What I am curious about is whether the XBox 2 will have backward compatibility.
Let's review. The XBox is basically an Intel PC. The XBox2 is ( from all we know now ) basically going to be a PowerPC with a completely different graphics subsystem from the first XBox. So, the ability to emulate the first generation on the second generation is going to be limited at best, don't you think?
In short, try playing your favorite graphics-intensive 3D video games for Windows running inside VirtualPC on a single-processor PowerMac G5, then get back to me on how well you think XBox2 is going to be backwards-compatable.
When the PS3 arrives 1 year later, the Xbox 2 will be (much?) cheaper, have a nice line of games, a larger base of players etc. Sure, the PS3 will have slightly better specs, but what will you pick when you're presented with the choice between a 699 machine and a 349 machine?
I'm sorry to even ask, but in what way will the XBox2 have a larger base of players than Sony when the PS3 comes out ? Did Sega's 'larger base of players' help it ?
Specifically, will the Xbox2 be backwards compatable ? No? See, what I'm thinking is that the PS3 will play PS2 games. How many people own how many PS2 games ? My thinking is that every single one of those PS2 owners counts towards the "base of players"... and Xbox2 players are only those who buy an Xbox2 in it's first year on the market.
Of course, we're guessing here... can I ask where the $699 price for a PS3 comes from ? As for the specs... well, you're *really* guessing there, right?? Which machine will have the better graphics capability ?
Sega had lots of cash, ( though of course not as much as MS ) and did fund a couple of years ( but not more ) of Dreamcast... but only a couple. As long as we're predicting based on little information, I predict that M$ does keep the Xbox2 going for a couple of years... before it introduces the Xbox3, after a relatively short lifespan, like the original Xbox, forcing it's followers to upgrade. Sound familiar ? The only way the XBox2 will have a long product lifespan is if the PS3 tanks... something few are predicting.
Anyway, I'm not so sure this is as price-sensitive a market as many make it out to be. $50 games aren't too much. $400 consoles aren't too much. $700 might be pushing it, but... if the graphics quality is as photo-realistic as it should be, and pushes the envelope that much further beyond what the XBox2 does... well, the well-to-do gamer crowd will get it, invite their friends over to play/show off with their plasma displays. Then everyone will want one.
Keep that in mind: the target market here buys displays that cost more than $2k. Will $699 seem like too much for a truly amazing game machine to them? It seems like too much to me, but I don't have the cash for a $2-3k display. If I did, maybe I would buy a new $699 PS3. As it is, I'll wait a year or two, then buy, like I did with the PS2. But I'm not likely to buy an XBox2 in any event.
What's interesting is that both consoles will 'succeed', what's to be seen is how well each will do.
Since the article seems to imply that the search was considered valid only because they found something illegal and therefore since it was illegal they had no legitimate right to privacy
Right. In contrast, the court seems to state that the search was considered valid only because the dog indicated there was something to be found. Most importantly, in an opinion opposite to the lower court's finding, having the dog sniff around the car is itself not considered a search.
So, your real question should be, if the dog went nuts, but no drugs were found, is the search legal? That sounds like an important and good question, one of course not addressed by the court. A lot in the decision of this case seems to hinge on the idea that the dog is not fallable... an interesting assertion, in the least, since the dog could, in fact, be just smelling something that had been there, but is not there now...
I think Microsoft purchased VPC because of their XBox division. XBox2 is going to be PowerPC based, and Microsoft probably wants backward compatibility with XBox.
I'd buy that except for one little detail.
Have you ever tried to play a graphics-intensive game in VirtualPC ? Don't. "Fast" isn't the word I'd use in that context. "correct" and "useable" are even dubious.
Perhaps since there's only a single platform that they're targeting, they can do some special coding to translate GPU commands to the new platform, but... VPC doesn't do that kind of thing right now, and screen-drawing performance suffers greatly as a result. I think that use would take a lot of work... and the word is that XBox2 won't be backwards compatable, which I believe. If there were plans for XBox2 to be backwards compatable, don't you think MS would have said so by now? Sony has said the PS3 will be backwards compatable, why wouldn't M$ announce that if it were doing the same?
The other explaination I've heard put forth, is that Microsoft want's to be able to compete with VMWare. Essentially, virtualizing very big machines is big business.
Yea, I've heard that too, and it makes plenty of sense... but that's basically the server version of the same concept, isn't it?
What was somewhat new and interesting to me here was the 'Win32 compatability layer for Longhorn and future non-x86 platforms' concept. Intuitively the idea makes sense ( you can get VirtualPC for WindowsXP right now and run DOS or Linux or Windows98 on it, why not bundle some of that ability with a future OS ) but I hadn't seen it so clearly stated before, especially not as a desktop-user backwards compatability solution.
I've seen one post where someone said "Say No.". That's the right answer.
Look at your total IT budget, and allocate it according to priority of projects. Keeping your file server running is probably priority #1. Anything else, feel free to say " we don't have the budget to provide that level of support".
Like all budgetary issues, know what you're spending the most money on, and save as much money on those areas as possible. Small stuff does indeed add up, as well, but it needs to be small stuff that is _actually_ IT spending. The power bill is _not_ really IT spending.
I've heard this explaination as to why Microsoft bought Connectix ( and thus Virtual PC ) before, but never quite so successfully explained.
Basically, they bought VirtualPC so their future customers, running on some non-x86 processor, can run legacy x86 Windows programs along side their.NET-based programs. The detail being that of course, the.NET-based apps are running in a ( licensed ) Microsoft operating system environment. As an added bonus, the OS used in VPC is yet another licensed MS operating system! Even _more_ software sales for M$!!
It's just the M$ way of _not_ betting the farm on x86... which is the true point of.NET, at least according to this guy.
Hey, they're not stupid at M$, they just like *MONEY*!!!
I, on the other hand, do not find it reasonable. Reasonable religious people will recognize it as a cute little mascot, not a sign that we're pro-evil.
Technically-inclined religious people will get the daemon reference.
By the way, I actually think http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html is a parody site, but... all the same, WTF? Don't mess with the devil! Do we have to take of Hexley's hat, too??
The demon logo bugs the suits? So don't put it on a box, honestly, they'll never know, what are they going to do, go to a truly technical website?
I say we all submit a ton of _truly_ offensive logos, and send the idea of changing the demon back to the overly religous cultural backwater it came from.
Seriously, these people are insane. Click that last link and scan down to where it says "Apple Macintosh". Religious fundamentalists are, once again, doing their best to destory science, intellectual discussion, and human society. We must all work to stop them.
it's interesting to note that even the hardcore HP calculator folks would rather buy an old one off of ebay for $insane_cash than buy one of the new TI wanna-be
There's just no comparing the new calculators to the old ones. They aren't even remotely the same. Do the new ones even _have_ RPN ??
I recently witnessed some older EE's puzzling over newer HP calculators, getting frustrated, and chucking them. There are several good reasons for the price of the old calculators on Ebay- maybe, some day, some company will look at that price and make a calculator that engineers actually want. I know it's a niche market compared to high school students, but there's money to be made...
I don't want to gouge though. I think $20/hr would be alright as long as it's not too frequent. If I find I'm getting too much work for what short time I'm actually down visiting family then I'll raise my rates.
Oh, you don't actually live near your family, so this isn't a _constant_ issue? That changes things a little. $20/hr might be OK... so long as you aren't constantly working on computers while trying to visit your family on what _should_ be your vacation.
I guess what you make during yoru day job might play into the equation, though, huh?
re moderating, it happened to me and I know exactly why. I moderated a well known tool's post as "flamebait" and that was the last time I ever saw mod points.
Lame. Sometimes, a post really is flamebait, and should be moderated as such. All to often, in fact.
Buzzword buzzword buzzword, incorrectly used terminology, buzzword buzzword.
That's not a 'funny' summary of the article, it's an 'insightful' summary. What is up with all of the MQ 'in the kernel' stuff ? And please keep me away from this guy:
"Even if AMQ doesn't get widespread adoption, at some point there will be a widely accepted open-source and free message queuing application that will continue to put pressure on the so-called ESB [enterprise service bus] vendors," Schmelzer said. "The software platform is rapidly becoming commoditized, and vendor startups need to be very cautious that they are innovating ahead of where open source is pioneering."
By the way, why am I meta-moderating 2 times a day and going for weeks and weeks without ever seeing mod points? What's up with that, did I quote a naughty word or something? I mean, I don't mind, but it's odd... it's been almost a month since I've seen mod points... and meta-moderating 2 times a day, I kid you not...
First off, I just looked at eBay, and er... where are the laptops he's talking about? There are exactly _two_ pre-PPC Apple laptops there, one without a power cord, one without a hard drive, so... not exactly functional, even if you want a slow-ass computer. There are some 603e ( that's a PowerPC, if you don't know ) systems in there, cheap, but on a quick glance they all seem to be non-functional as well. Otherwise, and believe me I've been looking, the cheapest I've seen a (really really) old Powerbook go for is around $350.
A note to mods: unless a post like the parent has links to products priced as quoted, don't believe it.
XxtraLarGE, if you post a link, I'll take it all back, but until then, you look like you don't know what you're talking about. We're looking for a working laptop, not a shell.
For friends and family, I don't charge... as long as they're using a Macintosh. Otherwise, it's on a case-by-case basis. But I dont' do a lot of support stuff, I try to avoid it. Gotta get one of those t-shirts.
But for folks you don't even know? You're a business professional. Act like one and people will hopefully decide to treat you like one. Guage the market and charge what the market will bear. If you're not getting "enough" business, charge less. If you are getting enough business, but not too much, you're charging the right amount. If you have more calls than you can handle? Either get people to switch to Macintosh more agressively, or raise your rates.
The simple fact is that $50 is probably too low, not to high. I'd personally charge two different rates - one higher for PC support, one lower for Macintosh support. Just to drive home the idea that maybe a Mac might be a little more trouble-free.
I highly recommend people buy an iMac or Mac mini... and I think it's weird that you feel $45/hr is too high but would readily recommend buying a new machine, which, if it's halfway decent, is going to cost upwards of $700.
Oh, and you're rural? You really should be charging some sort of visit fee, mileage fee, or "over 30 miles from town" fee. They'll understand- the vet charges the same fee, call the local vet and see how much.
If someone complains about how expenisive you are, point out that you're cheaper than any other alternative, and ask how much a plumber costs...
So *that's* why they're so hard to find!
on
iPod Shuffle RAID
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Someone's been buying them all up to make these silly-ass RAID arrays!
You've obviously not seen map24 then? Java based applet for online vector maps. Pisses all over Mapquest and Googles latest.
Wow! Thanks! That's definitely very, very cool!
Minor detail, it did ( eventually ) crash Safari for me when using the "interactive" map (.. some sort of semaphore lock backtrace, sent that one off to Apple for their crash database... ), but... it's cool, quick, and useful enough, I think I'll end up using it again anyway!
It looks like as long as I use their "static" map ( which is honestly nearly as good, maybe better than, the "interactive" map ), it's not going to cause problems for the browser.
More important to me than the admittedly neat-o interactive map features are the well-developed time estimation features, nicely functional, fairly intelligent-looking route planning, and general ease-of-use... this site definitely deserved to get that award...
it will also likely be used in future Apple computers, of which, the G5 is already based on the Power architecture.
That, kind sir, is wild speculation at this point in time. Not entirely unfounded wild speculation, mind you, but we _know_ it's going to be used in the PS3. We're _guessing_ that Apple _might_ be able to use it.
I promise there'll be a PS3 before there will be a Cell-based Macintosh. So, Games it is, since, oddly enough, there's no Hardware section...
If you aren't prepared to think about and use the right tool for your job at hand, regardless of your political beliefs or personal favorite OS, maybe you shouldn't be making the OS choices for your organization.
I could not agree more with that statement.
More to the point, you seem to be promoting ( in general, perhaps not in specific cases ) being open to a multi-platform environment, something which a large number of organizations seem to be almost violently against on principle ( that principle usually being cost ). They fail to realize that the cost of failing to use the right tool for the job may be more than the expense of maintaining more than one tool.
I was just trying to get you to admit that there are some serious issues when using Windows on a regular basis, i.e. that the author of the article had a valid question. Your answer to that question seems to be that for some uses of Windows, it's problems aren't great enough to outweigh the benefits ( application availability, previous investments and replacement costs being the ones you mentioned ), and that switching to OS X or Linux or anything else that currently exists isn't always the 'right' answer.
I do find it odd that you seem to think being able to use Exchange is a good enough reason to put up with trying to defend Windows security-wise, though... but I suppose that's a matter of personal preference. Myself, I detest the poor stability, host of bugs, lack of standards compliance and almost-there functionality of Exchange, and don't see it as being worth having a team of IT professionals spending most of their time keeping all of your boxes up to date, virus and trojan-free, but, hey, if it works for your organization... I hope I don't have to work there...
I think perhaps more specialized apps, like high-end CAD or hardware-controller apps, apps that couldn't possibly be replaced on other platforms without a huge investment, those are better reasons to use Windows... or DOS... or whatever... but if I was an employee and told I had to use Windows just so I could get Exchange functionality, I'd be pissed.
If you'd actually read what this is all about then you'd have find out that this is a cross-platform library for SIMD programming.
My point exactly. Does the story say cross-platform anywhere? No, it says: programming for the PowerPC Altivec and Intel MMX/SSE SIMD (single instruction multiple data) units remains the black art of assembly language magicians
er... so, instead of saying something like "here's a product which allows you to use the same API for both PPC and Intel SIMD", the submitter puts in the above sentence, which is clearly not factually correct unless you infer the part about cross-platform ?
I'm not saying that the library isn't cool and potentially useful, I'm saying I'm very turned off by the claim that programming either of these architectures requires assembly language. Because it's not true. Why do you have a problem with my pointing that out? Why do you assume I didn't know what macstl is already?
Oh, and I'm also turned off by the post essentially being an ad... like your sig.
Sorry, I can't read a story submitted by someone who doesn't even know about Clibraries that have been around for years.
Or is this just another advertisement pretending to be a story, with the submitter trying to play ignorant about alternative Altivec and MMX libraries ?
Slashdot Mirror
Let's review. The XBox is basically an Intel PC. The XBox2 is ( from all we know now ) basically going to be a PowerPC with a completely different graphics subsystem from the first XBox. So, the ability to emulate the first generation on the second generation is going to be limited at best, don't you think?
In short, try playing your favorite graphics-intensive 3D video games for Windows running inside VirtualPC on a single-processor PowerMac G5, then get back to me on how well you think XBox2 is going to be backwards-compatable.
Somehow, I don't think it's going to happen.
I'm sorry to even ask, but in what way will the XBox2 have a larger base of players than Sony when the PS3 comes out ? Did Sega's 'larger base of players' help it ?
Specifically, will the Xbox2 be backwards compatable ? No? See, what I'm thinking is that the PS3 will play PS2 games. How many people own how many PS2 games ? My thinking is that every single one of those PS2 owners counts towards the "base of players"... and Xbox2 players are only those who buy an Xbox2 in it's first year on the market.
Of course, we're guessing here... can I ask where the $699 price for a PS3 comes from ? As for the specs... well, you're *really* guessing there, right?? Which machine will have the better graphics capability ?
Sega had lots of cash, ( though of course not as much as MS ) and did fund a couple of years ( but not more ) of Dreamcast... but only a couple. As long as we're predicting based on little information, I predict that M$ does keep the Xbox2 going for a couple of years... before it introduces the Xbox3, after a relatively short lifespan, like the original Xbox, forcing it's followers to upgrade. Sound familiar ? The only way the XBox2 will have a long product lifespan is if the PS3 tanks... something few are predicting.
Anyway, I'm not so sure this is as price-sensitive a market as many make it out to be. $50 games aren't too much. $400 consoles aren't too much. $700 might be pushing it, but... if the graphics quality is as photo-realistic as it should be, and pushes the envelope that much further beyond what the XBox2 does... well, the well-to-do gamer crowd will get it, invite their friends over to play/show off with their plasma displays. Then everyone will want one.
Keep that in mind: the target market here buys displays that cost more than $2k. Will $699 seem like too much for a truly amazing game machine to them? It seems like too much to me, but I don't have the cash for a $2-3k display. If I did, maybe I would buy a new $699 PS3. As it is, I'll wait a year or two, then buy, like I did with the PS2. But I'm not likely to buy an XBox2 in any event.
What's interesting is that both consoles will 'succeed', what's to be seen is how well each will do.
Then I was about to get back to work, but decided I could reload slashdot for the 9th time today...
I should probably get back to work now, but I think I'll check out the headlines on google news first...
Right. In contrast, the court seems to state that the search was considered valid only because the dog indicated there was something to be found. Most importantly, in an opinion opposite to the lower court's finding, having the dog sniff around the car is itself not considered a search.
So, your real question should be, if the dog went nuts, but no drugs were found, is the search legal? That sounds like an important and good question, one of course not addressed by the court. A lot in the decision of this case seems to hinge on the idea that the dog is not fallable... an interesting assertion, in the least, since the dog could, in fact, be just smelling something that had been there, but is not there now...
I'd buy that except for one little detail.
Have you ever tried to play a graphics-intensive game in VirtualPC ? Don't. "Fast" isn't the word I'd use in that context. "correct" and "useable" are even dubious.
Perhaps since there's only a single platform that they're targeting, they can do some special coding to translate GPU commands to the new platform, but... VPC doesn't do that kind of thing right now, and screen-drawing performance suffers greatly as a result. I think that use would take a lot of work... and the word is that XBox2 won't be backwards compatable, which I believe. If there were plans for XBox2 to be backwards compatable, don't you think MS would have said so by now? Sony has said the PS3 will be backwards compatable, why wouldn't M$ announce that if it were doing the same?
Yea, I've heard that too, and it makes plenty of sense... but that's basically the server version of the same concept, isn't it?
What was somewhat new and interesting to me here was the 'Win32 compatability layer for Longhorn and future non-x86 platforms' concept. Intuitively the idea makes sense ( you can get VirtualPC for WindowsXP right now and run DOS or Linux or Windows98 on it, why not bundle some of that ability with a future OS ) but I hadn't seen it so clearly stated before, especially not as a desktop-user backwards compatability solution.
Look at your total IT budget, and allocate it according to priority of projects. Keeping your file server running is probably priority #1. Anything else, feel free to say " we don't have the budget to provide that level of support".
Like all budgetary issues, know what you're spending the most money on, and save as much money on those areas as possible. Small stuff does indeed add up, as well, but it needs to be small stuff that is _actually_ IT spending. The power bill is _not_ really IT spending.
Basically, they bought VirtualPC so their future customers, running on some non-x86 processor, can run legacy x86 Windows programs along side their .NET-based programs. The detail being that of course, the .NET-based apps are running in a ( licensed ) Microsoft operating system environment. As an added bonus, the OS used in VPC is yet another licensed MS operating system! Even _more_ software sales for M$!!
It's just the M$ way of _not_ betting the farm on x86... which is the true point of .NET, at least according to this guy.
Hey, they're not stupid at M$, they just like *MONEY*!!!
I, on the other hand, do not find it reasonable. Reasonable religious people will recognize it as a cute little mascot, not a sign that we're pro-evil.
Technically-inclined religious people will get the daemon reference.
By the way, I actually think http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html is a parody site, but... all the same, WTF? Don't mess with the devil! Do we have to take of Hexley's hat, too??
The demon logo bugs the suits? So don't put it on a box, honestly, they'll never know, what are they going to do, go to a truly technical website?
I say we all submit a ton of _truly_ offensive logos, and send the idea of changing the demon back to the overly religous cultural backwater it came from.
Seriously, these people are insane. Click that last link and scan down to where it says "Apple Macintosh". Religious fundamentalists are, once again, doing their best to destory science, intellectual discussion, and human society. We must all work to stop them.
There's just no comparing the new calculators to the old ones. They aren't even remotely the same. Do the new ones even _have_ RPN ??
I recently witnessed some older EE's puzzling over newer HP calculators, getting frustrated, and chucking them. There are several good reasons for the price of the old calculators on Ebay- maybe, some day, some company will look at that price and make a calculator that engineers actually want. I know it's a niche market compared to high school students, but there's money to be made...
You're funny, but my mother-in-law is using a 233MHz G3 beige PowerMac with OS X 1.2.8.
It works pretty damn well, considering it's a nine-year-old machine. She won't be playing UT2004, but she wouldn't even if she could...
Oh, you don't actually live near your family, so this isn't a _constant_ issue? That changes things a little. $20/hr might be OK... so long as you aren't constantly working on computers while trying to visit your family on what _should_ be your vacation.
I guess what you make during yoru day job might play into the equation, though, huh?
Lame. Sometimes, a post really is flamebait, and should be moderated as such. All to often, in fact.
buzzwords for the sake of buzzwords, like the parent said...
Buzzword buzzword buzzword, incorrectly used terminology, buzzword buzzword.
That's not a 'funny' summary of the article, it's an 'insightful' summary. What is up with all of the MQ 'in the kernel' stuff ? And please keep me away from this guy:
By the way, why am I meta-moderating 2 times a day and going for weeks and weeks without ever seeing mod points? What's up with that, did I quote a naughty word or something? I mean, I don't mind, but it's odd... it's been almost a month since I've seen mod points... and meta-moderating 2 times a day, I kid you not...
Clearly, the mods are smoking crack. How the hell is that insightful? It's clearly not even true!
First off, I just looked at eBay, and er... where are the laptops he's talking about? There are exactly _two_ pre-PPC Apple laptops there, one without a power cord, one without a hard drive, so... not exactly functional, even if you want a slow-ass computer. There are some 603e ( that's a PowerPC, if you don't know ) systems in there, cheap, but on a quick glance they all seem to be non-functional as well. Otherwise, and believe me I've been looking, the cheapest I've seen a (really really) old Powerbook go for is around $350.
A note to mods: unless a post like the parent has links to products priced as quoted, don't believe it.
XxtraLarGE, if you post a link, I'll take it all back, but until then, you look like you don't know what you're talking about. We're looking for a working laptop, not a shell.
But for folks you don't even know? You're a business professional. Act like one and people will hopefully decide to treat you like one. Guage the market and charge what the market will bear. If you're not getting "enough" business, charge less. If you are getting enough business, but not too much, you're charging the right amount. If you have more calls than you can handle? Either get people to switch to Macintosh more agressively, or raise your rates.
The simple fact is that $50 is probably too low, not to high. I'd personally charge two different rates - one higher for PC support, one lower for Macintosh support. Just to drive home the idea that maybe a Mac might be a little more trouble-free.
I highly recommend people buy an iMac or Mac mini... and I think it's weird that you feel $45/hr is too high but would readily recommend buying a new machine, which, if it's halfway decent, is going to cost upwards of $700.
Oh, and you're rural? You really should be charging some sort of visit fee, mileage fee, or "over 30 miles from town" fee. They'll understand- the vet charges the same fee, call the local vet and see how much.
If someone complains about how expenisive you are, point out that you're cheaper than any other alternative, and ask how much a plumber costs...
Here I thought they were just really popular...
Wow! Thanks! That's definitely very, very cool!
Minor detail, it did ( eventually ) crash Safari for me when using the "interactive" map ( .. some sort of semaphore lock backtrace, sent that one off to Apple for their crash database... ), but... it's cool, quick, and useful enough, I think I'll end up using it again anyway!
It looks like as long as I use their "static" map ( which is honestly nearly as good, maybe better than, the "interactive" map ), it's not going to cause problems for the browser.
More important to me than the admittedly neat-o interactive map features are the well-developed time estimation features, nicely functional, fairly intelligent-looking route planning, and general ease-of-use... this site definitely deserved to get that award...
That, kind sir, is wild speculation at this point in time. Not entirely unfounded wild speculation, mind you, but we _know_ it's going to be used in the PS3. We're _guessing_ that Apple _might_ be able to use it.
I promise there'll be a PS3 before there will be a Cell-based Macintosh. So, Games it is, since, oddly enough, there's no Hardware section...
I could not agree more with that statement.
More to the point, you seem to be promoting ( in general, perhaps not in specific cases ) being open to a multi-platform environment, something which a large number of organizations seem to be almost violently against on principle ( that principle usually being cost ). They fail to realize that the cost of failing to use the right tool for the job may be more than the expense of maintaining more than one tool.
I was just trying to get you to admit that there are some serious issues when using Windows on a regular basis, i.e. that the author of the article had a valid question. Your answer to that question seems to be that for some uses of Windows, it's problems aren't great enough to outweigh the benefits ( application availability, previous investments and replacement costs being the ones you mentioned ), and that switching to OS X or Linux or anything else that currently exists isn't always the 'right' answer.
I do find it odd that you seem to think being able to use Exchange is a good enough reason to put up with trying to defend Windows security-wise, though... but I suppose that's a matter of personal preference. Myself, I detest the poor stability, host of bugs, lack of standards compliance and almost-there functionality of Exchange, and don't see it as being worth having a team of IT professionals spending most of their time keeping all of your boxes up to date, virus and trojan-free, but, hey, if it works for your organization... I hope I don't have to work there...
I think perhaps more specialized apps, like high-end CAD or hardware-controller apps, apps that couldn't possibly be replaced on other platforms without a huge investment, those are better reasons to use Windows... or DOS... or whatever... but if I was an employee and told I had to use Windows just so I could get Exchange functionality, I'd be pissed.
My point exactly. Does the story say cross-platform anywhere? No, it says :
programming for the PowerPC Altivec and Intel MMX/SSE SIMD (single instruction multiple data) units remains the black art of assembly language magicians
er... so, instead of saying something like "here's a product which allows you to use the same API for both PPC and Intel SIMD", the submitter puts in the above sentence, which is clearly not factually correct unless you infer the part about cross-platform ?
I'm not saying that the library isn't cool and potentially useful, I'm saying I'm very turned off by the claim that programming either of these architectures requires assembly language. Because it's not true. Why do you have a problem with my pointing that out? Why do you assume I didn't know what macstl is already?
Oh, and I'm also turned off by the post essentially being an ad... like your sig.
Or is this just another advertisement pretending to be a story, with the submitter trying to play ignorant about alternative Altivec and MMX libraries ?