They just have to guess what the patch will do. Remember the Amazon 1-click patent is not specific to an implementation. Its just the idea of 1-click with some obvious ground rules. The current patent system will allow stupid patents like this.
I like Apple, but its silly to say that only American programmers work on it. I know for a fact there are programmers in other parts of the world working on it. At the very least, Apple is very clear that they hire native speakers to help with international translations. Also, you must consider as someone else pointed out that Apple uses a lot of open source packages. Those are not just written in the United States.
My opinion is that the DoD should buy multiple systems so that we aren't running on one system. If there was a critical flaw, we could turn off all the affected systems and keep going. For instance, if there was a critical Windows flaw being used by an enemy, we could switch to a Linux, BSD, Mac OS, Solaris, HP-UX or whatever else was available. Any government putting all their eggs in one basket is stupid. All I can do is hope they are doing this.
I can say that I do have issues with ubuntu but not in regard to usability. If anything, I hope the project I'm involved with can get that good.
Most adults can do many tasks on a computer if they have a real reason to try. My mother managed to install Java so she could play Yahoo games. My cousin put together a bare bones laptop because it was the only way his father would allow him to buy a computer. (he had to build it himself) He was 13 at the time with no prior experience upgrading or building systems. The difference between an adult and a 3 year old is curiosity and willingness to learn new things.
That proves they have a good installation system, or at least one where it installs if you click next enough times. (or something) However, a 2 year old can not understand what data loss is or that it could destroy existing data. You might be teaching the kid to overwrite your computer's data thinking they are helping daddy or mommy.
I was under the impression AOL didn't want the server products. For awhile, the products were sold under the "Sun-Netscape Alliance" as iPlanet and then Sun renamed them "Sun One [product type]". Now I think they have a new name again.. Java Enterprise System [product type]?
product type would be webserver, mail server, collaboration, etc.
The whole process was confusing. Aside from losing Netscape with the AOL deal, I miss the Netscape Developer Center content. In the old days, Netscape and Microsoft provided great documentation on using new web technologies. AOL killed a good share of the old Netscape content over time and Microsoft merged their content with MSDN and slowly targeted it to web application developers exclusively.
I remember downloading Netscape 2.0 beta to look at porn sites. When I first got on the web, it seemed like porn sites used new technologies like tables and animated gifs first. Well I was in high school at the time. The IE enhanced porn sites weren't as good. Who cared about a scrolling marquee on a porn site? Still, I had to switch to IE because Netscape 3 crashed all the time on me. I got back onboard with Netscape 4 but it was never the same.
Yes, but when you start looking at game consoles as multipurpose devices, there is absolutely no point in buying one. Just use a computer, smartphone or PDA. A company could easily make a windows based PDA with a control pad and buttons in addition to the traditional touch interface.
The PSP reminds me of the Sega GameGear. It had an optional TV tuner which sort of made it multipurpose. The short battery life made that feature practically useless since it had to be plugged in often. I don't like the playstation products, but the PSP is closest to something I might like. The fondness I have for the GameGear helps, but the short battery life is the whole reason I sold my GameGear.
I see these extra features as a downside to buying new consoles. In the past, I've purchased two coonsoles and a handheld. I've done this since 1991. Now, the consoles are expensive because they do more than play games. When I can find a Wii sold standalone (not bundled), I'll buy one. I'm not interested in buying the other two consoles because of price (sony) and reliability (Microsoft).
Well its hard to talk people into a Mac when it has a mighty mouse or is a laptop. In some cases, admins have disabled all the system preferences at my university so even if there is a mighty mouse, you can't enable the fake right click. I call it fake because it is useless in first person shooters and some other situations when you need to hit both buttons at the same time. I always tell people to go buy a $10 Microsoft mouse. Apple needs to ship a real mouse.
In addition to gaming, right click is useful in browsers, photoshop. dreamweaver, Finder, etc.
The most expensive piece was probably the Adobe software which costs the same for Windows. Also PC users try to compare PowerMac and Mac Pro systems to $500 dell wonders.. when they are more often like Precision workstations. Compare a dual processor Dell Precision from that time period or a Quad core now. Its much more realistic. Also, you didn't have to buy the monitor from Apple. My wife is quite happy with a $200 acer monitor on her mac pro.
Yes, the newer versions of Firefox seem to crash often. I've had 2.0.0.4 crash on me 4 times today in Vista and it crashes on OS X and MidnightBSD as well. (MBSD is using the linux version) It tends to happen on sites that use plugins. I've seen it with Flash sites, and anything loading quicktime. The linux version crashed on JavaScript heavy sites. I have absolutely no plugins or extensions installed in that version. My OS X version also does not use any extensions.
Safari is crashing in OS X after the last quicktime security update. I think Apple has a problem with it.
I haven't looked at the exploits, but considering both browsers are affected, it makes me wonder if there is a common behavior or something implied in various web standards which led to this problem. Its similar to the image format security issues. Most people were using the same code or at least the same technique to read gif/png/jpeg files. Perhaps its time for an openbsd style audit of the Firefox code so we can avoid some of this in the future.
Yes, but if radio stations take bribes and play one song more often then other songs get less (or no) playtime. This does hurt the consumer because there might be a new song from a good artist that I might be interested in. For instance, say U2 releases a new album and single. Instead of U2, some new boy band group with no talent gets played constantly. Now I have to listen to crap or bring an iPod with me in the car. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a service or get an HD radio to listen to something besides boy bands and other crap 13 year olds like. They say adults stop buying music at age 28. The reason is that we don't like POP crap anymore.
Now U2 is big enough that I can still see ads and buy it on iTunes. However, what about new artists that I don't know exist yet? I listen to the radio to find new music just as much as I listen for songs I like.
Is it me, or only non-techs and Mac users the ones that think the iPhone is great? I would say the iPhone is special, but only in reference to a short bus...
Yes, well who do you think the target audience is for this phone? If Apple was going after tech savvy users, they would have made something like existing smart phones. Most people praise the Blackberry or some palm device. A few people like the MS products. Apple is trying to repeat the success of the iPod where they got ordinary users to buy an MP3/AAC player. This is a logical upgrade for them. People don't like carrying phones and iPods around with them. They want one device. Apple now has to compete against various phones with MP3 or WMA support. This is their answer.
You can put Apple down for a lot of things, but making this device isn't one of them. Perhaps it was fatally stupid to make it exclusive to Cingular/AT there are a lot of cell phone subscribers on other networks why might want an integrated iPod/phone. Apple will eventually lose the number one spot in portable music just as Sony lost it previously. Apple fans will be sad and "PC" fans will be happy.
Apple did not innovate with the iPod either but that was a big success. They have massive marketshare... almost windows like. Apple used the Microsoft business model of duplicating existing ideas but changing that one little thing that makes all the difference. Steve used the Bill Gates play-book.
Personally, I won't be purchasing an iPhone. I hate cingular and I don't want to spend $500 on a phone. Apple does not get pricing for the midwest. $500 isn't that much money in New York City or San Fransisco. Its a lot of money in Michigan, or Iowa.
Your feelings about Apple are my feelings about Linux. Most of the reasons I feel negatively about Linux are no longer true and yet I hold on to them. The difference between you and me is that I see reasons to recommend Linux despite my feelings. I can see the good elements of Linux as well as the bad.
I've been using Word 2007 to write papers for an online class this semester. I must save them in word 2003/97 format, but I must say its a great product. I still prefer pages for casual writing and the Mac office interface is better than 2003. I think I like the Word 2007 interface much better than any other versions. The only complaint I have is dealing with margin changes for portions of the document. I miss the old bar at the top.
Before anyone suggests Open Office, realize that I don't have it ported to MBSD and I hate it in Windows and Mac OS. It feels like office 97 but the menu positions are wrong. I would have preferred they make a unique interface like Lotus and Apple did.
One title doesn't mean shit. You also have to look at the type of people who actually bought blueray or hd-dvd players. If they bought a game console as a player, there is a big difference in demographic between Sony DRM Rootkit err.. PS3 fans and broken buy a new every 3 months.. i mean xbox360 fans.
I know everyone wants an answer to this format "war" but its not going to be one movie that decides it. Just give up on that logic. Lets see some sales figures for players that are not game consoles. My father wouldn't buy a game console as a player, he'd buy some cheap generic no name player on sale at walmart.
The iTV will eventually sell well. Right now most people don't want to pony up for a new TV and the iTV. I know 2 people with HDTVs and only one of them has one in their living room. Until there is mass adoption of HDTV, the number of people who would benefit from an iTV or a Blueray/HD-DVD player are small. I planned to buy an iTV as soon as they came out, but the $700 for a TV plus the $300 for the iTV changed my mind.
Instead of complying, all game companies should stop shipping consoles to New York. Nintendo should move their store. Perhaps no video games will hit the news and get those lawmakers some negative attention. Maybe parents care about little billy, but when they find they can't get games for their Wii in the state...
This is the most insightful post I've seen on this topic. What we really need is usability testing. I'd like to see usability testing comparing Vista, XP Pro, Mac OS 10.4, Mac OS 9, Linux or BSD running several popular desktop environments, Solaris, OPENSTEP, and OS/2 Warp 4. Solaris would provide an older style gnome desktop environment with openoffice and a browser. Then give the testers a series of tasks to complete like the following:
1. Go to a few websites. www.google.com, www.cnn.com,... 2. Check your email 3. Create a simple letter in the word processor. 4. Play some music from a CD.
I'm sure someone else would think of a few more tasks. I used a CD because not all those systems support modern formats like MP3, AAC, OGG, and so forth.
You would expect the user to feel more comfortable in front of whatever they use now or maybe have used in the past. Somehow that has to be addressed. I'm not sure who would win and I think very highly of the OS 9 gui and OPENSTEP.
I don't think Vista would win, but I think it slows users down with its new start menu.
Yes, I have this problem with Enemy Territory. The solution is to buy a cheap Microsoft or Logitech mouse. Then you get two real buttons and a scroll wheel. Both companies have optional drivers for Mac OS, although the Microsoft one is not needed. Don't pay the apple premium for an inferior mouse. I even keep one in my backpack for those situations I can't live without right click.
3 OSes? WTF? Let me guess, Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Well you forget Mac OS X has intel and ppc to support. Microsoft has differences between Windows versions. An app for XP might not run in Vista x64 for instance. Linux distros are not standardized enough. You can't count on all the libraries to be present or GTK or QT to be a specific version. Then you might have users on BSDs, Solaris, ecomstation, ReactOS, BeOS, OS/2, or some other crazy thing. PDAs have different systems as do cell phones. Game consoles might run on Linux or some other system. I think we've got a lot more than 3 consoles.
Of course this google software suffers from the same problem as Java or Mono/.Net. It only runs on a limited number of platforms. The whole point to the web is to run on any platform. Don't believe me about Java? Try running java on a Linux distro that's not an x86 chip. Sure there are some buggy ports to a few select cpus... Java will get better when its fully GPL'd. Flash is in the same boat with limited support outside the big three on their most popular CPU type. Some of you linux guys are starting to forget what it was like to have no flash, java, video drivers, etc.
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They just have to guess what the patch will do. Remember the Amazon 1-click patent is not specific to an implementation. Its just the idea of 1-click with some obvious ground rules. The current patent system will allow stupid patents like this.
I like Apple, but its silly to say that only American programmers work on it. I know for a fact there are programmers in other parts of the world working on it. At the very least, Apple is very clear that they hire native speakers to help with international translations. Also, you must consider as someone else pointed out that Apple uses a lot of open source packages. Those are not just written in the United States.
My opinion is that the DoD should buy multiple systems so that we aren't running on one system. If there was a critical flaw, we could turn off all the affected systems and keep going. For instance, if there was a critical Windows flaw being used by an enemy, we could switch to a Linux, BSD, Mac OS, Solaris, HP-UX or whatever else was available. Any government putting all their eggs in one basket is stupid. All I can do is hope they are doing this.
I can say that I do have issues with ubuntu but not in regard to usability. If anything, I hope the project I'm involved with can get that good.
Most adults can do many tasks on a computer if they have a real reason to try. My mother managed to install Java so she could play Yahoo games. My cousin put together a bare bones laptop because it was the only way his father would allow him to buy a computer. (he had to build it himself) He was 13 at the time with no prior experience upgrading or building systems. The difference between an adult and a 3 year old is curiosity and willingness to learn new things.
That proves they have a good installation system, or at least one where it installs if you click next enough times. (or something) However, a 2 year old can not understand what data loss is or that it could destroy existing data. You might be teaching the kid to overwrite your computer's data thinking they are helping daddy or mommy.
I was under the impression AOL didn't want the server products. For awhile, the products were sold under the "Sun-Netscape Alliance" as iPlanet and then Sun renamed them "Sun One [product type]". Now I think they have a new name again.. Java Enterprise System [product type]?
product type would be webserver, mail server, collaboration, etc.
The whole process was confusing. Aside from losing Netscape with the AOL deal, I miss the Netscape Developer Center content. In the old days, Netscape and Microsoft provided great documentation on using new web technologies. AOL killed a good share of the old Netscape content over time and Microsoft merged their content with MSDN and slowly targeted it to web application developers exclusively.
I remember downloading Netscape 2.0 beta to look at porn sites. When I first got on the web, it seemed like porn sites used new technologies like tables and animated gifs first. Well I was in high school at the time. The IE enhanced porn sites weren't as good. Who cared about a scrolling marquee on a porn site? Still, I had to switch to IE because Netscape 3 crashed all the time on me. I got back onboard with Netscape 4 but it was never the same.
Yes, but when you start looking at game consoles as multipurpose devices, there is absolutely no point in buying one. Just use a computer, smartphone or PDA. A company could easily make a windows based PDA with a control pad and buttons in addition to the traditional touch interface.
The PSP reminds me of the Sega GameGear. It had an optional TV tuner which sort of made it multipurpose. The short battery life made that feature practically useless since it had to be plugged in often. I don't like the playstation products, but the PSP is closest to something I might like. The fondness I have for the GameGear helps, but the short battery life is the whole reason I sold my GameGear.
I see these extra features as a downside to buying new consoles. In the past, I've purchased two coonsoles and a handheld. I've done this since 1991. Now, the consoles are expensive because they do more than play games. When I can find a Wii sold standalone (not bundled), I'll buy one. I'm not interested in buying the other two consoles because of price (sony) and reliability (Microsoft).
Well its hard to talk people into a Mac when it has a mighty mouse or is a laptop. In some cases, admins have disabled all the system preferences at my university so even if there is a mighty mouse, you can't enable the fake right click. I call it fake because it is useless in first person shooters and some other situations when you need to hit both buttons at the same time. I always tell people to go buy a $10 Microsoft mouse. Apple needs to ship a real mouse.
In addition to gaming, right click is useful in browsers, photoshop. dreamweaver, Finder, etc.
The most expensive piece was probably the Adobe software which costs the same for Windows. Also PC users try to compare PowerMac and Mac Pro systems to $500 dell wonders.. when they are more often like Precision workstations. Compare a dual processor Dell Precision from that time period or a Quad core now. Its much more realistic. Also, you didn't have to buy the monitor from Apple. My wife is quite happy with a $200 acer monitor on her mac pro.
Yes, the newer versions of Firefox seem to crash often. I've had 2.0.0.4 crash on me 4 times today in Vista and it crashes on OS X and MidnightBSD as well. (MBSD is using the linux version) It tends to happen on sites that use plugins. I've seen it with Flash sites, and anything loading quicktime. The linux version crashed on JavaScript heavy sites. I have absolutely no plugins or extensions installed in that version. My OS X version also does not use any extensions.
Safari is crashing in OS X after the last quicktime security update. I think Apple has a problem with it.
I haven't looked at the exploits, but considering both browsers are affected, it makes me wonder if there is a common behavior or something implied in various web standards which led to this problem. Its similar to the image format security issues. Most people were using the same code or at least the same technique to read gif/png/jpeg files. Perhaps its time for an openbsd style audit of the Firefox code so we can avoid some of this in the future.
Yes, but if radio stations take bribes and play one song more often then other songs get less (or no) playtime. This does hurt the consumer because there might be a new song from a good artist that I might be interested in. For instance, say U2 releases a new album and single. Instead of U2, some new boy band group with no talent gets played constantly. Now I have to listen to crap or bring an iPod with me in the car. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a service or get an HD radio to listen to something besides boy bands and other crap 13 year olds like. They say adults stop buying music at age 28. The reason is that we don't like POP crap anymore.
Now U2 is big enough that I can still see ads and buy it on iTunes. However, what about new artists that I don't know exist yet? I listen to the radio to find new music just as much as I listen for songs I like.
Yes, well who do you think the target audience is for this phone? If Apple was going after tech savvy users, they would have made something like existing smart phones. Most people praise the Blackberry or some palm device. A few people like the MS products. Apple is trying to repeat the success of the iPod where they got ordinary users to buy an MP3/AAC player. This is a logical upgrade for them. People don't like carrying phones and iPods around with them. They want one device. Apple now has to compete against various phones with MP3 or WMA support. This is their answer.
You can put Apple down for a lot of things, but making this device isn't one of them. Perhaps it was fatally stupid to make it exclusive to Cingular/AT there are a lot of cell phone subscribers on other networks why might want an integrated iPod/phone. Apple will eventually lose the number one spot in portable music just as Sony lost it previously. Apple fans will be sad and "PC" fans will be happy.
Apple did not innovate with the iPod either but that was a big success. They have massive marketshare... almost windows like. Apple used the Microsoft business model of duplicating existing ideas but changing that one little thing that makes all the difference. Steve used the Bill Gates play-book.
Personally, I won't be purchasing an iPhone. I hate cingular and I don't want to spend $500 on a phone. Apple does not get pricing for the midwest. $500 isn't that much money in New York City or San Fransisco. Its a lot of money in Michigan, or Iowa.
Canadians were in WWII... Scotty lost a finger!
Of course I understand there is no connection aside from the company involved. I just felt like slamming both companies equally.
Or they could switch to BSD or some other system under another license. Isn't open source great?
Your feelings about Apple are my feelings about Linux. Most of the reasons I feel negatively about Linux are no longer true and yet I hold on to them. The difference between you and me is that I see reasons to recommend Linux despite my feelings. I can see the good elements of Linux as well as the bad.
I've been using Word 2007 to write papers for an online class this semester. I must save them in word 2003/97 format, but I must say its a great product. I still prefer pages for casual writing and the Mac office interface is better than 2003. I think I like the Word 2007 interface much better than any other versions. The only complaint I have is dealing with margin changes for portions of the document. I miss the old bar at the top.
Before anyone suggests Open Office, realize that I don't have it ported to MBSD and I hate it in Windows and Mac OS. It feels like office 97 but the menu positions are wrong. I would have preferred they make a unique interface like Lotus and Apple did.
One title doesn't mean shit. You also have to look at the type of people who actually bought blueray or hd-dvd players. If they bought a game console as a player, there is a big difference in demographic between Sony DRM Rootkit err.. PS3 fans and broken buy a new every 3 months.. i mean xbox360 fans.
I know everyone wants an answer to this format "war" but its not going to be one movie that decides it. Just give up on that logic. Lets see some sales figures for players that are not game consoles. My father wouldn't buy a game console as a player, he'd buy some cheap generic no name player on sale at walmart.
The iTV will eventually sell well. Right now most people don't want to pony up for a new TV and the iTV. I know 2 people with HDTVs and only one of them has one in their living room. Until there is mass adoption of HDTV, the number of people who would benefit from an iTV or a Blueray/HD-DVD player are small. I planned to buy an iTV as soon as they came out, but the $700 for a TV plus the $300 for the iTV changed my mind.
See http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/gnu/
Instead of complying, all game companies should stop shipping consoles to New York. Nintendo should move their store. Perhaps no video games will hit the news and get those lawmakers some negative attention. Maybe parents care about little billy, but when they find they can't get games for their Wii in the state...
Yeah, its called Mach. I suppose you could look at Minix 3 as well. I intentionally omitted OS X.
This is the most insightful post I've seen on this topic. What we really need is usability testing. I'd like to see usability testing comparing Vista, XP Pro, Mac OS 10.4, Mac OS 9, Linux or BSD running several popular desktop environments, Solaris, OPENSTEP, and OS/2 Warp 4. Solaris would provide an older style gnome desktop environment with openoffice and a browser. Then give the testers a series of tasks to complete like the following:
...
1. Go to a few websites. www.google.com, www.cnn.com,
2. Check your email
3. Create a simple letter in the word processor.
4. Play some music from a CD.
I'm sure someone else would think of a few more tasks. I used a CD because not all those systems support modern formats like MP3, AAC, OGG, and so forth.
You would expect the user to feel more comfortable in front of whatever they use now or maybe have used in the past. Somehow that has to be addressed. I'm not sure who would win and I think very highly of the OS 9 gui and OPENSTEP.
I don't think Vista would win, but I think it slows users down with its new start menu.
After reading this, did anyone else picture some guy falling off a bridge? That third question is always so tricky...
Yes, I have this problem with Enemy Territory. The solution is to buy a cheap Microsoft or Logitech mouse. Then you get two real buttons and a scroll wheel. Both companies have optional drivers for Mac OS, although the Microsoft one is not needed. Don't pay the apple premium for an inferior mouse. I even keep one in my backpack for those situations I can't live without right click.
3 OSes? WTF? Let me guess, Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Well you forget Mac OS X has intel and ppc to support. Microsoft has differences between Windows versions. An app for XP might not run in Vista x64 for instance. Linux distros are not standardized enough. You can't count on all the libraries to be present or GTK or QT to be a specific version. Then you might have users on BSDs, Solaris, ecomstation, ReactOS, BeOS, OS/2, or some other crazy thing. PDAs have different systems as do cell phones. Game consoles might run on Linux or some other system. I think we've got a lot more than 3 consoles.
Of course this google software suffers from the same problem as Java or Mono/.Net. It only runs on a limited number of platforms. The whole point to the web is to run on any platform. Don't believe me about Java? Try running java on a Linux distro that's not an x86 chip. Sure there are some buggy ports to a few select cpus... Java will get better when its fully GPL'd. Flash is in the same boat with limited support outside the big three on their most popular CPU type. Some of you linux guys are starting to forget what it was like to have no flash, java, video drivers, etc.
The biggest advantage is the lack of 13 year olds whining and asking for help. Just focus on games targeted to mature gamers.