My answer: buy a good book on management techniques, because *that* is your job. Let the people you manage come up with a database design, because that is *their* job.
Did you miss the bit about "I personally write the code that runs our applications."?
He doesn't have any coders in the people that he manages (presumably they do IT support, not development).
They're not selling to Apple fanboys, they're selling to the general public. You and I notice when it shuts down the current process to fire up the web-browser but the average person doesn't notice and doesn't care. They care more about it being easy to use. That's Apple's focus and they only add features when they can nail the ease-of-use as well. That's why they are so successful.
It's not for you. It's probably not for me. But it is for most people.
It's amazing how programmed the top brass at Microsoft are to including this word "innovation" in every speech. I've hardly heard a pronouncement over the last ten years, particularly from Ballmer, and before him Bill Gates, that doesn't feature this word prominently.
I think it all kicked off when they were being hauled over the coals by the EU and threatened with anti-trust action in the US. They then decided that they had to give a better image of actually doing something worthwhile.
Of course, as you note, they are (given their R&D resources) about the most un-innovative company you could imagine.
> Even Ubuntu is probably changing to Chronium and dropping Firefox
Only for the Netbook Remix, and even there it's only an idea. According to Jorge Castro "The switch to Chromium has only been identified as possible choice on the Ubuntu Netbook Edition." and "WE LOVE FIREFOX. Mozilla is one of our most important upstreams and we will continue to work with them as we have in the past."
This doesn't even make sense. Debian doesn't even have a backports repository (my one suggestion) or, generally speaking, PPA's. They are pretty much an Ubuntu thing. So I still don't get the relevance of your ten-year old experience on a different system that doesn't have these elements.
And more recently helping someone else with Ubuntu, it seems highly unlikely that the problem was caused by either of those things. I've pretty much never (maybe absolutely never) seen broken dependencies in reputable packages.
Anyway, I don't really mind what you use, as long as it works for you. What do you use out of curiosity?
Yeah. They certainly tend not to backport anything where there's a measure of risk. But then that's part of the trade-off. Stability vs latest. If you absolutely need the latest and greatest then Ubuntu is not the right distro.
You can get closer to the bleeding edge by first turning on the official backports repository, where packages heading for the next release are also backported to the current. Tends to be more useful in select occasions on an LTS release though.
Or better still (but slightly riskier) is to see if there's a PPA from a trustworthy source for any packages you particularly care about. Some of the newer desktop apps really benefit from this. You just add it to your list of sources and updates are pulled in along with all the rest. I use this for about three or four particular packages.
To me, a bash script is something I write to automate my own work, or perhaps to share with my workgroup (who are all similar to me in ability).
Good for you, but that's a pretty limited set of the areas where bash scripts are used.
Scripts are commonly used to automate tasks that have to run on files from all sorts of places. Many of those files will have spaces. The script failing to run is not an option.
"Looks like Adobe's release of CS5 with the Flash-to-native compiler has been nixed by Apple's new user agreement: '3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.'"
That's the old agreement. The new agreement adds:
"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
I think you are mis-understanding "free" in "free software" (or OSS for that matter, which is strictly speaking less "free" than "free software"). Hint: it's not referring to money.
The GPL even explicitly allows you to charge for the software (it's just that the source must then be available).
Pretty much no-one objects to charging for a service.
Re:Location without GPS
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 1
I'm pretty sure it works in the UK (having seen a talk here from one of their marketing droids). According to them "XPS uses a massive reference network comprised of the known locations of over 100 million Wi-Fi access points and cellular towers.... Skyhook's extensive coverage area includes most major metro areas in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia".
Not sure what the accuracy is for just wifi though. Their performance claims seem to just talk about the hybrid version which needs GPS.
It's not a computer, it's a living-room appliance
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I don't think this ever will be, or is intended to be, a replacement computer, even for stuff as simple as writing emails. It's intended to be an entertainment device and sometime organiser. Reading the newspaper, watching TV, playing games, finding recipes. Stuff that we did before computers, just an electronic version of such stuff. If there's a big enough market for that, and I think there might be, this will do very well.
Location without GPS
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that the iPhone, and therefore most likely the iPad, can get location without GPS via Skyhook and the known locations of wireless access points. So apps asking permission to use your location is not a bug.
Peteris Krumins has a blog called good coders code, great reuse, mostly about algorithms, perl, sed and such things. He might have borrowed the idea for the title also.
As many people have said, a lot of this is just what you are used to.
An anecdotal tale from my previous life as a shop-floor assistant at a hi-fi store. We used to sell cheap consumer stuff alongside the serious amps and speakers but probably about a quarter of my customers genuinely preferred the sound coming from a cheap boombox to a more serious setup. It'd make my ears bleed it was so bad but it was the sort of sound they were used to and they liked it.
Hardly "let's push out on the Windows 7 day, no matter what". That date (certainly the month) has been set since Ubuntu began. With only one exception (if I recall correctly) they've released on schedule.
Now, whether being beholden so tightly to a schedule is a good idea is another matter, but it definitely was nothing to do with the Windows launch.
How many people buy a new game knowing that they can sell it on the used market when they've finished? So the cost to them for the game is effectively lower. How many would not buy the new game, or buy fewer, if that market wasn't there?
Slashdot Mirror
"They hate us because we are free"
I've never understood this sentiment. On what evidence do you base this?
My answer: buy a good book on management techniques, because *that* is your job. Let the people you manage come up with a database design, because that is *their* job.
Did you miss the bit about "I personally write the code that runs our applications."?
He doesn't have any coders in the people that he manages (presumably they do IT support, not development).
They're not selling to Apple fanboys, they're selling to the general public. You and I notice when it shuts down the current process to fire up the web-browser but the average person doesn't notice and doesn't care. They care more about it being easy to use. That's Apple's focus and they only add features when they can nail the ease-of-use as well. That's why they are so successful.
It's not for you. It's probably not for me. But it is for most people.
It's amazing how programmed the top brass at Microsoft are to including this word "innovation" in every speech. I've hardly heard a pronouncement over the last ten years, particularly from Ballmer, and before him Bill Gates, that doesn't feature this word prominently.
I think it all kicked off when they were being hauled over the coals by the EU and threatened with anti-trust action in the US. They then decided that they had to give a better image of actually doing something worthwhile.
Of course, as you note, they are (given their R&D resources) about the most un-innovative company you could imagine.
> Even Ubuntu is probably changing to Chronium and dropping Firefox
Only for the Netbook Remix, and even there it's only an idea. According to Jorge Castro "The switch to Chromium has only been identified as possible choice on the Ubuntu Netbook Edition." and "WE LOVE FIREFOX. Mozilla is one of our most important upstreams and we will continue to work with them as we have in the past."
"They are management - they wrote the policy. They're telling you their new policy."
My understanding is that the one's asking for the passwords, his direct superior, did not write the policy, and did not have authority to change it.
This doesn't even make sense. Debian doesn't even have a backports repository (my one suggestion) or, generally speaking, PPA's. They are pretty much an Ubuntu thing. So I still don't get the relevance of your ten-year old experience on a different system that doesn't have these elements.
And more recently helping someone else with Ubuntu, it seems highly unlikely that the problem was caused by either of those things. I've pretty much never (maybe absolutely never) seen broken dependencies in reputable packages.
Anyway, I don't really mind what you use, as long as it works for you. What do you use out of curiosity?
Yeah. They certainly tend not to backport anything where there's a measure of risk. But then that's part of the trade-off. Stability vs latest. If you absolutely need the latest and greatest then Ubuntu is not the right distro.
Debian Woody? That was almost ten years ago. I'm not sure it's reasonable to compare experience from then to now.
In any case, I don't think I'd try it for something as big as KDE, but for smaller packages I've never had a problem.
You can get closer to the bleeding edge by first turning on the official backports repository, where packages heading for the next release are also backported to the current. Tends to be more useful in select occasions on an LTS release though.
Or better still (but slightly riskier) is to see if there's a PPA from a trustworthy source for any packages you particularly care about. Some of the newer desktop apps really benefit from this. You just add it to your list of sources and updates are pulled in along with all the rest. I use this for about three or four particular packages.
To me, a bash script is something I write to automate my own work, or perhaps to share with my workgroup (who are all similar to me in ability).
Good for you, but that's a pretty limited set of the areas where bash scripts are used.
Scripts are commonly used to automate tasks that have to run on files from all sorts of places. Many of those files will have spaces. The script failing to run is not an option.
"Looks like Adobe's release of CS5 with the Flash-to-native compiler has been nixed by Apple's new user agreement: '3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.'"
That's the old agreement. The new agreement adds:
"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."
That's the bit that nixes Flash.
I think you are mis-understanding "free" in "free software" (or OSS for that matter, which is strictly speaking less "free" than "free software"). Hint: it's not referring to money.
The GPL even explicitly allows you to charge for the software (it's just that the source must then be available).
Pretty much no-one objects to charging for a service.
I'm pretty sure it works in the UK (having seen a talk here from one of their marketing droids). According to them "XPS uses a massive reference network comprised of the known locations of over 100 million Wi-Fi access points and cellular towers. ... Skyhook's extensive coverage area includes most major metro areas in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia".
Not sure what the accuracy is for just wifi though. Their performance claims seem to just talk about the hybrid version which needs GPS.
I don't think this ever will be, or is intended to be, a replacement computer, even for stuff as simple as writing emails. It's intended to be an entertainment device and sometime organiser. Reading the newspaper, watching TV, playing games, finding recipes. Stuff that we did before computers, just an electronic version of such stuff. If there's a big enough market for that, and I think there might be, this will do very well.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure that the iPhone, and therefore most likely the iPad, can get location without GPS via Skyhook and the known locations of wireless access points. So apps asking permission to use your location is not a bug.
We're still struggling to link London and Birmingham. e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/18/high-speed-rail-route
He pretty quickly got modded to -1 so the engine doesn't really need to try to do anything clever.
Peteris Krumins has a blog called good coders code, great reuse, mostly about algorithms, perl, sed and such things. He might have borrowed the idea for the title also.
Don't laptops use the battery as a power filter for the mains also? Or has that gone by the wayside?
Well, the delays to updating the site might have something to do with the fact that the web-master is currently operating out of the Sahara desert in Morocco (go to the bottom of the page).
As many people have said, a lot of this is just what you are used to.
An anecdotal tale from my previous life as a shop-floor assistant at a hi-fi store. We used to sell cheap consumer stuff alongside the serious amps and speakers but probably about a quarter of my customers genuinely preferred the sound coming from a cheap boombox to a more serious setup. It'd make my ears bleed it was so bad but it was the sort of sound they were used to and they liked it.
Hardly "let's push out on the Windows 7 day, no matter what". That date (certainly the month) has been set since Ubuntu began. With only one exception (if I recall correctly) they've released on schedule.
Now, whether being beholden so tightly to a schedule is a good idea is another matter, but it definitely was nothing to do with the Windows launch.
Again?
How many people buy a new game knowing that they can sell it on the used market when they've finished? So the cost to them for the game is effectively lower. How many would not buy the new game, or buy fewer, if that market wasn't there?