...Or are you suggesting that Android users will just forgo the use of an application with the hopes of one day it appearing in the "free app days" listing?
If that's the case, it just reinforces the assertion that Android users will not pay for software (though I don't necessarily think it's to that extreme), and that this is an Android-specific phenomenon. There are plenty of free apps in the Apple App Store, yet people still buy the pricey ones.
-dZ.
Well, as I said in my original post, the majority of what's offered as the free app of the day on Amazon is games. I'm not a gamer and don't use my tablet for games (not to mention that's it's just not powerful enough top run most of the newer games), so I'm not willing to pay for them. I'm willing to download them for free and try them, though. I'm doubly interested when I see a productivity/utility app offered for free.
I suspect I'm not alone, but who knows. Do most Android users use their tablets/phones primarily for games?
I have a Chinese knock-off tablet and don't have direct access to Android Market, but I use Amazon's app market all the time.
They offer a free app every day and most of the free offerings are games. There have been some really good non-game apps offered for free too, though - Quick Office and Printer Share are two that come to mind that have recently been offered for free. I'm not surprised that games come out on top (although I suspect Apple's market also is dominated by game downloads).
With a free app a day, why wouldn't someone download it? It's free and once it's been downloaded, Amazon keeps track of what you've downloaded and you can re-download those same free apps at any time. I do it almost every day, whether I use the app or not. I'm actually surprised that developers haven't complained to Amazon about it enough for them to stop allowing re-downloading.
Sites like odesk and elance are the quickest way to devalue yourself, your work, and your future.
Can't speak for odesk or elance, but I have used a couple translation job sites out there. Yes, most of the users complain about the downward spiral of rates.
Here's the thing: I guess I was lucky enough to join these sites before they became massively known and, as such, got a lot of good contacts out of them. The trick is in not looking at the posted jobs, rather, making sure all those contacts you've spent years building up know where to look for a freelancer in the first place and bypass the job-posting system altogether.
I don't experience any devaluation of my service. It's the new kids that don't know any better that are suffering.
That, or he actually likes using his iPad for work, and decided to provide a counter-example to all the nerds who keep crying that iPads are only for consumption.
Maybe, but I doubt it. This isn't the first blog to show how an iPad can be used for creation purposes, while ironically turning it into a netbook by using an external keyboard.
Nerds crying that iPads are only for consumption are doing so precisely because of blogs like the author's proving that you need a keyboard to make an iPad useful to do any sort of content creation.
I have yet to see any blog or article claiming the iPad is fabulous at content creation without a keyboard.
It's pretty clear he didn't get anywhere productive until he bought the ZaggFolio keyboard/case. He brings it up as a central point several times.
Other than that, he states "This hasn’t been one of those experiments-for-the-sake-of-experimentation in which someone temporarily forsakes a PC for another device in order to write about the experience". Of course not. He had to justify his purchase (to himself, I suppose). Why else would he devote a blog post to "Hey look! I can write and take pictures with an iPad!"
He could just as easily written about blogging/taking pictures and emailing them to himself on a phone - because he bought an external keyboard.
I know this is slashdot, but can you at least read the summary?
He's not there to get back to nature and disconnect. He's WINTERING there. - a place that he's already configured once for WiFi three years ago and now he wants to upgrade everything.
Unity is Compiz. Super+W works out of the box, try harder.
If Compiz worked with the latest version of Ubuntu, then sure. But it doesn't. It crashes every half hour (or more) on me, so I had to downgrade to an earlier version of Compiz. So Unity doesn't work. If you do a search for "Ubuntu 11.10 (or Ubuntu 11.04) and Compiz crashes" and you'll see it's not an isolated problem either.
I typically have 30+ task buttons on my Windows taskbar. OS X's Expose would just be slower for me - would take more steps to switch from one window to a specific window. Yes it does it more stylishly, but no thanks;).
I'm not surprised if many OSS developers/users are using Macs. The "Desktop Linux" developers often seem like they're sabotaging "Desktop Linux" with PulseAudio and other crap. To those who will reply "It Works For Me", hey the rest of the world says Windows and OS X works for them, and OS X's market share has grown way more than Desktop Linux has in a shorter space of time.
I'm very much a keyboard kinda guy. Two of the most useful features of any Linux desktop I use (currently Gnome 2.x and Compiz) are [Super]A and [Super]W to get an overview of everything I have running and switch to, if need be much like you would with a Mac. I suppose I could also just cycle through [Alt]TAB as you would on Windows, but that seems cumbersome to me.
You're right about Desktop Linux getting sabotaged: Gnome3 and Unity purposefully seem to restrict the way I work. Sadly with the current course of Gnome3/Unity, I'll probably end up using XFCE. It's not bad, but nowhere near as useful as Gnome2/Compiz (yes, I know Compiz can be made to work with XFCE, but it's sort of buggy.)
I can't remember the last time I had to go to sourceforge for anything. Everything I have needed is usually already in my distribution's repositories, or another easily addable third party repository.
Macs (or Windows, for that matter) don't have any sort of repository, do they?
And everyone hates receiving... You've spent $20 to give them $20, but you've tied their hands about where they can spend it. There's nothing more infuriating than a giftcard for a store which doesn't sell anything you want.
(upshot: give cash)
I don't have that many relatives left, but they know that an Amazon.com gift card is always appreciated by me, so that's what I usually get. Frankly, that's probably the perfect gift for me.
I've been on Ubuntu for some time now, but with 11.04 and 11.10, it's not been as stable as I'd like.
Plus, the last time I used JAD 1.0 (based on Suse) it was rock solid. Anybody know the specifics of what's installed besides desktop environs? That seems to be all they've listed at their site.
Try Genial Writing. It does one thing, but does it well: hand-written notes. It won't do recognition and convert your notes to searchable text, but you can save your notes as PDFs which you then can import into an OCR program if you need recognition.
It's the only piece of software I've found for Android that runs on low-end hardware, provides for separate notebooks and allows for multi-fullpage notes.
Oh, FFS. Do you work for Slashdot? This guy worked for Phonedog when he set up his twitter account. There was at the very least an implicit understanding that it was related: it contains the company name and he created it while employed by Phonedog.
Or how about a representative democracy, where the decisions are made by people who can judge whether their constituents' recommendations are being made from reason or reaction, and can choose to follow or reject those recommendations appropriately?
A representative democracy is something I really believe would work, if that is what we had. But we don't. We have representatives on both sides of the isle that take their orders from lobbying groups and turn deaf and dumb to their constituents. Corporate puppets, all of them.
Get rid of special interests and maybe we can get to what this country was supposed to be. Notice I didn't say "get back to...". I have no idea what the beginnings of this country were like, but in my50 years, it's always been about the special interests.
Until this last release of Ubuntu, any problems I had with it were hardware-related. With this latest release, it comes down to software. The version of compiz included with the latest Ubuntu crashed so much I had to move back to a previous version, meaning I couldn't get Unity to work. I would actually like to try Unity, but hard crashes every couple hours (due compiz) will keep me from doing so. Yeah, I could try Unity2D/metacity, but what's the point in that? Compiz gives me things metacity will never give me: [super]A and [super]W to name a couple.
The one remaining hardware problem I have is a biggie for me: Broadcom 4313 support. I have yet to figure out how to use the card for hostapd. The included STA drivers work fine for simple access, but it's really silly that I can't put the card into Master mode, considering it's perfectly capable of doing so.
As far as Mint goes, that wouldn't fix my problem either - as I understand it, it's just Ubuntu with Gnome3 customizations.
Trados Studio 2009. I hate the program, but some clients want it. On the Linux side I use Heartsome Studio and actually prefer it, but the client wins out.
As for pro audio, I've actually had really good luck with Rosegarden and Wineasio. I'm able to run all my VSTs that I spent gobs of money on.
I sometimes have to use a single program only written for Windows and no other platform. I don't use it often, but when it's needed, there's no substitute. Actually, there are a couple substitutes that work for me - and I've used them in Linux (one commercial and one free), but sometimes a client needs this specific format and won't accept any other format, even though there's a perfectly good cross-platform exchange format.
That said, Windows 7 isn't bad to work with. I'm still mostly Ubuntu, booting to W7 maybe once every couple weeks or so, but I'm no longer frustrated with Windows like I used to be. On the other hand, Ubuntu's starting to frustrate me. This last upgrade was the first Ubuntu version to really give me trouble.
Probably because 9/11 in all actuality was only a threat to a ludicrously, miniscule number of people compared to say... the rest of the country. I wouldn't be surprised if 98% of the country wasn't even slightly, remotely affected by it (ignoring the after side-effects of the shredding of the constitution and soforth).
Really?
Is that why pretty much every major city in the US with a bridge or tall building peed themselves and put their respective cities in some sort of watch/lockdown combination?
A tablet with keyboard dock loses that advantage, so you'd rather take a laptop with you, or leave the keyboard dock behind.
Why would that lose any advantage? You have a dock you use sitting at a desk or whatever, and use the onscreen keyboard while you tote tthe tablet around away from the dock,
It's not an either/or situation. Personally, I love the idea of something that versatile.
Not to mention that Ubuntu dropped GIMP from the default installation.
Apparently AC missed the Mono connection.
Honestly, if Banshee had worked better for me, I would be using that instead of Rhythmbox, but it crashed often. It makes no difference to me whether Mono is used or not in that particular application.
The original post questioned why there was a need for Mono at all. I gave Tomboy as an example, because it does something that the non-mono Gnote can't do. If there were a non-mono note-taking application that let me sync, use on other platforms (Win, Android (albeit read-only) and web), and more importantly had the ability to import my thousands of already-created notes, I might use that. But as sit stands, I need Mono because that's a requirement of Tomboy.
Slashdot Mirror
...Or are you suggesting that Android users will just forgo the use of an application with the hopes of one day it appearing in the "free app days" listing?
If that's the case, it just reinforces the assertion that Android users will not pay for software (though I don't necessarily think it's to that extreme), and that this is an Android-specific phenomenon. There are plenty of free apps in the Apple App Store, yet people still buy the pricey ones.
-dZ.
Well, as I said in my original post, the majority of what's offered as the free app of the day on Amazon is games. I'm not a gamer and don't use my tablet for games (not to mention that's it's just not powerful enough top run most of the newer games), so I'm not willing to pay for them. I'm willing to download them for free and try them, though. I'm doubly interested when I see a productivity/utility app offered for free.
I suspect I'm not alone, but who knows. Do most Android users use their tablets/phones primarily for games?
They offer a free app every day and most of the free offerings are games. There have been some really good non-game apps offered for free too, though - Quick Office and Printer Share are two that come to mind that have recently been offered for free. I'm not surprised that games come out on top (although I suspect Apple's market also is dominated by game downloads).
With a free app a day, why wouldn't someone download it? It's free and once it's been downloaded, Amazon keeps track of what you've downloaded and you can re-download those same free apps at any time. I do it almost every day, whether I use the app or not. I'm actually surprised that developers haven't complained to Amazon about it enough for them to stop allowing re-downloading.
Sites like odesk and elance are the quickest way to devalue yourself, your work, and your future.
Can't speak for odesk or elance, but I have used a couple translation job sites out there. Yes, most of the users complain about the downward spiral of rates.
Here's the thing: I guess I was lucky enough to join these sites before they became massively known and, as such, got a lot of good contacts out of them. The trick is in not looking at the posted jobs, rather, making sure all those contacts you've spent years building up know where to look for a freelancer in the first place and bypass the job-posting system altogether.
I don't experience any devaluation of my service. It's the new kids that don't know any better that are suffering.
That, or he actually likes using his iPad for work, and decided to provide a counter-example to all the nerds who keep crying that iPads are only for consumption.
Maybe, but I doubt it. This isn't the first blog to show how an iPad can be used for creation purposes, while ironically turning it into a netbook by using an external keyboard.
Nerds crying that iPads are only for consumption are doing so precisely because of blogs like the author's proving that you need a keyboard to make an iPad useful to do any sort of content creation.
I have yet to see any blog or article claiming the iPad is fabulous at content creation without a keyboard.
Other than that, he states "This hasn’t been one of those experiments-for-the-sake-of-experimentation in which someone temporarily forsakes a PC for another device in order to write about the experience". Of course not. He had to justify his purchase (to himself, I suppose). Why else would he devote a blog post to "Hey look! I can write and take pictures with an iPad!"
He could just as easily written about blogging/taking pictures and emailing them to himself on a phone - because he bought an external keyboard.
Anyway, on my fairly low-end AO D257 (atom-based), I get 20 second boot times to a usable desktop for both Ubuntu and Win 7.
I don't really get the obsession with sub-10 second boot times (or whatever you deem is "fast").
He's not there to get back to nature and disconnect. He's WINTERING there. - a place that he's already configured once for WiFi three years ago and now he wants to upgrade everything.
Unity is Compiz. Super+W works out of the box, try harder.
If Compiz worked with the latest version of Ubuntu, then sure. But it doesn't. It crashes every half hour (or more) on me, so I had to downgrade to an earlier version of Compiz. So Unity doesn't work. If you do a search for "Ubuntu 11.10 (or Ubuntu 11.04) and Compiz crashes" and you'll see it's not an isolated problem either.
I typically have 30+ task buttons on my Windows taskbar. OS X's Expose would just be slower for me - would take more steps to switch from one window to a specific window. Yes it does it more stylishly, but no thanks ;).
I'm not surprised if many OSS developers/users are using Macs. The "Desktop Linux" developers often seem like they're sabotaging "Desktop Linux" with PulseAudio and other crap. To those who will reply "It Works For Me", hey the rest of the world says Windows and OS X works for them, and OS X's market share has grown way more than Desktop Linux has in a shorter space of time.
I'm very much a keyboard kinda guy. Two of the most useful features of any Linux desktop I use (currently Gnome 2.x and Compiz) are [Super]A and [Super]W to get an overview of everything I have running and switch to, if need be much like you would with a Mac. I suppose I could also just cycle through [Alt]TAB as you would on Windows, but that seems cumbersome to me.
You're right about Desktop Linux getting sabotaged: Gnome3 and Unity purposefully seem to restrict the way I work. Sadly with the current course of Gnome3/Unity, I'll probably end up using XFCE. It's not bad, but nowhere near as useful as Gnome2/Compiz (yes, I know Compiz can be made to work with XFCE, but it's sort of buggy.)
Macs (or Windows, for that matter) don't have any sort of repository, do they?
And everyone hates receiving... You've spent $20 to give them $20, but you've tied their hands about where they can spend it. There's nothing more infuriating than a giftcard for a store which doesn't sell anything you want.
(upshot: give cash)
I don't have that many relatives left, but they know that an Amazon.com gift card is always appreciated by me, so that's what I usually get. Frankly, that's probably the perfect gift for me.
It's not in the main repository, but there is a Rosegarden package in one of the additional repositories - http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/openSUSE_12.1/.
Package search is helpful: http://software.opensuse.org/search?q=rosegarden&baseproject=openSUSE%3A12.1&lang=en&exclude_debug=true
Thanks for that! I was looking under the multimedia section - silly me.
Seriously, thanks.
No Rosegarden in their repository. Bummer. Last time I tried to install it from source it was a total PITA.
Plus, the last time I used JAD 1.0 (based on Suse) it was rock solid. Anybody know the specifics of what's installed besides desktop environs? That seems to be all they've listed at their site.
It's the only piece of software I've found for Android that runs on low-end hardware, provides for separate notebooks and allows for multi-fullpage notes.
Oh, FFS. Do you work for Slashdot? This guy worked for Phonedog when he set up his twitter account. There was at the very least an implicit understanding that it was related: it contains the company name and he created it while employed by Phonedog.
Or how about a representative democracy, where the decisions are made by people who can judge whether their constituents' recommendations are being made from reason or reaction, and can choose to follow or reject those recommendations appropriately?
A representative democracy is something I really believe would work, if that is what we had. But we don't. We have representatives on both sides of the isle that take their orders from lobbying groups and turn deaf and dumb to their constituents. Corporate puppets, all of them.
Get rid of special interests and maybe we can get to what this country was supposed to be. Notice I didn't say "get back to...". I have no idea what the beginnings of this country were like, but in my50 years, it's always been about the special interests.
The one remaining hardware problem I have is a biggie for me: Broadcom 4313 support. I have yet to figure out how to use the card for hostapd. The included STA drivers work fine for simple access, but it's really silly that I can't put the card into Master mode, considering it's perfectly capable of doing so.
As far as Mint goes, that wouldn't fix my problem either - as I understand it, it's just Ubuntu with Gnome3 customizations.
Trados Studio 2009. I hate the program, but some clients want it. On the Linux side I use Heartsome Studio and actually prefer it, but the client wins out.
As for pro audio, I've actually had really good luck with Rosegarden and Wineasio. I'm able to run all my VSTs that I spent gobs of money on.
That said, the media coverage did a better job than any emergency alert system ever could have done.
That said, Windows 7 isn't bad to work with. I'm still mostly Ubuntu, booting to W7 maybe once every couple weeks or so, but I'm no longer frustrated with Windows like I used to be. On the other hand, Ubuntu's starting to frustrate me. This last upgrade was the first Ubuntu version to really give me trouble.
Probably because 9/11 in all actuality was only a threat to a ludicrously, miniscule number of people compared to say... the rest of the country. I wouldn't be surprised if 98% of the country wasn't even slightly, remotely affected by it (ignoring the after side-effects of the shredding of the constitution and soforth).
Really?
Is that why pretty much every major city in the US with a bridge or tall building peed themselves and put their respective cities in some sort of watch/lockdown combination?
A tablet with keyboard dock loses that advantage, so you'd rather take a laptop with you, or leave the keyboard dock behind.
Why would that lose any advantage? You have a dock you use sitting at a desk or whatever, and use the onscreen keyboard while you tote tthe tablet around away from the dock,
It's not an either/or situation. Personally, I love the idea of something that versatile.
Not to mention that Ubuntu dropped GIMP from the default installation.
Apparently AC missed the Mono connection.
Honestly, if Banshee had worked better for me, I would be using that instead of Rhythmbox, but it crashed often. It makes no difference to me whether Mono is used or not in that particular application.
The original post questioned why there was a need for Mono at all. I gave Tomboy as an example, because it does something that the non-mono Gnote can't do. If there were a non-mono note-taking application that let me sync, use on other platforms (Win, Android (albeit read-only) and web), and more importantly had the ability to import my thousands of already-created notes, I might use that. But as sit stands, I need Mono because that's a requirement of Tomboy.
To my knowledge, Gnote doesn't do sync like Tomboy does.