>Futhermore no one forced Apple to adopt support for DRM.
Just like no one is forcing people to buy music from the iTunes Music Store...
I'm no fan of DRM either, but Apple's simply doing the minimum they need to have access to the RIAA's music library. Without DRM, there would only be iTunes, no iTunes Music Store.
They're also pulling their weight to keep the price to 0.99$/song, so it's good on that front too.
The only way to remove DRM would be to lower the price of CDs and downloaded music so much that pirating would become useless (especially with the mis-labeled crap and bad rips you find on P2P networks). Steve Jobs understands that and that's why the tracks are sold at 0.99$ on the iTMS (with DRM). Now, imagine all CDs for 4.99$ and downloaded tracks at 0.25$ each. Would you bother making illegal copies of CDs? Would you bother downloading tracks illegally? Of course, some people would, but the percentage of people doing it would be so low it would become more expensive to try and do something about than absorb the costs.
One day, we might not need the RIAA anymore (we still do, "online" music users are still the minority), but the moment physical distribution isn't needed anymore the RIAA will simply vanish by itself.
Since the last few years, Apple has: - dumped their proprietary ports (ADB, ADC, etc) - added industry-wide ports (DVI, USB 2.0, etc) - added support for common file formats (ex: every application can print/save to a PDF file, Preview can open PDF files, screenshots are saved as PNG files, iTunes can use MP3 instead of AAC - good if you don't have an AAC-compatible player, etc).
Plus, their applications are reasonably priced (iWork, iLife) and get the work done pretty well (such as Keynote 3).
Aside for FairPlay and their Keynote/Pages/etc files, Apple seems to support common standards instead of trying to push their own files (such as Microsoft with BMP, WMA, etc).
>And instead of rendering it in HTML, we decided to give Adobe/Macromedia a cut and do the whole web page in Flash!
Ah, no wonder I'm seeing a blank page... I always disable plug-ins because animated banners and animated GIFs makes it impossible for me to read the actual content.
Now if only Apple could add "disable animated GIFs" to Safari, I wouldn't have to right-click on webpages to stop the animated GIFs...
Re:Remember when Firefox was a web browser?
on
Firefox VoIP Client
·
· Score: 0
>Quit trolling, everything "just works" on a Mac
Yeah, like everything on Linux is "open source"...
First of all, Firefox isn't from Apple. Second, Firefox really IS bloated and slow on OS X. Never have I seen a program crash so much, even on Windows. No problems with Safari or Opera, however.
>He sneers at graphic design and pretty much anything beyond plaintext, claiming that "gimmicks" like animation impair usability.
It's all about context. While I agree with you that the genie effect helps follow minimized/maximized windows, anything that moves [I]while I'm trying to read something[/I] really impair usability.
That's why I disable plug-ins and can't wait for Apple to add "disable animated GIFs" in the Safari viewing options.
>Actually, for the most part on professional sites, it's up to the business guys who tell the web developers what to do. And I guarantee you, not many business guys are going to prioritise anything above catering to 90% of their target market.
I also don't know many businesses that will knowingly drop 10% of their potential customers.
Most DS games are in the 25-35$ CAD range and most PSP games are in the 35-50$ range. That means you either get a DS Lite with about 2-3 games (and play with others who have a DS) or get a PSP with no games (and almost nobody to play with - only saw a PSP outside of a store once)
>What I can't understand is why people will pay $500-$2500 for their computer, another $200-$1000 for software, but won't pay a measly $20-$40 per year for an antivirus.
And what I can't understand is people complaining about a 10% price difference between a Mac and a PC but then pay 20% more because they need an anti-virus, anti-spyware and pop-up blocker software.
I know Macs aren't immune to trojans and dumb users, but still.
>The problem is that a couple of hundred big time spammers are getting rich by shitting into the communal water supply!
That may be, but the REAL problem is that email was never designed to prevent its users from shitting into the communal water supply. We need a new email system/protocol/whatever, the current one is dead. I don't know how the new one should work, but I'm sure a lot of people have ideas on how to do it.
Even easier: show me a game that has "PC" on its box but isn't for Windows...
It's either "PC", "Mac", or "PC/Mac".
How can the general public NOT associate "PC" with "Windows" after years of games labeling? It's the same as brand names that gets associated to some products, such as Jell-o.
>My ultimate recommendation is that all layouts must continue to remain liquid; no Web 2.0 designs that are made for the 90's resolution of 800x600.
That's one wrong thing about modern web design: they [I]assume[/I] that a web page has to be the width of the display (or the browser's window width, anyway). People, however, just can't read long lines of text. Yes, you can resize your browser window, but most people (on Windows, anyway) have their apps full-screen and don't even know they can resize things.
If you want proof about maximum text width, ask yourself: why aren't newspapers using the full width of the paper? Why are the texts broken up into small columns? The idea of "liquid layouts" just goes against decades of newspaper research...
Try to view liquid designs on a huge widescreen monitor... When pushed to the extreme, liquid designs can be quite ugly (and hard to use). Heck, I'm only using a 17" monitor in 1280x1024 and the topic icons at the top are just spaced in a weird way... (they should be right-aligned, but not spaced in the way they are now).
And as long as we're on the "monitors" subject, may I suggest something to everyone that's going to make a new set of icons? How about using an LCD monitor instead of a CRT for the "Displays" category? You know, as in up-to-date technology icons?
>LINUX HARDWARE FAQ > >Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Linux? >A. No. Go write some drivers.
So true (like it or not, this IS reality).
>MAC HARDWARE FAQ > >Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Mac OS X? >A. No, but Mac OS X is kind of like UNIX, so go download the Linux drivers and get them to work.
Not really. It should read as:
MAC HARDWARE FAQ
Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Mac OS X? A. No, chose another piece of hardware that does the same thing but has OS X support.
And frankly, that's what I do. No OS X support = no sale. Why should I buy something that I can't use?
Slashdot Mirror
>I can rip my own cds to my iPod using Apples DRM format
FYI, CDs you rip yourself using iTunes don't have any DRM added. Only tracks/albums bought from the iTunes Music Store have DRM in them.
Well, there you have it everyone. The question is "how long does it take to burn 25GB with the first Blu-Ray burner?"
Is the shark mechanical in some way?
>Futhermore no one forced Apple to adopt support for DRM.
Just like no one is forcing people to buy music from the iTunes Music Store...
I'm no fan of DRM either, but Apple's simply doing the minimum they need to have access to the RIAA's music library. Without DRM, there would only be iTunes, no iTunes Music Store.
They're also pulling their weight to keep the price to 0.99$/song, so it's good on that front too.
The only way to remove DRM would be to lower the price of CDs and downloaded music so much that pirating would become useless (especially with the mis-labeled crap and bad rips you find on P2P networks). Steve Jobs understands that and that's why the tracks are sold at 0.99$ on the iTMS (with DRM). Now, imagine all CDs for 4.99$ and downloaded tracks at 0.25$ each. Would you bother making illegal copies of CDs? Would you bother downloading tracks illegally? Of course, some people would, but the percentage of people doing it would be so low it would become more expensive to try and do something about than absorb the costs.
One day, we might not need the RIAA anymore (we still do, "online" music users are still the minority), but the moment physical distribution isn't needed anymore the RIAA will simply vanish by itself.
I don't really care about the whole FOSS thing...
Since the last few years, Apple has:
- dumped their proprietary ports (ADB, ADC, etc)
- added industry-wide ports (DVI, USB 2.0, etc)
- added support for common file formats (ex: every application can print/save to a PDF file, Preview can open PDF files, screenshots are saved as PNG files, iTunes can use MP3 instead of AAC - good if you don't have an AAC-compatible player, etc).
Plus, their applications are reasonably priced (iWork, iLife) and get the work done pretty well (such as Keynote 3).
Aside for FairPlay and their Keynote/Pages/etc files, Apple seems to support common standards instead of trying to push their own files (such as Microsoft with BMP, WMA, etc).
Talk about doing all the wrong steps...
>And instead of rendering it in HTML, we decided to give Adobe/Macromedia a cut and do the whole web page in Flash!
Ah, no wonder I'm seeing a blank page... I always disable plug-ins because animated banners and animated GIFs makes it impossible for me to read the actual content.
Now if only Apple could add "disable animated GIFs" to Safari, I wouldn't have to right-click on webpages to stop the animated GIFs...
>Quit trolling, everything "just works" on a Mac
Yeah, like everything on Linux is "open source"...
First of all, Firefox isn't from Apple. Second, Firefox really IS bloated and slow on OS X. Never have I seen a program crash so much, even on Windows. No problems with Safari or Opera, however.
Really, plug-ins and extensions are one thing, over-doing it is another.
Why not a WoW client or GameBoy emulator extension for FireFox while we're at it?!
>He sneers at graphic design and pretty much anything beyond plaintext, claiming that "gimmicks" like animation impair usability.
It's all about context. While I agree with you that the genie effect helps follow minimized/maximized windows, anything that moves [I]while I'm trying to read something[/I] really impair usability.
That's why I disable plug-ins and can't wait for Apple to add "disable animated GIFs" in the Safari viewing options.
Even my old ThinkPad 760XL has such settings...
>Actually, for the most part on professional sites, it's up to the business guys who tell the web developers what to do. And I guarantee you, not many business guys are going to prioritise anything above catering to 90% of their target market.
I also don't know many businesses that will knowingly drop 10% of their potential customers.
Yeah, lawsuits almost killed Logitech a few years back. ...
Oh wait, it didn't.
Canada:
- PSP: 230$ CAD
- DS Lite: 150$ CAD
Most DS games are in the 25-35$ CAD range and most PSP games are in the 35-50$ range. That means you either get a DS Lite with about 2-3 games (and play with others who have a DS) or get a PSP with no games (and almost nobody to play with - only saw a PSP outside of a store once)
>Garland says the RIAA has made some inroads. "They have removed the profiteers from online piracy," he says.
I think he's talking about www.allofmp3.com
That would be a good analogy, except that the whole concept of "./er's parent" still needs to be proven.
>What I can't understand is why people will pay $500-$2500 for their computer, another $200-$1000 for software, but won't pay a measly $20-$40 per year for an antivirus.
And what I can't understand is people complaining about a 10% price difference between a Mac and a PC but then pay 20% more because they need an anti-virus, anti-spyware and pop-up blocker software.
I know Macs aren't immune to trojans and dumb users, but still.
>The problem is that a couple of hundred big time spammers are getting rich by shitting into the communal water supply!
That may be, but the REAL problem is that email was never designed to prevent its users from shitting into the communal water supply. We need a new email system/protocol/whatever, the current one is dead. I don't know how the new one should work, but I'm sure a lot of people have ideas on how to do it.
Even easier: show me a game that has "PC" on its box but isn't for Windows...
It's either "PC", "Mac", or "PC/Mac".
How can the general public NOT associate "PC" with "Windows" after years of games labeling? It's the same as brand names that gets associated to some products, such as Jell-o.
>That makes me wonder what Slashdot will be like in 2050 too?
;-)
At the rate things are going, they'll still be announcing a "CSS version of Slashdot in a few months".
>I'm still waiting for the book before Genesis on the origin of God, It should make quite the prequel.
The book is called Master System.
>I would love to one day rebuild all the icons. I just don't want to force someone to think that rebuilding a full icon pack is part of this contest.
How about a parallel contest for new icon packs? It targets a different crowd of readers too (graphists/artists vs programmers/web designers).
>My ultimate recommendation is that all layouts must continue to remain liquid; no Web 2.0 designs that are made for the 90's resolution of 800x600.
That's one wrong thing about modern web design: they [I]assume[/I] that a web page has to be the width of the display (or the browser's window width, anyway). People, however, just can't read long lines of text. Yes, you can resize your browser window, but most people (on Windows, anyway) have their apps full-screen and don't even know they can resize things.
If you want proof about maximum text width, ask yourself: why aren't newspapers using the full width of the paper? Why are the texts broken up into small columns? The idea of "liquid layouts" just goes against decades of newspaper research...
Try to view liquid designs on a huge widescreen monitor... When pushed to the extreme, liquid designs can be quite ugly (and hard to use). Heck, I'm only using a 17" monitor in 1280x1024 and the topic icons at the top are just spaced in a weird way... (they should be right-aligned, but not spaced in the way they are now).
And as long as we're on the "monitors" subject, may I suggest something to everyone that's going to make a new set of icons? How about using an LCD monitor instead of a CRT for the "Displays" category? You know, as in up-to-date technology icons?
>"The drives are the first desktop hard drives to use perpendicular recording, feature a 16MB cache and 7200RPM spindle."
Okay... but we're talking about 7200RPM over perpendicular bits... doesn't that equal something like 7200RPM x 8 if it were a conventionnal drive?
Just like a 7200RPM laptop drive will never reach the throughput of even (probably) a 5400RPM desktop drive.
http://www.tigerntigress.com/images/Mithra%20in%20 Line.jpg
>LINUX HARDWARE FAQ
>
>Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Linux?
>A. No. Go write some drivers.
So true (like it or not, this IS reality).
>MAC HARDWARE FAQ
>
>Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Mac OS X?
>A. No, but Mac OS X is kind of like UNIX, so go download the Linux drivers and get them to work.
Not really. It should read as:
MAC HARDWARE FAQ
Q. Does (new piece of hardware) work with Mac OS X?
A. No, chose another piece of hardware that does the same thing but has OS X support.
And frankly, that's what I do. No OS X support = no sale. Why should I buy something that I can't use?