These dumbass record companies could have taken the entire download market. Hell, they could have sub-contracted to get people to build iPods for them. They could have seen the writing on the wall and made it in time for the cultural and technological change.
But no. Jobs and company besiege them for years, telling them their own feeble misled efforts are to no avail, and they don't listen.
The record companies have really missed the boat. Independent companies are doing what they should be doing. But record execs have never been our music heroes, so I guess few people will shed even a crocodile tear.
Hats off to Jobs for doing it again. At least someone out there has their head screwed on straight.
Apple and IBM have been working together on processors since the mid 90's.
Oh even earlier. The PPC project was Motorola, IBM, and Apple, and I remember the first release around I'll guess 1992, so they've been at it maybe 14 years or even longer.
So, whether Apple is doing anything predatory or not, they could hardly help but displace the third-party stores.
This is not true. A lot of 'mom and pop' stores have built up significant reputations in their community and companies in the area will go to them because they've accumulated quite the expertise over the years.
Going to an Apple Store is never going to net you expert help. The staff there are about as good (bad) as Best Buy and are paid comparatively.
Real professional resellers I know say their business has actually done better since the Apple stores, as the interest in Apple has grown and they still have the reputation, so people still end up contacting them for the big jobs.
Which is what I would do too. Our reseller is 'outtasite' and we might walk by an Apple Store, but we'd never buy anything there. Not only do we want to support the local businesses, but we know we get qualified help there - something we would never get at an Apple Store.
This guy puts it nice. 'IE has no soul.' Which of course is true. Others say maybe Netscape wouldn't have died if... Ladies and gentlemen, Redmond put the full weight of the Vole up against Netscape. IE was never more in their eyes than a 'reasonable alternative'. The campaign was fought with the ISPs and the OEMs and looking back, could anyone have withstood that? Maybe Netscape did screw up, but would it have made any difference back then?
But if IE has no soul, then the net doesn't have any soul either, and yes, it would be great to see this browser get some real market share again. Not only because IE sucks and has no soul, but also to prove there can be justice in the world.
'Hey dude, I know you're thinking of buying milk today, but I just read an article online about a bad shipment of milk to stores in this area, so I'd hold off a day or two until there's more details. I'll tell you when it's safe again, OK?
'Oh - and of course I tested the milk you still have inside me, and that's OK to drink. Just don't buy any more until I say so.'
Sorry, but this is so much unadulterated tommy-rot.
Microsoft have never tried to make their operating systems 'user friendly enough for the average user'. There is no such thing in the Microsoft camp. Microsoft have equipped their software with 'showroom flash', fully aware of the fact that most users dating back to 1995 have not had a clue about inherent dangers while surfing like that online.
Further, Microsoft's typical answer to JavaScript was a scripting system that did not respect security as JavaScript did. F-Secure, at the time of the ILOVEYOU outbreak, noted that the features in Microsoft scripting that caused the damage were features almost no one ever used. So much for 'user friendliness'.
Further, the Microsoft target demographic is invariably not the 'average user' but the 'way below average user'. Gates is a pusher man. If all he wanted to do was get a product out that both addressed the needs of the 'real average' user and also provided a gratifying learning curve, the 'average users' you reference would be left in the cold. Microsoft's 'average users' are the 'dumb users' - the people with no inherent aptitude for even sitting at a keyboard. Microsoft see these people as crucial, for the ambition is not to get a computer in every home and on every office desktop, but to sell software to all those locations and have a monopoly there as well. By cutting out the intelligent users and even the average users and by directing software towards the truly cerebrally disenfranchised, Microsoft hope to reach that goal, even more than they have today.
Many are the constant complaints about the fact that there is no gradient in using Microsoft technology. Things may seem crystal clear when you first boot into a Microsoft system for the first time. But they're aggravating for ordinary users as well because they spell out way too many things. And then of course there's real annoyances like Clippy. Once the user understands how the system works, the user wants to streamline his workday, and to do that he must circumvent all these 'user friendly' features which become tantamount to a bad marriage: way too much interactivity. Most people are NOT that stupid, and referring to them as 'average' is simply wrong.
The parent also implies that Microsoft have done far more work and are miles ahead of Apple in all respects, which is just downright ridiculous. Apple may be new at the 32-bit protected mode game, but Unix is not, and Microsoft will never come close to even the shadow of Unix.
I can see the rules of that Parker Bros game changing...
'Redmond Gardens? How much? I'll buy it? And I'll put up two patents!'
OK, let's see, you landed on Redmond Place, and I also own Cupertino Square and Poughkeepsie Place, and I have twenty five patents... You don't have that kinda money! I win!'
Seems you and others know a lot. Which is probably why they were able to recover so much. Read a bit, OK? A few years back, anyone could be excused for not using their noggins. But you're saying that the most security paranoid nation on the planet is going to publish their techniques - the ones they really use, and these are basically 'wipe with a random number, its complement, then all zeroes'?
Egads. And the Apple people here are worried their users are still too naive...
It's my impression Apple got at the crux of the issue: indirectly running code you know nothing about. If you've run the code before and are still here...
You can argue till the end of the year whether the wording is appropriate, or how many nimrods will get 0wned anyway, but the technical side of it is very well I think: the essence of the 'hole' was that any protocol could be made up. This does a good job of watching out.
I disagree. ActiveX is one thing, but as they've all pointed out, if this is the first you've heard of the app (and you're told even where it's located) it's a pretty good clue if you are ever going to know what you're doing - and if you aren't, then precious little will help you.
A lot is dependent on the system becoming aware of schemes and file types. I don't take it as a given that a new file type will be recognised simply because I've unzipped a package off the net with its handler inside. I do expect the file types (and schemes) to be recognised once the handler runs. If the system automatically checks DMGs when it opens them - then OK, yes, there is a minimal danger. But I hate DMGs anyway and personally avoid them because I can't know exactly what's going on inside and with the system. There is a great comfort in gzip and bzip2... And funky malicious DMGs are going to get past any sort of speed bump here anyway - just as an installer that asks for your administrator passphrase can do it (one more reason to give that passphrase to no one).
Does anyone remember what MS did after ILOVEYOU? They recommended people not open attachments that belonged to messages with the 'I Love You' subject line. Outlook was made to stop when opening any attachment with a script. No, it's nuts to have scripts in email, but the Apple solution is to raise an eyebrow to anything that's not been run on the system before - that's the essence of it: if you've run it, and are still here, it's probably all right. Maybe you can have it fairer than that, but I don't see how at the moment.
Thank you, Dave, that was very well put. I must also say that after wandering through the Apple documents at the URLs below, I am duly impressed. It's clear to me Cupertino are very concerned about anyone punching holes in their OS. If others (nod towards Redmond) could show the same concern and efficiency... Really, I am impressed, and I don't fall for that very easily. I really hadn't expected Apple to do anymore. I should have been more patient. Cheers.
Doesn't anyone else find it strange that we have a Microsoft and Sun deal
This is the way it always goes with deals involving Microsoft. Yes, Sun and MS have a common goal here: destroy Linux. MS will never give up. Linux has cut into Sun revenues sharply as I understand it.
But that being said, don't count the strategy Sun demonstrate as the ultimate goal. For Billy Boy Gates always lurks in the background, and it would be very surprising if he had not anticipated every move and was waiting with a totally new checkmate combination.
You never make a deal with Microsoft: you go under. For pocket change Billy is one step closer to ruling the world.
Dismal, eh? But Gates is a ruthless and very, very clever bastard. Such is the Nature of the Beast - and the cold, arrogant spoiled rotten rich kid from Redmond.
The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."
Exactly - but the fools never get it. And unfortunately for this scenario, it's hard to single out who the fools are.
Are they the ones who knowingly research a technology that they know is going to be broken by a shift key? Or are they the ones who are so stupid they buy into this hype?
Or are they all fools?
How long would it take an independent manufacturer to offer CDs that don't wear out? What are the RIAA going to do - legally prohibit the manufacture of 'good' CDs? Forbid their import to the blessed pastures of the US?
I think maybe IBM made a big mistake here. They should have watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a few more times.
Remember the line 'if we make it out of this alive I'm going to kill you'?
IBM should have helped Sun. They have a common enemy (don't we all). They didn't, Bill feels squeezed, looks around a bit, digs in his pockets, pulls out a couple of billion, now Scott McNealy is his dog.
I was at a brainstorming meeting nine years ago. September 1995. We were putting together a programming course catalogue. We were trying to come up with some good ideas for future courses, new formats, etc.
Right after lunch this friend of mine, an associate professor at a nearby technical institute, walks in. He listens for a few minutes, then says calmly but clearly:
'Count Microsoft out. It may take time, but sooner or later they're done for.'
Needless to say, that stopped all activity in the room. We knew this guy, he was an old Sinclair Spectrum hacker, he knew his stuff. Someone asked him what he meant.
'It's going over to server stuff', he said. 'That's where it's going to come down. IBM and Sun have the experience. Microsoft don't.'
And he was right. And back then the Internet had hardly hit. Windows 95 was one month old. Linux about three years. I think it took some of us years to realise the full import of what he was saying.
Sun and Microsoft are sleeping together (again). Anyone realise what that can mean, the way Microsoft play ball?
It's not been demonstrated the idea can ever get off the ground. Grannie might think Bill and Steve Case are sexy hunks, but major corporations already involved in heavy duty computing aren't that stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
And for the companies intent on fast Chapter 11:
Who says corporate suits have to be uncool?
(Shuddup!)
And remember: Martha was ready to change brokers over bad lift music - it's a good thing!
I hate techie conferences, but I could go just to experience JB. The best bedtime lullaby music ever made.
No shit.
These dumbass record companies could have taken the entire download market. Hell, they could have sub-contracted to get people to build iPods for them. They could have seen the writing on the wall and made it in time for the cultural and technological change.
But no. Jobs and company besiege them for years, telling them their own feeble misled efforts are to no avail, and they don't listen.
The record companies have really missed the boat. Independent companies are doing what they should be doing. But record execs have never been our music heroes, so I guess few people will shed even a crocodile tear.
Hats off to Jobs for doing it again. At least someone out there has their head screwed on straight.
Apple and IBM have been working together on processors since the mid 90's.
Oh even earlier. The PPC project was Motorola, IBM, and Apple, and I remember the first release around I'll guess 1992, so they've been at it maybe 14 years or even longer.
So, whether Apple is doing anything predatory or not, they could hardly help but displace the third-party stores.
This is not true. A lot of 'mom and pop' stores have built up significant reputations in their community and companies in the area will go to them because they've accumulated quite the expertise over the years.
Going to an Apple Store is never going to net you expert help. The staff there are about as good (bad) as Best Buy and are paid comparatively.
Real professional resellers I know say their business has actually done better since the Apple stores, as the interest in Apple has grown and they still have the reputation, so people still end up contacting them for the big jobs.
Which is what I would do too. Our reseller is 'outtasite' and we might walk by an Apple Store, but we'd never buy anything there. Not only do we want to support the local businesses, but we know we get qualified help there - something we would never get at an Apple Store.
This guy puts it nice. 'IE has no soul.' Which of course is true. Others say maybe Netscape wouldn't have died if... Ladies and gentlemen, Redmond put the full weight of the Vole up against Netscape. IE was never more in their eyes than a 'reasonable alternative'. The campaign was fought with the ISPs and the OEMs and looking back, could anyone have withstood that? Maybe Netscape did screw up, but would it have made any difference back then?
But if IE has no soul, then the net doesn't have any soul either, and yes, it would be great to see this browser get some real market share again. Not only because IE sucks and has no soul, but also to prove there can be justice in the world.
Sure, your fridge will tell you you need milk
This is way too low-tech.
What your fridge should tell you is:
'Hey dude, I know you're thinking of buying milk today, but I just read an article online about a bad shipment of milk to stores in this area, so I'd hold off a day or two until there's more details. I'll tell you when it's safe again, OK?
'Oh - and of course I tested the milk you still have inside me, and that's OK to drink. Just don't buy any more until I say so.'
THAT is hi-tech. That is convergence.
Sorry, but this is so much unadulterated tommy-rot.
Microsoft have never tried to make their operating systems 'user friendly enough for the average user'. There is no such thing in the Microsoft camp. Microsoft have equipped their software with 'showroom flash', fully aware of the fact that most users dating back to 1995 have not had a clue about inherent dangers while surfing like that online.
Further, Microsoft's typical answer to JavaScript was a scripting system that did not respect security as JavaScript did. F-Secure, at the time of the ILOVEYOU outbreak, noted that the features in Microsoft scripting that caused the damage were features almost no one ever used. So much for 'user friendliness'.
Further, the Microsoft target demographic is invariably not the 'average user' but the 'way below average user'. Gates is a pusher man. If all he wanted to do was get a product out that both addressed the needs of the 'real average' user and also provided a gratifying learning curve, the 'average users' you reference would be left in the cold. Microsoft's 'average users' are the 'dumb users' - the people with no inherent aptitude for even sitting at a keyboard. Microsoft see these people as crucial, for the ambition is not to get a computer in every home and on every office desktop, but to sell software to all those locations and have a monopoly there as well. By cutting out the intelligent users and even the average users and by directing software towards the truly cerebrally disenfranchised, Microsoft hope to reach that goal, even more than they have today.
Many are the constant complaints about the fact that there is no gradient in using Microsoft technology. Things may seem crystal clear when you first boot into a Microsoft system for the first time. But they're aggravating for ordinary users as well because they spell out way too many things. And then of course there's real annoyances like Clippy. Once the user understands how the system works, the user wants to streamline his workday, and to do that he must circumvent all these 'user friendly' features which become tantamount to a bad marriage: way too much interactivity. Most people are NOT that stupid, and referring to them as 'average' is simply wrong.
The parent also implies that Microsoft have done far more work and are miles ahead of Apple in all respects, which is just downright ridiculous. Apple may be new at the 32-bit protected mode game, but Unix is not, and Microsoft will never come close to even the shadow of Unix.
I can see the rules of that Parker Bros game changing...
'Redmond Gardens? How much? I'll buy it? And I'll put up two patents!'
OK, let's see, you landed on Redmond Place, and I also own Cupertino Square and Poughkeepsie Place, and I have twenty five patents... You don't have that kinda money! I win!'
the use of a 'task list' generated from 'TODO' comments in source code
Dat's OK, cos Big Blue still got dibs on "/* */" from PL/1.
the multiple formatting standards of the DoD
Seems you and others know a lot. Which is probably why they were able to recover so much. Read a bit, OK? A few years back, anyone could be excused for not using their noggins. But you're saying that the most security paranoid nation on the planet is going to publish their techniques - the ones they really use, and these are basically 'wipe with a random number, its complement, then all zeroes'?
Egads. And the Apple people here are worried their users are still too naive...
Wassily Kandinsky, father of abstract art.
Really? And here I thought it was Moliere.
pair have been using it all along. They've got well over 100,000 domains running. They're but one company.
Oh yeah - Apple's another...
Kdas Huhuadsd Dudhasd Zdhasd
I ate there once. Great place, great food, great service. I left a huge tip,
Wording and wording...
It's my impression Apple got at the crux of the issue: indirectly running code you know nothing about. If you've run the code before and are still here...
You can argue till the end of the year whether the wording is appropriate, or how many nimrods will get 0wned anyway, but the technical side of it is very well I think: the essence of the 'hole' was that any protocol could be made up. This does a good job of watching out.
I disagree. ActiveX is one thing, but as they've all pointed out, if this is the first you've heard of the app (and you're told even where it's located) it's a pretty good clue if you are ever going to know what you're doing - and if you aren't, then precious little will help you.
A lot is dependent on the system becoming aware of schemes and file types. I don't take it as a given that a new file type will be recognised simply because I've unzipped a package off the net with its handler inside. I do expect the file types (and schemes) to be recognised once the handler runs. If the system automatically checks DMGs when it opens them - then OK, yes, there is a minimal danger. But I hate DMGs anyway and personally avoid them because I can't know exactly what's going on inside and with the system. There is a great comfort in gzip and bzip2... And funky malicious DMGs are going to get past any sort of speed bump here anyway - just as an installer that asks for your administrator passphrase can do it (one more reason to give that passphrase to no one).
Does anyone remember what MS did after ILOVEYOU? They recommended people not open attachments that belonged to messages with the 'I Love You' subject line. Outlook was made to stop when opening any attachment with a script. No, it's nuts to have scripts in email, but the Apple solution is to raise an eyebrow to anything that's not been run on the system before - that's the essence of it: if you've run it, and are still here, it's probably all right. Maybe you can have it fairer than that, but I don't see how at the moment.
Thank you, Dave, that was very well put. I must also say that after wandering through the Apple documents at the URLs below, I am duly impressed. It's clear to me Cupertino are very concerned about anyone punching holes in their OS. If others (nod towards Redmond) could show the same concern and efficiency... Really, I am impressed, and I don't fall for that very easily. I really hadn't expected Apple to do anymore. I should have been more patient. Cheers.
2 57 85m =108 009
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnu
probubally
That's the most originall spelluling I've ever scene. I think I'm going to subumit it to the Oxuford Enugulish Dicutionary.
In the United Kingudum.
Doesn't anyone else find it strange that we have a Microsoft and Sun deal
This is the way it always goes with deals involving Microsoft. Yes, Sun and MS have a common goal here: destroy Linux. MS will never give up. Linux has cut into Sun revenues sharply as I understand it.
But that being said, don't count the strategy Sun demonstrate as the ultimate goal. For Billy Boy Gates always lurks in the background, and it would be very surprising if he had not anticipated every move and was waiting with a totally new checkmate combination.
You never make a deal with Microsoft: you go under. For pocket change Billy is one step closer to ruling the world.
Dismal, eh? But Gates is a ruthless and very, very clever bastard. Such is the Nature of the Beast - and the cold, arrogant spoiled rotten rich kid from Redmond.
The solution to piracy is never going to find success in copy protection. As in the example, above, there is always going to be a "workaround."
Exactly - but the fools never get it. And unfortunately for this scenario, it's hard to single out who the fools are.
Are they the ones who knowingly research a technology that they know is going to be broken by a shift key? Or are they the ones who are so stupid they buy into this hype?
Or are they all fools?
How long would it take an independent manufacturer to offer CDs that don't wear out? What are the RIAA going to do - legally prohibit the manufacture of 'good' CDs? Forbid their import to the blessed pastures of the US?
This is so folly it's really not funny.
I consider a 100+ word message at the bottom of an email spam.
More correctly I think it's a 'dag-tag'.
for a loss of almost half their investment
Hey, it's SCO - that's not bad at all!
I think maybe IBM made a big mistake here. They should have watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid a few more times.
Remember the line 'if we make it out of this alive I'm going to kill you'?
IBM should have helped Sun. They have a common enemy (don't we all). They didn't, Bill feels squeezed, looks around a bit, digs in his pockets, pulls out a couple of billion, now Scott McNealy is his dog.
Goddamn, that guy is smart.
I was at a brainstorming meeting nine years ago. September 1995. We were putting together a programming course catalogue. We were trying to come up with some good ideas for future courses, new formats, etc.
Right after lunch this friend of mine, an associate professor at a nearby technical institute, walks in. He listens for a few minutes, then says calmly but clearly:
'Count Microsoft out. It may take time, but sooner or later they're done for.'
Needless to say, that stopped all activity in the room. We knew this guy, he was an old Sinclair Spectrum hacker, he knew his stuff. Someone asked him what he meant.
'It's going over to server stuff', he said. 'That's where it's going to come down. IBM and Sun have the experience. Microsoft don't.'
And he was right. And back then the Internet had hardly hit. Windows 95 was one month old. Linux about three years. I think it took some of us years to realise the full import of what he was saying.
Sun and Microsoft are sleeping together (again). Anyone realise what that can mean, the way Microsoft play ball?
It's not been demonstrated the idea can ever get off the ground. Grannie might think Bill and Steve Case are sexy hunks, but major corporations already involved in heavy duty computing aren't that stupid.