That would seem really redundant. One could argue Apple's Spotlight is better than Google Desktop because it is more extensible to multiple file formats (allows developers to write plug-ins). Spotlight was indexing more file formats before Google Desktop first version. Spotlight will index a document up to 10MB, Google indexes only the first 5,000 words in a file, while MSN indexes one megabyte. Also Dominic Giampaolo who created BFS for BeOS, shortly worked in Google and now Apple developing Spotlight to work on top of HFS+. I like Picasa on Windows, because it is light weight and fast, but Google probably realizes that iPhoto does a decent job. There are features on both sides that I like, but iPhoto on the Mac is good enough and probably why Google won't have Picasa until iPhoto becomes a slow and lumber behemoth program.
We use Brightmail on our campus and our users love it with its very low false positive and pretty accurate flagging of SPAM. Another campus uses DSPAM and some people are up in arms at the prospect of losing their Brightmail to switch to DSPAM. Personally, DSPAM isn't nearly as good and has flagged many legitamate messages and sent them to the Junk folder.
I also echo a gripe of other posters. Its nice to have a video but 500MB video file it a bit much. A 50KB pie chart or bar graph would have been nice.
Agreed. Its a starting point for me for looking quick technical things. e.g. DVI pin layouts or lookup SHA or MD5 hash.
When it comes to areas where one's opinion/politics/theology can be inserted I take Wikipedia more with a grain of salt.
Sam Vaknin had an interesting article The Six Sins of the Wikipedia pointing out the problems with the Wikipedia system. I enjoy using Wikipedia but I am wary of using it has some sort of gospel or authority. The contributers are anonymous and that lack of
transparency does make it sort of a problem for me. Below the article.
Sam Vaknin
July 2, 2006
It is a question of time before the Wikipedia self-destructs and implodes. It poses such low barriers to entry (anyone can edit any number of its articles) that it is already attracting masses of teenagers as "contributors" and "editors", not to mention the less savory flotsam and jetsam of cyber-life. People who are regularly excluded or at least moderated in every other Internet community are welcomed, no questions asked, by this wannabe self-styled "encyclopedia"
Six cardinal (and, in the long-term, deadly) sins plague this online venture. What unites and underlies all its deficiencies is simple: Wikipedia dissembles about what it is and how it operates. It is a self-righteous confabulation and its success in deceiving the many attests not only to the gullibility of the vast majority of Netizens but to the PR savvy of its sleek and slick operators.
1. The Wikipedia is opaque and encourages recklessness
The overwhelming majority of contributors to and editors of the Wikipedia remain anonymous throughout the process. Anyone can register and members' screen-names (handles) mean nothing and lead nowhere. Thus, no one is forced to take responsibility for what he or she adds to the "encyclopedia" or subtracts from it. This amounts to an impenetrable smokescreen: identities can rarely be established and evading the legal consequences of one's actions or omissions is easy.
Everything in the Wikipedia can be and frequently is edited, re-written and erased and this includes the talk pages and even, to my utter amazement, the history pages! In other words, one cannot gain an impartial view of the editorial process by sifting through the talk and history pages of articles (most of which are typically monopolized by fiercely territorial "editors"). History, not unlike in certain authoritarian regimes, is being constantly re-jigged on the Wikipedia!
2. The Wikipedia is anarchic, not democratic
The Wikipedia is not an experiment in online democracy, but a form of pernicious anarchy. It espouses two misconceptions: (a) That chaos can and does lead to the generation of artifacts with lasting value and (b) That knowledge is an emergent, mass phenomenon. But The Wikipedia is not conducive to the unfettered exchange of information and opinion that is a prerequisite to both (a) and (b). It is a war zone where many fear to tread. the Wikipedia is a negative filter (see the next point).
3. The Might is Right Editorial Principle
Lacking quality control by design, the Wikipedia rewards quantity. The more one posts and interacts with others, the higher one's status, both informal and official. In the Wikipedia planet, authority is a function of the number of edits, no matter how frivolous. The more aggressive (even violent) a member is; the more prone to flame, bully, and harass; the more inclined to form coalitions with like-minded trolls; the less of a life he or she has outside the Wikipedia, the more they are likely to end up being administrators.
The result is erratic editing. Many entries are completely re-written (not to say vandalized) with the arrival of new kids on the Wikipedia block. Contrary to advertently-fostered impressions, the Wikipedia is not a cumulative process. Its text goes through dizzyingly rapid and oft-repeated cycles of destruction
You're right. I bow to your superior intellect, reasoning, name-calling, higher number of countries visited, higher number of religious classes taken, and unilateral authority to insist on mandatory application of the W3C ratified standard 'joke' and 'sarcasm' tags.
Coming back to to point, which you have artfully veered away from. You jumped into the middle of a topic where the comments of voice_of_all_reason offended me and several other people. The threads clearly show that there were several people who felt that way and it was not obvious that the comments were a joke or intended as such. You then proceed to immediately attack me by calling me a bigot and myopic/unexposed without provocation or good reason. In fact those accusations are so ridiculously so far off they would be amusing to the people who know me. If you're going to stick your head out to defend lost causes like voice_of_all_reason, expect to get hit. You are the one who started the adolescent name calling directly to me and using a rather immature ruse of deflecting the same criticism back at me, without know anything about me. Therefore I don't sympathize with your insincere and sarcastic comments, worst of all you still don't get it that offended people's cultures and races is just not acceptable do you? Retroactively claiming comments people found offensive were intended to be a joke doesn't mean much either and I've given you plenty of examples of that in my previous reply. If you still don't get it, I don't have much hope for you.
So much anger. And reflexively replying without thinking.
When you're five years old it may seem witty to deflect back the same criticism back at the person.
You've attempted to do the same two more times in your last reply. Cute...if you're five years old,
but I assume you're an adult, so that is a rather pathetic attempt on your part. Learn to formulate your own arguments.
The comment was clearly a joke. It was based on a cultural reference to an Indiana Jones film that the poster clearly (from the context) didn't think was an accurate representation of the people involved.
Really? I must have been the only person to miss that....(sarcasm). It was so clear that there where several other people who also found voice_of_all_reason comments equally offensive and derogatory. Read all the threaded comments from the original parent . Your claim therefore that voice_of_all_reason comments were clearly a joke is completely rubbish. Did voice_of_all_reason use anythings like (joke) or (sarcasm) tags? I don't think he did. Was everyone who read what he wrote know it was obviously a joke. Certainly not. It could go either way and without seeing voice_of_all_reason in person delivering that comment without hearing his/her inflection and body language, one has to go with what the comments are on the page. He/she didn't help the situation by not making it clear that it was a joke. Saying that it was retroactively is just a convenient thing to do when you've already offended people. Was it clear that the comments were a joke based on the context, obviously not for a number of people therefore your claim is baloney
Since you seem to be slow at viewing this from a different perspective, let me put it this way. If someone were to make a joke or sarcastic comment without tags like (joke) or (sarcasm) on a newsgroup or online posting about say.... stereotyping a small religious group for being
affluent by being extremely frugal or using the "n" word in relation to people of African descent, then you can damn well sure you're going to get flamed. Retroactively claiming you where joking without being clear about it in the first place won't get you out of trouble.
(read: don't know enough about the culture you're ridiculing, i.e. unexposed and/or myopic)
You're absolutely right (extreme sarcasm). Yes, I must be unexposed and myopic after living in five different countries in four different continents , most of them with several distinct major religions. I can't say I have travelled much...only 29 countries so far (sarcasm).
I've only taken five religious classes during my free electives in engineering college from Celtic/Nordic religion and mythology to both ancient and modern Judaism ( 2 classes in Judaism). So yeah, I guess I fit your childish deflected criticism of being unexposed and myopic. You must be far more worldly than I (fill in the tag).
or your own agenda is so strong (read: you are bigoted)
Or perhaps neither of you quite understand that what was said could be construed seriously and offend people. Which is really sad on your part, because you lack that understanding. In slashdot colloquial speak you are an insensitive clod.
What kind of comparison are you trying to draw here? Your reply makes absolutely no sense. My reply to voice_of_all_reason was to his poor choice of Indians portrayed as simple minded superstitious folks. Frankly it is racist and bigoted. So my comment to say he is a bigot fits bill. Take a class in logic sometime and think about what you're saying before reflexively typing comments that don't make any sense. Then again this is Slashdot, I'm hoping for too much.
I'll also add that voice_of_all_reason claims to made his comments as a joke. So I suppose the people he offended by that are supposed to say its okay. Well it doesn't quite work that way.
Is India still like Indiana Jones, where they'd flee in superstitious terror from the "sorcery" of electronic tools?
How insightful of you to speculate the reason Indians would have to reject the laptop, from a 1984 movie about a fictional archaeologist. Since that movie came out I think I have grown quite wary of ignoramus like yourself wondering if Indians eat frozen monkey brains and if Kali worshippers are cultists that practice black magic. Frankly, your comments are ignorant and racist. You sir are without question a bigot. Fortunately, for India the ideology of "intelligent design" hasn't been introduced to the science curriculum. If you're going to be an unexposed and myopic about the other cultures, religions and people around the world I wouldn't go around flaunting it.
...although I'm surprised it took this long. Their upper management really was a mess and lacked focus. Their venture into the the Windows NT boxes and Itanium platform didn't help much either.
Heck, I use a Powerbook G4 for most of my tasks these days and my SGI O2 and SGI 320 NT box in my office are used little these days, but the Macs do lack some advanced hardware features that are only available on Infinite Reality gfx boards and Tezro v12. See Discreet's website and you'll notice that Flame, Inferno and Fire still run on ONLY SGI hardware. SGI InfiniteReality boards are used as image generators for flight military flight simulators and also to drive the Inferno compositing and film mastering, using up to 32 film resolution layers and 10-bit anti-aliased graphics
Sure, Nvidia and ATI cards go have an polygon count advantage and they do have features like pixel and vertex shaders, but overall for high fidelity graphics one still goes back to SGIs. If one looks at what is capable in Final Cut Pro HD, it still falls in terms of output quality compared to what an SGI can handle. For video DMediaPro options with support for two streams of high-definition 10-bit 4:4:4:4 RGBA video. Or if one needed to generate your own video signal. Programmable FPGA video card or drive a C.A.V.E. or Powerwall SGI Mutichannel Option cards are capable of doing this. I have yet to see PC based Image Generator be as successful at doing this without a lot of hacking, blood, sweat and tears. SGI's handle the tough visualization tasks do out of the box. SGI's gfx API are second to none
OpenGL Inventor
OpenGL Multipipe (+ SDK)
OpenGL Optimizer
OpenGL Performer
OpenGL Shader
OpenGL Vizserver
OpenGL Volumizer
ImageVision and Image Format Library (IFL)
SGI was a great company, although it was badly mismanaged. I'd love to see it merged with Apple and all the SGI gfx API's integrated into OS X. Plus other tecnologies like ccNUMA, XFS, CXFS, NUMAlink4 (6.4GBs), NUMAflex combined with Hypertransport and Infiniband (when customers need cheaper solution than NUMAlink)
I very much wish for an updated filesystem for Mac OSX. I know that HFS plus (with journaling and meta-data searching where added later), I feel HFS + is showing signs of age. I was hoping when Apple first developed Mac OSX it had used the UFS system and then
made a separate HFS+ partition for people who wanted to use a Mac OS9 on the PowerPC based Macs, but that didn't happen. Perhaps for the best at the time. Wilfredo Sánchez Vega wrote a whitepaper on the reasoning for HFS + at the time
So now with the Intel Macs and no need for Mac OS 9 support, Apple can tell all their developers that all Universal apps must be able to
run on UFS. That way should Apple decide to adopt ZFS it should be a painless transition. Holding on to HFS + with the Intel Macs for this long will
hamper any transition into a future filesystem. This will prepare Adobe and Microsoft to write their new Universal versions to be able to accept any type of filesystem and not rely on the resource fork of HFS
You're right. Prior to the NTP fiasco RIM was on a patent jihad. Rampaging against companies not just for something as mundane as its QWERTY keyboard arrangement and shapes of its keys.
Back in the mid 90's I used to use Alta Vista from DEC and Yahoo to do my searches,
then a young upstart Google blew them away with better and more relevant search results. 900 links to a single word reference in an entire article doesn't help me. Which is why I use Google today.
I have tried Ask.com a long time back, but not since their latest revamp. I actually ran into Eric Glover, one of their chief programmers back in Ann Arbor a few months ago at a party. He did his doctoral research on search engines. Ironically, Larry Page of Google was also in Glover's undergraduate classes and both know of each other. Page went on to Stanford from his graduate school and Glover stayed to finish his PhD. Glover first worked at NEC developing a search engine for them. NEC lacked focus and purpose with search technology, since their emphasis is on electronics and consumer good. Glover then left for Ask.com to help improve their search results. At the time I met him, he couldn't reveal too much and was hush hush about their new search engine launch. Looks like they have something to compete with Google with. Initially, Google didn't spend much money at all advertising their search engine. It was all word and mouth, perhaps the same could happen for Ask.com. You just never know.
Microsoft managed to stall OpenGL 2.0 and other improvements for the longest time by claiming potential patent infringements with its vertex and pixel shader technologies. As a result OpenGL stalled for some time. Microsoft has since left the OpenGL ARB (Architecture Review Board) after doing the damage it needed to do. Deja vu.
I think the new iMacs with iSight camera and Frontrow are great for the home and dorm I can see my father loving this computer, but for a corporate or instituitional environment we don't need desktop machines to have WiFi or even Bluetooth. I bought two iMacs for our secretaries recently and they love them. I would be interested in the form factor of the iMac but without most of the bells and whistles
$999
without IR Remote Control
without Built in camera
without Superdrive just standard CD-RW/DVD-ROM
$899
without Bluetooth
without WiFi 802.11 g
80GB drive
The Macbook Pro should have retained FW800 port. Upsetting your professional user base is not a good idea. Many of the external drives we have from LaCie and OWC come with the FW800. Was looking forward to using it on our newer computers. The Apple Remote for Frontrow really should have been Bluetooth based. I would have loved to see this used on Powerpoint and Keynote presentations as well (what where they thinking?). The ATI gfx chip is slick and overall good news.
One burning question remains...can you install Windows XP, will Mac OSX (x86) 10.4.4 HFS+ jounrnaled partition coexist with an
NTFS volume on the same disk? Finally, what about virtualization and Vanderpool. The next coming months should be interesting.
On the annual All New 2005 Buying Guide of Consumer Reports page 329, Apple does the best for again in desktop and laptops in realibity. The metric used was Inoperable Failure and Broken But Still Operable.
Which Apple scored well in both.
In the current Best Buys for 2006 Buying Guide of Consumer Reports page 233 (survery sample of 140,000 readers with desktop and laptops) , the graph shows Apple with the fewest repairs for Desktop and second fewest in laptops. Only beat out by Toshiba in the laptop category which sounds about right. I strongly recommend most Apple laptops to our department folks and IBM or Toshiba laptops if they have to use a Windows laptop. I urge most people to avoid Dell if possible, or opt to buy the Latitude if they have to get Dell. A few years ago Dell made decent machines, but now their quality of their computers has gone down the tubes and their support is abysmal. We've had too many horror stories and lots of angry people in our department recently with Dell.
I doubt eMagin's new toy for the iPod will succeed. Sony tried a simliar product years ago and the Glasstron never took off.
I also disagree with your statement that Apple hardware is all about fickle and impressionable folks being wooed by gee whiz industrial design and ergonomics. People happen to like Apple hardware and software solution because it offers a well integrated solution that minimizes finger pointing. As some OEM PC vendors we've encountered have tried to pass the buck with us and wanted us to pay more for a problem they believed was a Windows issue when we already payed for service/warranty.
Perhaps you care to explain how a survey of 140,000 readers of Consumer Reports rated Apple service higher for A) solving problems, B) waiting on the phone, C) support staff, D) web support of both Desktop and Laptop systems. Perhaps consumers gravitate towards the Honda Accords instead of the Dodge Neons. Both have a steering wheel and four tires, but most people are willing to pay more for the Accord.
Well, I bought the Weird Al "Bad Hair Day" and "Even Worse" CDs, so if I want to embed the lyrics into my AAC/MP3 files
after converting my CDs to those formats, then I should be able to do so. Why not sue Gracenotes CDDB for providing the ID3 Metatag
database as well. In fact I'd be happy if Gracenotes went a step further after identifying my CD to automatically embed
the album cover art and the lyrics, but I bet some shmuck is going to cause a fuss about doing that. While my computer is
busy ripping the CD I concurrently hunt down the cover art using the FirstRiver Sherlock plugin (Under Preferences: Enable Drag & Drop in this area). Finally using a Dashboard widget in the foreground in Mac OS X Tiger I have it automatically look up my lyrics while iTunes is playing the background and embed those lyrics, works nicely. What's to stop me from scanning my booklet with an OCR package, typing in my ID3 tags myself and finally scanning the cover art...nothing really and its fair use. If Gracenotes automates the ID3 tagging process, I can't see anything wrong with Sherlock, Watson, Dashboard, Konfabulator widgets getting lyrics and cover art for my ripped CDs as well.
I can recommend other useful tools: iEatBrainz For automatically tagging music CD mixes from friends, who didn't provide any track (Artist, Song,...etc) information. CoverFlow Neat OpenGL Aqua Cocoa app that shows the potential for a 3D way of browsing your CDs. Gets cover art information from the internet much like the lyric widgets, when the
cover art is not found in the AAC/MP3 file itself. First saw a similar example in "Project Looking Glass" from Sun Microsystems.
My sympathies and condolences are with the pearLyrics author who didn't do anything wrong. Perhaps the RIAA should be better off suing Google for making it easier to search for lyrics. Oh yeah, thats right its hard to screw with a $120 billion company, than a single developer of free software.
"Breaking rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so sad
I guess my race is run
Well she is the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the
Robbin' people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I miss my fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so sad
I guess my race is run
Well she is the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the
Linux not just for Steve the supervillian (Flash animation).
We've known all along Linux is not just for THAAD missles, but also for powering a beowulf cluster of atomic
supermen, orbiting brain lasers, genetical engineered cybergoats, henchmen with bad teeth and gorgeous fembots...
This is better than the Swedish military using
Windows NT 4.0 to power their warship a year.
See request #4. Note this was dated Oct 5th 2005, before the announcement PCI Express gfx cards.
What the (blank) department would
like to see in future Intel based Macintosh computers.
1. A multi-button mouse. With the recent "Mighty Mouse" part of this
need has been address. Although, this mouse could use more ergonomic
feedback and improvements. A default option from the Apple Store for
the "Mighty Mouse" is fine, but additional choices for a two button
or three button mouse from a pull down menu choice will give customers
more flexibility.
2. The HFS+ journaled filesystem must coexist with an NTFS, or any
Linux filesystem like XFS or ext3 on a multi- partition harddrive.
3. Intel based Macs should have IEEE-1394 support and have Firewire
target mode and netboot from EFI (the new Intel based BIOS)
4. Intel based Macs should be able to run Windows XP SP2 on it and
future Windows Vista. i.e. minimize or eliminate custom ASICs on
motherboard that would cause problems installing Windows. Dual
booting Intel based Macs will be desirable, but what would be even
better is virtualization using Intel's Vanderpool technology to run
the few Windows applications that haven't been ported to Mac OS X
i.e. AutoCad, Rhino 3D.
5. Intel based Macs have to support PCI Express x16 for graphics cards.
Support high end professional graphics card from Nvidia Quadro and
ATI FireGL with CoreImage support is absolutely critical for engineering,
scientific and the visualization industry. If possible a 3rd player
supporting Mac OS X, like 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm series. This would
greatly benefit the Mac OS X platform as a more serious player in the
CAD and high end computer graphics industries.
Last but not least for all Macs (x86 and PPC) an easy integration
with Active Directory or AFS for user login. Currently both methods
require work on Mac OS X.
Safari is now passing all or many of the webstandards and color standard tests.
Apart from passing the Acid 2 test
again, which it did once back in April '05 in Panther
It also passes the International Color Consortium ICC version 4 test again,
which also worked on Safari 1.3. Prior to Safari 2.0.2, Safari 2.x only
passed ICC version 2 test.
Javascript speed seems a hair faster and gives Opera a good run.
Mac Mini 1.25 GHz w/ 512MB RAM
OS___________Version _______Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.3.8 Safari v1.2.4___ 85.28 seconds___86.28 seconds
Mac OSX 10.3.9 Safari v1.3____ 10.97 seconds___10.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.0 Safari v2.0____ 09.48 seconds___09.30 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari v2.0.1___ 09.41 seconds___09.07 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari v2.0.2___ 08.41 seconds___08.54 seconds
iMac G5 1.8 GHz w/1GB RAM
OS___________Version _________________Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Opera 8.5__________ 07.45 seconds___07.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari 2.0.2_________ 08.51 seconds___08.79 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Opera 8.5__________ 07.31 seconds___07.88 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari 2.0.1_________ 09.02 seconds___09.12 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Camino 0.8.4_______ 15.13 seconds___15.33 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Firefox 1.0.7________ 21.04 seconds___20.84 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Internet Explorer 5.2.3 40.87 seconds___36.94 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Mozilla 1.7.12_______ 44.11 seconds___43.54 seconds
Mail.app 2.0.5 fixes the annoying problem with replicating new messages twice or thrice
for IMAP email.
Get Info and Finder now shows Architecture the application binary runs on.
Guess this will help with the transition to x86 to identify which applications
are PowerPC only or Universal. I assume people aren't going to be writing
exclusively for Intel X86 Mac OS X applications for a long time.
The bad:
Quartz 2D Extreme is still not part of Tiger. Hopefully it will make it in Leopard.
"Disables Quartz 2D Extreme--Quartz 2D Extreme is not a supported feature in Tiger,
and re-enabling it may lead to video redraw issues or kernel panics."
Dvorak doesn't want to use a Mac or iPhoto for that matter, because then he'll become of of those Mac users. Who according to him don't know a thing about computers. Read his rants in last weeks inflammatory article. Guess it must boost readership when he shamelessly posts divisive articles like that and helps bring in ad dollars.
Geography correction
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 2, Informative
HKG is in China
Hong Kong is not in China contrary to what you have heard . Hong Kong borders China and is not fully part of China until 2047. In 1997 the British started the hand over process to the Chinese, where the next 50 years
the one country - two systems policy is being implemented. Hong Kong is designated SAR,
which stands for Special Administrative Region. If you go to Hong Kong they will give you a free
tourist visa at the airport and then if you try to cross over to China's border you'll probably
need to buy a visa if you are American or citizen of several western countries due to diplomatic reciprocity
fees. The American State Department also makes the distinction between China and Hong Kong SAR.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps the Android garden doesn't need a wall, but it could really use a full time gardener
I told you so. Sent from my iPhone
iPhone 3.0. Actually the current iPhone uses Power VR MBX and the new one is rumored to be using the Power VR SGX graphics. The Power VR VXD video IP core can supposedly "supports 1080p H.264 Main/High Profile decoding, as well as VC-1 and a variety of other standards" http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/638 http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/04/30/apples_bionic_arm_to_muscle_advanced_gaming_graphics_into_iphones.html
That would seem really redundant. One could argue Apple's Spotlight is better than Google Desktop because it is more extensible to multiple file formats (allows developers to write plug-ins). Spotlight was indexing more file formats before Google Desktop first version. Spotlight will index a document up to 10MB, Google indexes only the first 5,000 words in a file, while MSN indexes one megabyte. Also Dominic Giampaolo who created BFS for BeOS, shortly worked in Google and now Apple developing Spotlight to work on top of HFS+. I like Picasa on Windows, because it is light weight and fast, but Google probably realizes that iPhoto does a decent job. There are features on both sides that I like, but iPhoto on the Mac is good enough and probably why Google won't have Picasa until iPhoto becomes a slow and lumber behemoth program.
Or perhaps we have another Jean-Louis Gassée in the making.
We use Brightmail on our campus and our users love it with its very low false positive and pretty accurate flagging of SPAM. Another campus uses DSPAM and some people are up in arms at the prospect of losing their Brightmail to switch to DSPAM. Personally, DSPAM isn't nearly as good and has flagged many legitamate messages and sent them to the Junk folder.
I also echo a gripe of other posters. Its nice to have a video but 500MB video file it a bit much. A 50KB pie chart or bar graph would have been nice.
Agreed. Its a starting point for me for looking quick technical things. e.g. DVI pin layouts or lookup SHA or MD5 hash. When it comes to areas where one's opinion/politics/theology can be inserted I take Wikipedia more with a grain of salt.
Sam Vaknin had an interesting article The Six Sins of the Wikipedia pointing out the problems with the Wikipedia system. I enjoy using Wikipedia but I am wary of using it has some sort of gospel or authority. The contributers are anonymous and that lack of transparency does make it sort of a problem for me. Below the article.
Sam Vaknin July 2, 2006
It is a question of time before the Wikipedia self-destructs and implodes. It poses such low barriers to entry (anyone can edit any number of its articles) that it is already attracting masses of teenagers as "contributors" and "editors", not to mention the less savory flotsam and jetsam of cyber-life. People who are regularly excluded or at least moderated in every other Internet community are welcomed, no questions asked, by this wannabe self-styled "encyclopedia"
Six cardinal (and, in the long-term, deadly) sins plague this online venture. What unites and underlies all its deficiencies is simple: Wikipedia dissembles about what it is and how it operates. It is a self-righteous confabulation and its success in deceiving the many attests not only to the gullibility of the vast majority of Netizens but to the PR savvy of its sleek and slick operators.
1. The Wikipedia is opaque and encourages recklessness
The overwhelming majority of contributors to and editors of the Wikipedia remain anonymous throughout the process. Anyone can register and members' screen-names (handles) mean nothing and lead nowhere. Thus, no one is forced to take responsibility for what he or she adds to the "encyclopedia" or subtracts from it. This amounts to an impenetrable smokescreen: identities can rarely be established and evading the legal consequences of one's actions or omissions is easy.
Everything in the Wikipedia can be and frequently is edited, re-written and erased and this includes the talk pages and even, to my utter amazement, the history pages! In other words, one cannot gain an impartial view of the editorial process by sifting through the talk and history pages of articles (most of which are typically monopolized by fiercely territorial "editors"). History, not unlike in certain authoritarian regimes, is being constantly re-jigged on the Wikipedia!
2. The Wikipedia is anarchic, not democratic
The Wikipedia is not an experiment in online democracy, but a form of pernicious anarchy. It espouses two misconceptions: (a) That chaos can and does lead to the generation of artifacts with lasting value and (b) That knowledge is an emergent, mass phenomenon. But The Wikipedia is not conducive to the unfettered exchange of information and opinion that is a prerequisite to both (a) and (b). It is a war zone where many fear to tread. the Wikipedia is a negative filter (see the next point).
3. The Might is Right Editorial Principle
Lacking quality control by design, the Wikipedia rewards quantity. The more one posts and interacts with others, the higher one's status, both informal and official. In the Wikipedia planet, authority is a function of the number of edits, no matter how frivolous. The more aggressive (even violent) a member is; the more prone to flame, bully, and harass; the more inclined to form coalitions with like-minded trolls; the less of a life he or she has outside the Wikipedia, the more they are likely to end up being administrators.
The result is erratic editing. Many entries are completely re-written (not to say vandalized) with the arrival of new kids on the Wikipedia block. Contrary to advertently-fostered impressions, the Wikipedia is not a cumulative process. Its text goes through dizzyingly rapid and oft-repeated cycles of destruction
You're right. I bow to your superior intellect, reasoning, name-calling, higher number of countries visited, higher number of religious classes taken, and unilateral authority to insist on mandatory application of the W3C ratified standard 'joke' and 'sarcasm' tags.
Coming back to to point, which you have artfully veered away from. You jumped into the middle of a topic where the comments of voice_of_all_reason offended me and several other people. The threads clearly show that there were several people who felt that way and it was not obvious that the comments were a joke or intended as such. You then proceed to immediately attack me by calling me a bigot and myopic/unexposed without provocation or good reason. In fact those accusations are so ridiculously so far off they would be amusing to the people who know me. If you're going to stick your head out to defend lost causes like voice_of_all_reason, expect to get hit. You are the one who started the adolescent name calling directly to me and using a rather immature ruse of deflecting the same criticism back at me, without know anything about me. Therefore I don't sympathize with your insincere and sarcastic comments, worst of all you still don't get it that offended people's cultures and races is just not acceptable do you? Retroactively claiming comments people found offensive were intended to be a joke doesn't mean much either and I've given you plenty of examples of that in my previous reply. If you still don't get it, I don't have much hope for you.
So much anger. And reflexively replying without thinking.
....(sarcasm). It was so clear that there where several other people who also found voice_of_all_reason comments equally offensive and derogatory. Read all the threaded comments from the original parent . Your claim therefore that voice_of_all_reason comments were clearly a joke is completely rubbish. Did voice_of_all_reason use anythings like (joke) or (sarcasm) tags? I don't think he did. Was everyone who read what he wrote know it was obviously a joke. Certainly not. It could go either way and without seeing voice_of_all_reason in person delivering that comment without hearing his/her inflection and body language, one has to go with what the comments are on the page. He/she didn't help the situation by not making it clear that it was a joke. Saying that it was retroactively is just a convenient thing to do when you've already offended people. Was it clear that the comments were a joke based on the context, obviously not for a number of people therefore your claim is baloney
When you're five years old it may seem witty to deflect back the same criticism back at the person. You've attempted to do the same two more times in your last reply. Cute...if you're five years old, but I assume you're an adult, so that is a rather pathetic attempt on your part. Learn to formulate your own arguments.
The comment was clearly a joke. It was based on a cultural reference to an Indiana Jones film that the poster clearly (from the context) didn't think was an accurate representation of the people involved.
Really? I must have been the only person to miss that
Since you seem to be slow at viewing this from a different perspective, let me put it this way. If someone were to make a joke or sarcastic comment without tags like (joke) or (sarcasm) on a newsgroup or online posting about say.... stereotyping a small religious group for being affluent by being extremely frugal or using the "n" word in relation to people of African descent, then you can damn well sure you're going to get flamed. Retroactively claiming you where joking without being clear about it in the first place won't get you out of trouble.
(read: don't know enough about the culture you're ridiculing, i.e. unexposed and/or myopic)
You're absolutely right (extreme sarcasm). Yes, I must be unexposed and myopic after living in five different countries in four different continents , most of them with several distinct major religions. I can't say I have travelled much...only 29 countries so far (sarcasm). I've only taken five religious classes during my free electives in engineering college from Celtic/Nordic religion and mythology to both ancient and modern Judaism ( 2 classes in Judaism). So yeah, I guess I fit your childish deflected criticism of being unexposed and myopic. You must be far more worldly than I (fill in the tag).
or your own agenda is so strong (read: you are bigoted)
Or perhaps neither of you quite understand that what was said could be construed seriously and offend people. Which is really sad on your part, because you lack that understanding. In slashdot colloquial speak you are an insensitive clod.
What kind of comparison are you trying to draw here? Your reply makes absolutely no sense. My reply to voice_of_all_reason was to his poor choice of Indians portrayed as simple minded superstitious folks. Frankly it is racist and bigoted. So my comment to say he is a bigot fits bill. Take a class in logic sometime and think about what you're saying before reflexively typing comments that don't make any sense. Then again this is Slashdot, I'm hoping for too much.
I'll also add that voice_of_all_reason claims to made his comments as a joke. So I suppose the people he offended by that are supposed to say its okay. Well it doesn't quite work that way.
Is India still like Indiana Jones, where they'd flee in superstitious terror from the "sorcery" of electronic tools?
How insightful of you to speculate the reason Indians would have to reject the laptop, from a 1984 movie about a fictional archaeologist. Since that movie came out I think I have grown quite wary of ignoramus like yourself wondering if Indians eat frozen monkey brains and if Kali worshippers are cultists that practice black magic. Frankly, your comments are ignorant and racist. You sir are without question a bigot. Fortunately, for India the ideology of "intelligent design" hasn't been introduced to the science curriculum. If you're going to be an unexposed and myopic about the other cultures, religions and people around the world I wouldn't go around flaunting it.
Heck, I use a Powerbook G4 for most of my tasks these days and my SGI O2 and SGI 320 NT box in my office are used little these days, but the Macs do lack some advanced hardware features that are only available on Infinite Reality gfx boards and Tezro v12. See Discreet's website and you'll notice that Flame, Inferno and Fire still run on ONLY SGI hardware. SGI InfiniteReality boards are used as image generators for flight military flight simulators and also to drive the Inferno compositing and film mastering, using up to 32 film resolution layers and 10-bit anti-aliased graphics
Sure, Nvidia and ATI cards go have an polygon count advantage and they do have features like pixel and vertex shaders, but overall for high fidelity graphics one still goes back to SGIs. If one looks at what is capable in Final Cut Pro HD, it still falls in terms of output quality compared to what an SGI can handle. For video DMediaPro options with support for two streams of high-definition 10-bit 4:4:4:4 RGBA video. Or if one needed to generate your own video signal. Programmable FPGA video card or drive a C.A.V.E. or Powerwall SGI Mutichannel Option cards are capable of doing this. I have yet to see PC based Image Generator be as successful at doing this without a lot of hacking, blood, sweat and tears. SGI's handle the tough visualization tasks do out of the box. SGI's gfx API are second to none
OpenGL Inventor
OpenGL Multipipe (+ SDK)
OpenGL Optimizer
OpenGL Performer
OpenGL Shader
OpenGL Vizserver
OpenGL Volumizer
ImageVision and Image Format Library (IFL)
SGI was a great company, although it was badly mismanaged. I'd love to see it merged with Apple and all the SGI gfx API's integrated into OS X. Plus other tecnologies like ccNUMA, XFS, CXFS, NUMAlink4 (6.4GBs), NUMAflex combined with Hypertransport and Infiniband (when customers need cheaper solution than NUMAlink)
So now with the Intel Macs and no need for Mac OS 9 support, Apple can tell all their developers that all Universal apps must be able to run on UFS. That way should Apple decide to adopt ZFS it should be a painless transition. Holding on to HFS + with the Intel Macs for this long will hamper any transition into a future filesystem. This will prepare Adobe and Microsoft to write their new Universal versions to be able to accept any type of filesystem and not rely on the resource fork of HFS
That's my 2 cents.
From the horse's mouth. Research In Motion Files Wireless Patent Complaint Against Glenayre Electronics, Inc
I guess what goes around come around, at least in this case.
I have tried Ask.com a long time back, but not since their latest revamp. I actually ran into Eric Glover, one of their chief programmers back in Ann Arbor a few months ago at a party. He did his doctoral research on search engines. Ironically, Larry Page of Google was also in Glover's undergraduate classes and both know of each other. Page went on to Stanford from his graduate school and Glover stayed to finish his PhD. Glover first worked at NEC developing a search engine for them. NEC lacked focus and purpose with search technology, since their emphasis is on electronics and consumer good. Glover then left for Ask.com to help improve their search results. At the time I met him, he couldn't reveal too much and was hush hush about their new search engine launch. Looks like they have something to compete with Google with. Initially, Google didn't spend much money at all advertising their search engine. It was all word and mouth, perhaps the same could happen for Ask.com. You just never know.
Microsoft managed to stall OpenGL 2.0 and other improvements for the longest time by claiming potential patent infringements with its vertex and pixel shader technologies. As a result OpenGL stalled for some time. Microsoft has since left the OpenGL ARB (Architecture Review Board) after doing the damage it needed to do. Deja vu.
$999
without IR Remote Control
without Built in camera
without Superdrive just standard CD-RW/DVD-ROM
$899
without Bluetooth
without WiFi 802.11 g
80GB drive
The Macbook Pro should have retained FW800 port. Upsetting your professional user base is not a good idea. Many of the external drives we have from LaCie and OWC come with the FW800. Was looking forward to using it on our newer computers. The Apple Remote for Frontrow really should have been Bluetooth based. I would have loved to see this used on Powerpoint and Keynote presentations as well (what where they thinking?). The ATI gfx chip is slick and overall good news.
One burning question remains...can you install Windows XP, will Mac OSX (x86) 10.4.4 HFS+ jounrnaled partition coexist with an NTFS volume on the same disk? Finally, what about virtualization and Vanderpool. The next coming months should be interesting.
On the annual All New 2005 Buying Guide of Consumer Reports page 329, Apple does the best for again in desktop and laptops in realibity. The metric used was Inoperable Failure and Broken But Still Operable. Which Apple scored well in both.
In the current Best Buys for 2006 Buying Guide of Consumer Reports page 233 (survery sample of 140,000 readers with desktop and laptops) , the graph shows Apple with the fewest repairs for Desktop and second fewest in laptops. Only beat out by Toshiba in the laptop category which sounds about right. I strongly recommend most Apple laptops to our department folks and IBM or Toshiba laptops if they have to use a Windows laptop. I urge most people to avoid Dell if possible, or opt to buy the Latitude if they have to get Dell. A few years ago Dell made decent machines, but now their quality of their computers has gone down the tubes and their support is abysmal. We've had too many horror stories and lots of angry people in our department recently with Dell.
I also disagree with your statement that Apple hardware is all about fickle and impressionable folks being wooed by gee whiz industrial design and ergonomics. People happen to like Apple hardware and software solution because it offers a well integrated solution that minimizes finger pointing. As some OEM PC vendors we've encountered have tried to pass the buck with us and wanted us to pay more for a problem they believed was a Windows issue when we already payed for service/warranty.
Perhaps you care to explain how a survey of 140,000 readers of Consumer Reports rated Apple service higher for A) solving problems, B) waiting on the phone, C) support staff, D) web support of both Desktop and Laptop systems. Perhaps consumers gravitate towards the Honda Accords instead of the Dodge Neons. Both have a steering wheel and four tires, but most people are willing to pay more for the Accord.
I can recommend other useful tools:
iEatBrainz For automatically tagging music CD mixes from friends, who didn't provide any track (Artist, Song,...etc) information.
CoverFlow Neat OpenGL Aqua Cocoa app that shows the potential for a 3D way of browsing your CDs. Gets cover art information from the internet much like the lyric widgets, when the cover art is not found in the AAC/MP3 file itself. First saw a similar example in "Project Looking Glass" from Sun Microsystems.
My sympathies and condolences are with the pearLyrics author who didn't do anything wrong. Perhaps the RIAA should be better off suing Google for making it easier to search for lyrics. Oh yeah, thats right its hard to screw with a $120 billion company, than a single developer of free software.
"Breaking rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so sad
I guess my race is run
Well she is the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the
Robbin' people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I miss my fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so sad
I guess my race is run
Well she is the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the
I fought the law and the law won (x7)"
This is better than the Swedish military using Windows NT 4.0 to power their warship a year.
What the (blank) department would like to see in future Intel based Macintosh computers.
1. A multi-button mouse. With the recent "Mighty Mouse" part of this need has been address. Although, this mouse could use more ergonomic feedback and improvements. A default option from the Apple Store for the "Mighty Mouse" is fine, but additional choices for a two button or three button mouse from a pull down menu choice will give customers more flexibility.
2. The HFS+ journaled filesystem must coexist with an NTFS, or any Linux filesystem like XFS or ext3 on a multi- partition harddrive.
3. Intel based Macs should have IEEE-1394 support and have Firewire target mode and netboot from EFI (the new Intel based BIOS)
4. Intel based Macs should be able to run Windows XP SP2 on it and future Windows Vista. i.e. minimize or eliminate custom ASICs on motherboard that would cause problems installing Windows. Dual booting Intel based Macs will be desirable, but what would be even better is virtualization using Intel's Vanderpool technology to run the few Windows applications that haven't been ported to Mac OS X i.e. AutoCad, Rhino 3D.
5. Intel based Macs have to support PCI Express x16 for graphics cards. Support high end professional graphics card from Nvidia Quadro and ATI FireGL with CoreImage support is absolutely critical for engineering, scientific and the visualization industry. If possible a 3rd player supporting Mac OS X, like 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm series. This would greatly benefit the Mac OS X platform as a more serious player in the CAD and high end computer graphics industries.
Last but not least for all Macs (x86 and PPC) an easy integration with Active Directory or AFS for user login. Currently both methods require work on Mac OS X.
Safari is now passing all or many of the webstandards and color standard tests. Apart from passing the Acid 2 test again, which it did once back in April '05 in Panther
It also passes the International Color Consortium ICC version 4 test again, which also worked on Safari 1.3. Prior to Safari 2.0.2, Safari 2.x only passed ICC version 2 test.
Javascript speed seems a hair faster and gives Opera a good run.
Javascript benchmark
Mac Mini 1.25 GHz w/ 512MB RAM
OS___________Version _______Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.3.8 Safari v1.2.4___ 85.28 seconds___86.28 seconds
Mac OSX 10.3.9 Safari v1.3____ 10.97 seconds___10.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.0 Safari v2.0____ 09.48 seconds___09.30 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari v2.0.1___ 09.41 seconds___09.07 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari v2.0.2___ 08.41 seconds___08.54 seconds
iMac G5 1.8 GHz w/1GB RAM
OS___________Version _________________Trial 1_________Trial 2
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Opera 8.5__________ 07.45 seconds___07.39 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.3 Safari 2.0.2_________ 08.51 seconds___08.79 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Opera 8.5__________ 07.31 seconds___07.88 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Safari 2.0.1_________ 09.02 seconds___09.12 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Camino 0.8.4_______ 15.13 seconds___15.33 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Firefox 1.0.7________ 21.04 seconds___20.84 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Internet Explorer 5.2.3 40.87 seconds___36.94 seconds
Mac OSX 10.4.2 Mozilla 1.7.12_______ 44.11 seconds___43.54 seconds
Mail.app 2.0.5 fixes the annoying problem with replicating new messages twice or thrice for IMAP email.
Get Info and Finder now shows Architecture the application binary runs on. Guess this will help with the transition to x86 to identify which applications are PowerPC only or Universal. I assume people aren't going to be writing exclusively for Intel X86 Mac OS X applications for a long time.
The bad:
Quartz 2D Extreme is still not part of Tiger. Hopefully it will make it in Leopard.
"Disables Quartz 2D Extreme--Quartz 2D Extreme is not a supported feature in Tiger, and re-enabling it may lead to video redraw issues or kernel panics."
Media Bias and Technology Reporting
Are Media Writers Biased Towards Apple?
Hong Kong is not in China contrary to what you have heard . Hong Kong borders China and is not fully part of China until 2047. In 1997 the British started the hand over process to the Chinese, where the next 50 years the one country - two systems policy is being implemented. Hong Kong is designated SAR, which stands for Special Administrative Region. If you go to Hong Kong they will give you a free tourist visa at the airport and then if you try to cross over to China's border you'll probably need to buy a visa if you are American or citizen of several western countries due to diplomatic reciprocity fees. The American State Department also makes the distinction between China and Hong Kong SAR.