One important aspect of being 'open' is whether you favor your customers or the carriers.
I see evidence of this distinction in support for bluetooth API's: the stronger and more customer oriented phone manufacturers support bluetooth API's (which makes many interesting applications possible). On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
So I was quite shocked to see that Android v1.0 does not support bluetooth API's!
I know that Google has claimed that they didn't have time to get the bluetooth API's into v1.0, but that is just the sort of thing that companies will tell us when they change plans due to carrier pressure. The BREW environment (for CDMA phones) has been playing this game for years: continually telling developers that bluetooth support was just around the corner.
I sure hope that Google doesn't play the same game with us. I really want this to be an open and powerful platform.
Businesses that are serious about their security use one of the many types of WPA-Enterprise. The method described in this article only applies to WPA-Personal which is targeted at home users.
Those businesses that do use WPA-Personal can simply institute a policy that requires better passwords to secure them against this exploit.
Some businesses will continue to use WPA-Personal with poor passwords, and that's fine, but those businesses are probably not too worried about security and have many other bigger vulnerabilities.
So, the claim that "this anouncement effectively signals the death of wireless networking in business networks" is ridiculous.
And, they have now removed Bluetooth API support from Android Java.
Slowly the whole Android thing is starting to look less and less open.
At this time, it seems that Symbian phones are still the most developer friendly: they run Java, Python, and C++ apps. As well, the Java support is very good and consistent.
I was hoping that Android would provide an equally good Java environment (especially considering that they only support Java apps).
I am/was a subscriber to the Yahoo Music Service. I loved it. I had extremely convenient access to almost everything. I no longer worried about what I owned and just focused on rating stuff.
I believe that the value for my money that I got for this service - even if it dies today - is much greater then with buying CD's or buying individual tracks from iTunes. I paid a reasonable amount of money ( $10 a month) for a great music experience.
Let's face it, all of this music is pretty crappy sound quality, so I don't want to buy tracks at $1 a pop that will be obsolete in 5 years when higher quality multi-track formats become available. The stuff from Yahoo is 192Kbps WMA which is reasonably good by today's standards but still pretty crappy.
And now that the service is going dark, everything is transferred to Rhapsody. I have 8 months remaining on my Yahoo account and they are transferring that 8 months to rhapsody, along with my music collection (if I want). So I do not loose the music as others seem to be implying. As before, I have to keep paying to keep my collection alive - that is the deal that I have agreed to.
BUT now the negative.
From the FAQ it appears that Yahoo is not going to transfer my music rating to the Rhapsody service. The music rating ARE my collection, so this really screws me up. If someone wrote an app that culled my rating from the Yahoo Music service I would be thrilled.
Rhapsody is Real. That sucks. I'm scared to install their application on my computer.
Rhapsody is only available in the US. Yahoo Music was available in other countries. What are the users in other countries supposed to do?
Here in Canada, Bell Canada has announced that they will soon start charging for incoming text messages. To me this seems unfair since I can't control who sends me a message. And unlike with voice calls, I don't even have the option of knowing who is sending before I answer. This seems like an invitation to Spam to me.
It is my understanding that, in the EU, the initiator of the call or text message pays the cost. That sounds simple and sensible to me.
Apple is a premium brand, so you pay more for everything.
One of the ideas behind this strategy is that you are trying to attract primarily the most 'price-insensitive' customers. These are, after-all, the most desirable customers.
One can see how it pays off with the recent AT&T deal. Apple got the best of the deal, but AT&T justified it to their shareholders by reminding them that these are the best customers you can get.
Of course, getting these customers is not as easy at just raising your prices - being the #1 cool brand is the key and is very expensive in marketing etc. - but the upside is huge.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only two current phones that don't support Java : the iPhone and the Centro.
I'm not suggesting that Java is the most important feature of the phone, but that Java is so common that not including it on your phone is kinda flipping a finger at developers and users.
Apple can get away with anything and people will find ways to still love it, but Palm?
>> So, now we know what step three is: setup a security agency in US to resell otherwise unavailable data.
No, step three is that they setup a security agency in Europe so they kidnap these suspicious looking people and put them on flights to Syria (or wherever) for torture.
I agree with you about the prospects for ubiquitous WiFi now, but I don't agree with you that WiFi just isn't the right technology.
With time and experience, the coverage problems were resolved. And the cost of rolling out these networks was quite low - tiny compared to the costs of rolling out the 3G networks.
On the other hand, even the technically successful municipal networks were experiencing very poor uptake.
As a Mac user you only care about the end product. Nothing wrong with that - 95% of consumers are exactly the same way. Mac users are not unusual in caring only about the product and not about the company (or its boss).
But I'm not sure then why you would bother reading this article.
I was one of those people who justified my music swapping by pointing out that the industry had not provided a compelling and reasonable alternative. With Yahoo Music Unlimited that changed and I went straight.
I pay $6 a month (or $3 if you sign up via Mastercard) and I get almost everything. It totally changed the way that I listen to music. It's like I own everything and now only have to worry about what I like/dislike. I discover much more new stuff now. And I think it is quite reasonable that I have to keep paying to maintain access to my music.
So now I must start paying $13 a month and install software from the dreaded RN, or go back to being a pirate. Damn.
If you see the Mac this way, then all you wanted from Linux was a *nix like CLI. That's a pretty limited way to see Linux. You are leaving out things like price, flexiblity, and openness that the Mac does not replace. Actually, I think that the Mac and Linux are in most way as different as possible, so I don't think it is either or.
Personally, my angle on being a Linux user is a bit like being a granola-head consumer: it is about trying to focus on substance and values rather then style and convenience.
I can imagine that in the state of CA there must be a ton of internet businesses just dying to sell user data. And a lot of those companies will be directing some of their new revenue to the governor that made it all possible. If he can put an 'anti red tape and government bureaucracy' face on it, all the better.
Yes, the containers and the string. These are fundamental parts of C++. Where-ever possible I use cross-platform code but this code almost always depends on the C++ containers. So now Qt/KDE code is incompatible with regular C++ code. Between that and moc it's like they are trying to put up barriers.
When they say no more DRM, I doubt their plan is to 'sell' songs without DRM. I think this means that songs will be distributed as a service and that the service will be supported by advertising.
And I, for one, am sorry that everything we do has to be supported by advertising. I don't like advertising. I prefer to pay a reasonable fee.
I don't blame Yahoo. They came out with a great music subscription service that went absolutely nowhere in the market. And, regarding DRM, they have been consistent in their rhetoric against it, but have not had the power to do anything about it.
What is wrong with the development tech behind the new KOffice?
Well, speaking as a C++ developer, the first problem is that the new QT is a serious attack on the C++ standard. Yes, I know that everyone will say that the C++ standard is bad and that QT4 has done it better, but that's what the MS people always said when they ignored standards. Standards don't always represent the best solution for you, but sticking to the standard benefits everyone. Now that the QT people have decided to do things their own way some of my C++ skills and all of my C++ code is useless in the KDE world.
So, I doubt I will ever develop using Qt/KDE.
I agree with your point though about C++ being better suited to GUI development then C.
Even an iPod hater thinks the Zune is useless
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 1
Well, I'm not an iPod hater, but I would certainly never buy for all the reasons that you've probably heard before.
But the Zune? If MS is going to overcome Apple huge lead and cool factor they will have to do much, much better then this. If I had to pick between Zune and iPod I would hold my nose and pick the iPod.
If I could pick anything I wanted I would buy something from one of the many smaller players. One of the ones that supports the subscription services from yahoo, etc. Those services are great, though they are being crushed by iTunes.
People get confused about Apple and open source. Apple is mainly an open-source consumer, what they produce/contribute is basically the bare minimum that they have to.
And this make sense. Apple is not about openness. They are about lock-in. This is part of what lets them provide such a smooth and simple experience (and charge the highest margins in the industry).
So, it's about time that Apple competitors started pointing this out to people.
But, it's an indication of powerful Apple has become that the #1 company in the cell phone industry would have to start attacking a company that has just entered it.
Yes, but she also believed that anyone who supported an altruistic idea (such as this $400 OLPC) must be a horrendously wicked person (she was very extreme in her views of these people) with truly demonic alterior purposes.
While anyone that operated from pure greed was a shining example of nobility, intelligence, and enlightenment.
This leaves out the other ways that age is a factor:
Young people are thinking more about ideas and ideals: right vs. wrong, justice, freedom, etc.
As you get older you start to accumlate stuff: house, kids, toys. This makes you much more practical and more likely to vote for the guy who promises you more cash (ie. to meet your mortgage payments or send the kids to school). Being fair to other countries and helping poor people don't matter so much anymore.
Another variation on this saying is this:
A young person who isn't a liberal has no heart. An old person who isn't has no education.
Liberalism is what results from thinking carefully about the issues. Ask someone who has just completed an arts degree (particularly poly-sci, history) and they will likely be a liberal. Conservatives tend to vote based on TV ads or (what they are told) is their personal self interest.
Slashdot Mirror
One important aspect of being 'open' is whether you favor your customers or the carriers.
I see evidence of this distinction in support for bluetooth API's: the stronger and more customer oriented phone manufacturers support bluetooth API's (which makes many interesting applications possible). On the other hand, when carriers have a stronger role in designing a phone - this comes up particularly for CDMA phones - then the bluetooth API's are dropped or postponed.
So I was quite shocked to see that Android v1.0 does not support bluetooth API's!
I know that Google has claimed that they didn't have time to get the bluetooth API's into v1.0, but that is just the sort of thing that companies will tell us when they change plans due to carrier pressure. The BREW environment (for CDMA phones) has been playing this game for years: continually telling developers that bluetooth support was just around the corner.
I sure hope that Google doesn't play the same game with us. I really want this to be an open and powerful platform.
Businesses that are serious about their security use one of the many types of WPA-Enterprise. The method described in this article only applies to WPA-Personal which is targeted at home users.
Those businesses that do use WPA-Personal can simply institute a policy that requires better passwords to secure them against this exploit.
Some businesses will continue to use WPA-Personal with poor passwords, and that's fine, but those businesses are probably not too worried about security and have many other bigger vulnerabilities.
So, the claim that "this anouncement effectively signals the death of wireless networking in business networks" is ridiculous.
And, they have now removed Bluetooth API support from Android Java.
Slowly the whole Android thing is starting to look less and less open.
At this time, it seems that Symbian phones are still the most developer friendly: they run Java, Python, and C++ apps. As well, the Java support is very good and consistent.
I was hoping that Android would provide an equally good Java environment (especially considering that they only support Java apps).
I am/was a subscriber to the Yahoo Music Service. I loved it. I had extremely convenient access to almost everything. I no longer worried about what I owned and just focused on rating stuff.
I believe that the value for my money that I got for this service - even if it dies today - is much greater then with buying CD's or buying individual tracks from iTunes. I paid a reasonable amount of money ( $10 a month) for a great music experience.
Let's face it, all of this music is pretty crappy sound quality, so I don't want to buy tracks at $1 a pop that will be obsolete in 5 years when higher quality multi-track formats become available. The stuff from Yahoo is 192Kbps WMA which is reasonably good by today's standards but still pretty crappy.
And now that the service is going dark, everything is transferred to Rhapsody. I have 8 months remaining on my Yahoo account and they are transferring that 8 months to rhapsody, along with my music collection (if I want). So I do not loose the music as others seem to be implying. As before, I have to keep paying to keep my collection alive - that is the deal that I have agreed to.
BUT now the negative.
From the FAQ it appears that Yahoo is not going to transfer my music rating to the Rhapsody service. The music rating ARE my collection, so this really screws me up. If someone wrote an app that culled my rating from the Yahoo Music service I would be thrilled.
Rhapsody is Real. That sucks. I'm scared to install their application on my computer.
Rhapsody is only available in the US. Yahoo Music was available in other countries. What are the users in other countries supposed to do?
nuf said
Here in Canada, Bell Canada has announced that they will soon start charging for incoming text messages. To me this seems unfair since I can't control who sends me a message. And unlike with voice calls, I don't even have the option of knowing who is sending before I answer. This seems like an invitation to Spam to me.
It is my understanding that, in the EU, the initiator of the call or text message pays the cost. That sounds simple and sensible to me.
What is the situation in the US?
Apple is a premium brand, so you pay more for everything.
One of the ideas behind this strategy is that you are trying to attract primarily the most 'price-insensitive' customers. These are, after-all, the most desirable customers.
One can see how it pays off with the recent AT&T deal. Apple got the best of the deal, but AT&T justified it to their shareholders by reminding them that these are the best customers you can get.
Of course, getting these customers is not as easy at just raising your prices - being the #1 cool brand is the key and is very expensive in marketing etc. - but the upside is huge.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only two current phones that don't support Java : the iPhone and the Centro.
I'm not suggesting that Java is the most important feature of the phone, but that Java is so common that not including it on your phone is kinda flipping a finger at developers and users.
Apple can get away with anything and people will find ways to still love it, but Palm?
>> So, now we know what step three is: setup a security agency in US to resell otherwise unavailable data.
No, step three is that they setup a security agency in Europe so they kidnap these suspicious looking people and put them on flights to Syria (or wherever) for torture.
Actually, I find the cost of some of these muni-wifi projects to be incredibly low.
When you compare these costs to the billions being spent to roll out 3+G networks they are peanuts.
I agree with you about the prospects for ubiquitous WiFi now, but I don't agree with you that WiFi just isn't the right technology.
With time and experience, the coverage problems were resolved. And the cost of rolling out these networks was quite low - tiny compared to the costs of rolling out the 3G networks.
On the other hand, even the technically successful municipal networks were experiencing very poor uptake.
But then you are reinforcing his point.
As a Mac user you only care about the end product. Nothing wrong with that - 95% of consumers are exactly the same way. Mac users are not unusual in caring only about the product and not about the company (or its boss).
But I'm not sure then why you would bother reading this article.
I was one of those people who justified my music swapping by pointing out that the industry had not provided a compelling and reasonable alternative. With Yahoo Music Unlimited that changed and I went straight.
I pay $6 a month (or $3 if you sign up via Mastercard) and I get almost everything. It totally changed the way that I listen to music. It's like I own everything and now only have to worry about what I like/dislike. I discover much more new stuff now. And I think it is quite reasonable that I have to keep paying to maintain access to my music.
So now I must start paying $13 a month and install software from the dreaded RN, or go back to being a pirate. Damn.
If you see the Mac this way, then all you wanted from Linux was a *nix like CLI. That's a pretty limited way to see Linux. You are leaving out things like price, flexiblity, and openness that the Mac does not replace. Actually, I think that the Mac and Linux are in most way as different as possible, so I don't think it is either or.
Personally, my angle on being a Linux user is a bit like being a granola-head consumer: it is about trying to focus on substance and values rather then style and convenience.
I can imagine that in the state of CA there must be a ton of internet businesses just dying to sell user data. And a lot of those companies will be directing some of their new revenue to the governor that made it all possible. If he can put an 'anti red tape and government bureaucracy' face on it, all the better.
Yes, the containers and the string. These are fundamental parts of C++. Where-ever possible I use cross-platform code but this code almost always depends on the C++ containers. So now Qt/KDE code is incompatible with regular C++ code. Between that and moc it's like they are trying to put up barriers.
My issue is with QT4 using it's own alternative to the STL. The STL has become an important part of the C++ library and of most C++ code.
Is this really good?
When they say no more DRM, I doubt their plan is to 'sell' songs without DRM. I think this means that songs will be distributed as a service and that the service will be supported by advertising.
And I, for one, am sorry that everything we do has to be supported by advertising. I don't like advertising. I prefer to pay a reasonable fee.
I don't blame Yahoo. They came out with a great music subscription service that went absolutely nowhere in the market. And, regarding DRM, they have been consistent in their rhetoric against it, but have not had the power to do anything about it.
What is wrong with the development tech behind the new KOffice?
Well, speaking as a C++ developer, the first problem is that the new QT is a serious attack on the C++ standard. Yes, I know that everyone will say that the C++ standard is bad and that QT4 has done it better, but that's what the MS people always said when they ignored standards. Standards don't always represent the best solution for you, but sticking to the standard benefits everyone. Now that the QT people have decided to do things their own way some of my C++ skills and all of my C++ code is useless in the KDE world.
So, I doubt I will ever develop using Qt/KDE.
I agree with your point though about C++ being better suited to GUI development then C.
Well, I'm not an iPod hater, but I would certainly never buy for all the reasons that you've probably heard before.
But the Zune? If MS is going to overcome Apple huge lead and cool factor they will have to do much, much better then this. If I had to pick between Zune and iPod I would hold my nose and pick the iPod.
If I could pick anything I wanted I would buy something from one of the many smaller players. One of the ones that supports the subscription services from yahoo, etc. Those services are great, though they are being crushed by iTunes.
People get confused about Apple and open source. Apple is mainly an open-source consumer, what they produce/contribute is basically the bare minimum that they have to.
And this make sense. Apple is not about openness. They are about lock-in. This is part of what lets them provide such a smooth and simple experience (and charge the highest margins in the industry).
So, it's about time that Apple competitors started pointing this out to people.
But, it's an indication of powerful Apple has become that the #1 company in the cell phone industry would have to start attacking a company that has just entered it.
Yes, but she also believed that anyone who supported an altruistic idea (such as this $400 OLPC) must be a horrendously wicked person (she was very extreme in her views of these people) with truly demonic alterior purposes.
While anyone that operated from pure greed was a shining example of nobility, intelligence, and enlightenment.
she wasn't much for subtlety.
This leaves out the other ways that age is a factor:
Young people are thinking more about ideas and ideals: right vs. wrong, justice, freedom, etc.
As you get older you start to accumlate stuff: house, kids, toys. This makes you much more practical and more likely to vote for the guy who promises you more cash (ie. to meet your mortgage payments or send the kids to school). Being fair to other countries and helping poor people don't matter so much anymore.
Another variation on this saying is this:
A young person who isn't a liberal has no heart. An old person who isn't has no education.
Liberalism is what results from thinking carefully about the issues. Ask someone who has just completed an arts degree (particularly poly-sci, history) and they will likely be a liberal. Conservatives tend to vote based on TV ads or (what they are told) is their personal self interest.
If only they had decided to build OS X on top of Linux instead of BSD. The benefits for both would have been considerable - imagine the drivers!
7" is way too small. Even 10" is too small. There should be a 12 or 14" option for $299.
The other limitations - no optical and only 4GB storage - are not a problem in my opinion.