. Ram scaling-wise, I predict we won't hit that "need for 64-bit" number until 2009, but by 2008 or earlier, all desktop CPUs will be 100% 64-bit anyways.
How does that tie into today's discussion? Perfectly; by 2008, your laptop will be obsolete, that's a given. So that means purchasing a system now will likely carry you until the 64-bit revolution. All and all, this means that 64-bit is a non-selling point to a Laptop consumer at this date.
"It can't run 64-bit Windows Vista"
Who cares, who has a retail copy of 64-bit Windows Vista laying around. Oh, who's that? Nobody? Well then. And who will have a copy in a year? Who's that? Hardly anyone? That's right. Face it, 64-bit will be slow to adopt until we truly hit the 4GB ram barrier (right now we're averaging right under the 1GB mark; most PCs ship with 512, most recommend 1GB), and Vista will help that push, but we won't likely see a need for 64-bit Windows/OS X arrive until 2008 or later, which by then your laptop would be rather obsolete (a generation+ behind Moore's law anyway). And by then we'll also have 64-bit Yohans and Meroms..
"and the Intel GPUs the Centrino Duo notebooks usually use are very poor."
You speak as if there are many Centrino Duo notebooks on the market. There aren't. In fact, there are so few on the market, that finding reviews for them yet is pratically impossible (Tom's hardware did a good one.. that's all I've seen). On the flipside, the major purchaser so far (Apple) has paired it up with an extremely powerful GPU (X1600 Mobile), and at this point, I'm pretty sure that'd be the standard.
So, I think this user's just being a fanboy and not really considering reality. 64-Bit Linux is about the only thing that will run, and "PHB" 32-Bit Vista will be running on 90+% of the computers that upgrade to Vista in the next year (conceeding that they have it done in this year).
Oh hell yes it can, it can be entirely re-compiled into C, but it may not look exactly as it did before it met the compiler.
;)
The compiler simply is a translator that turns a human-parsable programming language into a machine parsable instruction code. That being said, a translation in the other direction is just as easy.
However, compilers these days are more advanced than the golden old days of computing, and will do crazy things to optimize code (unrolling loops, replacing ineffecient operations with more effecient ones [i = i + 1; -> i++;]). Some of these operatons can't be reliably undone (especially the case with inline functions and macros, because often the code compiler will apply the inline, and then realize there's a way to make it more effecient, thus making the code slightly different than the inline function and causing it to not be reversable), at least without a little human interaction.
And there are open source code decompilers available for a number of languages (for C, as an example, there's DCC. Just don't go decompiling Windows and copying and pasting the code back into ReactOS
If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix?
I'll answer your question with one of my own; how often does Microsoft get a patch out of the door early, let alone "on time"? Why are there still bugs in Windows which were originally exposed over 3 years ago which haven't been fixed, when they're getting ready to release another version of Windows based on that exact same code?
Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver?
Because the driver sucks at dual core systems?
Could this issue affect Linux or Mac OSX users on those platforms?
It's a possibility, but adding it to the end of your article is called "flaming". It's a baseless accusation which you either placed their to bash Apple computers, when you have absolutely no proof or evidence to suggest they would be affected by this. If you said "This is definitively what caused the MacBook to be delayed, here's a link to some evidence", I would have probably agreed with you, but sadly, you have done nothing of the like, because nothing of the like currently exists to say that it happened that way. Thus, if I had the ability to mod this article, "Flamebait" is the only choice I'd have, until the anti-Apple remark was removed.
Bashing one company for another's gross incompetance isn't fair, is it?
25Wh / 50Wh = 2. Right?
26 minutes / 3 hours = roughly 1/6; 26 / 4 hours = roughly 1/8.
Assuming a Watt is a Watt the world around, I'd say that it wouldn't be a wonder that the AMD laptop is only getting 1/2 the life, instead it's only getting 1/6th-1/8th the life.
Except for the fact that AAC isn't at all proprietary; AAC is a part of MPEG-2 meaning that it is highly standarized, and is a practical replacement for the MP3 codec as it offers better quality sound at a lower bitrate.
So what you really hate is the DRM emposed on the media, but guess what? No company is interested in selling their media these days without DRM. So you have a choice to make: boycott all companies that sell DRM'd media (basically your only option is Indie stuff, which if you're okay with that..), or buy into a DRM system that's incredible easy to crack (as FairPlay, Apple's Licensed DRM, is).
"Proprietary formats"? No, that's what WMA is. Microsoft's idea of creating their own standard just because they want a licencing cut of everyone using it. Apple's AAC-protected would be that way, only they've made it *perfectly* clear they are not interested in licencing it to anyone. (Hell, there's even a DRM module for OGG. Not that anyone would ever use it).
So please, no more FUD.
Well then your point is flawed, because as any manufacturer of CPUs will tell you, error will crop up after they are taped out and produced. AMD certainly is no stranger to it, neither is Freescale or IBM. Hell, there are smaller processors used in cellphones and calculators that have errors much worse than anything Intel's ever released, and yet you never hear about those. Why? Because these kinds of errors are trivial to fix in Software.
Secondly, no, these chips are probably revision 8 or 9 internally; they'll typically do a few runs at a time to make sure that yields are where they want them to be, and that mechanically the chip checks out. However, you can not do intrinsic debugging at this level, because of the simple supply problem; there are not enough chips made at this point to get all of your engineers looking at them. This is why most manufacturers won't catch an error until the first production run is underway, and by then it's far too late to go back to your design drafts, fix a bug, and re-tape the processor. It'd delay the product by 4-6 months; you've got to remake all of your lithograph templates and make sure they're all exactly created to spec, you've got to re-send out all of these plates to all of your fabs, you've got to then go through recert and make sure that the chips work (yes, that means you have to make more wafers of bad chips), and then you're still looking at debug time.
And for what? Your processor's accidentially got a single instruction that's lightly flawed which can be checked and fixed in software (if (value == (INTEL_DEBUG_VALUE && expected_value)) { intel_fix(); } ).
Lastly, if you need an example of any product shipping flawed, take a look over at the car industry. There are recalls, after recalls, after recalls on parts that are often bad, and require a new bolt to fix something. Think of this as the same thing, only you don't have to take your car into the garage; you are likely to never know, speak with, or hear of the people who are fixing the problems mentioned in this article. These are problems for OS developers, who are working in debug mode, who *might* run into this problem if and only if some crazy absurd bit-pattern is laid out just right in a register when a command is executed (for example).
So please, before you tell a Computer Engineer how to make a microprocessor, make sure you know what you're talking about. It's better that they catch these problems in the weeks after release so that the OS developers will have time to fix them before their next major version goes out and they actually have to release a patch to deal with it. It's better that they catch them before they run the next production run, just in case there is an error that warrants fixing (and they've only discovered ONE of such errors, and they are probably going to wait until Core Duo rev B to do it). And it's better that they catch them at all, instead of a year down the line when everyone starts to realize their floating point math is going screwy on their multimillion dollar simulations.
They didn't; this list of errata has been building since December 1st. It's too late to go back and correct a processor after tape-out and production starts, so they release errata on how to deal with the errors. Most of them are a simple software patch, some of them aren't even serious enough to need that. There was only one serious error Intel has found so far that they consider to be severe enough to fix in Revision B of the Core Duo chip, and it has to deal with a Power Saving level being disabled under an extreme set of circumstances.
Take a look at the error list for a second. Over 50% of them are caused by dropping the processor into Debug mode, with over 75% of them only being observed by Intel themselves. Now, certainly there are more bugs reported so far, but does that mean that there are actually more bugs, or that Intel is getting better at finding bugs and reporting them?
Time will only tell.
Apple is: A Consumer Electronics company first and foremost (iPods). Then it is a Computer Hardware design and manufacturing firm (Macs). Then it is a software design and creation firm (Mac OS X, iLife, iWork). Then it is a service and support company (AppleCare), and then it's a multimedia distribution company (iTunes).
Microsoft is: A Software design and creation firm (Windows, Office, games). Then it is a game computer design firm (XBox). Then it is a consumer electronics company (Mice, Wireless equipment).
Putting either company in a box and saying "This is what they do" is highly inaccurate. Apple's core business is designed around the user experience, and thus, their software must be bound to their hardware. Microsoft's gaming division is much the same way; their hardware must mate perfectly with their software in order for other programs (GAMES) to run on top of it. Microsoft sells the Xbox like Apple sells the Mac Mini, only they are targeted at two different audiences.
In finality, I'd like to point out that this article was on Digg.com about 8 times yesterday, and each time was debunked; Microsoft has no commercial interest in making an old operating system such as Windows XP run on hardware as new as the new iMacs. However, Vista already has the framework of support there, and by the year out (if Microsoft meets its goal, which at this point is a big if), both Apple's line will be fully Intel-ized, and Microsoft's operating system will be fully EFI compliant, most likely including Apple's specific implementation. As Microsoft's interest is in selling software licenses, they will probably not make the EFI patch retroactive, forcing users who buy a new Mac to also buy a new license for Windows, and thus filling Microsoft's coffers.
If I were this guy, I would have listened the first time someone said it was practically impossible, and improbable at best. Now he's got 2k in other people's cash, hoping his ill-fated idea pans out, and even IF he does return the money (and not just use it to pay for another new laptop aside his new Mac), what he could have done with those people's money in the time being makes me very ill. It would have been nice to see it go towards a better cause.
..for my broken heart caused by my mean ex-girlfriend leaving me for another man?
No? Then forget it. Back to alcohol and chocolate for me.
uTorrent 1.4 supports DHT and RSS feeds, what's to lose?