From Dictionary.com the abbreviation "Cmdr" is an appropriate military designation for "Commander." It is a military rank used in many navies but not generally in armies or air forces. It is below Captain and above Lieutenant-Commander. The rank evolved in the 18th and early 19th centuries and was originally known as Master and Commander. The Royal Navy shortened Master and Commander to Commander in 1814 while they were still fighting Napoleon and the US.
A commander in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy is equivalent in rank to a lieutenant-colonel in the army. A commander may command a frigate, destroyer, submarine, aviation squadron or shore installation, or may serve on a staff. A commander who commands a unit may be referred to as "Captain" as a courtesy title. A unit commander may also be informally referred to as "skipper."
I believe the RAF uses the title Commander as a rank, as they are styled on the Royal Navy. I think the usage has to do with what they do, as in "Wing Commander."
I believe the above answers your question.
For what it's worth, I can understand both points of view. In an MMORPG, a title that is part of one's handle can be confusing. I can see them not allowing titles, as well, like "DukeTerrible" or "KingLeer." These titles may be mistaken for actual rank earned in the game.
What bothers me is that there is no appeal. CmdrTaco is someone I can say I somewhat know. He is very active on the Internet and runs a little website that I occasionally post opinions on. Were I to run into him in an MMORPG, I might say, "Hello, and are you the same 'CmdrTaco' that has something to do with Shashdot?" Were he to reply in the affirmative, I would expect that me might receive more respect from me than he might from someone who doesn't spend the time to make/. such a good site. This means I might offer a "sorry," just as I slagged him with a death ray were I on an opposing team, or might mourn his loss more were I on the same team.
The justification of his keeping his title designation is that he is a public figure. But then if he got to keep his title, everyone would have to be allowed to do so as well, in direct violation of the rules everyone (didn't) read when they signed on.
But I think they ought to have let him down a little more easily. At least an e-mail saying what I would have after destroying his character were I on the "other" side.
I have worked in television for over 20 years and during part of that time worked in a facility that duplicated screeners.
I think everyone needs to realize that the production of these illegally pirated films from screeners is an inside job. Unless Disney wants to set up and maintain a secure duplication facility somewhere, staffed only by trusted individuals who are constantly monitored for theft, there will always be those who "make a few copies for their friends."
Disney isn't about to do this because Disney is in the filmmaking and entertainment business, not the mass duplication and standards-conversion business. And it is from those facilities that the content leaks out. Try as they might, unless they spend a whole lot of money that, on its face does not please their shareholders, they're pretty much stuck with these inside jobs.
As to the high-quality bootleg copies, that tends to be the result of running an "extra" master of the film transfer and is either an organized crime issue or "yet another inside job."
I worked with a "Down Maine" dairyman for some years. We were pretty careful around the cows. There was a whole lot of concern about infection, mastitis, quantity put out by each cow, when we needed to fertilize them again (you don't get milk from a cow that hasn't had a calf and you have to get them pregnant every so often to keep production up) and so on. We did our best to keep the cows happy and keep production up.
We went through a lot of a sticky substance called "Bag Balm." We used it to decrease the amount of irritation cows felt when being milked by a milking machine that used air pressure. Either this device uses a different pressure or I'll bet a lot of their cows have to be taken out of the system periodically.
I really like how well the system monitors and logs in production for each cow. The movie file indicates that it keeps track of "each quarter." That is a kind of granularity that we could never achieve with our milking system, where we would weigh the total output of each cow and keep track of that. We also kept an eye on cream and butterfat content.
I do wonder what happens when (and if) more than one cow "wants" to be milked at the same time. Does a brawl ensue?
For those who don't know it, cows tend to be milked twice daily at 12-hour intervals in order to ensure the highest possible output. It's kind of difficult to switch them to daylight savings time and many dairymen just don't try. Cows who are not milked experience considerable pain if they are not and may develop mastitis. The same goes for all female mammals who are producing milk. If a cow's output can be increased by varying the times of milking just a bit, dairymen could pay for the device in a few years.
I have had this explained by a very good orthopedist who replaced my right knee in 1997 with one that certainly is not something my body manufactured (one that works extremely well, too).
Dr. Scott told me that the only way my body could reject the knee is for me to have a runaway infection in my body that so energizes my immune system that it thinks it needs to attack anything and everything foreign.
That is kind of rare, as we tend to put bandages over cuts and wash deep wounds and treat them promptly where I live. Were I involved in some kind of natural disaster and could not do so I might suffer more from the effects of gangrene first before I lost my knee.
To put it plainly, these types of substance, when inserted in the body, tend to not attract the body's defenses, save just after their insertion. Think of how many pins help mend broken bones and how many other prosthetic devices we use to make our lives better and ask yourself how many people suffer from rejection syndrome with these. I think you'd find the number is very low.
Knee replacement surgery is very painful and difficult for the body and patients tend to run a low-grade fever for a few days. That fever is an indication of the body's defenses trying to find foreign organic material (or dead tissue generated by the surgery itself). I don't have a fever now and everything's fine. That would be the most probable result of using this substance within the human body.
I stated in my original post that we are following Fox. I further clarified that statement in a subsequent post in the same thread, replying to someone else who does not read posts.
And in my original statement, I urge people to not believe everything they see on television. Every media outlet has a bias and, in this day and age, that bias reflects the outlet's ownership, which tends to be really big companies, like Disney, General Electric, Time Warner and Viacom. And these big corporations want profits. And those profits have to come from their news divisions as well as their entertainment divisions. And when news has to turn a profit, it is no longer solely serving the public interest.
The environment in which I was trained to work in media was one in which television stations in the US were required to "serve the public need, necessity and demand." As a part of that requirement, stations were required to broadcast "public affairs and educational programs."
News was considered a part of the public affairs segment of what local stations broadcast, and stations had to produce a certain amount of that weekly. Stations typically "took a loss" on news and public affairs programming because it was seen as the means by which they were permitted to hang on to their licenses and continue to make money on entertainment programming (which also had to "serve the public need, necessity and demand").
I know of several stations within a broadcast group (or mini-network) that the US Federal Communications Commission required be sold by their owner (RKO General and their parent company, Gencorp) because they failed to inform their viewers of a corporate scandal that affected their parent company (an Enron-esque "cooking of the books"). The FCC enforced standards and made broadcasters comply in all areas, including signal specifications, transmitter operations and content.
Then along came the comissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan.
Under Reagan appointees, the FCC stated that "The market ought to determine correct broadcast blanking intervals and sync levels." I would imagine that not too many people know what blanking intervals are (or ought to be) for NTSC (US) television. It's a technical specification that tells television sets at home when to start the moving dot that draws your picture. It's something that the FCC ought to and should continue to regulate. But under Reagan appointees and their successors, the FCC has decided that "the market should decide" and regulation should end, save in areas where the content of broadcasting does not line up with their political viewpoint.
The end result is a kind of television that claims that syndicated Saturday morning cartoons meet the standard of "educational programming" because these cartoons contain "messages that teach children and help their self-esteem."
Excuse me?
My bias is this: Our broadcast media ought to report, not spin. And my bias is based on the essential premise of the reason regulation of the broadcast spectrum was adopted in the United States: Access to the airwaves is held in the public trust because the broadcast spectrum is limited.
Had you read my entire article, you would have found my statement:... what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. This is as much a mea culpa as a diatribe against Fox. I have complained numerous times to reporters and producers with whom I work that we're treating elected public officials like movie stars, not like employees of the People. We fail to ask hard and probing questions and we fail in our role as the Fourth Estate to question the authorities and provide complete (or more complete) information to the American Public about what these employees of theirs are doing and how they are working out.
The result of a press that does not adequately serve the public is easily seen in the corruption of governments in Latin America. To the extent that the government controls the media, the government is provably less responsive to the needs of the public it is "serving." Generally the first thing a dictator or military junta wants to do is get control of the media. To the extent that the press does their job to examine the government, society is better served.
As for "liberal" spin (mentioned by DNS-and-BIND (461968)) I disagree. We're "chasing" Fox presently, and the reason why we're doing this is because we're trying to make good ratings. The large corporations that control the netwo
I work for a national news service that "competes" with Fox. There is an understanding that if you work for Murdoch, you have sold out any attempt at integrity for cash. Fox does not deliver news, they deliver opinion (and I'm risking flames here). Their standards are set so low and their "spinners" are part of the report that one cannot truly expect that their material is free enough of bias to allow the viewer or reader to come to any meaningful conclusion.
Fox reports on the national events just like everyone and that is why they are insidious. You'll see coverage of Katrina, of the horrible earthquake in Pakistan and India. You'll see sports scores and weather on the local Fox channels. But the spin cycle is fully on for political coverage and for coverage of big business. At Fox, big corporations can do no wrong and if they make a claim to a Fox reporter, those claims (and all the spin inherent in those claims) are never fact-checked. They're reported as if they were truth. Up until the very end, Fox did no reporting that questioned the accountability of the Enron chiefs, while ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS (yeah, those Commies) reported questionable bookkeeping and deals that were pretty nigh illegal on the surface on their books. Enron was sued by the State of California for artificially raising energy prices to "create a crisis." Fox did not report on those suits. Everyone else did.
Instead, Fox began an attack on then-Governor Gray Davis and how he was incorrectly handling an energy crisis that was probably not of his own making. I believe the Fox television network (at least) was partially responsible for the recall election and the subsequent replacement of Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If the court cases finally decide that this was all Enron's making, I'd have to say that this kind of manipulation is pretty insidious.
Of course, when Enron declared bankruptcy and was called to question, Fox joined the bandwagon and launched "investigative reports." But even now, they hold Kenneth Lay blameless. Why? Because Fox is the "pro-Bush network" and any friend of the Bush family is a friend of Murdoch and his network.
I have read extensively the history of our country, which started off on the premise that the Press should be free. I have read diatribes against our founding fathers, aspersions to the characters of George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, Mrs. Adams and her "pet President John," and so on. I defend Murdoch's right to broadcast and print opinion. He has a right to do so and he has created a media empire for that purpose.
But understand that what he does with his empire is not necessarily tell you the truth. Almost everything of consequence is spun. And what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. Don't believe everything you read in the papers and don't believe most of what you see on television.
You are never stuck with any on-line music system, you are only stuck with hardware you buy. If you buy a player that does not support service A, you're "stuck with plan B" unless you rip your own CD collection or directly import.MP3 files into whatever player software you have on your computer. And you can also decide to use alternatives whenever you wish.
I'm "stuck" with an iPod. That's how I listen to songs. But I can download any.MP3 file from anywhere on the Internet and drag it into my/Music folder and then drag and drop that file's icon into an open iTunes window. iTunes will import the song, podcast, radio program, primal scream or whatever into my playlist and sent it to my iPod next time I sync. Apple's iTunes Music Store is more rich, in terms of content, than all but a very few brick and mortar stores I have been to -- and I can download podcasts from thousands of sources, subscribe to them and have the new ones dropped onto my iPod automatically. "Stuck," indeed!
Yes, I did have to download iTunes in order to get to the store -- but I had downloaded iTunes back before there was a store, as the software let me import my CDs onto my computer for listening. For just ripping CDs, iTunes was essential before there was a store. Then I got an iPod. Still no music store. My iTunes collection was growing because I would visit brick and mortar stores, puck up new, hot CDs and rip them so I could listen to the music on my iPod. Since the software part was absolutely free, I didn't see that I was "stuck" with anything, save the iPod, which required iTunes, which I had all ready, which was and is free.
I still don't understand what the course is supposed to look like: From the article:
Courses are expected to be approximately two miles long, one mile wide, and about 5,000 feet high, running perpendicularly to spectators. The rocket planes, called X-Racers, will take off from a runway both in a staggered fashion and side-by side and fly a course based on the design of a Grand Prix competition, with long straight-aways, vertical ascents, and deep banks.
5,000 feet is an altitude that may be covered in seconds by a rocket at speed. A two-mile length with a curved track, like Grand Prix race cars use would require a kind of manoverability not seen on any rocket-powered craft.
The competition would certainly bar solid rocket motors, which go full-out continuously and cannot be throttled or shut down. I cannot imagine any braking system that would allow such a craft to slow down adequately for a "turn." The dynamics of these racers would appear to all but defy anything we have ever produced.
And such a craft would not necessarily operate in outer space. The ability to manover like that is the kind of thing you would need a gravity well to check your speed.
There is something coldly efficient (and maybe this is why this coaster was thought up in Germany, which has a reputation for cold effeciency) about this kind of a signalling system.
I used to hang out at a sports bar near where I used to live and I "trained" the waitstaff (who were mostly really cute women) to pay attention to me. I like to play table soccer (fussball) and they tended to pay no attention to players and serve the table-sitters instead. Table soccer, being the reason why I was there, was getting short shrift. So I started tipping well and asking them to check back and see if anyone at the table needed anything. I'd buy a few rounds for people who were playing and we'd get great service all night.
Everyone would have fun, including the waitstaff.
I always tip bartenders (at least in the US). They take a lot of abuse and they have to smile through it all. Because of my policy of tipping, I could always get a drink in a club I frequented even if the bar was six deep in patrons on a busy night. I'd hate to tend bar where some electronic beep was indicating a "too low beer stein." I'd try to disable the darn devices and serve as requested.
Your recommendation for always getting good service is spot on. I don't need an electronic gizmo to help me get another drink and it's probably a good idea for me to wait a while between drinks on occasion anyway. I'm in a club, pub or bar usually to socialize as much as anything else.
Were these e-tailers to move their internet operations to New Hampshire, a State with no sales tax (and no justification for ever participating in such a scheme) they'd be able to avoid this matter all together.
Were lawyers to think this through, they'd initiate a class-action lawsuit to protect people from illegally-collected sales tax, as the sale did not occur within the offended State. Were these State legislatures to actually do some creative thinking, they'd redefine the tax as a usage tax instead of a sales tax.
Usage tax would evade the constitutionality issues entirely. This would also place the burden of payment on the consumer. New York City went after the purchasers on cigarette tax evasion and their prosecution will probably be upheld on the basis of cigarette tax being a usage tax, not a sales tax.
Re:He's not wrong
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Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You obviously didn't read my entire post.
Microsoft Outlook worked just fine with the Palm -- until Microsoft upgraded it so that it wouldn't. Apple developed iSync so that their software would never suffer from the same version incompatibility as Microsoft's. Microsoft could have done the same thing, the specifications for creating a conduit for the Palm are out there in public for all to see and use.
I quoted Bill Gates' vision for what computers would do for us. I should not need to remind you that Mr. Gates works for Microsoft, not Apple or Palm. The problem I have with Microsoft's inaction with respect to publishing the standards for Outlook/Exchange is that apparently Mr. Gates' vision works only if you use Microsoft's software and operating systems. This is typical of how they use their monopoly. They do not play well with others because that is what they choose.
My fiancée (that would be the story in my earlier statement that you didn't read) uses the third party application to sync with Outlook/Exchange. And even failing that, she also has Palm's Desktop application on her computer (she is pretty minimally-functional in most applications and tends to not be able to find her files when she saves them anywhere, save her desktop.
I have been recommending to corporations for years that they do not use Internet Exploder as their web browser or Outlook Express or Outlook as their e-mail client due to how these programs connect to the Internet and are fat targets for black-hat hackers who want to exploit others' personal computers. The corporation I work for uses Outlook and Exchange for all e-mail and we regularly have problems with viruses, worms and other exploits
I will imagine that the proliferation of Windows devices on the palm of one's hand will cause that segment of the market to be more susceptible to exploits as well. I can well imagine someone radiating virus programs through a WiFi connection to steal data or destroy data on cell phones using Windows.
If I were your neighbor and drove into my driveway in a brand new Mercedes, would you pity me? Mercedes-Benz has about the same market share in autos as Apple has in personal computers. They also make similar profit margins. Just because I have a better computer than you have doesn't make my comment less worthy.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
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Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 1
You just keep getting more right. Darn it!
I guess one of the real issues with the folks at Palm is that the Pilot was the perfect geek tool. Still is, based on your statement: I can browse 3 sites, work in Excel, and still answer the phone without a bog down. I think you are probably more of a geek than am I (though I can generally figure things out in Word or Excel, can do a few things in Apple's Terminal and know the difference between an Administrator and a User.
I think that what happened to Palm is that they didn't quite make the leap from "über-cool geek factor" to "must have accessory for everyman" like Apple's iPod did.
I don't know what I'd do if Apple's next iPod started running Windows...
You are now a friend.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I'd say nearly 30% of my consulting income for 5 years was helping basic company managers getting their Palms to work. Once they worked (synced, etc), these basic users spent more time navigating the software than using it efficiently. The working install rarely worked for long. My corporate customers hated the software. "Just get it working" was common to hear.
I have used Palm devices since the Palm Pilot Professional and have reveled in their simplicity. I have a Palm m505 and couldn't do without it. I regularly and routinely sync it into my Macintosh and everything works perfectly. In fact, since I use Apple's iSync, my.Mac calendar and address book are kept up with data I enter in on my m505 every time I synchronize, which means I can log onto my account from any web browser and retrieve information. This is the epitome of Gates' vision of "information at your fingertips."
So you're wrong.
My fiancée rarely takes her m505 anywhere. She used to have all of her contacts on it but lost all of the data in a divorce when her ex-husband kept the computer and she did not hot-sync her data to anything (he probably did it for her). When her m505 lost power, it lost everything (I think). I don't think she regularly hot-syncs. She has a Dell laptop and is minimally-functional in Microsoft Excel. She runs a home-based business on the side and understands the value of data entry in order to track clientele, but simply won't do the work. She would not know how to harness the power of a template in Microsoft Word unless someone set it up for her and also wrote most of the document for her (thus making her need the "consultant" as a permanent appendage). She has two paper calendars where she keeps numbers, addresses, contacts, schedules, appointments and so on and leads a busy life that is pretty disorganized -- all things that could be organized with a little more computer literacy and better use of her Palm m505.
So you're right.
The Palm was designed to do few things and do them extremely well. I use my m505 for my date book, appointment book, address book memo pad, and play solitaire and chess on it. That's pretty much it. I have a cell phone that works just fine as a cell phone. I have an iPod that works just fine as a music player. I totally understand the desire on the part of many to reduce these three personal electronic gadgets into one -- fewer cords to haul around, fewer adapters needed, fewer things to plug in every night and so on. The Palm devices I have used over the years have always had more than enough memory, more than enough speed and more than enough features to please me. And they do one thing perfectly: They sync with my Mac (it is my understanding that Windows CE devices won't).
I noted that there were a few specific things that the Palm folks wanted put into the Windows OS for the upcoming Treo, like clicking on someone's face in one's address book to initiate a call. Microsoft still doesn't have "ease of use" down -- even for handhelds.
Perhaps it's time I got another Palm device -- quickly because the new ones next year won't work with my Mac. There are lots of people who wrote code for the Palm OS who are probably really unhappy about this announcement.
We'll never be modded up for these kinds of private conversations...
I honestly believe that, if you are either leaving your Mac running or are regularly running Brian Hil's MacJanitor, you can recover the extra room. I think that part of the reason why you are recovering so much is because you have not truly dragged in all of your old preferences and settings and are re-creating them on the fly after you have all ready done the upgrade. The result is a system where you really didn't save much space at all, once you have initially run all of your old applications under the new system.
The only reason why I can see the need for a new install like you describe is in the event of a serious failure, like a hard disk crash, lightning strike or some other issue (like Katrina or Rita).
I used to spend a lot of time on OSX FAQ and found it a very valuable resource, though not too many of the members know a lot about Palm gear.
I tend to not do clean installs of the OS. I find that installing over my ol system works very well with a minimum of fuss because I keep all of my prefs, my password keychain and so on. What I do that gives me a fall-back position is to use Mike Bombich's excellent Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my last known good OS to another disk. It will make that disk bootable in case of an emergency or a bad upgreade.
I should mention that Web Objects used to sell for thousands of dollars. That Apple is giving it away now shows an incredible commitment to developers.
I have to respectfully disagree with what Bronfman said and what you agreed with. If a song costs a certain amount to produce and market, why should one vary pricing? On the Internet there are no "supply and demand" issues in the marketplace, where the supply might be lower in one area or another, driving up the price due to demand. Essentially the "supply" issue is at the option of the buyer, as the buyer assumes responsibility to store the material. (This means those with large hard drives and/or iPods have paid for the most "supply.")
Every time some Corporate wonk says "The market should decide" he or she tends to mean "I want a monopoly and I want to use that monopoly to control prices for my personal gain."
Every time a politician says that, they mean "I want the monopolists and cartels who have given me campaign funds, lobbied me and taken me on luxury trips to control prices for their and my personal gain."
And I don't recall having problems with my Palm on Windows the way I do now on OS X. If anything happened to your computer, all your PIM data was backed up on the Palm, so all you had to do was re-install the system and hit a button to restore it on the computer. But on OS X, I've had the computer wipe the data from my Palm when I did clean OS upgrades. They also managed to include programs along with their main products that helped you do more, like a graphics application that came with Office which was useful for web design. On the Macintosh, it seems like it costs much more to do really basic web design compared to Windows.
I do believe Apple now gives away Web Objects with Tiger, which may help you with your issues in Web design. I should mention that the iTunes Music Store was constructed using that framework.
But if you are having problems syncing with your Palm device, there are good solutions. iSync is one really good one that I am currently using now, instead of Palm's Desktop. With iSync, my.mac account, my Calendar and my Address Book all contain all of the data that I use daily on my m505.
And the Palm Desktop just got upgraded to work with Tiger, if you are running that.
If you need help, reply to this posting and I shall send you to the appropriate websites to help you with your Mac issues and your Palm device.
An anonymous coward initiated a number of comments that encouraged your reply. I wish to take issue with a few things he or she said but I don't reply to anonymous cowards. And then I would like to reply to your post.
...tons of bizarro name changes. After some years, it's Palm again - what was so wrong with that in the first place that it was worth all the churn and confusion?
Palm has simply never been its own company. Jeff Hawkins could not manufacture the device on his own and needed a large investor to do that. Initially, it was US Robotics, whose primary engine was the sales of modems. Since modems are now not really viable, save as a chip you put onto a motherboard if you are an OEM, USR divested themselves of just about everything. The name changes have everything to do with the large investor that provides the capital for Hawkins' company, which had to split off and re-merge on at least two occasions due to funding issues. No large corporation can invent the way Palm does. They're too hidebound and cannot innovate like that, unless they create an autonomous business unit.
why make it so Palm has to pay to use its own OS on your its devices (re: PalmSource)? I'm never going to figure that one out.
See above. Everything has to do with funding. PalmSource is what remains (on the software side) of Handspring, which spun off from Palm when the large corporate Tiger that owned Palm started to eat its young.
My nice, fast T3 can connect wirelessly to the internet via "Any Bluetooth Wireless Access Point". WTF? The Palm Treo 650 has the capability to do the same thing. It is disabled by the cellular companies that offer it. They don't want you to be able to dial out on your Treo, using WiFi. I think that's the question one would ask.
Now, to your issue: The problem isn't just the OS. Palm OS has its issues, but largely it's elegant and works well. The problem is that Palm hardware sucks. And they're virtually the only company making Palm OS-based hardware these days. So really your best bet is a Pocket PC. If only because the hardware is at least decent and you have some choice.
You are entitied to your opinion about the Palm hardware. I think it's perfect for my uses. I have owned a Palm m505 for some 5 or 6 years. It came with more RAM than I needed and has a card slot for more storage. I can find applications that work with it just fine and the user interface simply works. It's simple, elegant, intuitive and tremendously RAM-efficient. Windoze CE takes something like ten times the memory of the basic Palm OS and then you need more to run applications.
Of course the big thing I see with my Palm m505 is that I use it in a manner that is akin to Jeff Hawkins' original vision: Don't try to make it into a laptop; Don't try to get it to do everything; Make it do several simple things extremely well and stick with that, then refine it to do those things perfectly. I still admire the original VW Bug, which did not essentially change its body style from the 1930s through the last one assembled in Puebla, Mexico in 2003. The refinements were all internal. Volkswagen was dedicated to perfecting the engine and drive train to the point where the car was the most reliable little car on the road. This is how I see my m505 -- it is a very refined Palm Pilot and it does the job I need better than anything else: It keeps my calendar, addresses, notes and information very close to hand and allows me to back them up on my computer.
Lastly, I do not think that any Windoze device will sync with a Mac.
They want me to download a worm so that it can delete all software and maybe some other files that they think I should not have on my computer.
Hmm, I'll bet women would be interested in a similar program that searches out and deletes all p0rn on the computers of their boyfriends/husbands along with any programs used to get it.
The Macrovision system we have here in the US does not touch the color intensity; rather it affects the luminance, gradually increasing it to "illegal" specifications within the vertical blanking interval, causing all VCRs and DVRs that use an automatic gain circuit for video to lose their lock on the signal as the level increases, then decreases.
This type of copy protection may be defeated through the use of a "proc amp" or a timebase corrector that replaces the blanking interval (with one of its own) or through the use of a professional VCR or DVR that does not use an AGC circuit on its input.
There are other DRM systems that include the installation of a "trojan" program on one's pee cee that prevents the successful copying of the DVD or CD that may be defeated through other means (like using an operating system that cannot run the "trojan."
Quite frankly, I don't think the RIAA can copyright a radio show. When I worked in radio, the station licenseholder owned the rights to the broadcast, unless they were shared with some sporting league, as is in the case of NFL football or Major League Baseball. Were I a disk jockey at a radio station, I'd resent the RIAA or MPAA trying to copyright my work. I certainly hold the copyright to anything I write and say on the air.
I think there is this tendency to simply things to make them "understandable" to children who "might be afraid of mathematics." Now I know I am no math whiz and, based on what I have seen in my daughter, I may run into some serious trouble in trying to tell her about mathematics. My father had a head for math and never understood why I never inherited his abilities.
I recall that, when I transitioned from parochial school to public school, the public school was on this kick to "simplify language" for English class. The textbook had this story about these space aliens who were trying to classify words so that they could better understand the parts of speech and so decode the language being spoken (English). We proceeded to try to learn the parts of speech as "Class I" "Class II" "Class III" and "Class IV" words.
Huh??
It wasn't until I started taking Spanish that I started understanding what a verb, noun, adjective, and so on were as a result.
What's wrong with using "x+y=z?"
Apparently there is this theory that "x" "y" and "z" are too abstract and scary for young students -- leastwise the young students that would include your friend's children.
Here you have Kansas trying to re-define "science" so that they can shoe-horn Religious Right pseudo-scientific belief into the curriculum and Algebra teachers who are limited to strange symbols which have no relationship with standard mathematics.
I would advise you and other members of your community to start voting in school board elections and going to school board meetings so that you can ask intelligent questions about unintelligent teaching methodologies.
You are henceforth added to my "friends" list. I feel your pain.
What happened with respect to the IRA is that the government of Great Britain decided to try to turn them into a "loyal opposition." And one cannot be "loyal" unless one is using political means to effect change.
There were a few additional incentives, like the Clinton Administration decided to work with the FBI to try to shut down the US-based funding for the IRA (typically dressed up to look like a charity as opposed to a terrorist group so that donors didn't really know that they were funding the bombings). I also think that the London Tube bombings by the Muslim extremists so alarmed the IRA that they decided that they could not, in good conscience, be seen as "no different." And that may have encouraged the announcement that they were decommissioning their weapons caches.
Presently the loyalists are under fire for a change for their recent violence. It used to be that the IRA would do something, the loyalists would retaliate and the IRA would be blamed for all of it.
Slashdot Mirror
From Dictionary.com the abbreviation "Cmdr" is an appropriate military designation for "Commander." It is a military rank used in many navies but not generally in armies or air forces. It is below Captain and above Lieutenant-Commander. The rank evolved in the 18th and early 19th centuries and was originally known as Master and Commander. The Royal Navy shortened Master and Commander to Commander in 1814 while they were still fighting Napoleon and the US.
A commander in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy is equivalent in rank to a lieutenant-colonel in the army. A commander may command a frigate, destroyer, submarine, aviation squadron or shore installation, or may serve on a staff. A commander who commands a unit may be referred to as "Captain" as a courtesy title. A unit commander may also be informally referred to as "skipper."
I believe the RAF uses the title Commander as a rank, as they are styled on the Royal Navy. I think the usage has to do with what they do, as in "Wing Commander."
I believe the above answers your question.
For what it's worth, I can understand both points of view. In an MMORPG, a title that is part of one's handle can be confusing. I can see them not allowing titles, as well, like "DukeTerrible" or "KingLeer." These titles may be mistaken for actual rank earned in the game.
What bothers me is that there is no appeal. CmdrTaco is someone I can say I somewhat know. He is very active on the Internet and runs a little website that I occasionally post opinions on. Were I to run into him in an MMORPG, I might say, "Hello, and are you the same 'CmdrTaco' that has something to do with Shashdot?" Were he to reply in the affirmative, I would expect that me might receive more respect from me than he might from someone who doesn't spend the time to make /. such a good site. This means I might offer a "sorry," just as I slagged him with a death ray were I on an opposing team, or might mourn his loss more were I on the same team.
The justification of his keeping his title designation is that he is a public figure. But then if he got to keep his title, everyone would have to be allowed to do so as well, in direct violation of the rules everyone (didn't) read when they signed on.
But I think they ought to have let him down a little more easily. At least an e-mail saying what I would have after destroying his character were I on the "other" side.
In other words, "Sorry."
I have worked in television for over 20 years and during part of that time worked in a facility that duplicated screeners.
I think everyone needs to realize that the production of these illegally pirated films from screeners is an inside job. Unless Disney wants to set up and maintain a secure duplication facility somewhere, staffed only by trusted individuals who are constantly monitored for theft, there will always be those who "make a few copies for their friends."
Disney isn't about to do this because Disney is in the filmmaking and entertainment business, not the mass duplication and standards-conversion business. And it is from those facilities that the content leaks out. Try as they might, unless they spend a whole lot of money that, on its face does not please their shareholders, they're pretty much stuck with these inside jobs.
As to the high-quality bootleg copies, that tends to be the result of running an "extra" master of the film transfer and is either an organized crime issue or "yet another inside job."
I worked with a "Down Maine" dairyman for some years. We were pretty careful around the cows. There was a whole lot of concern about infection, mastitis, quantity put out by each cow, when we needed to fertilize them again (you don't get milk from a cow that hasn't had a calf and you have to get them pregnant every so often to keep production up) and so on. We did our best to keep the cows happy and keep production up.
We went through a lot of a sticky substance called "Bag Balm." We used it to decrease the amount of irritation cows felt when being milked by a milking machine that used air pressure. Either this device uses a different pressure or I'll bet a lot of their cows have to be taken out of the system periodically.
I really like how well the system monitors and logs in production for each cow. The movie file indicates that it keeps track of "each quarter." That is a kind of granularity that we could never achieve with our milking system, where we would weigh the total output of each cow and keep track of that. We also kept an eye on cream and butterfat content.
I do wonder what happens when (and if) more than one cow "wants" to be milked at the same time. Does a brawl ensue?
For those who don't know it, cows tend to be milked twice daily at 12-hour intervals in order to ensure the highest possible output. It's kind of difficult to switch them to daylight savings time and many dairymen just don't try. Cows who are not milked experience considerable pain if they are not and may develop mastitis. The same goes for all female mammals who are producing milk. If a cow's output can be increased by varying the times of milking just a bit, dairymen could pay for the device in a few years.
I have had this explained by a very good orthopedist who replaced my right knee in 1997 with one that certainly is not something my body manufactured (one that works extremely well, too).
Dr. Scott told me that the only way my body could reject the knee is for me to have a runaway infection in my body that so energizes my immune system that it thinks it needs to attack anything and everything foreign.
That is kind of rare, as we tend to put bandages over cuts and wash deep wounds and treat them promptly where I live. Were I involved in some kind of natural disaster and could not do so I might suffer more from the effects of gangrene first before I lost my knee.
To put it plainly, these types of substance, when inserted in the body, tend to not attract the body's defenses, save just after their insertion. Think of how many pins help mend broken bones and how many other prosthetic devices we use to make our lives better and ask yourself how many people suffer from rejection syndrome with these. I think you'd find the number is very low.
Knee replacement surgery is very painful and difficult for the body and patients tend to run a low-grade fever for a few days. That fever is an indication of the body's defenses trying to find foreign organic material (or dead tissue generated by the surgery itself). I don't have a fever now and everything's fine. That would be the most probable result of using this substance within the human body.
Another person who does not read posts.
I stated in my original post that we are following Fox. I further clarified that statement in a subsequent post in the same thread, replying to someone else who does not read posts.
And in my original statement, I urge people to not believe everything they see on television. Every media outlet has a bias and, in this day and age, that bias reflects the outlet's ownership, which tends to be really big companies, like Disney, General Electric, Time Warner and Viacom. And these big corporations want profits. And those profits have to come from their news divisions as well as their entertainment divisions. And when news has to turn a profit, it is no longer solely serving the public interest.
Of course I am biased.
The environment in which I was trained to work in media was one in which television stations in the US were required to "serve the public need, necessity and demand." As a part of that requirement, stations were required to broadcast "public affairs and educational programs."
News was considered a part of the public affairs segment of what local stations broadcast, and stations had to produce a certain amount of that weekly. Stations typically "took a loss" on news and public affairs programming because it was seen as the means by which they were permitted to hang on to their licenses and continue to make money on entertainment programming (which also had to "serve the public need, necessity and demand").
I know of several stations within a broadcast group (or mini-network) that the US Federal Communications Commission required be sold by their owner (RKO General and their parent company, Gencorp) because they failed to inform their viewers of a corporate scandal that affected their parent company (an Enron-esque "cooking of the books"). The FCC enforced standards and made broadcasters comply in all areas, including signal specifications, transmitter operations and content.
Then along came the comissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan.
Under Reagan appointees, the FCC stated that "The market ought to determine correct broadcast blanking intervals and sync levels." I would imagine that not too many people know what blanking intervals are (or ought to be) for NTSC (US) television. It's a technical specification that tells television sets at home when to start the moving dot that draws your picture. It's something that the FCC ought to and should continue to regulate. But under Reagan appointees and their successors, the FCC has decided that "the market should decide" and regulation should end, save in areas where the content of broadcasting does not line up with their political viewpoint.
The end result is a kind of television that claims that syndicated Saturday morning cartoons meet the standard of "educational programming" because these cartoons contain "messages that teach children and help their self-esteem."
Excuse me?
My bias is this: Our broadcast media ought to report, not spin. And my bias is based on the essential premise of the reason regulation of the broadcast spectrum was adopted in the United States: Access to the airwaves is held in the public trust because the broadcast spectrum is limited.
Had you read my entire article, you would have found my statement: ... what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. This is as much a mea culpa as a diatribe against Fox. I have complained numerous times to reporters and producers with whom I work that we're treating elected public officials like movie stars, not like employees of the People. We fail to ask hard and probing questions and we fail in our role as the Fourth Estate to question the authorities and provide complete (or more complete) information to the American Public about what these employees of theirs are doing and how they are working out.
The result of a press that does not adequately serve the public is easily seen in the corruption of governments in Latin America. To the extent that the government controls the media, the government is provably less responsive to the needs of the public it is "serving." Generally the first thing a dictator or military junta wants to do is get control of the media. To the extent that the press does their job to examine the government, society is better served.
As for "liberal" spin (mentioned by DNS-and-BIND (461968)) I disagree. We're "chasing" Fox presently, and the reason why we're doing this is because we're trying to make good ratings. The large corporations that control the netwo
I work for a national news service that "competes" with Fox. There is an understanding that if you work for Murdoch, you have sold out any attempt at integrity for cash. Fox does not deliver news, they deliver opinion (and I'm risking flames here). Their standards are set so low and their "spinners" are part of the report that one cannot truly expect that their material is free enough of bias to allow the viewer or reader to come to any meaningful conclusion.
Fox reports on the national events just like everyone and that is why they are insidious. You'll see coverage of Katrina, of the horrible earthquake in Pakistan and India. You'll see sports scores and weather on the local Fox channels. But the spin cycle is fully on for political coverage and for coverage of big business. At Fox, big corporations can do no wrong and if they make a claim to a Fox reporter, those claims (and all the spin inherent in those claims) are never fact-checked. They're reported as if they were truth. Up until the very end, Fox did no reporting that questioned the accountability of the Enron chiefs, while ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS (yeah, those Commies) reported questionable bookkeeping and deals that were pretty nigh illegal on the surface on their books. Enron was sued by the State of California for artificially raising energy prices to "create a crisis." Fox did not report on those suits. Everyone else did.
Instead, Fox began an attack on then-Governor Gray Davis and how he was incorrectly handling an energy crisis that was probably not of his own making. I believe the Fox television network (at least) was partially responsible for the recall election and the subsequent replacement of Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If the court cases finally decide that this was all Enron's making, I'd have to say that this kind of manipulation is pretty insidious.
Of course, when Enron declared bankruptcy and was called to question, Fox joined the bandwagon and launched "investigative reports." But even now, they hold Kenneth Lay blameless. Why? Because Fox is the "pro-Bush network" and any friend of the Bush family is a friend of Murdoch and his network.
I have read extensively the history of our country, which started off on the premise that the Press should be free. I have read diatribes against our founding fathers, aspersions to the characters of George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, Mrs. Adams and her "pet President John," and so on. I defend Murdoch's right to broadcast and print opinion. He has a right to do so and he has created a media empire for that purpose.
But understand that what he does with his empire is not necessarily tell you the truth. Almost everything of consequence is spun. And what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. Don't believe everything you read in the papers and don't believe most of what you see on television.
This is a report from inside a media giant.
I wholeheartedly agree with this comment
You are never stuck with any on-line music system, you are only stuck with hardware you buy. If you buy a player that does not support service A, you're "stuck with plan B" unless you rip your own CD collection or directly import .MP3 files into whatever player software you have on your computer. And you can also decide to use alternatives whenever you wish.
I'm "stuck" with an iPod. That's how I listen to songs. But I can download any .MP3 file from anywhere on the Internet and drag it into my /Music folder and then drag and drop that file's icon into an open iTunes window. iTunes will import the song, podcast, radio program, primal scream or whatever into my playlist and sent it to my iPod next time I sync. Apple's iTunes Music Store is more rich, in terms of content, than all but a very few brick and mortar stores I have been to -- and I can download podcasts from thousands of sources, subscribe to them and have the new ones dropped onto my iPod automatically. "Stuck," indeed!
Yes, I did have to download iTunes in order to get to the store -- but I had downloaded iTunes back before there was a store, as the software let me import my CDs onto my computer for listening. For just ripping CDs, iTunes was essential before there was a store. Then I got an iPod. Still no music store. My iTunes collection was growing because I would visit brick and mortar stores, puck up new, hot CDs and rip them so I could listen to the music on my iPod. Since the software part was absolutely free, I didn't see that I was "stuck" with anything, save the iPod, which required iTunes, which I had all ready, which was and is free.
Where I have a problem is with companies like Yahoo, who feature pop-up ads and spyware and willingly participates in the Chinese political prison system which violates human rights.
I still don't understand what the course is supposed to look like: From the article:
Courses are expected to be approximately two miles long, one mile wide, and about 5,000 feet high, running perpendicularly to spectators. The rocket planes, called X-Racers, will take off from a runway both in a staggered fashion and side-by side and fly a course based on the design of a Grand Prix competition, with long straight-aways, vertical ascents, and deep banks.
5,000 feet is an altitude that may be covered in seconds by a rocket at speed. A two-mile length with a curved track, like Grand Prix race cars use would require a kind of manoverability not seen on any rocket-powered craft.
The competition would certainly bar solid rocket motors, which go full-out continuously and cannot be throttled or shut down. I cannot imagine any braking system that would allow such a craft to slow down adequately for a "turn." The dynamics of these racers would appear to all but defy anything we have ever produced.
And such a craft would not necessarily operate in outer space. The ability to manover like that is the kind of thing you would need a gravity well to check your speed.
I, for one, want to visit your pub.
There is something coldly efficient (and maybe this is why this coaster was thought up in Germany, which has a reputation for cold effeciency) about this kind of a signalling system.
I used to hang out at a sports bar near where I used to live and I "trained" the waitstaff (who were mostly really cute women) to pay attention to me. I like to play table soccer (fussball) and they tended to pay no attention to players and serve the table-sitters instead. Table soccer, being the reason why I was there, was getting short shrift. So I started tipping well and asking them to check back and see if anyone at the table needed anything. I'd buy a few rounds for people who were playing and we'd get great service all night.
Everyone would have fun, including the waitstaff.
I always tip bartenders (at least in the US). They take a lot of abuse and they have to smile through it all. Because of my policy of tipping, I could always get a drink in a club I frequented even if the bar was six deep in patrons on a busy night. I'd hate to tend bar where some electronic beep was indicating a "too low beer stein." I'd try to disable the darn devices and serve as requested.
Your recommendation for always getting good service is spot on. I don't need an electronic gizmo to help me get another drink and it's probably a good idea for me to wait a while between drinks on occasion anyway. I'm in a club, pub or bar usually to socialize as much as anything else.
Were these e-tailers to move their internet operations to New Hampshire, a State with no sales tax (and no justification for ever participating in such a scheme) they'd be able to avoid this matter all together.
Were lawyers to think this through, they'd initiate a class-action lawsuit to protect people from illegally-collected sales tax, as the sale did not occur within the offended State. Were these State legislatures to actually do some creative thinking, they'd redefine the tax as a usage tax instead of a sales tax.
Usage tax would evade the constitutionality issues entirely. This would also place the burden of payment on the consumer. New York City went after the purchasers on cigarette tax evasion and their prosecution will probably be upheld on the basis of cigarette tax being a usage tax, not a sales tax.
You obviously didn't read my entire post.
Microsoft Outlook worked just fine with the Palm -- until Microsoft upgraded it so that it wouldn't. Apple developed iSync so that their software would never suffer from the same version incompatibility as Microsoft's. Microsoft could have done the same thing, the specifications for creating a conduit for the Palm are out there in public for all to see and use.
I quoted Bill Gates' vision for what computers would do for us. I should not need to remind you that Mr. Gates works for Microsoft, not Apple or Palm. The problem I have with Microsoft's inaction with respect to publishing the standards for Outlook/Exchange is that apparently Mr. Gates' vision works only if you use Microsoft's software and operating systems. This is typical of how they use their monopoly. They do not play well with others because that is what they choose.
My fiancée (that would be the story in my earlier statement that you didn't read) uses the third party application to sync with Outlook/Exchange. And even failing that, she also has Palm's Desktop application on her computer (she is pretty minimally-functional in most applications and tends to not be able to find her files when she saves them anywhere, save her desktop.
I have been recommending to corporations for years that they do not use Internet Exploder as their web browser or Outlook Express or Outlook as their e-mail client due to how these programs connect to the Internet and are fat targets for black-hat hackers who want to exploit others' personal computers. The corporation I work for uses Outlook and Exchange for all e-mail and we regularly have problems with viruses, worms and other exploits
I will imagine that the proliferation of Windows devices on the palm of one's hand will cause that segment of the market to be more susceptible to exploits as well. I can well imagine someone radiating virus programs through a WiFi connection to steal data or destroy data on cell phones using Windows.
If I were your neighbor and drove into my driveway in a brand new Mercedes, would you pity me? Mercedes-Benz has about the same market share in autos as Apple has in personal computers. They also make similar profit margins. Just because I have a better computer than you have doesn't make my comment less worthy.
You just keep getting more right. Darn it!
I guess one of the real issues with the folks at Palm is that the Pilot was the perfect geek tool. Still is, based on your statement: I can browse 3 sites, work in Excel, and still answer the phone without a bog down. I think you are probably more of a geek than am I (though I can generally figure things out in Word or Excel, can do a few things in Apple's Terminal and know the difference between an Administrator and a User.
I think that what happened to Palm is that they didn't quite make the leap from "über-cool geek factor" to "must have accessory for everyman" like Apple's iPod did.
I don't know what I'd do if Apple's next iPod started running Windows...
You are now a friend.
I'd say nearly 30% of my consulting income for 5 years was helping basic company managers getting their Palms to work. Once they worked (synced, etc), these basic users spent more time navigating the software than using it efficiently. The working install rarely worked for long. My corporate customers hated the software. "Just get it working" was common to hear.
I have used Palm devices since the Palm Pilot Professional and have reveled in their simplicity. I have a Palm m505 and couldn't do without it. I regularly and routinely sync it into my Macintosh and everything works perfectly. In fact, since I use Apple's iSync, my .Mac calendar and address book are kept up with data I enter in on my m505 every time I synchronize, which means I can log onto my account from any web browser and retrieve information. This is the epitome of Gates' vision of "information at your fingertips."
So you're wrong.
My fiancée rarely takes her m505 anywhere. She used to have all of her contacts on it but lost all of the data in a divorce when her ex-husband kept the computer and she did not hot-sync her data to anything (he probably did it for her). When her m505 lost power, it lost everything (I think). I don't think she regularly hot-syncs. She has a Dell laptop and is minimally-functional in Microsoft Excel. She runs a home-based business on the side and understands the value of data entry in order to track clientele, but simply won't do the work. She would not know how to harness the power of a template in Microsoft Word unless someone set it up for her and also wrote most of the document for her (thus making her need the "consultant" as a permanent appendage). She has two paper calendars where she keeps numbers, addresses, contacts, schedules, appointments and so on and leads a busy life that is pretty disorganized -- all things that could be organized with a little more computer literacy and better use of her Palm m505.
So you're right.
The Palm was designed to do few things and do them extremely well. I use my m505 for my date book, appointment book, address book memo pad, and play solitaire and chess on it. That's pretty much it. I have a cell phone that works just fine as a cell phone. I have an iPod that works just fine as a music player. I totally understand the desire on the part of many to reduce these three personal electronic gadgets into one -- fewer cords to haul around, fewer adapters needed, fewer things to plug in every night and so on. The Palm devices I have used over the years have always had more than enough memory, more than enough speed and more than enough features to please me. And they do one thing perfectly: They sync with my Mac (it is my understanding that Windows CE devices won't).
I noted that there were a few specific things that the Palm folks wanted put into the Windows OS for the upcoming Treo, like clicking on someone's face in one's address book to initiate a call. Microsoft still doesn't have "ease of use" down -- even for handhelds.
Perhaps it's time I got another Palm device -- quickly because the new ones next year won't work with my Mac. There are lots of people who wrote code for the Palm OS who are probably really unhappy about this announcement.
We'll never be modded up for these kinds of private conversations...
I honestly believe that, if you are either leaving your Mac running or are regularly running Brian Hil's MacJanitor, you can recover the extra room. I think that part of the reason why you are recovering so much is because you have not truly dragged in all of your old preferences and settings and are re-creating them on the fly after you have all ready done the upgrade. The result is a system where you really didn't save much space at all, once you have initially run all of your old applications under the new system.
The only reason why I can see the need for a new install like you describe is in the event of a serious failure, like a hard disk crash, lightning strike or some other issue (like Katrina or Rita).
I used to spend a lot of time on OSX FAQ and found it a very valuable resource, though not too many of the members know a lot about Palm gear.
I shall try to add you to my "Friends" list here.
I tend to not do clean installs of the OS. I find that installing over my ol system works very well with a minimum of fuss because I keep all of my prefs, my password keychain and so on. What I do that gives me a fall-back position is to use Mike Bombich's excellent Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my last known good OS to another disk. It will make that disk bootable in case of an emergency or a bad upgreade.
I should mention that Web Objects used to sell for thousands of dollars. That Apple is giving it away now shows an incredible commitment to developers.
I have to respectfully disagree with what Bronfman said and what you agreed with. If a song costs a certain amount to produce and market, why should one vary pricing? On the Internet there are no "supply and demand" issues in the marketplace, where the supply might be lower in one area or another, driving up the price due to demand. Essentially the "supply" issue is at the option of the buyer, as the buyer assumes responsibility to store the material. (This means those with large hard drives and/or iPods have paid for the most "supply.")
Every time some Corporate wonk says "The market should decide" he or she tends to mean "I want a monopoly and I want to use that monopoly to control prices for my personal gain."
Every time a politician says that, they mean "I want the monopolists and cartels who have given me campaign funds, lobbied me and taken me on luxury trips to control prices for their and my personal gain."
And I don't recall having problems with my Palm on Windows the way I do now on OS X. If anything happened to your computer, all your PIM data was backed up on the Palm, so all you had to do was re-install the system and hit a button to restore it on the computer. But on OS X, I've had the computer wipe the data from my Palm when I did clean OS upgrades. They also managed to include programs along with their main products that helped you do more, like a graphics application that came with Office which was useful for web design. On the Macintosh, it seems like it costs much more to do really basic web design compared to Windows.
I do believe Apple now gives away Web Objects with Tiger, which may help you with your issues in Web design. I should mention that the iTunes Music Store was constructed using that framework.
But if you are having problems syncing with your Palm device, there are good solutions. iSync is one really good one that I am currently using now, instead of Palm's Desktop. With iSync, my .mac account, my Calendar and my Address Book all contain all of the data that I use daily on my m505.
And the Palm Desktop just got upgraded to work with Tiger, if you are running that.
If you need help, reply to this posting and I shall send you to the appropriate websites to help you with your Mac issues and your Palm device.
An anonymous coward initiated a number of comments that encouraged your reply. I wish to take issue with a few things he or she said but I don't reply to anonymous cowards. And then I would like to reply to your post.
Palm has simply never been its own company. Jeff Hawkins could not manufacture the device on his own and needed a large investor to do that. Initially, it was US Robotics, whose primary engine was the sales of modems. Since modems are now not really viable, save as a chip you put onto a motherboard if you are an OEM, USR divested themselves of just about everything. The name changes have everything to do with the large investor that provides the capital for Hawkins' company, which had to split off and re-merge on at least two occasions due to funding issues. No large corporation can invent the way Palm does. They're too hidebound and cannot innovate like that, unless they create an autonomous business unit.
why make it so Palm has to pay to use its own OS on your its devices (re: PalmSource)? I'm never going to figure that one out.
See above. Everything has to do with funding. PalmSource is what remains (on the software side) of Handspring, which spun off from Palm when the large corporate Tiger that owned Palm started to eat its young.
My nice, fast T3 can connect wirelessly to the internet via "Any Bluetooth Wireless Access Point". WTF?
The Palm Treo 650 has the capability to do the same thing. It is disabled by the cellular companies that offer it. They don't want you to be able to dial out on your Treo, using WiFi. I think that's the question one would ask.
Now, to your issue: The problem isn't just the OS. Palm OS has its issues, but largely it's elegant and works well. The problem is that Palm hardware sucks. And they're virtually the only company making Palm OS-based hardware these days. So really your best bet is a Pocket PC. If only because the hardware is at least decent and you have some choice.
You are entitied to your opinion about the Palm hardware. I think it's perfect for my uses. I have owned a Palm m505 for some 5 or 6 years. It came with more RAM than I needed and has a card slot for more storage. I can find applications that work with it just fine and the user interface simply works. It's simple, elegant, intuitive and tremendously RAM-efficient. Windoze CE takes something like ten times the memory of the basic Palm OS and then you need more to run applications.
Of course the big thing I see with my Palm m505 is that I use it in a manner that is akin to Jeff Hawkins' original vision: Don't try to make it into a laptop; Don't try to get it to do everything; Make it do several simple things extremely well and stick with that, then refine it to do those things perfectly. I still admire the original VW Bug, which did not essentially change its body style from the 1930s through the last one assembled in Puebla, Mexico in 2003. The refinements were all internal. Volkswagen was dedicated to perfecting the engine and drive train to the point where the car was the most reliable little car on the road. This is how I see my m505 -- it is a very refined Palm Pilot and it does the job I need better than anything else: It keeps my calendar, addresses, notes and information very close to hand and allows me to back them up on my computer.
Lastly, I do not think that any Windoze device will sync with a Mac.
They want me to download a worm so that it can delete all software and maybe some other files that they think I should not have on my computer.
Hmm, I'll bet women would be interested in a similar program that searches out and deletes all p0rn on the computers of their boyfriends/husbands along with any programs used to get it.
No, but a popup immediately appeard underneath the article when I clicked on the link. Perhaps that is the real reason for the submission.
The Macrovision system we have here in the US does not touch the color intensity; rather it affects the luminance, gradually increasing it to "illegal" specifications within the vertical blanking interval, causing all VCRs and DVRs that use an automatic gain circuit for video to lose their lock on the signal as the level increases, then decreases.
This type of copy protection may be defeated through the use of a "proc amp" or a timebase corrector that replaces the blanking interval (with one of its own) or through the use of a professional VCR or DVR that does not use an AGC circuit on its input.
There are other DRM systems that include the installation of a "trojan" program on one's pee cee that prevents the successful copying of the DVD or CD that may be defeated through other means (like using an operating system that cannot run the "trojan."
Quite frankly, I don't think the RIAA can copyright a radio show. When I worked in radio, the station licenseholder owned the rights to the broadcast, unless they were shared with some sporting league, as is in the case of NFL football or Major League Baseball. Were I a disk jockey at a radio station, I'd resent the RIAA or MPAA trying to copyright my work. I certainly hold the copyright to anything I write and say on the air.
I think there is this tendency to simply things to make them "understandable" to children who "might be afraid of mathematics." Now I know I am no math whiz and, based on what I have seen in my daughter, I may run into some serious trouble in trying to tell her about mathematics. My father had a head for math and never understood why I never inherited his abilities.
I recall that, when I transitioned from parochial school to public school, the public school was on this kick to "simplify language" for English class. The textbook had this story about these space aliens who were trying to classify words so that they could better understand the parts of speech and so decode the language being spoken (English). We proceeded to try to learn the parts of speech as "Class I" "Class II" "Class III" and "Class IV" words.
Huh??
It wasn't until I started taking Spanish that I started understanding what a verb, noun, adjective, and so on were as a result.
What's wrong with using "x+y=z?"
Apparently there is this theory that "x" "y" and "z" are too abstract and scary for young students -- leastwise the young students that would include your friend's children.
Here you have Kansas trying to re-define "science" so that they can shoe-horn Religious Right pseudo-scientific belief into the curriculum and Algebra teachers who are limited to strange symbols which have no relationship with standard mathematics.
I would advise you and other members of your community to start voting in school board elections and going to school board meetings so that you can ask intelligent questions about unintelligent teaching methodologies.
You are henceforth added to my "friends" list. I feel your pain.
Just when I've been getting set to help my daughter out with "The New Math," along comes "The New New Math."
What happened with respect to the IRA is that the government of Great Britain decided to try to turn them into a "loyal opposition." And one cannot be "loyal" unless one is using political means to effect change.
There were a few additional incentives, like the Clinton Administration decided to work with the FBI to try to shut down the US-based funding for the IRA (typically dressed up to look like a charity as opposed to a terrorist group so that donors didn't really know that they were funding the bombings). I also think that the London Tube bombings by the Muslim extremists so alarmed the IRA that they decided that they could not, in good conscience, be seen as "no different." And that may have encouraged the announcement that they were decommissioning their weapons caches.
Presently the loyalists are under fire for a change for their recent violence. It used to be that the IRA would do something, the loyalists would retaliate and the IRA would be blamed for all of it.