All reasons why Nokia scored highest on my list, even if I don't care for them much myself.
And I forgot to put Google in there, but my intended spot for them was to be tied with Apple, i.e. they've done some great things for openness in the past, but some pretty shady stuff lately. I hope they didn't actually steal anything from Oracle, and my gut feeling is it's a BS lawsuit. Still, it wouldn't be the first time they've done something boneheaded and tried to appear ignorant and innocent.
"The Allied forces would be Facebook, Apple, Microsoft Canonical is the neutral"
Have you been asleep for the past two years? I'd lump Facebook squarely in with the underhanded ones (or at the very least make them Switzerland) due to their total lack of regard for their users' privacy and safety. And how can Oracle and Google be in the same Axis of Evil if they are fighting?
I think instead of World War II analogies, we should put up a "Hot or Not" type scale with 0 being Totally Evil and Against Users, and 10 being Fluffy Pink Unicorn User Orgy Time. And so:
0: Oracle 1: SCO 2: Facebook 3: Comcast (tied with Sony) 4: Blizzard Entertainment 5: Microsoft 6: Apple 7: IBM 8: HP (they've been getting better) 9: Canonical 10: Nokia
Ok so Nokia isn't quite pink unicorn material, but they are by far less evil than the rest. I don't even like any of their products other than the N900 and I loathe Symbian, but I'm judging them by how they treat their user base, not my personal feelings.
I'm with you. I remember when Honda went from a fully mechanical four-wheel-steering system on the 3rd gen Prelude to an electronically controlled system later in the generation. The electronic system was prone to failure, but the fully mechanical system was rock-solid.
I'm betting on sensationalism. Then again, on the 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee I once owned, when I installed an aftermarket stereo I had to short the now unused CAN-BUS connector to get the car to start. That blew my mind.
As far as I know, here in the US the UMA feature is T-Mobile only. From what I've read about it, AT&T considered and rejected it because it would make their "rollover minutes" feature obsolete. Verizon probably wouldn't like it either, as they make a killing off of overages, and besides it only works on GSM networks.
T-mobile USA is actually one of the last carriers in the world to adopt it; several European and Asian carriers have offered it for a while. It's also mainly a BlackBerry thing here, as the only non-BB phone with the feature is the Nokia N73.
Now, if T-Mobile starts offering UMA on an Android unit, I may just be inspired to switch. Of course, given my luck Oracle's lawsuit may force Google to remotely brick my phone by the time I do switch.
Huh? You're not paying for the right to use the GPS chip, any more than you pay your carrier for the (ahem) "right" to use the audio chip.
I take it you've never been a victim...errr, customer of Verizon. My dad has them, and he actually has to pay an extra monthly fee to be able to move pictures and video from his phone to his computer. It's the craziest shit I've ever seen. I don't care if they have better coverage than T-Mobile, at least I'm on a carrier that gives me complete control over what I do with my phone.
This is one of the areas where the BlackBerry's extreme customization really shines. My Curve 8520 allows me to selectively turn on or off the cell radio, wifi and bluetooth in any combination I desire. It also has a one-click global on/off switch, though it's not called "Airplane Mode". This combined with the UMA feature (allowing seamless switching between wifi and GSM for voice calls, and completely free calls if they originate on wifi) is what keeps me from going to Android.
Anyone who is going hunting and camping (as the Asker said his dad would be doing) and doesn't know the basics of direction finding and survival in the wild has no business there, at least without a knowledgeable human guide. That said, many experienced hunters, hikers and campers these days carry GPS units for that extra added layer of security, as well as making it easy to map out a path in new territory.
Personally, I'd ditch the idea of buying a cellphone to "repurpose" it as a standalone GPS unit. Not only is this inefficient and potentially expensive, it's not really repurposing at all. Repurposing is finding a new use for something you already own and no longer use, not buying someone else's old gear and wasting your time and money on a half-assed solution.
In this situation, I'd prefer my dad to have a true GPS unit that is weather resistant, has long battery life, and (ideally for a hunter or hiker) topographic maps. A device like that has much more to offer than a used cellphone for perhaps $100 more.
I wanted a simple way to connect an original Xbox controller to my rig to play emulated games, and I knew that the Xbox game port is electrically and logically a USB port. So, I pulled one of the two port harnesses out of a dead Xbox, wired the ports to pin header connectors, and plugged them into the USB headers on my motherboard. The system recognized the controllers I plugged in as USB gamepads, with the help of the Xbox drivers for OS X and Windows (Linux has native support).
I found that the width of the gameport harness was a perfect fit for one of my two 3.5" bays, so I used a couple of self tapping screws to bolt them in place. Now, to use a gamepad I just open the drive door and plug it in. The most fun part for me was learning (via the OS X gamepad control panel) that the ABXY buttons can be switched to analog pressure control, just like the shoulder buttons. (Don't laugh, I'm not a regular Xbox player so I wasn't previously aware of this feature.)
Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm highly disappointed with Obama as well; it really pisses me off that no matter the political party we're going to end up with a shitty president.
And yeah, this steady erosion of our rights has been going on for a long time despite progress made in other areas. For example, these days you don't get detained for being black very often; rather it's how "radical" you are based on what you post or otherwise contribute to on the 'net.
News flash: The Obama administration started in 2008/2009, Bush took our rights in 2001. are you a teenager who doesn't remember that, or were you asleep last decade?
Keep in mind it's not the "one phone call" that you are entitled to as a detained or arrested individual. Take it from someone who worked as a booking officer early in life: Cops are only *required* to let you phone someone if you specifically say you want to call your lawyer. Anyone else -- Mom, Dad, best friend, etc. -- is entirely up to how gracious the detaining officers are.
Speaking of unlawful detainment, didn't you know there is no such thing anymore, at least if the federal government is the entity detaining you? Georgie Bush wiped his ass with the Due Process and Habeas Corpus parts of the law, remember?
In your situation, I'd recommend a kit car project from one of the more reputable kit car companies. You start with a 70's era VW Beetle chassis and engine (or, if you can afford it, a 90's era Mexican VW Beetle chassis -- less rust and wear). You fix anything broken on the engine, using a good, accurate repair guide. Then, using the instructions in the kit, you put the car together, testing and calibrating after each step.
Once you've got all the under-the-hood stuff done, you can work on the body and getting it looking good. After that, a final detailed inspection and testing phase will make sure it is road-worthy. Once this is accomplished, you can get it registered with the proper authority and put it into service as a working vehicle.
Optional: You can learn how turbochargers, aggressive suspension and other performance-enhancing technologies work, and apply to your original car or a subsequent car to really amp up your speed and handling.
Your first car will take several weeks or perhaps months from start to finish; you will be learning as you go along. If you decide to continue building cars past meeting your initial needs, you will find the process will be much smoother and take much less time, even if the next project is a different kind of car altogether.
--
Now, replace references to learning mechanical skills with learning a programming language, via starting with an existing small open source project. Who says car-computer analogies aren't accurate?
Many of the TFA's "assertions" of "Japanese simplicity" fall apart when the sites are translated into English text.
Exactly. My bullshit-o-meter went off as I read the summary, and upon visiting each site I clicked the "English" link and saw a perfectly acceptable layout for a government or business website. I think the author is put off by the Japanese written language more than anything; by necessity it requires use of a lot of what would otherwise be white space on an English-language page.
Certified hardware?? Hell I may as well buy a Mac then, isn't Apple the expert on marrying hardware and software after all? I didn't know Canonical was certifying anything; if so please show me the list.
My system is made up of extremely common hardware. It's an AM2+ board with onboard GeForce graphics that has worked flawlessly with Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04. Apart from having to enable the binary-only Nvidia driver, using the above versions of Ubuntu is as good as having a Mac when it comes to hardware support.
However, 9.10 appears to be a huge step backwards. First, the so-called "Grub 2" bootloader is actually Grub 1.97-beta, and instead of booting into my OS it drops me to a grub command prompt. I have to load up the liveCD to fix it. Once in, my wired ethernet adapter won't turn on no matter what I do. Because I have no internet, I have to download the Nvidia driver on another machine and install it manually. It won't install correctly and now X11 won't load unless I use the open source driver. Lest anyone think I'm a clueless newbie, I've been using Linux and BSD since around 2000, mostly FreeBSD, Slackware and Debian. Trust me, I know a bad distro when I see one.
Anyway, at this point I've given up on it. How in the hell does Ubuntu go from a truly flawless OS for three releases to a bug infested nightmare on the same hardware? Who in their right mind would purposely drop support for some of the most common hardware in existence? Who fell asleep at the keyboard over there???
True, but they are paid much more when you buy their hardware, as their OS and software are really just a hook to get you to buy a Mac.
Perhaps they should stop selling OS X as a full standalone product then?
On one hand, I almost wish they would so this issue would just go away. But, that would stop those of us who do like to tinker on our own non-Apple hardware (and so far we've been ignored by Apple). Also it would open the door for Apple to start doing hardware activation checks, which would only be hurtful to their loyal customers.
I don't think Apple has a right to say what piece of hardware you can run OS X on. It's paid for, end of story.
I agree, but unfortunately the law (so far) says it's licensed and not sold, though there was a case involving AutoCAD recently that set a precedent for final ownership of a software product. Perhaps that will come up in this case as prior case law.
When everyone else tries to lock stuff down we scream about how evil and greedy they are. But when it comes to Apple, it's different somehow? Apple is just as greedy and as "evil" as Microsoft. They're out to make money just like everyone else.
They are as greedy, but I honestly don't think either company is "evil". While I'm not religious myself, I've read in the Christian bible that the love of wealth is the root of all evil. Perhaps there is truth in that, but I doubt there is a little demon on Jobs' and Ballmer's shoulders making them do bad things for the fun of it.
As to why Apple isn't attacked nearly as much as Microsoft for being greedy and "evil", well it's all down to perspective. Ask a devoted Apple customer and they will tell you that they get shit from both the Microsofties and the Penguin Army.
My own personal stance towards computers has always been to use the tool that works best for me--replace the word "tool" with "hardware", "software" or "OS" as applicable. While I prefer to use open source and community supported software whenever possible, I'm not an OSS freak by any means. My favorite OSes--I hold them in equal esteem--are BeOS and OS X, both commercial and largely closed source. Sure, I'd love it if Apple opened up OS X to be legally used on commodity hardware, but I won't hold my breath. Their OS is the gateway to their real moneymaker, and they will fight to control that gate for the foreseeable future.
When did I ever say anything was Apple's fault? Improper AAC support is the fault of the various other manufacturers and I never once claimed anything was Apple's fault.
And you're right, no one is forcing me to buy from iTunes, but now that I can get unrestricted AAC (i.e. easily convertible to MP3) on nearly every song in the store, I can add them to my favorite music vendors.
Quite aware. I've owned two different non-Apple MP3 players that played AAC, and my last car's factory radio played them. That was sarcasm, not ignorance. However, this discussion was about people wanting to transcode to MP3 to avoid any possible issues with AAC. Not all AAC-compatible players really work that well with the format. My old Samsung player was hit-or-miss, and my car tended to spit out CDs that mixed MP3 and AAC formats; I had to burn one or the other.
So I say again, as an Apple owner and admirer: Not everyone wants all Apple products and some of us prefer having just one format for our music.
Indeed, not all of us Apple users have iEverything so we can play our AACs everywhere. Hell, my phone has problems with anything other than.mp3 but I wouldn't give it up for an iPhone.
Are you "entitled" to be such an elitist douche? Free OTA analog television is paid for purely by advertising. It has nothing to do with entitlement. The only direct cost to the consumer when OTA goes digital is the converter box. It's still a freely watchable broadcast assuming you have the correct equipment.
Either you are a complete fucking moron who is confusing cable/satellite with OTA programming, or you are a pathetic excuse for a troll. Either way, you fail.
I have AT&T, and they never charged me on my old Treo or this BlackBerry for IMs. I used third party apps though, so I'll watch for text charges on her phone since the IM app is "built in". Thanks for the heads up.
Some of the prepay services here in the US do offer unlimited text/internet/calls for around $50 per month, but if I'm not mistaken most of those are MVNOs that use Sprint's network and Sprint has spotty coverage where I live and work (east of Atlanta, GA). Also, my phone is a BlackBerry and wouldn't work properly with a prepaid phone service anyway.
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All reasons why Nokia scored highest on my list, even if I don't care for them much myself.
And I forgot to put Google in there, but my intended spot for them was to be tied with Apple, i.e. they've done some great things for openness in the past, but some pretty shady stuff lately. I hope they didn't actually steal anything from Oracle, and my gut feeling is it's a BS lawsuit. Still, it wouldn't be the first time they've done something boneheaded and tried to appear ignorant and innocent.
"The Allied forces would be Facebook, Apple, Microsoft Canonical is the neutral"
Have you been asleep for the past two years? I'd lump Facebook squarely in with the underhanded ones (or at the very least make them Switzerland) due to their total lack of regard for their users' privacy and safety. And how can Oracle and Google be in the same Axis of Evil if they are fighting?
I think instead of World War II analogies, we should put up a "Hot or Not" type scale with 0 being Totally Evil and Against Users, and 10 being Fluffy Pink Unicorn User Orgy Time. And so:
0: Oracle
1: SCO
2: Facebook
3: Comcast (tied with Sony)
4: Blizzard Entertainment
5: Microsoft
6: Apple
7: IBM
8: HP (they've been getting better)
9: Canonical
10: Nokia
Ok so Nokia isn't quite pink unicorn material, but they are by far less evil than the rest. I don't even like any of their products other than the N900 and I loathe Symbian, but I'm judging them by how they treat their user base, not my personal feelings.
I'm with you. I remember when Honda went from a fully mechanical four-wheel-steering system on the 3rd gen Prelude to an electronically controlled system later in the generation. The electronic system was prone to failure, but the fully mechanical system was rock-solid.
I'm betting on sensationalism. Then again, on the 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee I once owned, when I installed an aftermarket stereo I had to short the now unused CAN-BUS connector to get the car to start. That blew my mind.
Nice to know about the Android OS, thank you.
As far as I know, here in the US the UMA feature is T-Mobile only. From what I've read about it, AT&T considered and rejected it because it would make their "rollover minutes" feature obsolete. Verizon probably wouldn't like it either, as they make a killing off of overages, and besides it only works on GSM networks.
T-mobile USA is actually one of the last carriers in the world to adopt it; several European and Asian carriers have offered it for a while. It's also mainly a BlackBerry thing here, as the only non-BB phone with the feature is the Nokia N73.
Now, if T-Mobile starts offering UMA on an Android unit, I may just be inspired to switch. Of course, given my luck Oracle's lawsuit may force Google to remotely brick my phone by the time I do switch.
Huh? You're not paying for the right to use the GPS chip, any more than you pay your carrier for the (ahem) "right" to use the audio chip.
I take it you've never been a victim...errr, customer of Verizon. My dad has them, and he actually has to pay an extra monthly fee to be able to move pictures and video from his phone to his computer. It's the craziest shit I've ever seen. I don't care if they have better coverage than T-Mobile, at least I'm on a carrier that gives me complete control over what I do with my phone.
This is one of the areas where the BlackBerry's extreme customization really shines. My Curve 8520 allows me to selectively turn on or off the cell radio, wifi and bluetooth in any combination I desire. It also has a one-click global on/off switch, though it's not called "Airplane Mode". This combined with the UMA feature (allowing seamless switching between wifi and GSM for voice calls, and completely free calls if they originate on wifi) is what keeps me from going to Android.
Anyone who is going hunting and camping (as the Asker said his dad would be doing) and doesn't know the basics of direction finding and survival in the wild has no business there, at least without a knowledgeable human guide. That said, many experienced hunters, hikers and campers these days carry GPS units for that extra added layer of security, as well as making it easy to map out a path in new territory.
Personally, I'd ditch the idea of buying a cellphone to "repurpose" it as a standalone GPS unit. Not only is this inefficient and potentially expensive, it's not really repurposing at all. Repurposing is finding a new use for something you already own and no longer use, not buying someone else's old gear and wasting your time and money on a half-assed solution.
In this situation, I'd prefer my dad to have a true GPS unit that is weather resistant, has long battery life, and (ideally for a hunter or hiker) topographic maps. A device like that has much more to offer than a used cellphone for perhaps $100 more.
I wanted a simple way to connect an original Xbox controller to my rig to play emulated games, and I knew that the Xbox game port is electrically and logically a USB port. So, I pulled one of the two port harnesses out of a dead Xbox, wired the ports to pin header connectors, and plugged them into the USB headers on my motherboard. The system recognized the controllers I plugged in as USB gamepads, with the help of the Xbox drivers for OS X and Windows (Linux has native support).
I found that the width of the gameport harness was a perfect fit for one of my two 3.5" bays, so I used a couple of self tapping screws to bolt them in place. Now, to use a gamepad I just open the drive door and plug it in. The most fun part for me was learning (via the OS X gamepad control panel) that the ABXY buttons can be switched to analog pressure control, just like the shoulder buttons. (Don't laugh, I'm not a regular Xbox player so I wasn't previously aware of this feature.)
Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm highly disappointed with Obama as well; it really pisses me off that no matter the political party we're going to end up with a shitty president.
And yeah, this steady erosion of our rights has been going on for a long time despite progress made in other areas. For example, these days you don't get detained for being black very often; rather it's how "radical" you are based on what you post or otherwise contribute to on the 'net.
News flash: The Obama administration started in 2008/2009, Bush took our rights in 2001. are you a teenager who doesn't remember that, or were you asleep last decade?
Keep in mind it's not the "one phone call" that you are entitled to as a detained or arrested individual. Take it from someone who worked as a booking officer early in life: Cops are only *required* to let you phone someone if you specifically say you want to call your lawyer. Anyone else -- Mom, Dad, best friend, etc. -- is entirely up to how gracious the detaining officers are.
Speaking of unlawful detainment, didn't you know there is no such thing anymore, at least if the federal government is the entity detaining you? Georgie Bush wiped his ass with the Due Process and Habeas Corpus parts of the law, remember?
If you see a black van pull in front of your house, don't answer the doorbell.
In your situation, I'd recommend a kit car project from one of the more reputable kit car companies. You start with a 70's era VW Beetle chassis and engine (or, if you can afford it, a 90's era Mexican VW Beetle chassis -- less rust and wear). You fix anything broken on the engine, using a good, accurate repair guide. Then, using the instructions in the kit, you put the car together, testing and calibrating after each step.
Once you've got all the under-the-hood stuff done, you can work on the body and getting it looking good. After that, a final detailed inspection and testing phase will make sure it is road-worthy. Once this is accomplished, you can get it registered with the proper authority and put it into service as a working vehicle.
Optional: You can learn how turbochargers, aggressive suspension and other performance-enhancing technologies work, and apply to your original car or a subsequent car to really amp up your speed and handling.
Your first car will take several weeks or perhaps months from start to finish; you will be learning as you go along. If you decide to continue building cars past meeting your initial needs, you will find the process will be much smoother and take much less time, even if the next project is a different kind of car altogether.
--
Now, replace references to learning mechanical skills with learning a programming language, via starting with an existing small open source project. Who says car-computer analogies aren't accurate?
Many of the TFA's "assertions" of "Japanese simplicity" fall apart when the sites are translated into English text.
Exactly. My bullshit-o-meter went off as I read the summary, and upon visiting each site I clicked the "English" link and saw a perfectly acceptable layout for a government or business website. I think the author is put off by the Japanese written language more than anything; by necessity it requires use of a lot of what would otherwise be white space on an English-language page.
Certified hardware?? Hell I may as well buy a Mac then, isn't Apple the expert on marrying hardware and software after all? I didn't know Canonical was certifying anything; if so please show me the list.
My system is made up of extremely common hardware. It's an AM2+ board with onboard GeForce graphics that has worked flawlessly with Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04. Apart from having to enable the binary-only Nvidia driver, using the above versions of Ubuntu is as good as having a Mac when it comes to hardware support.
However, 9.10 appears to be a huge step backwards. First, the so-called "Grub 2" bootloader is actually Grub 1.97-beta, and instead of booting into my OS it drops me to a grub command prompt. I have to load up the liveCD to fix it. Once in, my wired ethernet adapter won't turn on no matter what I do. Because I have no internet, I have to download the Nvidia driver on another machine and install it manually. It won't install correctly and now X11 won't load unless I use the open source driver. Lest anyone think I'm a clueless newbie, I've been using Linux and BSD since around 2000, mostly FreeBSD, Slackware and Debian. Trust me, I know a bad distro when I see one.
Anyway, at this point I've given up on it. How in the hell does Ubuntu go from a truly flawless OS for three releases to a bug infested nightmare on the same hardware? Who in their right mind would purposely drop support for some of the most common hardware in existence? Who fell asleep at the keyboard over there???
Apple is being paid for every copy of OS X.
True, but they are paid much more when you buy their hardware, as their OS and software are really just a hook to get you to buy a Mac.
Perhaps they should stop selling OS X as a full standalone product then?
On one hand, I almost wish they would so this issue would just go away. But, that would stop those of us who do like to tinker on our own non-Apple hardware (and so far we've been ignored by Apple). Also it would open the door for Apple to start doing hardware activation checks, which would only be hurtful to their loyal customers.
I don't think Apple has a right to say what piece of hardware you can run OS X on. It's paid for, end of story.
I agree, but unfortunately the law (so far) says it's licensed and not sold, though there was a case involving AutoCAD recently that set a precedent for final ownership of a software product. Perhaps that will come up in this case as prior case law.
When everyone else tries to lock stuff down we scream about how evil and greedy they are. But when it comes to Apple, it's different somehow? Apple is just as greedy and as "evil" as Microsoft. They're out to make money just like everyone else.
They are as greedy, but I honestly don't think either company is "evil". While I'm not religious myself, I've read in the Christian bible that the love of wealth is the root of all evil. Perhaps there is truth in that, but I doubt there is a little demon on Jobs' and Ballmer's shoulders making them do bad things for the fun of it.
As to why Apple isn't attacked nearly as much as Microsoft for being greedy and "evil", well it's all down to perspective. Ask a devoted Apple customer and they will tell you that they get shit from both the Microsofties and the Penguin Army.
My own personal stance towards computers has always been to use the tool that works best for me--replace the word "tool" with "hardware", "software" or "OS" as applicable. While I prefer to use open source and community supported software whenever possible, I'm not an OSS freak by any means. My favorite OSes--I hold them in equal esteem--are BeOS and OS X, both commercial and largely closed source. Sure, I'd love it if Apple opened up OS X to be legally used on commodity hardware, but I won't hold my breath. Their OS is the gateway to their real moneymaker, and they will fight to control that gate for the foreseeable future.
So it's groundhogs on the menu for you this year?
Ahh, but would that not raise flags as well? After all, vegetarians and vegans might be members of ALF...
When did I ever say anything was Apple's fault? Improper AAC support is the fault of the various other manufacturers and I never once claimed anything was Apple's fault.
And you're right, no one is forcing me to buy from iTunes, but now that I can get unrestricted AAC (i.e. easily convertible to MP3) on nearly every song in the store, I can add them to my favorite music vendors.
Quite aware. I've owned two different non-Apple MP3 players that played AAC, and my last car's factory radio played them. That was sarcasm, not ignorance. However, this discussion was about people wanting to transcode to MP3 to avoid any possible issues with AAC. Not all AAC-compatible players really work that well with the format. My old Samsung player was hit-or-miss, and my car tended to spit out CDs that mixed MP3 and AAC formats; I had to burn one or the other.
So I say again, as an Apple owner and admirer: Not everyone wants all Apple products and some of us prefer having just one format for our music.
Indeed, not all of us Apple users have iEverything so we can play our AACs everywhere. Hell, my phone has problems with anything other than .mp3 but I wouldn't give it up for an iPhone.
Are you "entitled" to be such an elitist douche? Free OTA analog television is paid for purely by advertising. It has nothing to do with entitlement. The only direct cost to the consumer when OTA goes digital is the converter box. It's still a freely watchable broadcast assuming you have the correct equipment.
Either you are a complete fucking moron who is confusing cable/satellite with OTA programming, or you are a pathetic excuse for a troll. Either way, you fail.
I have AT&T, and they never charged me on my old Treo or this BlackBerry for IMs. I used third party apps though, so I'll watch for text charges on her phone since the IM app is "built in". Thanks for the heads up.
Some of the prepay services here in the US do offer unlimited text/internet/calls for around $50 per month, but if I'm not mistaken most of those are MVNOs that use Sprint's network and Sprint has spotty coverage where I live and work (east of Atlanta, GA). Also, my phone is a BlackBerry and wouldn't work properly with a prepaid phone service anyway.