Actually, I have one specific use case where ALSA doesn't provide needed functionality, and JACK is massively overkill for the task.
Some sound cards such as the ASUS Xonar DG do not have built-in volume controls. They rely 100% on the driver or OS sound subsystem to control volume. This obviously isn't a problem if you're just feeding the output into an external amplifier, but sometimes you want to plug headphones directly into your PC, especially considering how the Xonar DG specifically has a built-in high-quality headphone amplifier.
ALSA does not provide a volume control directly for this sound card, there is no way for you to turn down the volume from 100%. But PulseAudio does, and that was my reason for switching to PA, even before it was made effectively mandatory.
Did you ever stop to think why all of the top 10 Linux distributions are using systemd? Could it be because it's actually useful and serves its purpose well?
In Europe they put on their blinker towards the median side rather than obnoxiously flashing their high beams to remind people in front to vacate the fast lane. Very civilized. This also lets the driver behind you know you'd pass the guy if you could.
Haha no. People flash their high beams like mad if they think you're not moving fast enough. They also put on the blinker, but the high beams come first.
I'd like to know your source for the information that all of the GApps run as root, because if that were true, it would be a MASSIVE security hole. Somehow I doubt Google would be that stupid;-)
I used to be very staunchly anti-all-advertising, but I've reversed my position lately and enabled non-intrusive advertising in ABP. Basic text-only ads such as Google's are OK, I guess, as long as they don't interfere with the content.
Then again, I run NoScript and I'm probably not going to whitelist doubleclick.net etc.
Second, only the government is interested in you in a personal sense — to Google you're just user number 1,409,0344,744.
Exactly, that's why I don't think Google is nearly as threatening as a lot of people make them out to be. They don't care about your porn brownsing habits, but they're very interested in knowing the broad statistics of which terms people search for most, and which types of ads or links they click when they're buying books or whatever. Not the individual links, but the type of links.
You can also circumvent ads with AdBlock. Google doesn't try to do anything about that (and they easily could, especially on Chrome). In addition, you can make the ads much less effective even without blocking them by opting out of ad personalization and analytics tracking. Google not only doesn't try to stop you from doing that, they provide and maintain tools that specifically enable you to do it.
A good example is the lack of video download extensions with support for Youtube. None exist in the Chrome app store, you have to use external sites such as KeepVid to download Youtube videos, because it's against the app store usage policy. I guess it's probably a demand from content providers or whatever, but it shows that Google can restrict apps and extensions from doing things they don't approve. And yet there's tons of adblocking extensions in the app store, so obviously they don't really mind if people block ads.
I also think Google maybe had a hand in the "acceptable ads" option in Adblock Plus, since most of their ads are simple text and fit the ABP guidelines nicely. They want to show you ads, but to have as many people as possible accept ads, they have to be non-intrusive. And Google's ads are some of the least bad ones out there, for sure.
Adding GApps is just an additional package that you have to add while flashing CM onto your device. All it really is, is one additional download and one additional package transfer after you've put CM on there. My guess is that Google wanted to control the distribution and didn't want to have the GApps bundled directly into a "not officially sanctioned" firmware or whatever. Perhaps it's a licensing issue?
Besides, you don't have to add the GApps, and I think maybe CM prefers it that way. You can easily add alternative appstores like F-Droid and live completely without the GApps.
My ideal endgame is an ad-free world, but that's probably a utopian dream. A little while a go, there was an article about how much each Internet user would have to pay on a yearly basis for all ads, tracking cookes etc. to be eliminated. It was only a couple hundred dollars, I would gladly pay that to be completely free from ads online.
If advertising on a site starts getting too intrusive or annoying, I stop using that site, simple as that. Mind you, they'd have to get through Adblock, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, Noscript and Flashblock first. I see more than enough ads in the real world despite throwing my TV away years ago. It's my web browser and my eyes, I choose what I want to see.
I subscribe to a number of sites already, I don't see the problem with charging a fair amount for your services. Paying customers expect higher quality and are generally much better at giving feedback to site operators, a mutually beneficial setup. I also pay for services like Lastpass and Xmarks because while they offer something I could implement myself using Keypass, Google Drive and a host of plugins for my browsers, they make the whole process streamlined and easy to work with.
These stuff never will replace a real pc for work unless you brag about google vs apple ot surf pages made for tablets or phones..
Of course not, and they're not meant to. They're limited-input devices made primarily for receiving and consuming media, they're not meant for content creation, and the available tools for creating content are limited and usually simplistic in nature. They're meant for quick changes and fix-ups, not for full-on usage as the only tool for a job.
My private phone is Android (Cyanogenmod), my work phone is Android, I used to own an Android tablet and I currently own an iPad Air that I got from a work-related course I'm taking. It would suck trying to do every part of my job on either of them, and I would hate to try it. But they're great for reading the news or catching up on mail while I'm on the bus, that sort of thing. I have a perfectly serviceable laptop, but when I need to check something, it's so much faster to just pull out my phone and look it up. Not to mention having Google Maps available at a whim, mapping really is the killer app for mobile devices.
As for the tablets, I usually bring it along to meetings etc. instead of lugging along the laptop. That way, I can quickly re-check previous mails if a specific subject comes up, or I can jot down quick notes with drawings and maybe show them on a projector if needed. With laptops, people have a tendency to almost hide behind the screens, a tablet is much more like an old-fashioned notepad in that you're not isolating yourself from the rest of the participants.
Allowing carriers to nerf operating system functionality is as unacceptable as allowing your ISP to nerf your computer when you use the Internet yet they are still getting away with it.
The absolute worst is when carriers disable tethering or hide it behind a tethering plan at extortionate prices. They have absolutely no reason to care whether the traffic coming through my phone originated from the phone or from my PC. If my subscription allows me 5GB of data traffic per month, it should not matter one bit which device it is used for.
Putting the Play Store icon right on the default home screen is a very sensible move. Smartphone equals apps, and people don't want to hunt around for the app store.
At least all of the other stuff is in a single folder that's easy to remove from the home screen. I know the apps are still installed, but maybe I'm just getting older and less reactionary, because I don't really care about the 200MB or so they take up. I haven't even come close to running out of space on an Android device yet.
That's how the Google apps appear at first when installed along with Cyanogenmod. An icon for the Play Store, and then everything else in a folder, which is just one swipe to remove from the home screen. Personally, I think at least putting the Play Store icon pretty much front and center is a good idea. Smartphone users want apps, and the first thing they do when they get a new phone is install all of their favorites.
android as shipped on virtually all devices is a closed ecosystem, windows is not. windows users have choice of program to run and dont have to jump through hoops to do so, most android devices require rooting or other tricks to run apps not sanctioned by google... and some jurisdictions consider rooting a mobile device to be illegally breaking its drm.
You can install any.apk package that you want, if it's not "sanctioned by Google", you get a message that you have to enable installation of packages from unknown sources. It's a single checkbox to enable it. Of course, the alternative app stores aren't available in the Play Store, but they're just.apk files like any other Android app, and easy to download and install. So you have security with an official app store for the common user, and flexibility with alternative app stores for the power users. Hell, there's even an app now for installing Cyanogenmod, and it's super easy to use.
The only hoop to jump through is a single checkbox. That's how the stock Samsung firmware was in my Galaxy S4 Mini, and that's how it is in Cyanogenmod as well. Then you can scan all the QR codes you want, and download and install any third-party apps. The official Humble Bundle app sort of functions as an alternate app store for games/ebooks/music you've bought, and that's actually available on the Play Store, despite offering an alternate "store" for games already on the Play Store.
The illegality of rooting a device is a legislative problem, not a Google/Android problem.
Actually, it is in fact my decision to make, both because of seniority, because I know the systems best, and because we finally (FINALLY!) have a collection of managers that aren't completely clueless.
If you are not allowed to influence your own tasks, I suggest you find better employment.
Didn't I just specifically mention that the only reasonable way to have mailing lists is for people to subscribe and unsubscribe themselves?
Unfortunately, if you've ever worked closely with anyone in management at a larger company, you would know that even this "ideal" solution is doomed to fail. Managers in general cannot be bothered to "do all that technical stuff" and will always ask some underling to do it for them.
They only understand powerpoint presentations made specifically to their individual needs and whims, with plenty of colorful graphs. They're a bit like overgrown babies, actually.
Because managing a mailing list for each individual report is bullshit work, a waste of time that can and should be avoided. The managers in question can either set up and manage their own mailing lists, or log into a dashboard that remembers their custom view settings. They can even have the dashboard mail a copy once a week, but they have to check the boxes themselves. It's pull versus push reports.
The first option is never ever going to happen, no manager can be bothered to maintain mailing lists. The second option for the custom dashboard is the best solution, because it gives the managers the customized views they want, without the time-wasting activity of maintaining mailing lists and custom reports. It's a matter of 30 minutes spent once for the manager to set up a dashboard filter, compared to hours wasted every week maintaining mailing lists and custom reports. If they can't figure that out, they're not fit to manage other people.
I've been doing monitoring and reporting for the last 7 years, I know all of this from experience. Report mailing lists turn into uncontrollable messes quick, but a simple webpage where people can choose for themselves exactly which info they want and/or see them on a dashboard is the only sensible solution. Mailed reports are fine, as long as nobody has to waste time managing the mailing lists.
Before I bought my current phone (Samsung GS4 Mini), I specifically checked for CyanogenMod etc. support. It's just received the update to 4.4, but it's very likely that no more official updates are coming from Samsung's hand, since they're probably focusing on the S5 generation and beyond.
I really didn't want to add to the semi-monoculture of Samsung-made Android phones, but it was objectively the best choice compared to the competition. It has 1.5GB RAM instead of 1GB, a user-replaceable battery, perfect size, known-good build quality, CyanogenMod compatibility and so on, plus it was on half-off sale with no plan attached at a local electronics chain store. But the CM compatibility was the biggest factor.
I'm still using my 2003-vintage T42 that I bought way back then for school usage. It's been lugged all over Europe and has lived up to countless software experiments including running at full tilt in my backpack because my suspend scripts were messed up. Didn't even phase it one bit, though it was seriously burning hot when I pulled it out.
Best piece of hardware I have ever spent money on.
Not hating at all, you gotta admire the sheer bullheadedness that Apple sometimes displays.
"No ones done this before because it was too hard/complicated/expensive? Fuck that shit, we're Apple and we're doing it!"
Sometimes it doesn't pay off, but usually it does, and Apple products are at a price level where they can afford to use unconventional solutions if they see a benefit. If there's no benefit (sapphire screens for iPhones), they'll drop it again.
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Actually, I have one specific use case where ALSA doesn't provide needed functionality, and JACK is massively overkill for the task.
Some sound cards such as the ASUS Xonar DG do not have built-in volume controls. They rely 100% on the driver or OS sound subsystem to control volume. This obviously isn't a problem if you're just feeding the output into an external amplifier, but sometimes you want to plug headphones directly into your PC, especially considering how the Xonar DG specifically has a built-in high-quality headphone amplifier.
ALSA does not provide a volume control directly for this sound card, there is no way for you to turn down the volume from 100%. But PulseAudio does, and that was my reason for switching to PA, even before it was made effectively mandatory.
Did you ever stop to think why all of the top 10 Linux distributions are using systemd? Could it be because it's actually useful and serves its purpose well?
In other words, you have no rational arguments and can't be bothered to do anything other than sling mud. Brilliant.
FWIW, I'm using networkmanager, pulseaudio and systemd on my Arch system and they're working beautifully.
In Europe they put on their blinker towards the median side rather than obnoxiously flashing their high beams to remind people in front to vacate the fast lane. Very civilized. This also lets the driver behind you know you'd pass the guy if you could.
Haha no. People flash their high beams like mad if they think you're not moving fast enough. They also put on the blinker, but the high beams come first.
I'd like to know your source for the information that all of the GApps run as root, because if that were true, it would be a MASSIVE security hole. Somehow I doubt Google would be that stupid ;-)
I used to be very staunchly anti-all-advertising, but I've reversed my position lately and enabled non-intrusive advertising in ABP. Basic text-only ads such as Google's are OK, I guess, as long as they don't interfere with the content.
Then again, I run NoScript and I'm probably not going to whitelist doubleclick.net etc.
And Amazon is better than Google how exactly?
Second, only the government is interested in you in a personal sense — to Google you're just user number 1,409,0344,744.
Exactly, that's why I don't think Google is nearly as threatening as a lot of people make them out to be. They don't care about your porn brownsing habits, but they're very interested in knowing the broad statistics of which terms people search for most, and which types of ads or links they click when they're buying books or whatever. Not the individual links, but the type of links.
You can also circumvent ads with AdBlock. Google doesn't try to do anything about that (and they easily could, especially on Chrome). In addition, you can make the ads much less effective even without blocking them by opting out of ad personalization and analytics tracking. Google not only doesn't try to stop you from doing that, they provide and maintain tools that specifically enable you to do it.
A good example is the lack of video download extensions with support for Youtube. None exist in the Chrome app store, you have to use external sites such as KeepVid to download Youtube videos, because it's against the app store usage policy. I guess it's probably a demand from content providers or whatever, but it shows that Google can restrict apps and extensions from doing things they don't approve. And yet there's tons of adblocking extensions in the app store, so obviously they don't really mind if people block ads.
I also think Google maybe had a hand in the "acceptable ads" option in Adblock Plus, since most of their ads are simple text and fit the ABP guidelines nicely. They want to show you ads, but to have as many people as possible accept ads, they have to be non-intrusive. And Google's ads are some of the least bad ones out there, for sure.
Adding GApps is just an additional package that you have to add while flashing CM onto your device. All it really is, is one additional download and one additional package transfer after you've put CM on there. My guess is that Google wanted to control the distribution and didn't want to have the GApps bundled directly into a "not officially sanctioned" firmware or whatever. Perhaps it's a licensing issue?
Besides, you don't have to add the GApps, and I think maybe CM prefers it that way. You can easily add alternative appstores like F-Droid and live completely without the GApps.
My ideal endgame is an ad-free world, but that's probably a utopian dream. A little while a go, there was an article about how much each Internet user would have to pay on a yearly basis for all ads, tracking cookes etc. to be eliminated. It was only a couple hundred dollars, I would gladly pay that to be completely free from ads online.
If advertising on a site starts getting too intrusive or annoying, I stop using that site, simple as that. Mind you, they'd have to get through Adblock, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, Noscript and Flashblock first. I see more than enough ads in the real world despite throwing my TV away years ago. It's my web browser and my eyes, I choose what I want to see.
I subscribe to a number of sites already, I don't see the problem with charging a fair amount for your services. Paying customers expect higher quality and are generally much better at giving feedback to site operators, a mutually beneficial setup. I also pay for services like Lastpass and Xmarks because while they offer something I could implement myself using Keypass, Google Drive and a host of plugins for my browsers, they make the whole process streamlined and easy to work with.
These stuff never will replace a real pc for work unless you brag about google vs apple ot surf pages made for tablets or phones..
Of course not, and they're not meant to. They're limited-input devices made primarily for receiving and consuming media, they're not meant for content creation, and the available tools for creating content are limited and usually simplistic in nature. They're meant for quick changes and fix-ups, not for full-on usage as the only tool for a job.
My private phone is Android (Cyanogenmod), my work phone is Android, I used to own an Android tablet and I currently own an iPad Air that I got from a work-related course I'm taking. It would suck trying to do every part of my job on either of them, and I would hate to try it. But they're great for reading the news or catching up on mail while I'm on the bus, that sort of thing. I have a perfectly serviceable laptop, but when I need to check something, it's so much faster to just pull out my phone and look it up. Not to mention having Google Maps available at a whim, mapping really is the killer app for mobile devices.
As for the tablets, I usually bring it along to meetings etc. instead of lugging along the laptop. That way, I can quickly re-check previous mails if a specific subject comes up, or I can jot down quick notes with drawings and maybe show them on a projector if needed. With laptops, people have a tendency to almost hide behind the screens, a tablet is much more like an old-fashioned notepad in that you're not isolating yourself from the rest of the participants.
Allowing carriers to nerf operating system functionality is as unacceptable as allowing your ISP to nerf your computer when you use the Internet yet they are still getting away with it.
The absolute worst is when carriers disable tethering or hide it behind a tethering plan at extortionate prices. They have absolutely no reason to care whether the traffic coming through my phone originated from the phone or from my PC. If my subscription allows me 5GB of data traffic per month, it should not matter one bit which device it is used for.
Putting the Play Store icon right on the default home screen is a very sensible move. Smartphone equals apps, and people don't want to hunt around for the app store.
At least all of the other stuff is in a single folder that's easy to remove from the home screen. I know the apps are still installed, but maybe I'm just getting older and less reactionary, because I don't really care about the 200MB or so they take up. I haven't even come close to running out of space on an Android device yet.
That's how the Google apps appear at first when installed along with Cyanogenmod. An icon for the Play Store, and then everything else in a folder, which is just one swipe to remove from the home screen. Personally, I think at least putting the Play Store icon pretty much front and center is a good idea. Smartphone users want apps, and the first thing they do when they get a new phone is install all of their favorites.
android as shipped on virtually all devices is a closed ecosystem, windows is not. windows users have choice of program to run and dont have to jump through hoops to do so, most android devices require rooting or other tricks to run apps not sanctioned by google... and some jurisdictions consider rooting a mobile device to be illegally breaking its drm.
You can install any .apk package that you want, if it's not "sanctioned by Google", you get a message that you have to enable installation of packages from unknown sources. It's a single checkbox to enable it. Of course, the alternative app stores aren't available in the Play Store, but they're just .apk files like any other Android app, and easy to download and install. So you have security with an official app store for the common user, and flexibility with alternative app stores for the power users. Hell, there's even an app now for installing Cyanogenmod, and it's super easy to use.
The only hoop to jump through is a single checkbox. That's how the stock Samsung firmware was in my Galaxy S4 Mini, and that's how it is in Cyanogenmod as well. Then you can scan all the QR codes you want, and download and install any third-party apps. The official Humble Bundle app sort of functions as an alternate app store for games/ebooks/music you've bought, and that's actually available on the Play Store, despite offering an alternate "store" for games already on the Play Store.
The illegality of rooting a device is a legislative problem, not a Google/Android problem.
Blocking all ads, on the other hand, gives them no incentive to change.
Good. Let the dinosaurs die in peace.
Actually, it is in fact my decision to make, both because of seniority, because I know the systems best, and because we finally (FINALLY!) have a collection of managers that aren't completely clueless.
If you are not allowed to influence your own tasks, I suggest you find better employment.
Didn't I just specifically mention that the only reasonable way to have mailing lists is for people to subscribe and unsubscribe themselves?
Unfortunately, if you've ever worked closely with anyone in management at a larger company, you would know that even this "ideal" solution is doomed to fail. Managers in general cannot be bothered to "do all that technical stuff" and will always ask some underling to do it for them.
They only understand powerpoint presentations made specifically to their individual needs and whims, with plenty of colorful graphs. They're a bit like overgrown babies, actually.
Because managing a mailing list for each individual report is bullshit work, a waste of time that can and should be avoided. The managers in question can either set up and manage their own mailing lists, or log into a dashboard that remembers their custom view settings. They can even have the dashboard mail a copy once a week, but they have to check the boxes themselves. It's pull versus push reports.
The first option is never ever going to happen, no manager can be bothered to maintain mailing lists. The second option for the custom dashboard is the best solution, because it gives the managers the customized views they want, without the time-wasting activity of maintaining mailing lists and custom reports. It's a matter of 30 minutes spent once for the manager to set up a dashboard filter, compared to hours wasted every week maintaining mailing lists and custom reports. If they can't figure that out, they're not fit to manage other people.
I've been doing monitoring and reporting for the last 7 years, I know all of this from experience. Report mailing lists turn into uncontrollable messes quick, but a simple webpage where people can choose for themselves exactly which info they want and/or see them on a dashboard is the only sensible solution. Mailed reports are fine, as long as nobody has to waste time managing the mailing lists.
Before I bought my current phone (Samsung GS4 Mini), I specifically checked for CyanogenMod etc. support. It's just received the update to 4.4, but it's very likely that no more official updates are coming from Samsung's hand, since they're probably focusing on the S5 generation and beyond.
I really didn't want to add to the semi-monoculture of Samsung-made Android phones, but it was objectively the best choice compared to the competition. It has 1.5GB RAM instead of 1GB, a user-replaceable battery, perfect size, known-good build quality, CyanogenMod compatibility and so on, plus it was on half-off sale with no plan attached at a local electronics chain store. But the CM compatibility was the biggest factor.
A previous poster already corrected me on this, they were (are?) indeed magnesium.
Stodgy oldschool design, but probably the best laptops ever made.
Thanks for the clarification, I didn't know it was split like that.
That makes sense for cost reasons, actually.
I'm still using my 2003-vintage T42 that I bought way back then for school usage. It's been lugged all over Europe and has lived up to countless software experiments including running at full tilt in my backpack because my suspend scripts were messed up. Didn't even phase it one bit, though it was seriously burning hot when I pulled it out.
Best piece of hardware I have ever spent money on.
Not hating at all, you gotta admire the sheer bullheadedness that Apple sometimes displays.
"No ones done this before because it was too hard/complicated/expensive? Fuck that shit, we're Apple and we're doing it!"
Sometimes it doesn't pay off, but usually it does, and Apple products are at a price level where they can afford to use unconventional solutions if they see a benefit. If there's no benefit (sapphire screens for iPhones), they'll drop it again.