Not only that, but Apple paid a huge sum to Xerox (in the form of stock options), just to *look* at it, and get ideas.
It's like paying Ford to take a look and test drive a new Mustang, and then turning around and building a Corvette. Same ideas, different implementations.
Yeah, but.. Quick question: How big's your system memory?
I contest that at lower than 256MB of ram, both current desktop environments become almost unusable. Currently my desktop beats the requirement 4 fold, but when I was getting my computer up and running, I through in the first stick of ram I could find (a 128MB stick) and GNOME was slower than Grandma's molasses in the dead of winter.
KDE's no better, as it actually FROZE on the machine.
Reasons more users should care about codebloat even if you don't:
1) System memory is a priviledge, not a right.
2) Dependency hell is worse than Windows 98 on a bad day. (four versions of the same library in RAM at the same time? HOLY HELL BATMAN!) [this is actually translatable to: "Using the latest and greatest library is *not* nessicarily a good thing"].
3) Code bloat tends to make maintainance hell.
4) Code bloat contributes to cycle bloat (something you said yourself that you cared about, almost contradictory to your previous point).
5) Most people do not have emmense hard drives (you may have a 250GB hd, but my mom's computer has a 40GB, and my sister's laptop, only a 20GB. Hell, my work desktop machine's hard drive is only 6GB, though I often will bring in an external) [but I guess this point doesn't really matter, because Linux isn't your mom, your work, or your sister's Operating System now is it;)].
6) Because only you can prevent forest fires.
I'm not a big fan of either major desktop environment right now, but GNOME's easier for me to use coming from Mac OS, plus it doesn't look like Windows, and those two things together make it my choice (though it saddens me, because I love C++ and GTK's C++ support, in my opinion, is absymal, thus forcing me to use WxWidgets for all of my GUI work (which is like using Microsoft Foundation Crap, only it goes on every machine!). *sigh*
Well, the only completely replaced feature I see is PDF viewing, which, from my point of view, was in heavy need of being replaced. The applications which used to exist in its place were rough at best and terrible in my opinion.
Meanwhile, I think this release of GNOME is going to be leaps and bounds better than 2.10. I really like the fact they've done their best to get Cairo up and running (that OpenGL rendering feature is something they've been needing for some time, especially where the rest of their desktop system is so slow). Hopefully with some more work they can keep improving the usability.
Last note: I really like the browser now that they've added a relative URL button bar, but it's so.. well.. less powerful than having a text bar where you can simply type the location and instantly go there. But I guess it's better from a GUI point of view if you don't have that ability at all. Also, I wonder if they've ever fixed the slowness of loading folders.. my thoughts would be to cache the thumbnails and lists of the directory contents.. I mean how hard is it to make a graphical view of the "ls" command!?
Well I can sympathize, but this has nothing to do with the kind of injuries we have.
My injury happened on a roller coaster, when it went around a corner, it broke a small piece of my spine and cut through the outer part of my spinal column. I was lucky to get off with nothing more than a gradually herniating disk and a whole hell of a lot of back pain.
Meanwhile, stem cell research is being done to (hopefully) allow for damaged nerve tissue to be regenerated, thus, allowing for disabled body parts to come back online and be functional.
Lastly, the option for our backs to be repaired isn't available yet, but I assure you there's research being done towards it as well. Thousands of people every year get disk injuries like ours, but they have nothing to do with the stem cell research being done. In fact, I've read booklets about the kind of therapy that you've actually suggested being applied (using a back brace and screws.. sounded terribly painful, but apparently it works for stretching limbs and I guess the scientists are trying to apply a similar solution here).
Stem cell research should continue for those people who are less fortunate than ourselves, the ones who can't walk, the ones who can't move their arms, the ones who are on external ventilators, people suffering from diseases like Stephen Hawking.
Well that's just it, why does *science* need to be *political*? One thing they teach doctors early on is all of the things they can do "ethically", and they do this with engineers and the such as well. My question has always been "Why stop science because a bunch of people don't like it?". Science is science is science and will always be science. The Germans, though misguided in their science, were leaps and bounds ahead of us during World War 2, discovering new things at an astounding rate simply because they told their scientists that they didn't care, they just wanted it done, and they wanted it done yesterday.
So the most unethical regime in the history of mankind (IMHO) created the best science, enhancing what we knew in hundreds of different fields, pushing everyone else to the limit. Remember, it was actually German scientists who won us World War 2.
Even though this technology does have the ability to be used misappropriately, one would have to admit to him or herself that doing so in a scientific field is not good for the country and for science over all. With tremendous strength, comes tremendous responsibility, and I think the United States has shown more than anything that they're too afraid of responsibility to develop the strength scientifically, but if it's got uses as a weapon, we'll go to no ends to improve it.
Perhaps the researchers should apply for weapons grants, stating that the technology they develop will be able to help countless soldiers on and off the battlefield, returning them to war quicker than ever before. That'd probably stur the couldron a bit.
I just think it's stupid that people like Christopher Reeves has to die because we won't condone the research nessicary to keep these people alive. I mean, they've already shown us that being paralysed does nothing against intellegence (Stephen Hawking), what better reason do we need to research something as dramatically lifechanging as giving someone who's paralysed the ability to walk again?
My entire arguement is that Politics shouldn't showboat science as it's bitch. Science needs to happen for the good of the human race, while politics does everything possible to stand in the human races' way. Let the damned scientists work.
Why would Google *want* to be the next Microsoft? One of the things Google has for it is that it's such a great company in the eyes of the public, and I can guarentee that they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep that image for the span of the life of the company. Now that they are public, it's going to get harder, because stockholder pressure is often hard to beat, but I have faith in Google.
So let's go ahead and evaluate what would happen if the situation you present were to happen.
Google makes a bunch of service applications, and keeps them running on their server farm. The way you access those applications is by firing up your Web Browser and pointing to Google.com. Of course, they have every imaginable application under the sun, but then you close out your web browser and look around your desktop.
Lo and behold, there's every application under the sun as well!!! And guess what? They're not tied to Google in any way, shape or form! How can this be? Is it possible that some applications are not suited for being online applications while some are? Is it possible that you still have choice, where as with Microsoft shipping Windows on your machine and locking it down with DRM strips away that choice?
By virtue, Google can't easily become the "next microsoft". Microsoft monopolized on other companies ideas, quickly (and shoddily) implementing them and shipping them out the door. This has been true from DOS all the way till now. Name a product that MS didn't borrow from another company and pigs will fly out my ass.
Secondly, Microsoft monopolized by grabbing hold of PC vendors with an iron fist and didn't let go. Google has no hold on PC vendors, and frankly, I can't see why they'd care to. Instead, they'd much rather sponsor projects to get ahold of your web browser and rule it with an iron fist. Maybe they'll have a monopoly on web browsers... hah I don't think so.
Lastly, Google has nothing to be anti-competitive with. There's no way Google can force you to use Google for everything you do; they offer no services that can't be found elseware, they offer no product that's completely original that can't be found somewhere else, even within Microsoft itself!
So unless something changes and Google invents the next Killer App, bandwidth shoots through the ceiling, and all of the founders and original workers for Google keel over and die and are replaced by ex-Microsoft employees, I don't really see a way that your theory could work.
I would think they would see the amount of money they make fall, as webbrowsers and everyone use them would get up in arms about it. Google's unobtrusive ads is a selling point; the ads are not going to tarnish the website they are on and will blend in, making them not seem so much as advertisements but a welcome part of the webpage. Think product placement; If your product is obnoxious and stands out in the light of everything, people point it out and lambaste you for doing it. If you carefully craft scenes to hide your product, people don't even realize it's happening around them.
If they made the ads flash, my eyes would puke, they would have lost my trust as a user, and I'd switch to Yahoo! or *cringe* MSN... okay screw MSN.
Uhh I don't think they ever made it clear how Skynet started.. First it was a big mainframe computer, then it was gone, then it was a computer virus.. MAKE UP YOUR DAMNED MINDS *shakes fist*
That looks like blue smoke to me. Sure, one day Steve will retire, and I'm 100% sure he won't leave without taking care of business before he leaves, and putting someone in charge to do the business the way he wants things done. Look at Microsoft for an example of that one.
Good job on the dramatics though.. "I'll get you yet Captain Planet!!"
Automator comes with OS X. No addons, no download and install. All it does is replace shell scripting (in this case, AppleScripting) with a click and drag and drop interface. Which, is a lot faster than writing all of those/\/?/!@'sed'awk'lol' into a command prompt, and crossing your fingers.;).
Merely because something is old does NOT mean it should be replaced. We're still building houses out of wood after thousands of years. Our cars run on internal combustion engines. And after all these years we're still carbon based life forms.
Oh boy did you bark up the wrong crowd with those words.
Houses would be better built with steel and concrete as they do less environmental damage, have a better resistance to natural disasters and depending on where you are from, it might save you some money on your energy bills.
Cars need to be running on electricity, because those carbon-burning, environmentally destroying devices we all have in our garages are not maintainable.
And I'm sure a hundred slashdotters would tell you that we'd rather be silicon-based lifeforms, and there's enough of us working on that possibility that it may become a possibility in the future.
Of course, I'm being very brief to get my point across, but still. Because something is old, it needs to be evaluated for replacement. If it's still the best thing for the job, use it. Else, replace it.
Automator can do those jobs faster with four mouse clicks, which is much faster than I could ground up a piece of script and test it to make sure it doesn't walk all over my files.
So meanwhile you can type to your heart's content. I'll click a few buttons and be done.
Why does this matter at all in the debate of who's better? While Linux has the ability to improve faster (more eyes on the code, yadda yadda), it has repeatedly failed to live up to the promise. Meanwhile, a few good coders who are getting paid to make their operating system better and to innovate at any costs are creating an operating system that's better and growing at a rate faster than Linux.
The fact that Linux is open source is it's Achilles heel and its most shining gem. Because it's open, not enough people are doing the nessicary work to get the operating system useable and competitive. But because it's open, the potential for anyone who wants to, is there.
In my eyes, OS X is open enough, having all of Darwin, most of Safari, and a bunch of other well documented APIs. Meanwhile it's competitors are all scrambling to try their best to beat it, but they simply can't match the momentum that's currently pushing Apple up the hill of beans Microsoft has accrewed over the past decade.
But, I want a GUI. I don't use a computer because I want to sit around memorizing console commands and all of their intricatices. I use computers because they make my job faster and easier, and because hopefully I can make other's jobs quicker and easier.
That said, I've used a whole slew of WindowManagers over the past couple of years, from Fluxbox, to WindowMaker all the way up to Metacity (GNOME). I like having a desktop as well, because it offers a core set of tools I can use to get the job done.
GNOME is a bloat by design, but KDE's no better at all (in fact worse; they've copied all the GUI mistakes that Windows has made, and added a few of their own). Mac OS X is still my safe haven.
But until Linux's GUI developers get a contract with Video Card manufacturers to produce better device drivers, or until GUI developers get their act together and make the GUI's faster and more user friendly, I'm afraid to burst your bubble.
Mac OS X is in a position no operating system has been in for 10 years. In 1995 when Microsoft brought out Windows 95, the operating system shattered the market because it was faster, prettier, and just plain cool. Now, OS X is in the same position. And they're going to have to screw up just as bad as Microsoft did with Windows to lose this creative lead.
On top of this, OS X is based on Unix, meaning that it's going to stay secure for a long, long time. As time goes by, bugs will be found and squashed, as no software is perfect, but UNIX by design has less issues with bugs, and the bugs are harder to exploit.
Linux has promise, but it's being held back by developers that simply don't care, because they aren't paid to care. They're doing their own, individual thing, and not working towards what a User wants, they're working towards what a developer wants. And if they took a minute to have an objective look at things, they're not too different. Mac OS X mastered this with XCode. And the only good IDE I've found for Linux is KDevelop, which requires me to install another set of GUI libraries, just to use it.
It's really past time to have Linux desktop-ready. It's time to replace X with something that renders faster, or to simply get Cairo and the other eyecandy, GL-rendering, bad-ass GUI systems up and running. You guys are five years behind Mac OS X, and about a year or so behind Windows in this department.
Read the rest of my post for a change; I look at all online advertisers objectively and I will promise you, you will not find a better advertiser. On top of that, they give me a ton of virtually free services that I used on a daily basis to get my work done. I can't argue with that.
So until Google does something to breach my trust, they've got it. This includes anything I posted about in my main post, which, to date, they haven't done.
"insidiously placing them throughout legitimate content"??
Wow. Last time I looked at a website with a Google AdWords block, there's the big, bold, usually full caps word "ADVERTISEMENT". On top of that, they identify themselves as "Google Ads", and give a couple of text links, which you can simply go right over as if they didn't even exist.
Just because it's tougher to block Google Ads with your webbrowser's Adblocking feature doesn't mean a damned thing. I know the motives of Google when they put a link on a site; it's to possibly make me click it!!! If I click it is a choice I get to make at that point! With popup advertisements, those horrid flash overs, and flash ads, there's nothing I can do but waste time either turning off flash, clicking to close a window (which undoubtedly will launch another six), or try to find a way to refresh the page without that damned CSS-over showing up again.
I really think you've got something crossed if you like those things... But then again, I'm willing to accept that you use Adblock, and don't care for any advertisers. I personally don't care about an advertiser if they don't try to beat me with their ads, and Google's always been good to me about that.
But does come with the operating system 95% of the time.
Safari -> Mac OS X. Internet Exploder -> Windows (Vista lal). Mozilla/Konqueror/etc. -> (name of distro) Linux.
Yeah, we overlook it alright. But that's mainly because they have another clause in their business model; "Do no evil".
This includes ads that are so unobtrusive I often overlook them unless I'm actually searching for a product.
So, as their sole revenue model might be advertising, they have yet to have a single ugly popup ad, flashing image screaming "CLICK ME", Flash banner ad, or javascript/css to resize the webbrowser or display those oh so annoying CSS frame-over ads. They're extremely good at advertising, better than most newspapers in my opinion.
So before you get your Google-hating panties in a wad, take a step back and look at what Google's doing for the general consumer.
I agree. My desktop right now's a dual proc Pentium 3 500MHz with a whopping 256MB of ram (because I can't find any more SD at the moment.. just got it running again a few weeks ago). I'm a moderate developer and I can tell you that while running Windows, this machine crawls like a baby.
I usually run Ubuntu on here, though, sadly. I really wish GNOME was less of a memory hog, but I guess we can't always get what we want. If I had time to work with GNOME I would, but my time's better spent elseware. And I'd rather chew on glass than run KDE, the Windows of the Linux world (I really like Konq and a few other things.. but the whole package.. no).
I think Mac OS X is really the only operating system out there whose got bragging rights. My iBook when it only had 256MB of ram (now's sporting 1.256GB:-D) flew, and I was very impressed.
Ridiculed? They built a backdoor into their product that was such a security flaw that it made IT professionals worldwide look at Cisco in awe. Who the hell would use a master password for a product that's going to be in the server rooms of a thousand businesses?
I don't think "ridiculed" is the right word at all. They deserved the attention that was directed at them, as a master password is no small oversight. That'd be like Windows shipping with a master password.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but Apple paid a huge sum to Xerox (in the form of stock options), just to *look* at it, and get ideas.
It's like paying Ford to take a look and test drive a new Mustang, and then turning around and building a Corvette. Same ideas, different implementations.
Yeah, but.. Quick question: How big's your system memory?
;)].
I contest that at lower than 256MB of ram, both current desktop environments become almost unusable. Currently my desktop beats the requirement 4 fold, but when I was getting my computer up and running, I through in the first stick of ram I could find (a 128MB stick) and GNOME was slower than Grandma's molasses in the dead of winter.
KDE's no better, as it actually FROZE on the machine.
Reasons more users should care about codebloat even if you don't:
1) System memory is a priviledge, not a right.
2) Dependency hell is worse than Windows 98 on a bad day. (four versions of the same library in RAM at the same time? HOLY HELL BATMAN!) [this is actually translatable to: "Using the latest and greatest library is *not* nessicarily a good thing"].
3) Code bloat tends to make maintainance hell.
4) Code bloat contributes to cycle bloat (something you said yourself that you cared about, almost contradictory to your previous point).
5) Most people do not have emmense hard drives (you may have a 250GB hd, but my mom's computer has a 40GB, and my sister's laptop, only a 20GB. Hell, my work desktop machine's hard drive is only 6GB, though I often will bring in an external) [but I guess this point doesn't really matter, because Linux isn't your mom, your work, or your sister's Operating System now is it
6) Because only you can prevent forest fires.
I'm not a big fan of either major desktop environment right now, but GNOME's easier for me to use coming from Mac OS, plus it doesn't look like Windows, and those two things together make it my choice (though it saddens me, because I love C++ and GTK's C++ support, in my opinion, is absymal, thus forcing me to use WxWidgets for all of my GUI work (which is like using Microsoft Foundation Crap, only it goes on every machine!). *sigh*
Well, the only completely replaced feature I see is PDF viewing, which, from my point of view, was in heavy need of being replaced. The applications which used to exist in its place were rough at best and terrible in my opinion.
Meanwhile, I think this release of GNOME is going to be leaps and bounds better than 2.10. I really like the fact they've done their best to get Cairo up and running (that OpenGL rendering feature is something they've been needing for some time, especially where the rest of their desktop system is so slow). Hopefully with some more work they can keep improving the usability.
Last note: I really like the browser now that they've added a relative URL button bar, but it's so.. well.. less powerful than having a text bar where you can simply type the location and instantly go there. But I guess it's better from a GUI point of view if you don't have that ability at all. Also, I wonder if they've ever fixed the slowness of loading folders.. my thoughts would be to cache the thumbnails and lists of the directory contents.. I mean how hard is it to make a graphical view of the "ls" command!?
D... umb Politician?
As for the R... ich Politician.
As for a G... ay Politician.
As for an I... rregular Politician.
Well I can sympathize, but this has nothing to do with the kind of injuries we have.
My injury happened on a roller coaster, when it went around a corner, it broke a small piece of my spine and cut through the outer part of my spinal column. I was lucky to get off with nothing more than a gradually herniating disk and a whole hell of a lot of back pain.
Meanwhile, stem cell research is being done to (hopefully) allow for damaged nerve tissue to be regenerated, thus, allowing for disabled body parts to come back online and be functional.
Lastly, the option for our backs to be repaired isn't available yet, but I assure you there's research being done towards it as well. Thousands of people every year get disk injuries like ours, but they have nothing to do with the stem cell research being done. In fact, I've read booklets about the kind of therapy that you've actually suggested being applied (using a back brace and screws.. sounded terribly painful, but apparently it works for stretching limbs and I guess the scientists are trying to apply a similar solution here).
Stem cell research should continue for those people who are less fortunate than ourselves, the ones who can't walk, the ones who can't move their arms, the ones who are on external ventilators, people suffering from diseases like Stephen Hawking.
Well that's just it, why does *science* need to be *political*? One thing they teach doctors early on is all of the things they can do "ethically", and they do this with engineers and the such as well. My question has always been "Why stop science because a bunch of people don't like it?". Science is science is science and will always be science. The Germans, though misguided in their science, were leaps and bounds ahead of us during World War 2, discovering new things at an astounding rate simply because they told their scientists that they didn't care, they just wanted it done, and they wanted it done yesterday.
So the most unethical regime in the history of mankind (IMHO) created the best science, enhancing what we knew in hundreds of different fields, pushing everyone else to the limit. Remember, it was actually German scientists who won us World War 2.
Even though this technology does have the ability to be used misappropriately, one would have to admit to him or herself that doing so in a scientific field is not good for the country and for science over all. With tremendous strength, comes tremendous responsibility, and I think the United States has shown more than anything that they're too afraid of responsibility to develop the strength scientifically, but if it's got uses as a weapon, we'll go to no ends to improve it.
Perhaps the researchers should apply for weapons grants, stating that the technology they develop will be able to help countless soldiers on and off the battlefield, returning them to war quicker than ever before. That'd probably stur the couldron a bit.
I just think it's stupid that people like Christopher Reeves has to die because we won't condone the research nessicary to keep these people alive. I mean, they've already shown us that being paralysed does nothing against intellegence (Stephen Hawking), what better reason do we need to research something as dramatically lifechanging as giving someone who's paralysed the ability to walk again?
My entire arguement is that Politics shouldn't showboat science as it's bitch. Science needs to happen for the good of the human race, while politics does everything possible to stand in the human races' way. Let the damned scientists work.
Why would Google *want* to be the next Microsoft? One of the things Google has for it is that it's such a great company in the eyes of the public, and I can guarentee that they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep that image for the span of the life of the company. Now that they are public, it's going to get harder, because stockholder pressure is often hard to beat, but I have faith in Google.
So let's go ahead and evaluate what would happen if the situation you present were to happen.
Google makes a bunch of service applications, and keeps them running on their server farm. The way you access those applications is by firing up your Web Browser and pointing to Google.com. Of course, they have every imaginable application under the sun, but then you close out your web browser and look around your desktop.
Lo and behold, there's every application under the sun as well!!! And guess what? They're not tied to Google in any way, shape or form! How can this be? Is it possible that some applications are not suited for being online applications while some are? Is it possible that you still have choice, where as with Microsoft shipping Windows on your machine and locking it down with DRM strips away that choice?
By virtue, Google can't easily become the "next microsoft". Microsoft monopolized on other companies ideas, quickly (and shoddily) implementing them and shipping them out the door. This has been true from DOS all the way till now. Name a product that MS didn't borrow from another company and pigs will fly out my ass.
Secondly, Microsoft monopolized by grabbing hold of PC vendors with an iron fist and didn't let go. Google has no hold on PC vendors, and frankly, I can't see why they'd care to. Instead, they'd much rather sponsor projects to get ahold of your web browser and rule it with an iron fist. Maybe they'll have a monopoly on web browsers... hah I don't think so.
Lastly, Google has nothing to be anti-competitive with. There's no way Google can force you to use Google for everything you do; they offer no services that can't be found elseware, they offer no product that's completely original that can't be found somewhere else, even within Microsoft itself!
So unless something changes and Google invents the next Killer App, bandwidth shoots through the ceiling, and all of the founders and original workers for Google keel over and die and are replaced by ex-Microsoft employees, I don't really see a way that your theory could work.
I would think they would see the amount of money they make fall, as webbrowsers and everyone use them would get up in arms about it. Google's unobtrusive ads is a selling point; the ads are not going to tarnish the website they are on and will blend in, making them not seem so much as advertisements but a welcome part of the webpage. Think product placement; If your product is obnoxious and stands out in the light of everything, people point it out and lambaste you for doing it. If you carefully craft scenes to hide your product, people don't even realize it's happening around them.
If they made the ads flash, my eyes would puke, they would have lost my trust as a user, and I'd switch to Yahoo! or *cringe* MSN... okay screw MSN.
Uhh I don't think they ever made it clear how Skynet started.. First it was a big mainframe computer, then it was gone, then it was a computer virus.. MAKE UP YOUR DAMNED MINDS *shakes fist*
That looks like blue smoke to me. Sure, one day Steve will retire, and I'm 100% sure he won't leave without taking care of business before he leaves, and putting someone in charge to do the business the way he wants things done. Look at Microsoft for an example of that one.
Good job on the dramatics though.. "I'll get you yet Captain Planet!!"
Automator comes with OS X. No addons, no download and install. All it does is replace shell scripting (in this case, AppleScripting) with a click and drag and drop interface. Which, is a lot faster than writing all of those /\/?/!@'sed'awk'lol' into a command prompt, and crossing your fingers. ;).
Merely because something is old does NOT mean it should be replaced. We're still building houses out of wood after thousands of years. Our cars run on internal combustion engines. And after all these years we're still carbon based life forms.
Oh boy did you bark up the wrong crowd with those words.
Houses would be better built with steel and concrete as they do less environmental damage, have a better resistance to natural disasters and depending on where you are from, it might save you some money on your energy bills.
Cars need to be running on electricity, because those carbon-burning, environmentally destroying devices we all have in our garages are not maintainable.
And I'm sure a hundred slashdotters would tell you that we'd rather be silicon-based lifeforms, and there's enough of us working on that possibility that it may become a possibility in the future.
Of course, I'm being very brief to get my point across, but still. Because something is old, it needs to be evaluated for replacement. If it's still the best thing for the job, use it. Else, replace it.
Alright, let's run that test;
Automator can do those jobs faster with four mouse clicks, which is much faster than I could ground up a piece of script and test it to make sure it doesn't walk all over my files.
So meanwhile you can type to your heart's content. I'll click a few buttons and be done.
Why does this matter at all in the debate of who's better? While Linux has the ability to improve faster (more eyes on the code, yadda yadda), it has repeatedly failed to live up to the promise. Meanwhile, a few good coders who are getting paid to make their operating system better and to innovate at any costs are creating an operating system that's better and growing at a rate faster than Linux.
The fact that Linux is open source is it's Achilles heel and its most shining gem. Because it's open, not enough people are doing the nessicary work to get the operating system useable and competitive. But because it's open, the potential for anyone who wants to, is there.
In my eyes, OS X is open enough, having all of Darwin, most of Safari, and a bunch of other well documented APIs. Meanwhile it's competitors are all scrambling to try their best to beat it, but they simply can't match the momentum that's currently pushing Apple up the hill of beans Microsoft has accrewed over the past decade.
But, I want a GUI. I don't use a computer because I want to sit around memorizing console commands and all of their intricatices. I use computers because they make my job faster and easier, and because hopefully I can make other's jobs quicker and easier.
That said, I've used a whole slew of WindowManagers over the past couple of years, from Fluxbox, to WindowMaker all the way up to Metacity (GNOME). I like having a desktop as well, because it offers a core set of tools I can use to get the job done.
GNOME is a bloat by design, but KDE's no better at all (in fact worse; they've copied all the GUI mistakes that Windows has made, and added a few of their own). Mac OS X is still my safe haven.
But until Linux's GUI developers get a contract with Video Card manufacturers to produce better device drivers, or until GUI developers get their act together and make the GUI's faster and more user friendly, I'm afraid to burst your bubble.
Mac OS X is in a position no operating system has been in for 10 years. In 1995 when Microsoft brought out Windows 95, the operating system shattered the market because it was faster, prettier, and just plain cool. Now, OS X is in the same position. And they're going to have to screw up just as bad as Microsoft did with Windows to lose this creative lead.
On top of this, OS X is based on Unix, meaning that it's going to stay secure for a long, long time. As time goes by, bugs will be found and squashed, as no software is perfect, but UNIX by design has less issues with bugs, and the bugs are harder to exploit.
Linux has promise, but it's being held back by developers that simply don't care, because they aren't paid to care. They're doing their own, individual thing, and not working towards what a User wants, they're working towards what a developer wants. And if they took a minute to have an objective look at things, they're not too different. Mac OS X mastered this with XCode. And the only good IDE I've found for Linux is KDevelop, which requires me to install another set of GUI libraries, just to use it.
It's really past time to have Linux desktop-ready. It's time to replace X with something that renders faster, or to simply get Cairo and the other eyecandy, GL-rendering, bad-ass GUI systems up and running. You guys are five years behind Mac OS X, and about a year or so behind Windows in this department.
Read the rest of my post for a change; I look at all online advertisers objectively and I will promise you, you will not find a better advertiser. On top of that, they give me a ton of virtually free services that I used on a daily basis to get my work done. I can't argue with that.
So until Google does something to breach my trust, they've got it. This includes anything I posted about in my main post, which, to date, they haven't done.
"insidiously placing them throughout legitimate content"??
Wow. Last time I looked at a website with a Google AdWords block, there's the big, bold, usually full caps word "ADVERTISEMENT". On top of that, they identify themselves as "Google Ads", and give a couple of text links, which you can simply go right over as if they didn't even exist.
Just because it's tougher to block Google Ads with your webbrowser's Adblocking feature doesn't mean a damned thing. I know the motives of Google when they put a link on a site; it's to possibly make me click it!!! If I click it is a choice I get to make at that point! With popup advertisements, those horrid flash overs, and flash ads, there's nothing I can do but waste time either turning off flash, clicking to close a window (which undoubtedly will launch another six), or try to find a way to refresh the page without that damned CSS-over showing up again.
I really think you've got something crossed if you like those things... But then again, I'm willing to accept that you use Adblock, and don't care for any advertisers. I personally don't care about an advertiser if they don't try to beat me with their ads, and Google's always been good to me about that.
But does come with the operating system 95% of the time.
Safari -> Mac OS X.
Internet Exploder -> Windows (Vista lal).
Mozilla/Konqueror/etc. -> (name of distro) Linux.
Yeah, we overlook it alright. But that's mainly because they have another clause in their business model; "Do no evil".
This includes ads that are so unobtrusive I often overlook them unless I'm actually searching for a product.
So, as their sole revenue model might be advertising, they have yet to have a single ugly popup ad, flashing image screaming "CLICK ME", Flash banner ad, or javascript/css to resize the webbrowser or display those oh so annoying CSS frame-over ads. They're extremely good at advertising, better than most newspapers in my opinion.
So before you get your Google-hating panties in a wad, take a step back and look at what Google's doing for the general consumer.
I agree. My desktop right now's a dual proc Pentium 3 500MHz with a whopping 256MB of ram (because I can't find any more SD at the moment.. just got it running again a few weeks ago). I'm a moderate developer and I can tell you that while running Windows, this machine crawls like a baby.
:-D) flew, and I was very impressed.
I usually run Ubuntu on here, though, sadly. I really wish GNOME was less of a memory hog, but I guess we can't always get what we want. If I had time to work with GNOME I would, but my time's better spent elseware. And I'd rather chew on glass than run KDE, the Windows of the Linux world (I really like Konq and a few other things.. but the whole package.. no).
I think Mac OS X is really the only operating system out there whose got bragging rights. My iBook when it only had 256MB of ram (now's sporting 1.256GB
Hell's been in a constant state of turmoil since the whole "Apple on Intel" debacle. Expect things to clear up in about a year or so.
Ridiculed? They built a backdoor into their product that was such a security flaw that it made IT professionals worldwide look at Cisco in awe. Who the hell would use a master password for a product that's going to be in the server rooms of a thousand businesses?
I don't think "ridiculed" is the right word at all. They deserved the attention that was directed at them, as a master password is no small oversight. That'd be like Windows shipping with a master password.
..maybe shoot a V for victory too eh?
..to think a female robot is hot?
Because if it is.. I don't wanna be right.