Its bullshit because most of these toolbars cause browser instability (lets ignore the massive privacy issues). So what these developers are proposing is that I can have their application, but at the cost of my browser running like shit going forward. I don't consider damaging an unrelated piece of software on my machine a reasonable exchange.
Not to mention, they can sell ads to make money. Ads on the webpage that hosts the installer as well as in app ads. Its not toolbars or being broke. Lets stop pretending that toolbars are the only way to monetize free software or that its remotely acceptable way of doing business.
That's true, but if you want to avoid the "toolbar" bullshit there's no safe haven. Heck, when I'm not using SF and something is hosted independently there's no shortage of ads with "download" buttons designed to fool the end user.
Its just dirty. This is one of the last nails in the non-controlled/non-app store coffin. Oh well, I think if done right, this is a change that'll help people.
The last few Windows apps I've downloaded from there came with their own "INSTALL TOOLBAR FOO" now in the installer. PDFCreator is one example.
This is why we're headed towards managed computing and app stores. The game is just too dirty. Joe User has no idea whats going on. His computer has a dozen toolbars and all he's done is follow his geeky friend's advice to install stuff like PDFCreator or other GPL products. I'd rather just be microbilled 20 cents or whatever they make per install. Shame no one has properly cracked the microbilling nut.
The Acer Iconia is $399. 10 inch, dual core, fast, Honeycomb, etc. Ipad2 starts at $499. Sure, that's only a $100 difference, but that's a real difference to a lot of people.
We're probably going to see a $350-$299 Honeycomb dualcore tablets by Xmas, which will be on par with the current ipad2 and be behind the rumored ipad3. I think $299 is the magic price point where Joe Casual will blow some cash on one. That's my own personal price point and consider $299 for a Honeycomb table to be a reasonable purchase to replace my current ebook reader.
Existing WAPs. I'm assuming you have admin access to them. If they're connected to telephone wire that means the hotel has its own DSL network (search for the DSLAM) or some prorietary data over phone solution (weird little dongles on each end). No need to replace these things. 90% of the work is already done.
Find the DSLAM or whatever router is currently serving the WAPs. Pull you comcast line to there. If the router or switch is aged, consider replacing them.
Verification, for small businesses I prefer to just give out a WPA key that changes monthly (teach staff how to change them). Ideally, you can have a radius system but that will require API access to their guest management software to pull values like last name, room number, etc. That might be overkill though.
Since Google decided to delay releasing Honeycomb's source because they didnt want more half-cooked tablets on the market, suddenly the loud-mouth brigade is trying to paint them in a bad light. Google exerting a little control on the wild-west world of tablets and its own phoneOS is a good thing. Heaven forbid AOpen or some other shit shop wait a few weeks for google to iron out the bugs, have them verify their hardware can run Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich and make them sign a contract that they will updates the OS to the newest versions for a period of 18 months. The de facto world of release garbage and buggy phones, never supplying updates and hurting Android's reputation is no longer welcome, and I'm glad.
Already do this with KMS and MAK keys. KMS keys talk to a local license server. I think these articles are just written in a way to scare people and sell ad impressions. In the end, we're probably just seeing a different kind of volume key for corporate and maybe more hoops for residential users. "ZOMG DOWNLOAD AN IMAGE EVERY BOOT FROM MS" is kiddie bullshit.
>Not that I think it'll impact Apple's bottom line in any way. ha.
Half of Apple's income is from the iPhone. The Galaxy S phone is arguably cutting into the iPhone marketshare, as its one of the better Android phones out there and is a little cheaper and can be had on multiple carriers. I have a Vibrant on T-mobile and its a really neat piece of technology, so I can see why Apple is afraid of it.
Apple's take, imho, is that they'red damned if they don't do a patent attack and damned if they do, so why not? They don't give two shits about upsetting their loudmouth superfans nor about setting off a patent war that could potentially cripple the industry. They just need to worry about next quarters earning report.
I suspect these desperate measures are signs that Apple's massive growth is beginning to stagnate. Everyone who wants an iPhone probably has one and if Android continues to move in, then you won't have the growth you had in the past.
That's the problem here. Firefox's ever changing APIs which are always breaking add-ons. The Chrome add-on API is much more limited and as such doesn't need to change as frequently or as drastically. How Firefox thinks they're going to succeed by becoming a crappier version of Chrome is beyond me.
I deleted my account months ago yet I still get emails and 'friend' requests from them. They are somehow worse than Facebook. I am not at all surprised by this move. They are incredibly user hostile.
>Slide 34 -- UAC can be and frequently is turned off by stupid people, even some software vendors demand that it be disabled due to "incompatibilities". Escalation dialogs in Mac OS can't be.
Frequent? The only time I've seen it off or recommended it off is with the computer "enthusiast" crowd who hate anything different or security related and tell each other they're better off without it, circa the release of Vista.
Jane User has no idea how to shut it off and Jane WorkerBee doesn't have admin rights to shut it off anyway.
>It's half the price of a gamer mouse, so it's not exactly expensive.
What? That's like saying a Porsche is a fraction of the price of a Lamborghini. Err, no one needs a gaming mouse. Your 5 dollar mouse is just fine for gaming. The controller and all 360 accessories are expensive because the console itself is so cheap.
Mr boombox is alive and well. I see lots of kids blaring music on their cell phone's tiny shitty speaker. Its distorted to hell and sounds terrible, but they'll sit on their front porch with their friends and "enjoy" it.
When they grow up they buy cars and stuff them with subwoofers. Now they can torture whole blocks at a time. Maybe in a nice white suburb has music become "personal" but in the suburbs it always has been./lives in a big city
Err, the R&D of how to make good sound was done a long time ago. What is being done now is figuring out what level of shitty speakers Jane Consumer will tolerate. It turns out to be quite shitty.
All the retail electronics I've seen have tinny mid-range speakers, usually paired to a bass-boost circuit that only makes things worse. These things all sound terrible to me. Jane Consumer? She doesn't notice. Heck, I just saw a budget laptop with the new AMD fusion chip that came with one mono speaker. Yep, in a laptop.
Its called the race to the bottom. Its manufacturers figuring out ways to maximize their bottom lines by making things as cheaply as possible and getting on board with retailers who will sell junk, like Walmart. This is why brands like Apple or Bose do well. People are sick of the junk, but don't want to become computer geeks or audiophiles, so they buy the next step up.
Oh, your dad's stereo? Fixed for inflation, it cost a couple of grand. Still, even today you can spend a fraction of that and get a nice basic Sony system with an amp and speakers that will bring out all this great sound trapped in your mp3s that you will never hear through shitty speakers. Same with headphones. Spend 50+ dollars and listen to OK Computer or the White Album. You'll hear things you have not heard before.
Yeah but there's a pretty broken line from those movies to the comic movie fad on the 1990s. Since the Keaton Batman, there's been at least one major comic-based movie in theaters a year. In the 2000's its multiple comic movies per year.
That wasn't true in the 80s: Superman, Howard the Duck, Swamp Thing, and some low budget crap that barely or didn't make it to the theaters like the Punisher.
Look, this has been going on since the early 1990s with the Michael Keaton Batman movie. Its been 20 solid years. I'm not sure why its suddenly going to end.
Turns out audiences like simple-minded melodramas with clear-cut good guys and villains. They love fight scenes and over-the-top special effects. Comics fits perfectly with what most moviegoers want. Christ, Michael Bay can do this with something as worthless as a cartoon to sell toys. I think more well rounded characters are a shoo-in.
Of course there are lots of stinkers. Most notably Ang Lee's Hulk (sounds like simpsons parody) and the weird stalkerish Superman Returns. Hollywood's economics are setup in a way for them to easily absorb bad movies as long as they have a handful of hits every year.
The ISS is a partnership between a few nations. They collective decide its fate. Considering its of questionable utility in the first place and an incredible drain of funds, I wouldn't mind seeing it die earlier. That money could be spent on a whole bunch of space missions or pay for a Mars or asteroid mission.
Most likely a lot of the design and maintenance had a end date. The engineers built it to last x amount of years. Going beyond 2020 might make it more economically unfeasible than it already it. Not to mention, keeping old projects alive past their time is why we're in such a mess with the shuttle now. We don't need to lose two ISS crews before we realize that, yes, its time for change.
I had a USB flash drive in 2001-2002 or so. Sure it was only 16mb but that replaced 10 floppies. Win2000 shipped with USB support and SP4 gave it USB2.0 support. XP came with USB support too. By 2003 everyone had a USB flash drive. That's 8 years of these things floating around, at least.
IOMega was fail from the start because no one had the drives. You'd have to carry the drive with you and install the driver.
So, wait. Worrying about human capacity and wanting to go to the stars is "being high?" Wanting to get beyond our limits and our short lifespans is "being high?"
Pardon me, but we need more people like the GP and less dismissive asses like you.
Slashdot Mirror
Its bullshit because most of these toolbars cause browser instability (lets ignore the massive privacy issues). So what these developers are proposing is that I can have their application, but at the cost of my browser running like shit going forward. I don't consider damaging an unrelated piece of software on my machine a reasonable exchange.
Not to mention, they can sell ads to make money. Ads on the webpage that hosts the installer as well as in app ads. Its not toolbars or being broke. Lets stop pretending that toolbars are the only way to monetize free software or that its remotely acceptable way of doing business.
That's true, but if you want to avoid the "toolbar" bullshit there's no safe haven. Heck, when I'm not using SF and something is hosted independently there's no shortage of ads with "download" buttons designed to fool the end user.
Its just dirty. This is one of the last nails in the non-controlled/non-app store coffin. Oh well, I think if done right, this is a change that'll help people.
The last few Windows apps I've downloaded from there came with their own "INSTALL TOOLBAR FOO" now in the installer. PDFCreator is one example.
This is why we're headed towards managed computing and app stores. The game is just too dirty. Joe User has no idea whats going on. His computer has a dozen toolbars and all he's done is follow his geeky friend's advice to install stuff like PDFCreator or other GPL products. I'd rather just be microbilled 20 cents or whatever they make per install. Shame no one has properly cracked the microbilling nut.
The Acer Iconia is $399. 10 inch, dual core, fast, Honeycomb, etc. Ipad2 starts at $499. Sure, that's only a $100 difference, but that's a real difference to a lot of people.
We're probably going to see a $350-$299 Honeycomb dualcore tablets by Xmas, which will be on par with the current ipad2 and be behind the rumored ipad3. I think $299 is the magic price point where Joe Casual will blow some cash on one. That's my own personal price point and consider $299 for a Honeycomb table to be a reasonable purchase to replace my current ebook reader.
Err, engineers aren't 2nd class citizens. The problem is that software engineers/coders still are.
I feel you're overthinking this.
Existing WAPs. I'm assuming you have admin access to them. If they're connected to telephone wire that means the hotel has its own DSL network (search for the DSLAM) or some prorietary data over phone solution (weird little dongles on each end). No need to replace these things. 90% of the work is already done.
Find the DSLAM or whatever router is currently serving the WAPs. Pull you comcast line to there. If the router or switch is aged, consider replacing them.
Verification, for small businesses I prefer to just give out a WPA key that changes monthly (teach staff how to change them). Ideally, you can have a radius system but that will require API access to their guest management software to pull values like last name, room number, etc. That might be overkill though.
Since Google decided to delay releasing Honeycomb's source because they didnt want more half-cooked tablets on the market, suddenly the loud-mouth brigade is trying to paint them in a bad light. Google exerting a little control on the wild-west world of tablets and its own phoneOS is a good thing. Heaven forbid AOpen or some other shit shop wait a few weeks for google to iron out the bugs, have them verify their hardware can run Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich and make them sign a contract that they will updates the OS to the newest versions for a period of 18 months. The de facto world of release garbage and buggy phones, never supplying updates and hurting Android's reputation is no longer welcome, and I'm glad.
Already do this with KMS and MAK keys. KMS keys talk to a local license server. I think these articles are just written in a way to scare people and sell ad impressions. In the end, we're probably just seeing a different kind of volume key for corporate and maybe more hoops for residential users. "ZOMG DOWNLOAD AN IMAGE EVERY BOOT FROM MS" is kiddie bullshit.
>Not that I think it'll impact Apple's bottom line in any way. ha.
Half of Apple's income is from the iPhone. The Galaxy S phone is arguably cutting into the iPhone marketshare, as its one of the better Android phones out there and is a little cheaper and can be had on multiple carriers. I have a Vibrant on T-mobile and its a really neat piece of technology, so I can see why Apple is afraid of it.
Apple's take, imho, is that they'red damned if they don't do a patent attack and damned if they do, so why not? They don't give two shits about upsetting their loudmouth superfans nor about setting off a patent war that could potentially cripple the industry. They just need to worry about next quarters earning report.
I suspect these desperate measures are signs that Apple's massive growth is beginning to stagnate. Everyone who wants an iPhone probably has one and if Android continues to move in, then you won't have the growth you had in the past.
Begun, this patent war has.
I'm going to start using his name for boneheaded changes done for "me too" reasons and decision by committee.
"Man, T-Mobile really Dotzler'd their unlimited plan."
Moz devs: "No, no. We need an add-on that shows the version number. Someone will write it."
User: "What version of FF is that add-on compatible with?"
Moz devs: "Yeah about that....fuck you."
That's the problem here. Firefox's ever changing APIs which are always breaking add-ons. The Chrome add-on API is much more limited and as such doesn't need to change as frequently or as drastically. How Firefox thinks they're going to succeed by becoming a crappier version of Chrome is beyond me.
Bullshit. I get linkedin's own spam not just invites. They are just a bad company, stop defending them. Thanks.
I deleted my account months ago yet I still get emails and 'friend' requests from them. They are somehow worse than Facebook. I am not at all surprised by this move. They are incredibly user hostile.
>Slide 34 -- UAC can be and frequently is turned off by stupid people, even some software vendors demand that it be disabled due to "incompatibilities". Escalation dialogs in Mac OS can't be.
Frequent? The only time I've seen it off or recommended it off is with the computer "enthusiast" crowd who hate anything different or security related and tell each other they're better off without it, circa the release of Vista.
Jane User has no idea how to shut it off and Jane WorkerBee doesn't have admin rights to shut it off anyway.
Microsoft contributes to Samba and sees it as a necessary product. For mindlessly evil patent abuse, please visit your local Apple store, thanks.
>It's half the price of a gamer mouse, so it's not exactly expensive.
What? That's like saying a Porsche is a fraction of the price of a Lamborghini. Err, no one needs a gaming mouse. Your 5 dollar mouse is just fine for gaming. The controller and all 360 accessories are expensive because the console itself is so cheap.
Mr boombox is alive and well. I see lots of kids blaring music on their cell phone's tiny shitty speaker. Its distorted to hell and sounds terrible, but they'll sit on their front porch with their friends and "enjoy" it.
When they grow up they buy cars and stuff them with subwoofers. Now they can torture whole blocks at a time. Maybe in a nice white suburb has music become "personal" but in the suburbs it always has been. /lives in a big city
Err, the R&D of how to make good sound was done a long time ago. What is being done now is figuring out what level of shitty speakers Jane Consumer will tolerate. It turns out to be quite shitty.
All the retail electronics I've seen have tinny mid-range speakers, usually paired to a bass-boost circuit that only makes things worse. These things all sound terrible to me. Jane Consumer? She doesn't notice. Heck, I just saw a budget laptop with the new AMD fusion chip that came with one mono speaker. Yep, in a laptop.
Its called the race to the bottom. Its manufacturers figuring out ways to maximize their bottom lines by making things as cheaply as possible and getting on board with retailers who will sell junk, like Walmart. This is why brands like Apple or Bose do well. People are sick of the junk, but don't want to become computer geeks or audiophiles, so they buy the next step up.
Oh, your dad's stereo? Fixed for inflation, it cost a couple of grand. Still, even today you can spend a fraction of that and get a nice basic Sony system with an amp and speakers that will bring out all this great sound trapped in your mp3s that you will never hear through shitty speakers. Same with headphones. Spend 50+ dollars and listen to OK Computer or the White Album. You'll hear things you have not heard before.
Yeah but there's a pretty broken line from those movies to the comic movie fad on the 1990s. Since the Keaton Batman, there's been at least one major comic-based movie in theaters a year. In the 2000's its multiple comic movies per year.
That wasn't true in the 80s: Superman, Howard the Duck, Swamp Thing, and some low budget crap that barely or didn't make it to the theaters like the Punisher.
Look, this has been going on since the early 1990s with the Michael Keaton Batman movie. Its been 20 solid years. I'm not sure why its suddenly going to end.
Turns out audiences like simple-minded melodramas with clear-cut good guys and villains. They love fight scenes and over-the-top special effects. Comics fits perfectly with what most moviegoers want. Christ, Michael Bay can do this with something as worthless as a cartoon to sell toys. I think more well rounded characters are a shoo-in.
Of course there are lots of stinkers. Most notably Ang Lee's Hulk (sounds like simpsons parody) and the weird stalkerish Superman Returns. Hollywood's economics are setup in a way for them to easily absorb bad movies as long as they have a handful of hits every year.
The ISS is a partnership between a few nations. They collective decide its fate. Considering its of questionable utility in the first place and an incredible drain of funds, I wouldn't mind seeing it die earlier. That money could be spent on a whole bunch of space missions or pay for a Mars or asteroid mission.
Most likely a lot of the design and maintenance had a end date. The engineers built it to last x amount of years. Going beyond 2020 might make it more economically unfeasible than it already it. Not to mention, keeping old projects alive past their time is why we're in such a mess with the shuttle now. We don't need to lose two ISS crews before we realize that, yes, its time for change.
I had a USB flash drive in 2001-2002 or so. Sure it was only 16mb but that replaced 10 floppies. Win2000 shipped with USB support and SP4 gave it USB2.0 support. XP came with USB support too. By 2003 everyone had a USB flash drive. That's 8 years of these things floating around, at least.
IOMega was fail from the start because no one had the drives. You'd have to carry the drive with you and install the driver.
So, wait. Worrying about human capacity and wanting to go to the stars is "being high?" Wanting to get beyond our limits and our short lifespans is "being high?"
Pardon me, but we need more people like the GP and less dismissive asses like you.