It goes both ways. OpenOffice was an open sourced derivative of StarOffice, and now the advances in OpenOffice get rolled back into StarOffice (don't ask me how this works; I'm sure they've got some license comment somewhere that says they can).
If you've seen the discovery channel show about how the construction of the new James Webb Space Telescope, Deep Space 1, or the (most recent one) NEAR probe, you've probably seen that they build a mockup that includes pretty much every part that will ever be on the actual satellite built, but it's built in a non-clean environment so that as many engineers as possible can work on the hardware without the restrictions that the clean room requires. While the mockup can never be flown (dust, fingerprints, all kinds of contaminants just cover these things), and usually isn't built to 100% scale (I think NEAR was built to an 80% scale or something; the show didn't say, but it was definitely a sizeable difference) to save money.
So. The only problem you actually introduce is the fact that (in the preview release you used), all of the apps were built with 3.4, yet the buildtools are 4.0. Hmm.
(Note: GNOME's Nautilus is a piece of crap. Ubuntu knows this, and I'm sure they have a developer or two working with GNOME to try to figure out why this is such crap, but technically you're placing blame on the distro for what the desktop environment does wrong.)
From what I've seen in the forums, they were madly dashing to rebuild everything they could with GCC 4.0, fixing what errors there were in the compiles, and warning users to not upgrade anything during this time because it has a high likelihood of borking your system. Inconvieniently the forums are down or I'd post a link for you. So things will probably be a lot better before they get released to you.
Oh, and about that initial problem; you're probably on an older machine like my desktop, you're probably trying to open your pr0n folder which has over 10,000 files, and you're probably running into GNOME's Nautilus trying to go through each and every one, generate a thumbnail and then list the file. And this, of course, will take a very, very long time on older machines. Of course, it's my belief that Nautilus could be a lot smarter about it than that, but until the day I magically get a grant to work on Nautilus, let's just say I won't be the one solving that problem.
Uhh as you may or may not be aware, Hurricane Rita and Katrina both took place in the gulf coast, where oil platforms were currently docked either for repairs, retrofitting, etc. This is in the Gulf of Mexico, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, as you posted yourself, this platform is to be stationed in the PACIFIC Ocean, which is relatively more mild when it comes to weather events (well, tsunamis suck, as do typhoons, but the likely point of anchor somewhere off Mexico is relatively smooth sailing.
Please, before you express your worries for a non-starter, at least read the links you posted and realize the reason for what is happening. As everyone and their brother has already stated, the real issue here will be making a cable strong enough. Personally, I've wondered why they don't just build a huge tower to stick the cable on top of. Crappy for airplanes (which can easily be routed around it), but otherwise reduces the length nessicary. But then again, I don't think a tower taller than a mile has ever been constructed, might not be a capability.
I don't really know what rock you're living under, but Linux *is* Redhat to a whole lot of people, especially PHBs. Thus, if you advertise to your clients, they understand what you are talking about.
Anyone who's educated enough to know what Linux is, knows that Redhat isn't the only distribution, but if you've only ever heard of Redhat Linux, then there's a huge chance you've never heard of any other kind of Linux.
More than anything, it's marketing.
Oh yeah, and Yahoo says it's not compatible with Unix or Macintosh operating systems; Never said anything about OS X or Linux (both are Unix derivatives, but are not UNIX).
However, 32-bits is adequate in trasmitting an IP address, as an IP address is typically 4, 8 bit numbers (0-255), which, if you RFTM'd, you would realize it would perfectly fit the article. You technically could transmit an IP address as 4 letters, but people would be confused by the system, and you're better off using hex (you're not still using decimal for IPs are you? get with the 21st century [lol IPv6 joke]).
I'd rather be lazy than an asshat who runs around correcting people on the internet. but that's okay with me, because I admitted already that I was probably incorrect, but from what I already said, I wasn't interested in Canada. Fuck you Canooks.
Yeah, I'm sure more countries speak it. And yes, the vocabulary does vary. I don't call my bus a lorrie, I don't call an elevator a lift, and I certainly don't call my male friends "mates". I'm simply quoting the major countries I can think of that are still English and no other language (even though America is quickly going to become English/Spanish, it hasn't happened yet). So I really don't know what your "eh" was about, Mr. Canada, (French is quite ubiquitous there, and from what I've heard, more popular. But I am often wrong).
"tele" is (roughly) distance in Greek, vision is from "visionem", a Latin word for seeing things. But yes, words are very often borrowed and blended from languages. Some people quote that 40% of English was ripped from French, which nearly 90% or more was ripped from Latin, which was devised from Greek, et cetera. Today our languages are so blended that even an English speaker can pick up many words a French or Spanish-speaking person says, even if the word doesn't translate perfectly. The main problem with translation, however, is simply knowing where to put the words (and what to tack onto the front/end of them in the case of Romantic languages), not what those words are.
Certainly. I'm just stating that vocabulary is usually not what determines the language, the grammar rules are much more important. I wouldn't be able to understand what you posted if I relied on vocabulary alone ( There are people what use slightly different grammar, doesn't make any sense once so ever), but as I understand the grammar, I know that "what" should be "that", and the sentence makes sense. It's the reason I don't bother to spellcheck my posts in Word (that, and the fact Slashdot doesn't have a button that I can press and it do it for me). Even if I horribly fuck up a word, you can still tell what I'm trying to say simply by the context that it is used in.
Grammar's different between cities in America as well as the vocabulary is, but they are miniscule differences, and are usually very quickly picked up by any outsider. But this is probably true with all languages, even extremely grammar-specific languages like the Romantic languages.
The problem here is, we know it's not just "fuzz". These people are communicating, but like Dolphins (for a good example of undecypherable language), it's very hard for outsiders to have any clue of how to translate.
If we stop looking for how to translate it, we lose all that society has generated in terms of culture and myth, we lose another piece of humanity. Of course, people will argue that this doesn't matter, and I'm certain people will live without it, but it's still humanity, and we should be looking for ways to unite our people and not seperate ourselves.
Lastly, the tools we use to break the code of earthly languages will be invaluable if we ever make contact with other civilizations and intellegences. We can't even decrypt dolphin banter here on earth, and yet when ET phones us we're expected to pick up the phone and talk to him in plain English? Perhaps we've been bombarded by alien signals for hundreds of years now in a multitude of frequencies and different alien languages and simply can't decypher any of them because our linguistics aren't that well developed. And if our linguistics aren't that developed what does that tell you about the rest of our societies? Food for thought.
Language and Communication are two of the most important and employable sciences we humans can study and use. But yes, there's always a chance you can be over examining the issue. I just feel that this isn't one of those cases.
Makes perfect sense really. I mean look at the English language overall. The vocabulary varies within the three major countries that speak it (America, England and Australia), but the grammar has stayed steadfast to the language, so much in fact that we can understand most sentences that each other speak, even if we don't know what a certain word means. I've always thought that was one of the amazing things about language.
I think the real problem is bells and whistles only get you so far. I think that's the reason most sell manufacturers are struggling for new ideas and having to go to things like iTunes; there are simply not enough devices they can cram into a cellphone and market anymore.
Sadly, Palm was one of the few companies that was trying to innovate cellphones. Though the Treo is clunky, it has real functionality that I would honestly use, and could be a lot better with compatibility with other devices. Though I think that the cellphone was a terrible addition for a PDA (why can't they be seperate devices and communicate with BlueTooth, is it really that hard???), I think that Palm made a proper job of trying to connect the two devices in a sensible way.
And yes, I agree with you on the antenna/amplifier part. There is really no excuse for cellphones being so bad inside of buildings except battery life might not be able to keep up with the devices, especially a SmartPhone that has an entire operating system including a huge power consuming LCD to drive. Hopefully as OLED prices come down it will help with the power constraints and the cell manufacturers will bring the quality back to where it should be.
It might seem small to you, but it's really massive as far as PDA screens go. When I first got my m130 I thought the screen was miniscule, but it's really more than enough space to be useful. The fact that the Treo's screen is bigger boggles my mind, but I assure you, you'd get used to the extra space pretty quickly.
I am sad to see PalmOS go, though. But Palm as a company has been hurting for a long time in sales, Microsoft could have easily paid them to use Windows (or cut them a really significant deal, to the point it was cheaper to quit developing PalmOS). I still will see Palm as a good company, they're just in a bad market. They're still too far from general computing, but they're too close to the cellphone market and gets swallowed up.
I think that Palm would do good to return to their original model, and generalize it more. Develope a bluetooth compatible, wifi compatible, general purpose small tablet, with address book management software to communicate with your cellphone, computers, and other people's address books (without the annoying "line up your PDAs" IrDA). But then again it might cost too much, and the deals that palm gets with cell providers is probably a very sweet one.
One more speculative thought: What if Apple were to buy Palm? They could redesign the whole cellphone, and release a portable version of OS X. Include a small flash drive and it'd be an iPod (though, I would advise against it; just stick bluetooth in the iPod and let it and the cellphone communicate [ringtones, volume control, etc]). This would be a real coup! Cheers to the thought.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one KFG (you're still one of my favorite/. posters though;).
I'm gonna get one of these things for my girlfriend, and I would seriously own a Tux version of this myself. I think it would be a fun thing to hack to do all kinds of neat things in Linux (tell you when torrents complete, etc.) I hope this company comes out with a lot more of these, and if they're nice enough, open up the toy a little more for developers.
If I did imply it, I didn't mean to. Luna is terrible on the eyes and in usability. But it worked as far as looking "cutting edge", which is really what Microsoft wanted to happen. Sadly, I feel Whistler looked more cutting edge, just as undoubtedly Longhorn betas (though completely lackluster in my eyes) will look at lot better than Vista.
As embedded operating systems go, I will really miss PalmOS. It was the OS X of the handheld computer era; slick, easy to use, if you liked it you loved it and if you hated it, you really hated it.
Now that Windows is on the Treo, it won't be long until PalmOS is completely phased out, I feel. I wonder what will happen to PalmSource (weren't they just bought back by Palm?).
Simply put: People expect more when they have to pay for it.
So, by using some implicit logic here, we all should accept Linux because even though it has its faults, it's free? Call me dumb, but I really don't like that idea when it comes to using my computer.
Using your logic as well, Apple's operating system would be flying off the shelves and they couldn't keep it in stock. You have to pay for it, and it absolutely blows the lid off both Linux and Windows quality-wise.
But, we all know that OS X has its flaws just as Linux and Windows do, and I seriously don't think it has much to do with the development layout (adhock vs centralized) as much as it is the development procedure (patch, test, regression test, release, LRR) and the development environment (friendly vs hostile [deadlines]).
Longhorn's just a new set of graphics APIs and bug fixes for the NT kernel. Sure, they wish it was more than that, but according to the article NT must be a complete mess and hard to develop for.
And this time, instead of taking a well developed OS and mating it with a successful UI, they're going to take a new UI and mate it to a new kernel. Of course, the speculation is that this kernel with be a BSD like Apple has done, but we won't know that for a while, and even if they do go this approach, I'm sure they'll put their patented "Microsoft Embrace and Extend" into it.
Microsoft fears Google because they represent FOSS in the business world. Not only do they support linux, but a large list of wide spread open source projects. (The other reason, of course, is Web-as-a-Platform).
Microsoft loves Apple because Apple keeps them in business. The more innovative things Apple does, the more Windows users seek the same thing, and Microsoft can clone it a few years later and make a killing off Apple's innovation. Thankfully, Apple keeps innovating. (If nobody believes this connection, look at what changed in Windows between Windows 95 and Windows 2000. An impressive bit under the hood really, but graphically Windows didn't change at all. Come OS X, Windows is sporting its "Luna" UI.;)
Microsoft is a big company who's not going away any time soon. Microsoft could comfortably squash Apple simply by continuing their current business practices. The problem is, they can't kill Google, and that frustrates them. Google is Open Source. It's free, the developers get paid the best Google can manage, and the communities grow. This is a problem for Microsoft, and there's no doubt in my mind why Microsoft has pinned this as arrogance instead of an emerging, competing business model.
Picasa: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Desktop: Nobody on Linux wants this; significant community rejection.
Earth: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Talk: GAIM and other IM clients are being recommended instead; GTalk is not even a really great Windows front end for Jabber.
Secure Access: never heard of google secure access.
Slashdot Mirror
It goes both ways. OpenOffice was an open sourced derivative of StarOffice, and now the advances in OpenOffice get rolled back into StarOffice (don't ask me how this works; I'm sure they've got some license comment somewhere that says they can).
So the products are symbotic now.
Um, wallet's spend most of their days in the bottom of men's pockets, and generally don't house keys, defeating both purposes of this device.
If you've seen the discovery channel show about how the construction of the new James Webb Space Telescope, Deep Space 1, or the (most recent one) NEAR probe, you've probably seen that they build a mockup that includes pretty much every part that will ever be on the actual satellite built, but it's built in a non-clean environment so that as many engineers as possible can work on the hardware without the restrictions that the clean room requires. While the mockup can never be flown (dust, fingerprints, all kinds of contaminants just cover these things), and usually isn't built to 100% scale (I think NEAR was built to an 80% scale or something; the show didn't say, but it was definitely a sizeable difference) to save money.
I'll try to dig up some more information later.
(begin karma whoring)
Coral Cache
So. The only problem you actually introduce is the fact that (in the preview release you used), all of the apps were built with 3.4, yet the buildtools are 4.0. Hmm.
(Note: GNOME's Nautilus is a piece of crap. Ubuntu knows this, and I'm sure they have a developer or two working with GNOME to try to figure out why this is such crap, but technically you're placing blame on the distro for what the desktop environment does wrong.)
From what I've seen in the forums, they were madly dashing to rebuild everything they could with GCC 4.0, fixing what errors there were in the compiles, and warning users to not upgrade anything during this time because it has a high likelihood of borking your system. Inconvieniently the forums are down or I'd post a link for you. So things will probably be a lot better before they get released to you.
Oh, and about that initial problem; you're probably on an older machine like my desktop, you're probably trying to open your pr0n folder which has over 10,000 files, and you're probably running into GNOME's Nautilus trying to go through each and every one, generate a thumbnail and then list the file. And this, of course, will take a very, very long time on older machines. Of course, it's my belief that Nautilus could be a lot smarter about it than that, but until the day I magically get a grant to work on Nautilus, let's just say I won't be the one solving that problem.
Uhh as you may or may not be aware, Hurricane Rita and Katrina both took place in the gulf coast, where oil platforms were currently docked either for repairs, retrofitting, etc. This is in the Gulf of Mexico, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile, as you posted yourself, this platform is to be stationed in the PACIFIC Ocean, which is relatively more mild when it comes to weather events (well, tsunamis suck, as do typhoons, but the likely point of anchor somewhere off Mexico is relatively smooth sailing.
Please, before you express your worries for a non-starter, at least read the links you posted and realize the reason for what is happening. As everyone and their brother has already stated, the real issue here will be making a cable strong enough. Personally, I've wondered why they don't just build a huge tower to stick the cable on top of. Crappy for airplanes (which can easily be routed around it), but otherwise reduces the length nessicary. But then again, I don't think a tower taller than a mile has ever been constructed, might not be a capability.
I don't really know what rock you're living under, but Linux *is* Redhat to a whole lot of people, especially PHBs. Thus, if you advertise to your clients, they understand what you are talking about.
Anyone who's educated enough to know what Linux is, knows that Redhat isn't the only distribution, but if you've only ever heard of Redhat Linux, then there's a huge chance you've never heard of any other kind of Linux.
More than anything, it's marketing.
Oh yeah, and Yahoo says it's not compatible with Unix or Macintosh operating systems; Never said anything about OS X or Linux (both are Unix derivatives, but are not UNIX).
However, 32-bits is adequate in trasmitting an IP address, as an IP address is typically 4, 8 bit numbers (0-255), which, if you RFTM'd, you would realize it would perfectly fit the article. You technically could transmit an IP address as 4 letters, but people would be confused by the system, and you're better off using hex (you're not still using decimal for IPs are you? get with the 21st century [lol IPv6 joke]).
... you completely and totally missed the "SOMETIMES" that came right before 32-bits. But thanks for playing!
What.. is Cyberspace no longer a valid buzzword???
I'd rather be lazy than an asshat who runs around correcting people on the internet. but that's okay with me, because I admitted already that I was probably incorrect, but from what I already said, I wasn't interested in Canada. Fuck you Canooks.
Yeah, I'm sure more countries speak it. And yes, the vocabulary does vary. I don't call my bus a lorrie, I don't call an elevator a lift, and I certainly don't call my male friends "mates". I'm simply quoting the major countries I can think of that are still English and no other language (even though America is quickly going to become English/Spanish, it hasn't happened yet). So I really don't know what your "eh" was about, Mr. Canada, (French is quite ubiquitous there, and from what I've heard, more popular. But I am often wrong).
"tele" is (roughly) distance in Greek, vision is from "visionem", a Latin word for seeing things. But yes, words are very often borrowed and blended from languages. Some people quote that 40% of English was ripped from French, which nearly 90% or more was ripped from Latin, which was devised from Greek, et cetera. Today our languages are so blended that even an English speaker can pick up many words a French or Spanish-speaking person says, even if the word doesn't translate perfectly. The main problem with translation, however, is simply knowing where to put the words (and what to tack onto the front/end of them in the case of Romantic languages), not what those words are.
Certainly. I'm just stating that vocabulary is usually not what determines the language, the grammar rules are much more important. I wouldn't be able to understand what you posted if I relied on vocabulary alone ( There are people what use slightly different grammar, doesn't make any sense once so ever), but as I understand the grammar, I know that "what" should be "that", and the sentence makes sense. It's the reason I don't bother to spellcheck my posts in Word (that, and the fact Slashdot doesn't have a button that I can press and it do it for me). Even if I horribly fuck up a word, you can still tell what I'm trying to say simply by the context that it is used in.
Grammar's different between cities in America as well as the vocabulary is, but they are miniscule differences, and are usually very quickly picked up by any outsider. But this is probably true with all languages, even extremely grammar-specific languages like the Romantic languages.
The problem here is, we know it's not just "fuzz". These people are communicating, but like Dolphins (for a good example of undecypherable language), it's very hard for outsiders to have any clue of how to translate.
If we stop looking for how to translate it, we lose all that society has generated in terms of culture and myth, we lose another piece of humanity. Of course, people will argue that this doesn't matter, and I'm certain people will live without it, but it's still humanity, and we should be looking for ways to unite our people and not seperate ourselves.
Lastly, the tools we use to break the code of earthly languages will be invaluable if we ever make contact with other civilizations and intellegences. We can't even decrypt dolphin banter here on earth, and yet when ET phones us we're expected to pick up the phone and talk to him in plain English? Perhaps we've been bombarded by alien signals for hundreds of years now in a multitude of frequencies and different alien languages and simply can't decypher any of them because our linguistics aren't that well developed. And if our linguistics aren't that developed what does that tell you about the rest of our societies? Food for thought.
Language and Communication are two of the most important and employable sciences we humans can study and use. But yes, there's always a chance you can be over examining the issue. I just feel that this isn't one of those cases.
Makes perfect sense really. I mean look at the English language overall. The vocabulary varies within the three major countries that speak it (America, England and Australia), but the grammar has stayed steadfast to the language, so much in fact that we can understand most sentences that each other speak, even if we don't know what a certain word means. I've always thought that was one of the amazing things about language.
I think the real problem is bells and whistles only get you so far. I think that's the reason most sell manufacturers are struggling for new ideas and having to go to things like iTunes; there are simply not enough devices they can cram into a cellphone and market anymore.
Sadly, Palm was one of the few companies that was trying to innovate cellphones. Though the Treo is clunky, it has real functionality that I would honestly use, and could be a lot better with compatibility with other devices. Though I think that the cellphone was a terrible addition for a PDA (why can't they be seperate devices and communicate with BlueTooth, is it really that hard???), I think that Palm made a proper job of trying to connect the two devices in a sensible way.
And yes, I agree with you on the antenna/amplifier part. There is really no excuse for cellphones being so bad inside of buildings except battery life might not be able to keep up with the devices, especially a SmartPhone that has an entire operating system including a huge power consuming LCD to drive. Hopefully as OLED prices come down it will help with the power constraints and the cell manufacturers will bring the quality back to where it should be.
It might seem small to you, but it's really massive as far as PDA screens go. When I first got my m130 I thought the screen was miniscule, but it's really more than enough space to be useful. The fact that the Treo's screen is bigger boggles my mind, but I assure you, you'd get used to the extra space pretty quickly.
I am sad to see PalmOS go, though. But Palm as a company has been hurting for a long time in sales, Microsoft could have easily paid them to use Windows (or cut them a really significant deal, to the point it was cheaper to quit developing PalmOS). I still will see Palm as a good company, they're just in a bad market. They're still too far from general computing, but they're too close to the cellphone market and gets swallowed up.
I think that Palm would do good to return to their original model, and generalize it more. Develope a bluetooth compatible, wifi compatible, general purpose small tablet, with address book management software to communicate with your cellphone, computers, and other people's address books (without the annoying "line up your PDAs" IrDA). But then again it might cost too much, and the deals that palm gets with cell providers is probably a very sweet one.
One more speculative thought: What if Apple were to buy Palm? They could redesign the whole cellphone, and release a portable version of OS X. Include a small flash drive and it'd be an iPod (though, I would advise against it; just stick bluetooth in the iPod and let it and the cellphone communicate [ringtones, volume control, etc]). This would be a real coup! Cheers to the thought.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one KFG (you're still one of my favorite /. posters though ;).
I'm gonna get one of these things for my girlfriend, and I would seriously own a Tux version of this myself. I think it would be a fun thing to hack to do all kinds of neat things in Linux (tell you when torrents complete, etc.) I hope this company comes out with a lot more of these, and if they're nice enough, open up the toy a little more for developers.
If I did imply it, I didn't mean to. Luna is terrible on the eyes and in usability. But it worked as far as looking "cutting edge", which is really what Microsoft wanted to happen. Sadly, I feel Whistler looked more cutting edge, just as undoubtedly Longhorn betas (though completely lackluster in my eyes) will look at lot better than Vista.
As embedded operating systems go, I will really miss PalmOS. It was the OS X of the handheld computer era; slick, easy to use, if you liked it you loved it and if you hated it, you really hated it.
Now that Windows is on the Treo, it won't be long until PalmOS is completely phased out, I feel. I wonder what will happen to PalmSource (weren't they just bought back by Palm?).
Simply put: People expect more when they have to pay for it.
So, by using some implicit logic here, we all should accept Linux because even though it has its faults, it's free? Call me dumb, but I really don't like that idea when it comes to using my computer.
Using your logic as well, Apple's operating system would be flying off the shelves and they couldn't keep it in stock. You have to pay for it, and it absolutely blows the lid off both Linux and Windows quality-wise.
But, we all know that OS X has its flaws just as Linux and Windows do, and I seriously don't think it has much to do with the development layout (adhock vs centralized) as much as it is the development procedure (patch, test, regression test, release, LRR) and the development environment (friendly vs hostile [deadlines]).
Sadly, that's not what Longhorn is.
Longhorn's just a new set of graphics APIs and bug fixes for the NT kernel. Sure, they wish it was more than that, but according to the article NT must be a complete mess and hard to develop for.
And this time, instead of taking a well developed OS and mating it with a successful UI, they're going to take a new UI and mate it to a new kernel. Of course, the speculation is that this kernel with be a BSD like Apple has done, but we won't know that for a while, and even if they do go this approach, I'm sure they'll put their patented "Microsoft Embrace and Extend" into it.
Microsoft fears Google because they represent FOSS in the business world. Not only do they support linux, but a large list of wide spread open source projects. (The other reason, of course, is Web-as-a-Platform).
;)
Microsoft loves Apple because Apple keeps them in business. The more innovative things Apple does, the more Windows users seek the same thing, and Microsoft can clone it a few years later and make a killing off Apple's innovation. Thankfully, Apple keeps innovating. (If nobody believes this connection, look at what changed in Windows between Windows 95 and Windows 2000. An impressive bit under the hood really, but graphically Windows didn't change at all. Come OS X, Windows is sporting its "Luna" UI.
Microsoft is a big company who's not going away any time soon. Microsoft could comfortably squash Apple simply by continuing their current business practices. The problem is, they can't kill Google, and that frustrates them. Google is Open Source. It's free, the developers get paid the best Google can manage, and the communities grow. This is a problem for Microsoft, and there's no doubt in my mind why Microsoft has pinned this as arrogance instead of an emerging, competing business model.
Let's look at your points critically, shall we?
Picasa: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Desktop: Nobody on Linux wants this; significant community rejection.
Earth: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Talk: GAIM and other IM clients are being recommended instead; GTalk is not even a really great Windows front end for Jabber.
Secure Access: never heard of google secure access.