Perhaps airplane mode should have the following aliases:
1. Boat mode 2. Don't charge me mode 3. I'm out of the country mode 4. I can't RTFM mode 5. I had $600 for a phone and now I bitch about roaming, please help me mode
I think the iPhone needs a standby light like almost every other consumer device I've ever seen. My monitor, wii, vcr, tv, laptop, dvd player, and cd player have one. In my view Apple, AT&T and the customer are all at fault for the bill. Most people should realize that cell phone providers are going to screw them by now. There is something wrong with every company. T-mobile has poor coverage and bad security. (how many times can paris hilton get her phone data stolen) Sprint renews your contract without consent and charges high rates. Verizon lies to customers about coverage, how to cancel and various other things. I don't think I have to mention AT&T's issues.
For a Windows user, Office 2007 is quite different from previous versions. If you compare it to the Mac version of Word, it will be much more intuitive . I've always preferred the Mac versions of Microsoft Office apps until 2007 for Windows. I had to use it this summer for a class and I found it to be very nice. It does have a learning curve and you could argue that if you wanted to adopt Open Office. I get sick of the praise for OO just because it's FOSS. I've tried to like it for users. From an end user perspective, it looks a little like older versions of office but is still different. It runs slow on most systems I've used. As a developer, I think it is a terrible pain in the ass to port to a new OS.
I wish the news was that IBM had released Lotus SmartSuite as open source. I'd rather use that. For open source users, I'd have to say abiword or koffice is the way to go right now. They are both fast, small and easy to port.
You are absolutely right about the status symbol. Early this year I bought a refurbished thinkpad to replace an aging iBook. I needed a "PC" for software development and I couldn't afford a MacBook which can't run many operating systems yet. (Windows, OS X, and Linux)
Since switching to a thinkpad, I've had a lot of little comments thrown at me about how ugly it is, unreliable, etc. I can't sit in meetings at work or computer club meetings (university) without some comment. The odd thing is that I went through this when I bought my iBook too. The times have changed.
You are right, but the target isn't just Adobe, it's Apple. If someone has to interoperate, that means they have to buy WIndows. Sure they could run it on a Mac or just buy a PC and run photoshop + some ms product on Windows. Some graphics artists, photographers and the like are very picky about OS and software, but not all are.
Apple at one point had education and professional (graphics/movies, music) and Microsoft wants that market. Apple is gaining a little ground and Microsoft needs to hit them hard. Us open source types can't touch this realm yet. Having used photoshop on both platforms and learning on FrontPage many years ago (1.1 beta), I really don't know what side to pick. I don't think highly of adobe, apple needs a reality check and Microsoft is Microsoft. At least we know adobe can't buy Microsoft.
I know this was meant to be funny, but it's actually somewhat true. My boss saw my iBook last fall when I was coding from a distance. He said "Oh you have a MacBook." I was like.. no it's a G4 iBook. He actually said "Oh, one of those old things. You should really get a MacBook. The new Macs are so much better and you could hold your head high." I could tell he wasn't joking. I just looked at him and said "Give me a raise so I can afford this Mac beauty. In fact, how about enough for a MacBook Pro." Instead, I got shit and had to buy a refurbished IBM Thinkpad T30. It's much faster than my iBook and I've had great luck with it using MidnightBSD. My boss is quite annoyed with me though. I feel like I did as a Mac user. All my coworkers use Macs and I'm the lowly PC guy. It's like deja vu.
I once noticed a cashier gave me $10 too much back in change. I went in to return in knowing that any money missing at the end of the day would probably come out of her pocket. Instead, the manager overheard and fired her on the spot. I still feel terrible about that. She was upset I came back in as she could have slipped $10 extra in at the end of the day and kept her job. Now I don't know what to do in those situations.
Yes, if we widen what we count as a device, I bet Windows is irrelevant. I only wish we could train users to realize this.
Microsoft can count Windows installs on desktops, virtual machines, PDAs, xbox (and 360) consoles, Sega Dreamcast, smart phones, cash registers and ATM machines, and coffee tables. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
Linux is used on countless embedded devices, PS3 systems, desktops and servers.
They you get into BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X systems, iPhones, Apple TVs, iPods, palm and other PDAs not running Windows.
Certainly if you counted everything versus Windows it would lose. I wish we had real numbers on this. It would be interesting to see how many active windows devices there are versus linux or OS X. We need something like bsdstats.org that lets all non windows systems phone home and get counted (optionally). For instance, I run a BSD project and have absolutely no idea how many users I really have.
I haven't computed the numbers, but I find it difficult to believe that inflation has caused the price to DOUBLE in seven years. The value of the dollar isn't so hot, but Japan isn't the booming economic paradise it once was either. I agree with the rest of your statements.
What has doubled in the US in the last seven years is gas prices. In 2000, I paid $1.50/gal. Today it is over $3/gal. Consumers don't have the $599 for a game console and the $300-$3000 for an HDTV to enjoy it on. The Wii has very limited Hidef capabilities, but it also works great on a SDTV. I can use it on my seven year old POS Maganvox without any problems. Anyone interested in a PS3 is also interested in Blueray or high quality graphics for games.
In my case, the lack of an HDTV is changing my purchasing decisions. I can not get benefit out of an xbox360 or PS3 over my Wii. I can not buy many set top box devices like an Apple TV. I have no interest in buying an HD-DVD or Blueray player. I have basic cable so i'm not "scared" that I may lose television signals.
Well I can tell you this, I won't be visiting your state again. I live in Michigan with relatives in Indiana. I do hope that Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin file lawsuits to get this crap cleaned up. Your state can pay for it instead of mine.
Why? For security patches! This article was about a bad security patch.
You're probably thinking I'm secure because its read only. True the OS is read only. Every time you boot up someone can freshly root it and use it to send spam. Nice. Also consider that most people still use some writable medium like a usb flash drive, an archaic floppy or a network resource.
Using a livecd for testing hardware or trying linux is great, but suggesting someone replace broken windows with a livecd is foolish. Plus on a mass scale, you have to sit there and distribute new cds every time a new version comes out with security patches. That's a hassle and there is no guarantee in a corporate environment that people would use a specific CD. Perhaps you were just thinking about home use? Well why not buy a dreamcast or xbox and just boot your shit on that instead of buying a computer if you feel that way. There is no point to a real desktop with a livecd. You aren't using storage or anything else beyond the network adapter, video card and maybe a sound card. Of course you have no where to store your music do you.
I can tell you that I still plan to use it in MidnightBSD. I'm curious what Apple will do since some people think buying CUPS was a stunt to stop GPLv3 code entering OS X.
Maybe he has a job! I know that is a shocking concept on slashdot. I have coworkers call my cell phone all the time. My wife and I decided to ditch landlines on our last move. It's about the same cost as a very cheap t-mobile plan + bare bones AT&T line, but we went with sprint. I figure that we'll save money after this contract by switching to another carrier.
It also fails to account for sites that attract technically illiterate people. It takes my mother a lot longer to even view a website than I. I can pick out links and navigation much quicker than she can. A site targeted to older people or children will also get ranked higher since they might be slower to navigate. I do mean very young or very old people. Someone with a disability will take longer to surf a site too. The time between loading pages will be longer giving the impression they were looking at something. Instead maybe they were just struggling to get their mouse cursor to a specific navigation aid such as a link or button.
It's not just that you know the product exists, but also if you'd ever want the product. There are many factors at play here.
For instance, to use your Macdo example, I might see a McDonald's ad for a new sandwich. I know the product exists. However, since I'm a vegetarian and there are no Veggie friendly foods at Macdo in the U.S., it is totally useless that I know about their product. I will never buy it. Similarly, an ad for a car is useless to many people in New York City, but it would be very useful to someone in the midwest where there is little public transit.
So ad people need to know that you would be interested in a product, the ability to guess that most people would be, or some other demographic data that narrows down the likely hood that you would want it. Advertising Macdo to people in small towns is much more productive. They are more likely to be meat eaters than say some person in San Fransisco or New York. Some ad services already "learn" things about you like what state you live in to aid in this process. I get targeted ads with Michigan based products and services all the time.
The other problem is that many online ad models require someone to purchase something at a website before the original site hosting the ad gets paid. In this situation, some people do care if there is a direct purchase regardless of the lasting effects of ads on purchase decisions. If linkshare or google don't want to pay a site for impressions and only for purchases on click thrus, then webmasters will care a great deal about that.
Yes, but the xbox 360 only works for 3 years. Once it's out of warranty, you must buy a new one. It will break. A PS3 may last beyond the 3 years. If you count buying two xbox 360s before we will probably see the next generation, that's $800 unless MS drops the price a lot in the mean time. The reliability issues have scared me off from ever buying an xbox console again. I can't trust Microsoft with game consoles now. The difference between a PC and a game console is that I expect to be able to play the same games 10 years from now when I buy a console. It's not like vista or OS 10.5 that may (or did) break my PC games. I also buy different types of titles for PCs, but the real advantage to consoles is that they are supposed to last with the same gaming experience always. I can go to my living room and run my sega genesis or snes and play the same titles I could at 16 years old. That is a very nice thing. The only game console I expect to break is the original xbox I have. So far it works good, but when it goes i will not replace it. I'm going to sell the games off and buy more wii stuff (or whatever).
Every generation, I buy two consoles. This time it's the wii and probably the ps3 if/when they drop the price a little more. I am willing to buy it at $399 presuming it looks like blueray is going to "win". $399 for a game console and video player is more than OK with me. I can't imagine I'd use it more than my wii. My wii logs 2-6 hours a day between my wife and I. Considering we do not have a lot of time, that is significant. I haven't played games this much on a console since I was a teen. I look at buying game consoles as an equation of entertainment value. I haven't owned my wii very long, but it already has cost me less than buying a DVD in per hour time. At the current PS3 price after this announcement, it would take me a lot of hours to beat the wii.
Please share how to do this. I am unable to buy anything on my phone without my wife approving it. We have a family plan and she is the primary.
As for the sanyo, i disagree. They are great the first few months, but they show signs of wear very quickly compared to any other phone I've had. My sanyo flip phone reboots when i flip it! It's less than a year old.
The answer to your question depends on the project. Well established projects tend to have rules to gain access. FreeBSD developers often have to submit a few patches, get a mentor and go through two years of hell to get in. It really depends in that case on what you want to do. Joining ports is easier than working on the kernel. The Linux kernel development effort has a lot of structure so it will take time to get noticed.
Smaller projects, new projects, or projects with few developers are much more likely to take you in right away. For instance, with MidnightBSD I usually just want to see 1 patch that looks reasonable. With Just Journal, I'd take anyone who wants to work on it just like that.
Some projects require that you get friendly with other developers. I work on a gaming mod called FalkconET. I started by offering to host their website and moved up to working on the Mac port. I knew two of the guys from playing Enemy Territory.
Just be nice and patient. With my projects, I like to get an email from interested developers. Also, be willing to learn the "jargon" and a version control system. Most projects use Subversion (SVN) or CVS.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps airplane mode should have the following aliases:
1. Boat mode
2. Don't charge me mode
3. I'm out of the country mode
4. I can't RTFM mode
5. I had $600 for a phone and now I bitch about roaming, please help me mode
I think the iPhone needs a standby light like almost every other consumer device I've ever seen. My monitor, wii, vcr, tv, laptop, dvd player, and cd player have one. In my view Apple, AT&T and the customer are all at fault for the bill. Most people should realize that cell phone providers are going to screw them by now. There is something wrong with every company. T-mobile has poor coverage and bad security. (how many times can paris hilton get her phone data stolen) Sprint renews your contract without consent and charges high rates. Verizon lies to customers about coverage, how to cancel and various other things. I don't think I have to mention AT&T's issues.
For a Windows user, Office 2007 is quite different from previous versions. If you compare it to the Mac version of Word, it will be much more intuitive . I've always preferred the Mac versions of Microsoft Office apps until 2007 for Windows. I had to use it this summer for a class and I found it to be very nice. It does have a learning curve and you could argue that if you wanted to adopt Open Office. I get sick of the praise for OO just because it's FOSS. I've tried to like it for users. From an end user perspective, it looks a little like older versions of office but is still different. It runs slow on most systems I've used. As a developer, I think it is a terrible pain in the ass to port to a new OS.
I wish the news was that IBM had released Lotus SmartSuite as open source. I'd rather use that. For open source users, I'd have to say abiword or koffice is the way to go right now. They are both fast, small and easy to port.
It was done AC. How do we know it wasn't the guy who wrote it to begin with?
You are absolutely right about the status symbol. Early this year I bought a refurbished thinkpad to replace an aging iBook. I needed a "PC" for software development and I couldn't afford a MacBook which can't run many operating systems yet. (Windows, OS X, and Linux)
Since switching to a thinkpad, I've had a lot of little comments thrown at me about how ugly it is, unreliable, etc. I can't sit in meetings at work or computer club meetings (university) without some comment. The odd thing is that I went through this when I bought my iBook too. The times have changed.
You are right, but the target isn't just Adobe, it's Apple. If someone has to interoperate, that means they have to buy WIndows. Sure they could run it on a Mac or just buy a PC and run photoshop + some ms product on Windows. Some graphics artists, photographers and the like are very picky about OS and software, but not all are.
Apple at one point had education and professional (graphics/movies, music) and Microsoft wants that market. Apple is gaining a little ground and Microsoft needs to hit them hard. Us open source types can't touch this realm yet. Having used photoshop on both platforms and learning on FrontPage many years ago (1.1 beta), I really don't know what side to pick. I don't think highly of adobe, apple needs a reality check and Microsoft is Microsoft. At least we know adobe can't buy Microsoft.
I know this was meant to be funny, but it's actually somewhat true. My boss saw my iBook last fall when I was coding from a distance. He said "Oh you have a MacBook." I was like.. no it's a G4 iBook. He actually said "Oh, one of those old things. You should really get a MacBook. The new Macs are so much better and you could hold your head high." I could tell he wasn't joking. I just looked at him and said "Give me a raise so I can afford this Mac beauty. In fact, how about enough for a MacBook Pro." Instead, I got shit and had to buy a refurbished IBM Thinkpad T30. It's much faster than my iBook and I've had great luck with it using MidnightBSD. My boss is quite annoyed with me though. I feel like I did as a Mac user. All my coworkers use Macs and I'm the lowly PC guy. It's like deja vu.
I once noticed a cashier gave me $10 too much back in change. I went in to return in knowing that any money missing at the end of the day would probably come out of her pocket. Instead, the manager overheard and fired her on the spot. I still feel terrible about that. She was upset I came back in as she could have slipped $10 extra in at the end of the day and kept her job. Now I don't know what to do in those situations.
Yes, if we widen what we count as a device, I bet Windows is irrelevant. I only wish we could train users to realize this.
Microsoft can count Windows installs on desktops, virtual machines, PDAs, xbox (and 360) consoles, Sega Dreamcast, smart phones, cash registers and ATM machines, and coffee tables. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
Linux is used on countless embedded devices, PS3 systems, desktops and servers.
They you get into BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X systems, iPhones, Apple TVs, iPods, palm and other PDAs not running Windows.
Certainly if you counted everything versus Windows it would lose. I wish we had real numbers on this. It would be interesting to see how many active windows devices there are versus linux or OS X. We need something like bsdstats.org that lets all non windows systems phone home and get counted (optionally). For instance, I run a BSD project and have absolutely no idea how many users I really have.
Stripped of course. We want to keep them moving quickly.
I haven't computed the numbers, but I find it difficult to believe that inflation has caused the price to DOUBLE in seven years. The value of the dollar isn't so hot, but Japan isn't the booming economic paradise it once was either. I agree with the rest of your statements.
What has doubled in the US in the last seven years is gas prices. In 2000, I paid $1.50/gal. Today it is over $3/gal. Consumers don't have the $599 for a game console and the $300-$3000 for an HDTV to enjoy it on. The Wii has very limited Hidef capabilities, but it also works great on a SDTV. I can use it on my seven year old POS Maganvox without any problems. Anyone interested in a PS3 is also interested in Blueray or high quality graphics for games.
In my case, the lack of an HDTV is changing my purchasing decisions. I can not get benefit out of an xbox360 or PS3 over my Wii. I can not buy many set top box devices like an Apple TV. I have no interest in buying an HD-DVD or Blueray player. I have basic cable so i'm not "scared" that I may lose television signals.
Well I can tell you this, I won't be visiting your state again. I live in Michigan with relatives in Indiana. I do hope that Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin file lawsuits to get this crap cleaned up. Your state can pay for it instead of mine.
Why? For security patches! This article was about a bad security patch.
You're probably thinking I'm secure because its read only. True the OS is read only. Every time you boot up someone can freshly root it and use it to send spam. Nice. Also consider that most people still use some writable medium like a usb flash drive, an archaic floppy or a network resource.
Using a livecd for testing hardware or trying linux is great, but suggesting someone replace broken windows with a livecd is foolish. Plus on a mass scale, you have to sit there and distribute new cds every time a new version comes out with security patches. That's a hassle and there is no guarantee in a corporate environment that people would use a specific CD. Perhaps you were just thinking about home use? Well why not buy a dreamcast or xbox and just boot your shit on that instead of buying a computer if you feel that way. There is no point to a real desktop with a livecd. You aren't using storage or anything else beyond the network adapter, video card and maybe a sound card. Of course you have no where to store your music do you.
I can tell you that I still plan to use it in MidnightBSD. I'm curious what Apple will do since some people think buying CUPS was a stunt to stop GPLv3 code entering OS X.
I know you're trying to be funny, but nothing stops someone from downloading it manually from java.sun.com
Maybe he has a job! I know that is a shocking concept on slashdot. I have coworkers call my cell phone all the time. My wife and I decided to ditch landlines on our last move. It's about the same cost as a very cheap t-mobile plan + bare bones AT&T line, but we went with sprint. I figure that we'll save money after this contract by switching to another carrier.
This seems stupid. If you're going to suggest Linux, at least tell him to install it.
Upon installing patches on wednesday in vista, my system BSOD'd. I was happy to see the familiar screen in vista. It brought back so many memories.
It also fails to account for sites that attract technically illiterate people. It takes my mother a lot longer to even view a website than I. I can pick out links and navigation much quicker than she can. A site targeted to older people or children will also get ranked higher since they might be slower to navigate. I do mean very young or very old people. Someone with a disability will take longer to surf a site too. The time between loading pages will be longer giving the impression they were looking at something. Instead maybe they were just struggling to get their mouse cursor to a specific navigation aid such as a link or button.
It's not just that you know the product exists, but also if you'd ever want the product. There are many factors at play here.
For instance, to use your Macdo example, I might see a McDonald's ad for a new sandwich. I know the product exists. However, since I'm a vegetarian and there are no Veggie friendly foods at Macdo in the U.S., it is totally useless that I know about their product. I will never buy it. Similarly, an ad for a car is useless to many people in New York City, but it would be very useful to someone in the midwest where there is little public transit.
So ad people need to know that you would be interested in a product, the ability to guess that most people would be, or some other demographic data that narrows down the likely hood that you would want it. Advertising Macdo to people in small towns is much more productive. They are more likely to be meat eaters than say some person in San Fransisco or New York. Some ad services already "learn" things about you like what state you live in to aid in this process. I get targeted ads with Michigan based products and services all the time.
The other problem is that many online ad models require someone to purchase something at a website before the original site hosting the ad gets paid. In this situation, some people do care if there is a direct purchase regardless of the lasting effects of ads on purchase decisions. If linkshare or google don't want to pay a site for impressions and only for purchases on click thrus, then webmasters will care a great deal about that.
Yes, but the xbox 360 only works for 3 years. Once it's out of warranty, you must buy a new one. It will break. A PS3 may last beyond the 3 years. If you count buying two xbox 360s before we will probably see the next generation, that's $800 unless MS drops the price a lot in the mean time. The reliability issues have scared me off from ever buying an xbox console again. I can't trust Microsoft with game consoles now. The difference between a PC and a game console is that I expect to be able to play the same games 10 years from now when I buy a console. It's not like vista or OS 10.5 that may (or did) break my PC games. I also buy different types of titles for PCs, but the real advantage to consoles is that they are supposed to last with the same gaming experience always. I can go to my living room and run my sega genesis or snes and play the same titles I could at 16 years old. That is a very nice thing. The only game console I expect to break is the original xbox I have. So far it works good, but when it goes i will not replace it. I'm going to sell the games off and buy more wii stuff (or whatever).
Every generation, I buy two consoles. This time it's the wii and probably the ps3 if/when they drop the price a little more. I am willing to buy it at $399 presuming it looks like blueray is going to "win". $399 for a game console and video player is more than OK with me. I can't imagine I'd use it more than my wii. My wii logs 2-6 hours a day between my wife and I. Considering we do not have a lot of time, that is significant. I haven't played games this much on a console since I was a teen. I look at buying game consoles as an equation of entertainment value. I haven't owned my wii very long, but it already has cost me less than buying a DVD in per hour time. At the current PS3 price after this announcement, it would take me a lot of hours to beat the wii.
Please share how to do this. I am unable to buy anything on my phone without my wife approving it. We have a family plan and she is the primary.
As for the sanyo, i disagree. They are great the first few months, but they show signs of wear very quickly compared to any other phone I've had. My sanyo flip phone reboots when i flip it! It's less than a year old.
Calling someone autistic isn't cool.
hard: no. Time consuming: yes. The Wii can even handle Flash 7 content. It can not store anything locally though.
Well Clinton didn't put the right spin on it. If he said he was defending all the men out there from having to deal with Monica... a real threat...
Broken executive chairs...
The answer to your question depends on the project. Well established projects tend to have rules to gain access. FreeBSD developers often have to submit a few patches, get a mentor and go through two years of hell to get in. It really depends in that case on what you want to do. Joining ports is easier than working on the kernel. The Linux kernel development effort has a lot of structure so it will take time to get noticed.
Smaller projects, new projects, or projects with few developers are much more likely to take you in right away. For instance, with MidnightBSD I usually just want to see 1 patch that looks reasonable. With Just Journal, I'd take anyone who wants to work on it just like that.
Some projects require that you get friendly with other developers. I work on a gaming mod called FalkconET. I started by offering to host their website and moved up to working on the Mac port. I knew two of the guys from playing Enemy Territory.
Just be nice and patient. With my projects, I like to get an email from interested developers. Also, be willing to learn the "jargon" and a version control system. Most projects use Subversion (SVN) or CVS.