Didn't they just have a review about this not too long ago - like late summer? I remember reading something about this on Slashdot, and it wasn't any more clear then. I had to google it to figure it all out.
But, anyway, there's an awesome sort of flash-based game that's similar in concept at http://home.cwru.edu/~jnt5/Katamari/ - it's really interesting, but doesn't go very far, and there aren't any actual levels to it.
I don't think that's exactly the right idea. He's probably saying this because it's in the interest of his business, but why would we want to become more reliant on the Internet? We don't know when our connection could go down, and we'd be stuck, or if we'd even have a connection all of the time. You might be up in the mountains somewhere, with no Internet access, but maybe you'd still want to use your Powerbook to type a paper or something. If your word processing software is somewhere lese, then what good is this laptop for? Software, for the most part, should remain local to each machine, so that, in the event that the Internet isn't available, computers can still function the way that they were meant to.
I would really be interested to see what Apple can do with this. However, they need to make sure that the heat is as minimal as possible. I'm getting tired of even the G3 iBooks getting wayyyy too warm, let alone the G4 'books. We need to get those temperatures down, power consumption down (seems like these new chips will do that), and make the Lithium Ion batteries last longer, so we don't have guys putting "Powerbook batteries last only 18 months!" everywhere.
Adobe's software apps aren't exactly "artsy" tools. In my design classes, with my fellow college students, who are considered to be part of the tech generation, most students can't stand Adobe programs. Though they are all similar in nature (once you learn one, you can understand them all), they are still a pain to learn. Even those of us (like myself) who understand technology - to the point that we see it in our sleep - would like anything that could provide an easier experience, and be simple. The perfect app would be designed Keynote or Pages, with the speed of an Adobe app, and provide the visual response that Microsoft Office 2003 has when you hover over a control (without the crashing that goes with it). Visual feedback is good in my mind, as long as it doesn't slow down the app. Apple doesn't do enough of the "hover" effects, I think.
I don't know how other kids would be, but I gave up entirely once I turned 20. College has waayyyy too much else going on for games, especially with studying, projects, job (optional), and friends/members of the opposite sex that you would hang out with. But a question would be, how do you help the child to become mature earlier, so that they can see how stupid those things are, and that there are other things that you can do instead?
Feng shui is one of those things that kind of states what is already obvious to us.... like a religion that would say "don't shoot yourself in the foot, because it might hurt". People already know not to set their computer next to the washer. It's noisy, and not going to be comfortable. I could tell you that without all of the feng shui stuff. It's called common sense and analytical thinking, not feng shui.
Not quite. Ever tried lifting a PowerMac? Your PowerBook has a lot more portability, doesn't it? Even with one of those external drives, it's still a lot more portable. If you go on the road a lot with your video equipment and such to film on location, it can be easy enough to store those drives in the glove box, and then swap one for the other when you move between projects. The only problem that remains.... battery life.... oh, and the van to haul all of your video equipment in.
San Francisco must be fairly "techno-cool", since Apple has their developer conference there every summer, and Steve Jobs is always keynoting that. Several thousand Powerbooks would need something to connect to, right? Oh... and the fact that SF isn't too far from Cupertino. That might be a good part of a marketing ploy to keep Apple coming.
Linux could do really well if it had some crazy, weird, ego-centric control freak running it all - a guy who makes all of the final design decisions. That is basically what Jobs did. He focused on the end result, and the presentation of the final product that users would see. He pruned the company down, killed any not-so-useful products, and got the product line down to a simple list.
This is the type of simplicity that I don't really see in Linux. Linux doesn't have a soothing techno song and neat animation the first time you start it up. Linux doesn't have a micro-managed interface, down to the level of Jobs' deciding the icons that would be in the dock and exactly what order it would be. The process of changing the resolution of the monitor is easier to figure out and execute on OS X than on Linux. And the reason for that, I believe, is because Linux developers are interested more in offering options than in the design and layout of the option panels. They stick the buttons in, without concern for how easy to use or organized it all is.
As another example, we know that Apple (since HP dropped the iPod) has held sole control over the iPod. They are doing an awesome job of making it work well for everyone, even Queen Elizabeth. The U.S. government isn't attacking them yet, because they haven't done anything to keep people from doing other significant things that they wish to do with their iPods. If Apple used their control of the iPod to prevent users from using a competitor's platform entirely - i.e., software on the CD keeps users from accessing sites that Apple doesn't want you to - then it would suck. They haven't done anything like that yet. Microsoft actively prevented Lotus software from running on MSDOS. Now that really sucks.
There are some who say that Microsoft paid off the government to make the case go away. If that is true, then it may be possible that they will try to get the government to go after Apple when they get really desperate (especially since the iTunes competitors aren't doing so hot anymore).
Apple uses WebObjects for its online store and the iTunes store. Consider that those go under a lot of stress. Those seem to be the biggest examples of its use, so I don't know what kind of performance it does in other situations. But for an all-around package, it seems to be pretty good.
Of course, the obvious thing is that Apple would have to deal with calls from people complaining "my Internet Explorer doesn't work", and they would only be doing what Dell does now - refer them to Microsoft. "It's Microsoft's fault". They probably don't want to deal with that headache, and just stay away from the whole other mess. Selling it as a package makes it extremely predictable, which is easier to support.
I agree with the replacing keyboards every week when it's a cafe...
I went to the University of Tennessee a couple summers ago. In their library, they had a Starbucks, and a limited number of computers over to the side. A couple of those computers had some really sticky, barely useable keyboards. I dunno if they've done anything about that, as that was the only time I visited the place. Nice school, and great facilities, but I didn't like using the computers in the library cafe.
Actually, there have been a few sites out there that have covered the story of the original Macintosh, where they developed a way that users could have "desktop accessories", like a calculator, clock, etc...
Dashboard brings this back. The only thing that Apple would have taken from Konfabulator is the fact that people actually cared about these things..... or Steve Jobs tried to make it seem like people do.
The thing that I don't like about Dashboard is that you can't easily put the widgets anywhere you want, and even with the hack, they remain on top of all other windows, which isn't cool.
I think people are getting sick of ads, to the point that they will go elsewhere for it. Recently, I went to see Batman Begins in the theater, and the movie didn't start until 32 minutes after the posted time. What was keeping it? Ads, ads, and more ads! They even had a really irritating commercial for Fanta. Two families in the front of the theater basically said "screw this" after about 20 minutes, and walked out. I can imagine their irritation trying to get their money back, but it's just easier to pirate the movie and watch it on the computer than it is to sit through a half-hour of ads after paying out the nose for the chance to see the movie. Some DVDs are trying to force me to watch the previews on the disk before I can get to the menu now! I will not purchase a disk that does that, and if I have paid money for it, I ask for a refund. You can imagine that by the time people have paid for such garbage, they won't want it in the free stuff, either.
The USSR and the USA never had a huge tank/nuke war in Europe, and their proxy wars were fought with unusual restraint given that each side had nuclear arms.
That's a topic that my history professor commented on at one point.... Why do people claim that so many people hate the U.S., when the U.S. was the one that had nuclear weapons long before the USSR, but other than the two that were used against Japan to end WW2, there were no other mushroom clouds? There is a span of 63 years between the bombs on the Japanese cities and now. In fact, it was a President of the United States who came up with the nuclear test ban treaty, because he realized we were not getting anything productive done. Calm restraint on the part of the U.S. leaders. Meanwhile, when certain Soviet leaders had temper tantrums, they would become red-faced, and slam their shoe on the podium in rage. (I can't recall - was it Khrushchev?) A "hot-head" like that having access to a nuke is just asking for worldwide destruction.
I don't recall the UN ever stepping in and doing anything. My professor concurs.
Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!
on
Glass In Spaaaaace
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· Score: 1
It may not be worthwhile to NASA to keep doing this (especially if Congress butchers their budget), but if private companies find a good use for this, it would give them a good reason to ignite the private space race. More than just million-dollar prizes for making a flight....
Hasn't slashdot learned by now not to let through any stories that were submitted by the people involved in the story's subject? We get goofy ones where the guy is plugging his own site or stuff for some greedy, selfish, or underhanded reason.
I've been feeling a tingling in my left hand and wrist, even though I'm right handed, and I do pretty much everything with my right hand.... Do I need to have a wrist rest? Are those really necessary? Would the lack of one be causing my problem?
This is an example of what beer can do to a guy's brain. I especially like the part about the back yard up in flames, and the grill on the back deck. Stuuuuupid.
Exept that Microsoft's engineers don't focus on the needs of their users - that's the problem. Sure, they have hard-working people making sure that XP runs [name of generic product here], but they don't have the passion for cool new stuff that works well. Apple doesn't focus on the code being perfectly indented on every line - users don't see that - but they do focus on making apps like Pages - where you can lay out a newsletter in 5 minutes that looks like a professional designer just made it!
Evolution is only a theory, not fact! It's not been proven, nor could it be, due to the fact that most of the so-called "evidence" was fabricated. Piltdown Man and the like were all found to have been made up, merely as a "PR scheme" by Darwin's followers to gain public acceptance. Everyone knows that once you have the public on your side, even if you're guilty, it's hard for them to put you away. Even Darwin himself didn't want to release his theory to the public (he was pressured to do so), because he was a Christian. Evolution, as people see it now, is contradictory to the beliefs of Christians - the literal 7 days, as opposed to the silly "millions of years". Carbon 14 dating was found to be inaccurate for dating old matter, which puts into question any claims based on that method.
I'm not trying to push creation theory on you, but I would urge you to be much more critical of everything you hear, especially the media.
The Deluxe version includes a free state download, which acts as an add-on patch (takes your Fed info you typed in, copies it to the state, then asks you a few more questions). This lets you do Federal and State taxes, and you can get it done in an hour or less, with little or no pain. The Deluxe version is 40 bucks, so why would you buy the more expensive one?
BTW, the Deluxe CD-ROM is both Windows and Mac on the same CD, and State is a free download for both. This is really handy - my dad did his taxes on Windows, and I did mine on OS X. We were both able to download and use the IL state add-on as well.
The advantage that the commercial offering has is the way they could download the latest info easily. Some states don't finish their tax laws until after the software is shipped, so these updates are helpful, to say the least. I don't think an OSS project could be as fast or complete. Tax laws are boring, and no one would do that for free.
What can be even more annoying is when local stations cut in for "weather updates", or more recently, one station cut in with updates about the local primaries! That's really dumb! Most people don't care!!! Then they'd put a "frame" around the network video image, which prevented me from seeing my closed captioning, which I need onscreen. Why are they doing that? I ended up changing the channel after they switched to commercial, the frame disappeared, and when the show came back on, they put the stupid caption-removing frame back on again! They've lost my viewership.
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't they just have a review about this not too long ago - like late summer? I remember reading something about this on Slashdot, and it wasn't any more clear then. I had to google it to figure it all out. But, anyway, there's an awesome sort of flash-based game that's similar in concept at http://home.cwru.edu/~jnt5/Katamari/ - it's really interesting, but doesn't go very far, and there aren't any actual levels to it.
I don't think that's exactly the right idea. He's probably saying this because it's in the interest of his business, but why would we want to become more reliant on the Internet? We don't know when our connection could go down, and we'd be stuck, or if we'd even have a connection all of the time. You might be up in the mountains somewhere, with no Internet access, but maybe you'd still want to use your Powerbook to type a paper or something. If your word processing software is somewhere lese, then what good is this laptop for? Software, for the most part, should remain local to each machine, so that, in the event that the Internet isn't available, computers can still function the way that they were meant to.
I would really be interested to see what Apple can do with this. However, they need to make sure that the heat is as minimal as possible. I'm getting tired of even the G3 iBooks getting wayyyy too warm, let alone the G4 'books. We need to get those temperatures down, power consumption down (seems like these new chips will do that), and make the Lithium Ion batteries last longer, so we don't have guys putting "Powerbook batteries last only 18 months!" everywhere.
Adobe's software apps aren't exactly "artsy" tools. In my design classes, with my fellow college students, who are considered to be part of the tech generation, most students can't stand Adobe programs. Though they are all similar in nature (once you learn one, you can understand them all), they are still a pain to learn. Even those of us (like myself) who understand technology - to the point that we see it in our sleep - would like anything that could provide an easier experience, and be simple. The perfect app would be designed Keynote or Pages, with the speed of an Adobe app, and provide the visual response that Microsoft Office 2003 has when you hover over a control (without the crashing that goes with it). Visual feedback is good in my mind, as long as it doesn't slow down the app. Apple doesn't do enough of the "hover" effects, I think.
I don't know how other kids would be, but I gave up entirely once I turned 20. College has waayyyy too much else going on for games, especially with studying, projects, job (optional), and friends/members of the opposite sex that you would hang out with. But a question would be, how do you help the child to become mature earlier, so that they can see how stupid those things are, and that there are other things that you can do instead?
Feng shui is one of those things that kind of states what is already obvious to us.... like a religion that would say "don't shoot yourself in the foot, because it might hurt". People already know not to set their computer next to the washer. It's noisy, and not going to be comfortable. I could tell you that without all of the feng shui stuff. It's called common sense and analytical thinking, not feng shui.
Not quite. Ever tried lifting a PowerMac? Your PowerBook has a lot more portability, doesn't it? Even with one of those external drives, it's still a lot more portable. If you go on the road a lot with your video equipment and such to film on location, it can be easy enough to store those drives in the glove box, and then swap one for the other when you move between projects. The only problem that remains.... battery life. ... oh, and the van to haul all of your video equipment in.
San Francisco must be fairly "techno-cool", since Apple has their developer conference there every summer, and Steve Jobs is always keynoting that. Several thousand Powerbooks would need something to connect to, right? Oh... and the fact that SF isn't too far from Cupertino. That might be a good part of a marketing ploy to keep Apple coming.
Linux could do really well if it had some crazy, weird, ego-centric control freak running it all - a guy who makes all of the final design decisions. That is basically what Jobs did. He focused on the end result, and the presentation of the final product that users would see. He pruned the company down, killed any not-so-useful products, and got the product line down to a simple list.
This is the type of simplicity that I don't really see in Linux. Linux doesn't have a soothing techno song and neat animation the first time you start it up. Linux doesn't have a micro-managed interface, down to the level of Jobs' deciding the icons that would be in the dock and exactly what order it would be. The process of changing the resolution of the monitor is easier to figure out and execute on OS X than on Linux. And the reason for that, I believe, is because Linux developers are interested more in offering options than in the design and layout of the option panels. They stick the buttons in, without concern for how easy to use or organized it all is.
This is quite true.
As another example, we know that Apple (since HP dropped the iPod) has held sole control over the iPod. They are doing an awesome job of making it work well for everyone, even Queen Elizabeth. The U.S. government isn't attacking them yet, because they haven't done anything to keep people from doing other significant things that they wish to do with their iPods. If Apple used their control of the iPod to prevent users from using a competitor's platform entirely - i.e., software on the CD keeps users from accessing sites that Apple doesn't want you to - then it would suck. They haven't done anything like that yet. Microsoft actively prevented Lotus software from running on MSDOS. Now that really sucks.
There are some who say that Microsoft paid off the government to make the case go away. If that is true, then it may be possible that they will try to get the government to go after Apple when they get really desperate (especially since the iTunes competitors aren't doing so hot anymore).
Apple uses WebObjects for its online store and the iTunes store. Consider that those go under a lot of stress. Those seem to be the biggest examples of its use, so I don't know what kind of performance it does in other situations. But for an all-around package, it seems to be pretty good.
Of course, the obvious thing is that Apple would have to deal with calls from people complaining "my Internet Explorer doesn't work", and they would only be doing what Dell does now - refer them to Microsoft. "It's Microsoft's fault". They probably don't want to deal with that headache, and just stay away from the whole other mess. Selling it as a package makes it extremely predictable, which is easier to support.
I agree with the replacing keyboards every week when it's a cafe...
I went to the University of Tennessee a couple summers ago. In their library, they had a Starbucks, and a limited number of computers over to the side. A couple of those computers had some really sticky, barely useable keyboards. I dunno if they've done anything about that, as that was the only time I visited the place. Nice school, and great facilities, but I didn't like using the computers in the library cafe.
Actually, there have been a few sites out there that have covered the story of the original Macintosh, where they developed a way that users could have "desktop accessories", like a calculator, clock, etc... Dashboard brings this back. The only thing that Apple would have taken from Konfabulator is the fact that people actually cared about these things. .... or Steve Jobs tried to make it seem like people do.
The thing that I don't like about Dashboard is that you can't easily put the widgets anywhere you want, and even with the hack, they remain on top of all other windows, which isn't cool.
I think people are getting sick of ads, to the point that they will go elsewhere for it. Recently, I went to see Batman Begins in the theater, and the movie didn't start until 32 minutes after the posted time. What was keeping it? Ads, ads, and more ads! They even had a really irritating commercial for Fanta. Two families in the front of the theater basically said "screw this" after about 20 minutes, and walked out. I can imagine their irritation trying to get their money back, but it's just easier to pirate the movie and watch it on the computer than it is to sit through a half-hour of ads after paying out the nose for the chance to see the movie. Some DVDs are trying to force me to watch the previews on the disk before I can get to the menu now! I will not purchase a disk that does that, and if I have paid money for it, I ask for a refund. You can imagine that by the time people have paid for such garbage, they won't want it in the free stuff, either.
The USSR and the USA never had a huge tank/nuke war in Europe, and their proxy wars were fought with unusual restraint given that each side had nuclear arms.
That's a topic that my history professor commented on at one point.... Why do people claim that so many people hate the U.S., when the U.S. was the one that had nuclear weapons long before the USSR, but other than the two that were used against Japan to end WW2, there were no other mushroom clouds? There is a span of 63 years between the bombs on the Japanese cities and now. In fact, it was a President of the United States who came up with the nuclear test ban treaty, because he realized we were not getting anything productive done. Calm restraint on the part of the U.S. leaders. Meanwhile, when certain Soviet leaders had temper tantrums, they would become red-faced, and slam their shoe on the podium in rage. (I can't recall - was it Khrushchev?) A "hot-head" like that having access to a nuke is just asking for worldwide destruction.
I don't recall the UN ever stepping in and doing anything. My professor concurs.
It may not be worthwhile to NASA to keep doing this (especially if Congress butchers their budget), but if private companies find a good use for this, it would give them a good reason to ignite the private space race. More than just million-dollar prizes for making a flight....
Hasn't slashdot learned by now not to let through any stories that were submitted by the people involved in the story's subject? We get goofy ones where the guy is plugging his own site or stuff for some greedy, selfish, or underhanded reason.
I've been feeling a tingling in my left hand and wrist, even though I'm right handed, and I do pretty much everything with my right hand. ... Do I need to have a wrist rest? Are those really necessary? Would the lack of one be causing my problem?
This is an example of what beer can do to a guy's brain. I especially like the part about the back yard up in flames, and the grill on the back deck. Stuuuuupid.
Exept that Microsoft's engineers don't focus on the needs of their users - that's the problem. Sure, they have hard-working people making sure that XP runs [name of generic product here], but they don't have the passion for cool new stuff that works well. Apple doesn't focus on the code being perfectly indented on every line - users don't see that - but they do focus on making apps like Pages - where you can lay out a newsletter in 5 minutes that looks like a professional designer just made it!
Heck, yeah, that's a lot of money! You could get a pretty nice stack of G5 PowerMacs and 30-inch LCD panels for that much!
Evolution is only a theory, not fact! It's not been proven, nor could it be, due to the fact that most of the so-called "evidence" was fabricated. Piltdown Man and the like were all found to have been made up, merely as a "PR scheme" by Darwin's followers to gain public acceptance. Everyone knows that once you have the public on your side, even if you're guilty, it's hard for them to put you away. Even Darwin himself didn't want to release his theory to the public (he was pressured to do so), because he was a Christian. Evolution, as people see it now, is contradictory to the beliefs of Christians - the literal 7 days, as opposed to the silly "millions of years". Carbon 14 dating was found to be inaccurate for dating old matter, which puts into question any claims based on that method. I'm not trying to push creation theory on you, but I would urge you to be much more critical of everything you hear, especially the media.
The Deluxe version includes a free state download, which acts as an add-on patch (takes your Fed info you typed in, copies it to the state, then asks you a few more questions). This lets you do Federal and State taxes, and you can get it done in an hour or less, with little or no pain. The Deluxe version is 40 bucks, so why would you buy the more expensive one? BTW, the Deluxe CD-ROM is both Windows and Mac on the same CD, and State is a free download for both. This is really handy - my dad did his taxes on Windows, and I did mine on OS X. We were both able to download and use the IL state add-on as well. The advantage that the commercial offering has is the way they could download the latest info easily. Some states don't finish their tax laws until after the software is shipped, so these updates are helpful, to say the least. I don't think an OSS project could be as fast or complete. Tax laws are boring, and no one would do that for free.
What can be even more annoying is when local stations cut in for "weather updates", or more recently, one station cut in with updates about the local primaries! That's really dumb! Most people don't care!!! Then they'd put a "frame" around the network video image, which prevented me from seeing my closed captioning, which I need onscreen. Why are they doing that? I ended up changing the channel after they switched to commercial, the frame disappeared, and when the show came back on, they put the stupid caption-removing frame back on again! They've lost my viewership.