I *DEFY* you to send a pdf from safari via e-mail.
If you want to attach the PDF, then all you need to do is:
1. Go to the PDF in Safari
2. Tap "Open in iBooks"
3. Click the action button (looks like a square with an arrow coming off of it).
4. Pick "Email"
Or you could just click the action button in Safari and pick "Mail Link to this Page".
Apple's portable devices (laptops excluded) are designed to make the stuff you do 90% of the time extremely easy (take notes, check weather, etc), but everything else (e-mail a pdf, copy a simply link from a google-search, etc) either requires 20 minutes of stupid crap or is simply impossible.
Both of your complaints are pretty trivial to do...I've already explained how to attach the PDF, and you can copy links from any website by pressing and holding on the link until Safari offers you "Open" / "Open in New Page" / "Copy" / "Cancel". (I'll give you a hint, you want to use "Copy"...) Or you could just go to the page you want to link, and use the action button in Safari and pick "Mail Link to this Page".
I hate to be pedantic, but the idea of "navel derring-do" is rather amusing in a no-doubt perverse manner. Hopefully his aim was not so sorely lacking that he was invading someone's navel.;)
Hopefully, with all of Ray Beckerman's submissions to Slashdot, a decent percentage of Slashdot feels this way; that for every Jack Thompson (who, thankfully, has been disbarred) there are lawyers who practice the law for more noble reasons.
Every country needs lawyers and activists fighting for the rights of the consumer; big business should not receive a lot of the special privileges that it receives.
Opera was hardly the first piece of software to have a tabbed document interface, nor even the first browser to have this. But to be honest, how many pieces of software don't borrow ideas from other software? Microsoft is at least as much prone to copying as open source is, and Apple hasn't gotten where it is without using ideas first created by Xerox, etc.
As long as you're not stealing code (e.g. it's not under a license that permits you using it), I tend to think of taking inspiration from how something else does something more along the lines of paraphrasing, rather than outright plagiarism. Since IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. all have the same purpose, it's pretty natural to expect that they'll have similarities. Arguing about "stealing" tabs seems a lot like arguing about "stealing" the back button.
xzvf does have a valid point, though...if not for Firefox stealing market share from IE, do you really believe that Microsoft would be working so hard on IE development? Look at how long IE6 stagnated. Once they'd effectively killed off Netscape, they thought they won the browser war. Sure, competition from closed-source browsers is helping the situation, as well, but I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft sees Mozilla as the biggest threat. I may be wrong about this, but it certainly seems that concerns about letting the monopoly slip away are fueling their attempts to "reach out" to open source, and their attempts to "embrace" standards.
Still, if IE8 does deliver the standards-compliance by default that's been promised, it'll be a great improvement for web developers, even if it won't get me to encourage anyone to use IE. Having to work around the failings of IE6/7 only creates more work and frustration. I just wish they'd offer it for Windows 2000; Google Analytics continues to show me far too many people using IE6 on it. Most of the domains for which I skimmed Analytics data (7 of them, only one of which had more traffic from IE than Firefox) show Firefox as the most popular browser, but IE6 usage ranges from approximately 3-30% of the traffic, depending on site, and basically all of these visitors are still using Win 2k.
Considering that the argument was that because of one person's skills, Apple encouraged ignorance, I'd say I refuted the post directly. If Apple truly wanted to prevent their precious customers from learning about the internals of their machines, they'd develop a cumbersome and obfuscated system for storing settings, rather than using XML property lists that the OS provides tools to edit by hand.
Unlike Microsoft's OSes, Mac OS X ships with Xcode and GUI tools to compare and merge files or directories, index the help files, create and edit icons, explore the I/O registry, edit system and application property lists, probe USB hardware, log Bluetooth packets, profile OpenGL settings, monitor the OpenGL driver, etc. As with any other *nix, there are additional command line tools to explore the system, and Terminal.app is hardly hidden; it's easily found in/Applications/Utilities.
Basically anything you might want to know about your hardware, software, network, etc. can be found by going to "About This Mac" in the Apple menu, and selecting "More Info..."
The Hardware section details the following sections: ATA, Audio (Built In), Bluetooth, Diagnostics, Disc Burning, Fibre Channel, FireWire, Graphics/Displays, Hardware RAID, Memory, PC Cards, PCI Cards, Parallel SCSI, Power, Printers, SAS, Serial-ATA, and USB. Network lists information for AirPort Card, Firewall, Locations, Modems, and Volumes. Software provides Applications, Extensions, Fonts, Frameworks, Logs, Managed Client, Preference Panes, Startup Items, and Universal Access.
The hardware information covers everything you'd expect to see out of say "lspci -v" and then some, and the other sections are equally thorough.
There's nothing to prevent you from poking around the system. Files are in logical places, and since Mac OS X applications follow this structure, you can easily explore the files that make up an application:
App Name.app .
`-- Contents
|-- CodeResources
|-- Info.plist
|-- MacOS
| `-- App Name # This is the application binary.
|-- PkgInfo
|-- Resources
| |-- Example.png
| `-- Language.lproj # "Language" would be replaced with the language name, e.g. English.
| |-- InfoPlist.strings
| |-- Localizable.strings
| |-- MainMenu.nib
| | |-- classes.nib
| | |-- info.nib
| | `-- objects.nib
| `-- NSPrefPaneGroups.strings
`-- version.plist
(The formatting could be better; Slashdot denies me <pre>.)
I've simplified it a good bit (for example, there would be more languages, and might be other files than the "Example.png" under Resources), but hopefully you get the idea. Apart from objects.nib, all of the files in my example under Language.lproj are text except objects.nib.
Plus, if they were trying to be as secretive as you seem to believe, would you be able to go here and read (both in HTML and PDF) the extensive information they have about Mac OS X internals without even having to log in?
Personally, I think this is extensive enough in response to your post, but if you'd like to debate the matter further, I can cover additional files you can explore in some of the other logically named and easily browsed directories (e.g. ~/Library/Logs, ~/Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Keychains, etc.), or the extensive array of command-line tools that you're probably already familiar with on Linux, for exploring the file system and OS.;)
While Apple is hardly as open as open source (and they couldn't be, most of their apps are closed source), they're hardly encouraging ignorance in the way that has been argued here.
You are aware that Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) isPOSIX compliant and conforms to the Single UNIX Specification, right? The difference in file system layout that you're complaining about most likely has to do with user directories being in/Users instead of/home, and mounted volumes in/Volumes instead of/media, assuming that you're comparing it to Ubuntu. If you're really concerned about having exactly the same paths between OSes, you can use 'ln -s' exactly the same on Mac OS X as you can on Ubuntu. Although for a home directory, it's pretty pointless, since ~ and $HOME work exactly the same way on Mac OS X as any other *nix distro that I've ever used (including Ubuntu).
Just because your sysadmin is lost without Apple's GUI does not mean that Mac OS X encourages ignorance and obfuscation. Sure, most Mac users use GUI applications instead of terminal-based applications, but it doesn't mean that you can't. (I should know; I run both Mac OS X and Linux boxes, and probably my most-used application is Terminal.) You don't have to use the GUI. 90% of the time, I control my desktop via SSH. (If you want to do this on Ubuntu, you'd need to install the 'ssh' package. In Mac OS X, sshd is included by default, but is not running as a service until you enable it.) I watch video in my self-compiled SVN of mplayer, controlling it over SSH while doing other things on my laptop (in fact, I'm doing that as I post this). It's silly to base your assumptions of what can be done with Mac OS X based on your observations of one person. I know people who run Ubuntu who only know how to do things the GUI way, but that doesn't mean that Ubuntu encourages ignorance and obfuscation.
I've helped quite a few people migrate to Ubuntu/Kubuntu because they're sick of Windows and don't want to have to buy new hardware. I really like what Canonical is doing. But you really can't say that Canonical can't learn anything from Apple (or Apple from Canonical). Mark Shuttleworth has been quoted talking about emulating and surpassing Apple. While I currently think that Apple's Aqua is a more polished interface than Gnome and KDE, there are definitely things that Apple didn't come up with first (e.g. multiple desktops were not built into Mac OS X prior to Leopard [Spaces], although there were third-party add-ons that would enable this). And the KDE developers aren't standing still, they're continuing to innovate with KDE4. Canonical is working on an interface lift for Ubuntu 8.10. The Gnome developers continue to incrementally improve Gnome.
I don't think anyone seriously believes that Linux is suddenly trying to be a cheap knockoff of Mac OS X.
Having competition and choices is good for everyone but Microsoft.
Most likely, jcr is using MAC filtering (capitalization == acronym; it has nothing to do with Apple's Mac computers). I have yet to use a consumer router that did not want to restart after you changed router settings, and adding a new MAC address to the access list would require a restart. Hence, restarting the router when letting another computer use the network. Some people actually care about the security of their network; living in a major urban area with a lot of neighbors generally encourages it.
You may wish to look into using MAC filtering and a strong WPA2 password to protect your wireless network.
I also have a gig-E Airport Extreme, and it has been rock-solid stable for me; the only restarts have been for either changes I have made to the settings or for a firmware update. (I've done one of the latter since I got it.) It's been up continuously since it replaced a 10/100 wireless-G Netgear that constantly needed reboots, whenever I put any kind of load on my network. (It locked up constantly.*) If I hammer the Airport Extreme, it performs flawlessly. I still think that it was a great upgrade decision, but I'm sure that I'll get bashed as an Apple-fanboy because of it (most likely by people who can't differentiate between "MAC" and "Mac").;)
* To mitigate my Netgear bashing slightly: I've had nothing but success with wired Netgear products. The wired router by them that I used to have worked great, and their gigabit switch that I currently use has worked admirably well, without issue. I just should have gotten a wireless router from them that would have run Linux.;)
Apparently my earlier impression of Amazon seems to be correct, as I heard back from them a few hours ago, and what they had could be summarized like this:
We received your report. We made some minor effort to look into it and it did come from our network, but we didn't do it. Please look at this URL which talks about buying service from us. We do make some pretense at caring, because the customer's actions are prohibited by our terms of service. However, they've terminated usage a few days ago, but we contacted them. In the future, it would be useful if you would report problems by sending us exactly the same information you sent us, but we'll insult you by listing it in a bullet-point list as if you were an idiot. Because we've confirmed that the malicious customer is no longer using that IP address, you should unblock it, because it prevents our new customers from being able to reach you.
Thanks again, we'll busily do nothing to solve this problem.
I really can't see Amazon actually implementing this, but supposedly they take malicious usage "very seriously." Earlier this week a server that I host had some script-kiddie at one of their IP addresses (67.202.37.137, if you want to block it) playing the guess-the-SSH-login-and-password game (until I set it to drop all packets from that IP). I've sent them the applicable sections of my logs; we'll see how well they handle it, but to be honest, I'm a bit skeptical.
I personally find it to be a bad sign that despite their whois information cites abuse@amazonaws.com as a technical contact, their mailserver bounces it. The applicable block:
Technical Contact:
Abuse, Amazon Webservices abuse@amazonaws.com
Amazon.com, Inc.
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, Washington 98108
United States
2062664064 Fax -- 2062667010
I did, however, get a response from a live person at webservices@amazon.com, so...we'll see.
In light of my experience, though, I find this story to be somewhat ironic. To quote Kate at their webservices address, "It looks like these intrusion attempts initiated from Amazon EC2, a dynamic hosting environment." Hopefully they do their part to lock it down.
Basically, there isn't a huge difference between how Mac OS X handles log files (apart from Leopard using bzip2 for compression, instead of the gzip that Hardy Heron uses). Logs are in/var/log on both operating systems, and provided that you're using the default Gnome UI on Ubuntu, you can use the Gnome System Log viewer to view them.
You can pull this up by going to System > Administration > System Log, or by typing gnome-system-log into Terminal.
For more information on logging in Ubuntu (with pictures, no less), you might take a look at either this random Google search result or this one. The first has more screen grabs for illustration.;)
On Mac OS X, you'd use Console, which can be found in Applications > Utilities.
drachenstern: I assume that you mean Firefox add-ons, not plugins (since plugins like Flash, etc. would be OS-specific), and as far as I know there isn't anything that does this currently, but this seems like an awesome idea for a Weave add-on.
Weave already provides sync features for bookmarks, history, cookies, saved passwords, and saved form data; without looking into it, it seems that what you're asking for is a logical expansion via the add-on framework that Mozilla Labs appears to have in mind.
Thanks for the positive comment; I guess all the time I've spent idling on various IRC channels (which, with the exception of #mplayer and #mplayerdev, are mostly anime-related) has to count for something.
I'm involved with a couple of fansub groups, as well, and that's where most of the knowledge of subtitle formats comes from; most groups are moving towards soft-sub (ASS) MKVs with x264 video for their primary releases, and the quality of stuff out there is very good, with subtitles that are generally better than the licensed DVDs, particularly in terms of subtitles (you can't do much with DVD subs, unfortunately).
It also doesn't hurt that I'm geeky enough to hack at subtitles with text editors (instead of tools like Aegisub. IMO, it's a sign of how awesome vim is that there's SSA syntax highlighting for use with it. Plus, with tools like mkvtoolnix, it's easy to extract tracks and remux MKVs, which is great if you're obsessive enough to want to correct subtitles, or to merge a video file and external subs.
If nothing else, hopefully a few people picked up something worthwhile from the post; one of my friends saw it and was thanking me for the MPlayer config; I guess he didn't realize that he could set MPlayer to auto-play specific tracks. That has always been one of my favorite features.
Still, despite all of the VLC-bashing in this story, I have a lot of positive things to say about it, it definitely has some value as a player, even if I seldom use it. Mostly, I recommend it to less technical friends who aren't going to use it to watch soft-subbed video, since it can generally play everything and the kitchen sink, without having to monkey with codecs. And the streaming features are nice, should you need that sort of thing.
While SRT subtitles are simple, SSA/ASS subtitles can be anything but simple. VLC does quite well with SRT subtitles as long as they do not overlap (i.e. one subtitle line is already displayed when another is to be displayed). However, it ignores the vast majority of the SSA/ASS spec apart from timing (and to some extent, color).
From this you can determine the line number, the start --> end times, and the dialogue. It's plain text, although every now and then you might see the use of HTML italics (<i>italic text</i>). You can set what font these type of subtitles are displayed in, within VLC's preferences.
However, SSA/ASS subtitles are considerably more complex, and are widely used, especially for anime fansubs. An example ASS line looks like this:
The "Format:" line specifies what the information displayed in the "Dialogue:" line is. Comments can be included on "Comment:" lines. The text portion of this particular line is karaoke, and includes parameters to specify blurred edges, fade in/out, the origin point, color and alpha transparency (primary and secondary), and karaoke timing for each syllable. This is not simple, and VLC (up to the current release version) ignores basically all of it other than the timing and (to some extent) the colors. The font declarations are ignored by VLC, it would use whatever subtitle font you specified (or the default one). VLC is also often mocked because it will display the contents of {} if they are not valid SSA/ASS parameters. A number of groups tend to include notes inside braces, usually for editing purposes, because most players (other than VLC) do not display them.
Unlike SRT, the lines in SSA/ASS are not numbered, and do not need to be in the order in which they are displayed.
Here is the style information the line above uses:
Note that the first two characters of each color are for transparency.
Also, the assertion that subtitles are typically an ASCII file is generally untrue; while both of these types of subtitles can be a text file, they're more commonly found muxed into a container that supports multiple tracks, usually either as a.mkv or (less commonly, these days) an.ogm file. (Anime.mkv files are most likely to be x264 video.)
With regards to soft-subs, though, MPlayer is vastly superior to VLC, in that it handles subtitles properly, and you can set it to auto-play specific subtitles and audio (for multiple audio/subtitle track files) by adding the following lines to your ~/.mplayer/config:
I think you have some very good points here, but I wanted to correct you on your comments about Logitech, as they do not only support Microsoft; they do also support Mac OS X, more so for mice than keyboards, although under keyboard+mouse sets, they do offer a Mac-specific choice and a Mac/Win choice. So basically, they still don't support Linux, but they do not only support Microsoft. Plus, even if you're not using a Logitech-branded device, if it's branded by a computer-manufacturer, chances are that it may be made by Logitech.
Personally, I generally dislike media keyboards since the additional keys are a waste of space, if you map a key combination to do whatever function the media button would, but I've pretty much exclusively owned and used Logitech mice for as long as I can remember (since the early 1990s, I think).
However, just because X.org/Gnome/KDE/etc. may not support all of the buttons on your keyboard, there is software out there that will let you map these buttons. You may want to take a look at Keytouch, for example.
Still, it's definitely preferable to have it just work, fresh out of the box.
Interesting. I'll have to play with Safari more in VMware. Firefox has always been my primary browser of choice, mostly because of the add-ons (e.g. AdBlock), but I have a few friends who favor Safari (albeit mostly on Mac, where it's the default browser).
I've never cared much for Opera's interface, but unlike IE, it renders pages well, without IE's horde of security holes. If the browser developers actually try to adhere to the standards, choice is a good thing.
Your comment had me reading up on the history of WebKit, though...I remembered reading complaints from the KHTML devs about Apple not returning code changes, etc. a few years ago, but it appears they offer access to their SVN tree currently (and CVS previously), so...they may be a good blueprint, now.
Considering that innerHTML can contain HTML and not just text, it makes sense that it is named the way that it is.
Perhaps if you had more familiarity with CSS you'd realize just how broken Internet Explorer is. IE failing to properly render valid HTML/CSS that displays correctly in all other browsers is far too common, and more often than not, IE6 and IE7 can be counted upon to break it in entirely different manners.
Your observations of the speed of Firefox do not mirror mine, and I've installed it on some horribly under-powered Windows machines. Perhaps you should run an operating system that isn't incomplete, or keep your amazingly talented browser-killing cat away from your keyboard.
Seriously, if you're syncing your preferences, why didn't you just revert them? Any changes made go in your profile.
Obviously, you're not a web developer, because "performs better" and IE really don't fit together, especially when it comes to rendering web pages in a standards-compliant manner. I suppose IE7 performs better at providing possible exploits for malicious pages to attack, though. By that metric, IE is the best browser ever. If you write web-driven malware, or engage in phishing.
I've not seen Firefox behave as badly as you describe; are you using Vista with less than 2GB of RAM?;)
I do really recommend trying either a nightly build or the release candidate for Firefox 3, though; I've been using the nightly builds as my primary browser for over four months, and they've worked great. 3.0 is definitely faster and more responsive than 2.0, and the improvements to the location bar are very welcome, to the point where I can't imagine wanting to browse the web without them.
Please define "MUCH better Wi-Fi control", because from my experience, wifi in Vista is terrible. After having set up Vista's wireless networking for others on multiple occasions, I'm convinced that Vista has possibly the worst wifi implementation I've ever seen.
Essentially, that boils down to these issues, although there are probably more out there of which I'm not aware, as I try to avoid Vista like the plague:
Vista apparently cannot connect to a network for which it has been configured, if you turn off SSID broadcast.
Vista takes forever to connect to wireless networks, when compared to other operating systems.
I use VMware Fusion regularly on Mac OS X, and do not have any problems with the mouse integration; both the trackpad on my MacBook Pro and any attached mice work as they should. Is there some reason that you feel this isn't the case?
From my experience, VMware Fusion (especially the latest 2.0 beta) seems superior to Parallels, and is more portable (e.g. if you want to use a virtual machine on a non-Mac OS, i.e. in VMware Player or Workstation). If you use the beta, be sure to turn off debugging for better performance.
Just make sure that you're using XP with it, so you can take advantage of hardware-accelerated DirectX, and that you give it a good chunk of RAM. Also, if you're talking about a dual-core iMac, which you most likely are, let it use 2 virtual processors. You'll notice a difference.
This actually was the original premise of The Black Hole, but then sanity prevailed and they realized this would only appeal to very geeky lawyers and process-servers.
Dr. Hans Reinhardt was actually supposed to be the leading process-server of his time, undaunted by the prospect of being crushed by a black hole in the pursuit of his quarry...;)
That sound you just heard was my stupendously feeble attempt at a joke going over your head.
There, fixed that for you. Normally attempts at humor should be distinguishable from the person making the comment being blind or obtuse (e.g. a large majority of the internet). Nice trite attempt at a comeback, though.;)
Unless you're saying that they posted them a year early, as an elaborate hoax.;) Hover the links with your mouse and look at the URLs on your browser's status bar (or turn it on with View -> Show Status Bar, if you're using Safari with default settings).
So basically, you're saying that it's a bald-face lie that other browsers have better support for web standards than Internet Explorer, and that Internet Explorer is, in actuality, more than other browsers? If so, perhaps you should check out other stories on Slashdot, or look at this page, this page, this page, or perhaps even this page.
Statistically, IE is the least secure browser, with the most vulnerabilities that have yet to be patched. This is documented in enough places that I'd like to see you prove that I'm lying. While you're at it, please demonstrate that a shipping version of IE has better standards-compliance than Firefox, Opera, or Safari. Ideally, use widely accepted tests, such as this one.
Yes, my reading comprehension is quite good, thanks. *laughs* You, on the other hand, seemed to miss my commentary on how the positive spin is not necessarily the result of Apple-fan(boy|girl)ism. Please explain how urging "anything other than IE" with Firefox, then Opera, then Safari (i.e. Safari is last) constitutes RDF influence? Is it that I even mention Safari as an alternative (albeit the last recommendation)? Personally, I'd attribute it to the Monkey-Dance-Aversion phenomenon.
I doubt I'm the only one here who curses IE for its lack of standards support (which burdens me with additional effort to have to support it), or for it contributing to family and friends who want me to help them with fixing their computer, after they hose it with the rampant malware to which IE so easily falls victim. Because of both of these, I tend to feel that anything that steers people away from continuing to use IE is possibly a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I *DEFY* you to send a pdf from safari via e-mail.
If you want to attach the PDF, then all you need to do is:
Or you could just click the action button in Safari and pick "Mail Link to this Page".
Apple's portable devices (laptops excluded) are designed to make the stuff you do 90% of the time extremely easy (take notes, check weather, etc), but everything else (e-mail a pdf, copy a simply link from a google-search, etc) either requires 20 minutes of stupid crap or is simply impossible.
Both of your complaints are pretty trivial to do...I've already explained how to attach the PDF, and you can copy links from any website by pressing and holding on the link until Safari offers you "Open" / "Open in New Page" / "Copy" / "Cancel". (I'll give you a hint, you want to use "Copy"...) Or you could just go to the page you want to link, and use the action button in Safari and pick "Mail Link to this Page".
"I don't know how to do it" != "It's impossible."
I hate to be pedantic, but the idea of "navel derring-do" is rather amusing in a no-doubt perverse manner. Hopefully his aim was not so sorely lacking that he was invading someone's navel. ;)
Ironically, Robotech is an American adaptation, edited together from 3 different (and unrelated) Japanese anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross , Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross , and Genesis Climber Mospeada .
Hopefully, with all of Ray Beckerman's submissions to Slashdot, a decent percentage of Slashdot feels this way; that for every Jack Thompson (who, thankfully, has been disbarred) there are lawyers who practice the law for more noble reasons.
Hopefully Canada doesn't catch the copyright madness the U.S. has; I'm glad to see that the DMCA is finally coming back to bite some of the politicians who voted for it.
Every country needs lawyers and activists fighting for the rights of the consumer; big business should not receive a lot of the special privileges that it receives.
Opera was hardly the first piece of software to have a tabbed document interface, nor even the first browser to have this. But to be honest, how many pieces of software don't borrow ideas from other software? Microsoft is at least as much prone to copying as open source is, and Apple hasn't gotten where it is without using ideas first created by Xerox, etc.
As long as you're not stealing code (e.g. it's not under a license that permits you using it), I tend to think of taking inspiration from how something else does something more along the lines of paraphrasing, rather than outright plagiarism. Since IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. all have the same purpose, it's pretty natural to expect that they'll have similarities. Arguing about "stealing" tabs seems a lot like arguing about "stealing" the back button.
xzvf does have a valid point, though...if not for Firefox stealing market share from IE, do you really believe that Microsoft would be working so hard on IE development? Look at how long IE6 stagnated. Once they'd effectively killed off Netscape, they thought they won the browser war. Sure, competition from closed-source browsers is helping the situation, as well, but I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft sees Mozilla as the biggest threat. I may be wrong about this, but it certainly seems that concerns about letting the monopoly slip away are fueling their attempts to "reach out" to open source, and their attempts to "embrace" standards.
Still, if IE8 does deliver the standards-compliance by default that's been promised, it'll be a great improvement for web developers, even if it won't get me to encourage anyone to use IE. Having to work around the failings of IE6/7 only creates more work and frustration. I just wish they'd offer it for Windows 2000; Google Analytics continues to show me far too many people using IE6 on it. Most of the domains for which I skimmed Analytics data (7 of them, only one of which had more traffic from IE than Firefox) show Firefox as the most popular browser, but IE6 usage ranges from approximately 3-30% of the traffic, depending on site, and basically all of these visitors are still using Win 2k.
Considering that the argument was that because of one person's skills, Apple encouraged ignorance, I'd say I refuted the post directly. If Apple truly wanted to prevent their precious customers from learning about the internals of their machines, they'd develop a cumbersome and obfuscated system for storing settings, rather than using XML property lists that the OS provides tools to edit by hand.
Unlike Microsoft's OSes, Mac OS X ships with Xcode and GUI tools to compare and merge files or directories, index the help files, create and edit icons, explore the I/O registry, edit system and application property lists, probe USB hardware, log Bluetooth packets, profile OpenGL settings, monitor the OpenGL driver, etc. As with any other *nix, there are additional command line tools to explore the system, and Terminal.app is hardly hidden; it's easily found in /Applications/Utilities.
Basically anything you might want to know about your hardware, software, network, etc. can be found by going to "About This Mac" in the Apple menu, and selecting "More Info..."
The Hardware section details the following sections: ATA, Audio (Built In), Bluetooth, Diagnostics, Disc Burning, Fibre Channel, FireWire, Graphics/Displays, Hardware RAID, Memory, PC Cards, PCI Cards, Parallel SCSI, Power, Printers, SAS, Serial-ATA, and USB. Network lists information for AirPort Card, Firewall, Locations, Modems, and Volumes. Software provides Applications, Extensions, Fonts, Frameworks, Logs, Managed Client, Preference Panes, Startup Items, and Universal Access.
The hardware information covers everything you'd expect to see out of say "lspci -v" and then some, and the other sections are equally thorough.
There's nothing to prevent you from poking around the system. Files are in logical places, and since Mac OS X applications follow this structure, you can easily explore the files that make up an application:
App Name.app
.
`-- Contents
|-- CodeResources
|-- Info.plist
|-- MacOS
| `-- App Name # This is the application binary.
|-- PkgInfo
|-- Resources
| |-- Example.png
| `-- Language.lproj # "Language" would be replaced with the language name, e.g. English.
| |-- InfoPlist.strings
| |-- Localizable.strings
| |-- MainMenu.nib
| | |-- classes.nib
| | |-- info.nib
| | `-- objects.nib
| `-- NSPrefPaneGroups.strings
`-- version.plist
(The formatting could be better; Slashdot denies me <pre>.)
I've simplified it a good bit (for example, there would be more languages, and might be other files than the "Example.png" under Resources), but hopefully you get the idea. Apart from objects.nib, all of the files in my example under Language.lproj are text except objects.nib.
Plus, if they were trying to be as secretive as you seem to believe, would you be able to go here and read (both in HTML and PDF) the extensive information they have about Mac OS X internals without even having to log in?
Personally, I think this is extensive enough in response to your post, but if you'd like to debate the matter further, I can cover additional files you can explore in some of the other logically named and easily browsed directories (e.g. ~/Library/Logs, ~/Library/Preferences, ~/Library/Keychains, etc.), or the extensive array of command-line tools that you're probably already familiar with on Linux, for exploring the file system and OS. ;)
While Apple is hardly as open as open source (and they couldn't be, most of their apps are closed source), they're hardly encouraging ignorance in the way that has been argued here.
You are aware that Mac OS X 10.5.x (Leopard) is POSIX compliant and conforms to the Single UNIX Specification, right? The difference in file system layout that you're complaining about most likely has to do with user directories being in /Users instead of /home, and mounted volumes in /Volumes instead of /media, assuming that you're comparing it to Ubuntu. If you're really concerned about having exactly the same paths between OSes, you can use 'ln -s' exactly the same on Mac OS X as you can on Ubuntu. Although for a home directory, it's pretty pointless, since ~ and $HOME work exactly the same way on Mac OS X as any other *nix distro that I've ever used (including Ubuntu).
Just because your sysadmin is lost without Apple's GUI does not mean that Mac OS X encourages ignorance and obfuscation. Sure, most Mac users use GUI applications instead of terminal-based applications, but it doesn't mean that you can't. (I should know; I run both Mac OS X and Linux boxes, and probably my most-used application is Terminal.) You don't have to use the GUI. 90% of the time, I control my desktop via SSH. (If you want to do this on Ubuntu, you'd need to install the 'ssh' package. In Mac OS X, sshd is included by default, but is not running as a service until you enable it.) I watch video in my self-compiled SVN of mplayer, controlling it over SSH while doing other things on my laptop (in fact, I'm doing that as I post this). It's silly to base your assumptions of what can be done with Mac OS X based on your observations of one person. I know people who run Ubuntu who only know how to do things the GUI way, but that doesn't mean that Ubuntu encourages ignorance and obfuscation.
I've helped quite a few people migrate to Ubuntu/Kubuntu because they're sick of Windows and don't want to have to buy new hardware. I really like what Canonical is doing. But you really can't say that Canonical can't learn anything from Apple (or Apple from Canonical). Mark Shuttleworth has been quoted talking about emulating and surpassing Apple. While I currently think that Apple's Aqua is a more polished interface than Gnome and KDE, there are definitely things that Apple didn't come up with first (e.g. multiple desktops were not built into Mac OS X prior to Leopard [Spaces], although there were third-party add-ons that would enable this). And the KDE developers aren't standing still, they're continuing to innovate with KDE4. Canonical is working on an interface lift for Ubuntu 8.10. The Gnome developers continue to incrementally improve Gnome.
I don't think anyone seriously believes that Linux is suddenly trying to be a cheap knockoff of Mac OS X.
Having competition and choices is good for everyone but Microsoft.
Most likely, jcr is using MAC filtering (capitalization == acronym; it has nothing to do with Apple's Mac computers). I have yet to use a consumer router that did not want to restart after you changed router settings, and adding a new MAC address to the access list would require a restart. Hence, restarting the router when letting another computer use the network. Some people actually care about the security of their network; living in a major urban area with a lot of neighbors generally encourages it.
You may wish to look into using MAC filtering and a strong WPA2 password to protect your wireless network.
I also have a gig-E Airport Extreme, and it has been rock-solid stable for me; the only restarts have been for either changes I have made to the settings or for a firmware update. (I've done one of the latter since I got it.) It's been up continuously since it replaced a 10/100 wireless-G Netgear that constantly needed reboots, whenever I put any kind of load on my network. (It locked up constantly.*) If I hammer the Airport Extreme, it performs flawlessly. I still think that it was a great upgrade decision, but I'm sure that I'll get bashed as an Apple-fanboy because of it (most likely by people who can't differentiate between "MAC" and "Mac"). ;)
* To mitigate my Netgear bashing slightly: I've had nothing but success with wired Netgear products. The wired router by them that I used to have worked great, and their gigabit switch that I currently use has worked admirably well, without issue. I just should have gotten a wireless router from them that would have run Linux. ;)
Apparently my earlier impression of Amazon seems to be correct, as I heard back from them a few hours ago, and what they had could be summarized like this:
I really can't see Amazon actually implementing this, but supposedly they take malicious usage "very seriously." Earlier this week a server that I host had some script-kiddie at one of their IP addresses (67.202.37.137, if you want to block it) playing the guess-the-SSH-login-and-password game (until I set it to drop all packets from that IP). I've sent them the applicable sections of my logs; we'll see how well they handle it, but to be honest, I'm a bit skeptical.
I personally find it to be a bad sign that despite their whois information cites abuse@amazonaws.com as a technical contact, their mailserver bounces it. The applicable block:
I did, however, get a response from a live person at webservices@amazon.com, so...we'll see.
In light of my experience, though, I find this story to be somewhat ironic. To quote Kate at their webservices address, "It looks like these intrusion attempts initiated from Amazon EC2, a dynamic hosting environment." Hopefully they do their part to lock it down.
Basically, there isn't a huge difference between how Mac OS X handles log files (apart from Leopard using bzip2 for compression, instead of the gzip that Hardy Heron uses). Logs are in /var/log on both operating systems, and provided that you're using the default Gnome UI on Ubuntu, you can use the Gnome System Log viewer to view them.
You can pull this up by going to System > Administration > System Log, or by typing gnome-system-log into Terminal.
For more information on logging in Ubuntu (with pictures, no less), you might take a look at either this random Google search result or this one. The first has more screen grabs for illustration. ;)
On Mac OS X, you'd use Console, which can be found in Applications > Utilities.
drachenstern: I assume that you mean Firefox add-ons, not plugins (since plugins like Flash, etc. would be OS-specific), and as far as I know there isn't anything that does this currently, but this seems like an awesome idea for a Weave add-on.
Weave already provides sync features for bookmarks, history, cookies, saved passwords, and saved form data; without looking into it, it seems that what you're asking for is a logical expansion via the add-on framework that Mozilla Labs appears to have in mind.
Thanks for the positive comment; I guess all the time I've spent idling on various IRC channels (which, with the exception of #mplayer and #mplayerdev, are mostly anime-related) has to count for something.
I'm involved with a couple of fansub groups, as well, and that's where most of the knowledge of subtitle formats comes from; most groups are moving towards soft-sub (ASS) MKVs with x264 video for their primary releases, and the quality of stuff out there is very good, with subtitles that are generally better than the licensed DVDs, particularly in terms of subtitles (you can't do much with DVD subs, unfortunately).
It also doesn't hurt that I'm geeky enough to hack at subtitles with text editors (instead of tools like Aegisub. IMO, it's a sign of how awesome vim is that there's SSA syntax highlighting for use with it. Plus, with tools like mkvtoolnix, it's easy to extract tracks and remux MKVs, which is great if you're obsessive enough to want to correct subtitles, or to merge a video file and external subs.
If nothing else, hopefully a few people picked up something worthwhile from the post; one of my friends saw it and was thanking me for the MPlayer config; I guess he didn't realize that he could set MPlayer to auto-play specific tracks. That has always been one of my favorite features.
Still, despite all of the VLC-bashing in this story, I have a lot of positive things to say about it, it definitely has some value as a player, even if I seldom use it. Mostly, I recommend it to less technical friends who aren't going to use it to watch soft-subbed video, since it can generally play everything and the kitchen sink, without having to monkey with codecs. And the streaming features are nice, should you need that sort of thing.
Thanks again.
While SRT subtitles are simple, SSA/ASS subtitles can be anything but simple. VLC does quite well with SRT subtitles as long as they do not overlap (i.e. one subtitle line is already displayed when another is to be displayed). However, it ignores the vast majority of the SSA/ASS spec apart from timing (and to some extent, color).
For example, this is a SRT subtitle line:
10
00:02:17,679 --> 00:02:19,237
I'm really sorry.
From this you can determine the line number, the start --> end times, and the dialogue. It's plain text, although every now and then you might see the use of HTML italics (<i>italic text</i>). You can set what font these type of subtitles are displayed in, within VLC's preferences.
However, SSA/ASS subtitles are considerably more complex, and are widely used, especially for anime fansubs. An example ASS line looks like this:
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:23:47.10,0:23:51.59,Ed - R,,0000,0000,0000,,{\be1\fad(200,200)\org(0,0)\c&H7B70ED&\2c&HB4AFE2&}{\k20}{\k30}na{\k35}mi{\k29}da {\k62}ga {\k64}ko{\k62}bo{\k26}re{\k30}so{\k40}u{\k37}na
The "Format:" line specifies what the information displayed in the "Dialogue:" line is. Comments can be included on "Comment:" lines. The text portion of this particular line is karaoke, and includes parameters to specify blurred edges, fade in/out, the origin point, color and alpha transparency (primary and secondary), and karaoke timing for each syllable. This is not simple, and VLC (up to the current release version) ignores basically all of it other than the timing and (to some extent) the colors. The font declarations are ignored by VLC, it would use whatever subtitle font you specified (or the default one). VLC is also often mocked because it will display the contents of {} if they are not valid SSA/ASS parameters. A number of groups tend to include notes inside braces, usually for editing purposes, because most players (other than VLC) do not display them.
Unlike SRT, the lines in SSA/ASS are not numbered, and do not need to be in the order in which they are displayed.
Here is the style information the line above uses:
[V4+ Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding
Style: Ed - R,Cascade Script LT Std,45,&H00856232,&H00AB956E,&H00000000,&H00000000,0,0,0,0,100,100,0,0,1,2,0,7,40,20,20,1
Note that the first two characters of each color are for transparency.
Also, the assertion that subtitles are typically an ASCII file is generally untrue; while both of these types of subtitles can be a text file, they're more commonly found muxed into a container that supports multiple tracks, usually either as a .mkv or (less commonly, these days) an .ogm file. (Anime .mkv files are most likely to be x264 video.)
With regards to soft-subs, though, MPlayer is vastly superior to VLC, in that it handles subtitles properly, and you can set it to auto-play specific subtitles and audio (for multiple audio/subtitle track files) by adding the following lines to your ~/.mplayer/config:
ass=yes
embeddedfonts=yes
c
I think you have some very good points here, but I wanted to correct you on your comments about Logitech, as they do not only support Microsoft; they do also support Mac OS X, more so for mice than keyboards, although under keyboard+mouse sets, they do offer a Mac-specific choice and a Mac/Win choice. So basically, they still don't support Linux, but they do not only support Microsoft. Plus, even if you're not using a Logitech-branded device, if it's branded by a computer-manufacturer, chances are that it may be made by Logitech.
Personally, I generally dislike media keyboards since the additional keys are a waste of space, if you map a key combination to do whatever function the media button would, but I've pretty much exclusively owned and used Logitech mice for as long as I can remember (since the early 1990s, I think).
However, just because X.org/Gnome/KDE/etc. may not support all of the buttons on your keyboard, there is software out there that will let you map these buttons. You may want to take a look at Keytouch, for example.
Still, it's definitely preferable to have it just work, fresh out of the box.
Interesting. I'll have to play with Safari more in VMware. Firefox has always been my primary browser of choice, mostly because of the add-ons (e.g. AdBlock), but I have a few friends who favor Safari (albeit mostly on Mac, where it's the default browser).
I've never cared much for Opera's interface, but unlike IE, it renders pages well, without IE's horde of security holes. If the browser developers actually try to adhere to the standards, choice is a good thing.
Your comment had me reading up on the history of WebKit, though...I remembered reading complaints from the KHTML devs about Apple not returning code changes, etc. a few years ago, but it appears they offer access to their SVN tree currently (and CVS previously), so...they may be a good blueprint, now.
Considering that innerHTML can contain HTML and not just text, it makes sense that it is named the way that it is.
Perhaps if you had more familiarity with CSS you'd realize just how broken Internet Explorer is. IE failing to properly render valid HTML/CSS that displays correctly in all other browsers is far too common, and more often than not, IE6 and IE7 can be counted upon to break it in entirely different manners.
Your observations of the speed of Firefox do not mirror mine, and I've installed it on some horribly under-powered Windows machines. Perhaps you should run an operating system that isn't incomplete, or keep your amazingly talented browser-killing cat away from your keyboard.
Seriously, if you're syncing your preferences, why didn't you just revert them? Any changes made go in your profile.
Do you really think that the people writing the W3C specifications know nothing about writing browsers?
Obviously, you're not a web developer, because "performs better" and IE really don't fit together, especially when it comes to rendering web pages in a standards-compliant manner. I suppose IE7 performs better at providing possible exploits for malicious pages to attack, though. By that metric, IE is the best browser ever. If you write web-driven malware, or engage in phishing.
I've not seen Firefox behave as badly as you describe; are you using Vista with less than 2GB of RAM? ;)
I do really recommend trying either a nightly build or the release candidate for Firefox 3, though; I've been using the nightly builds as my primary browser for over four months, and they've worked great. 3.0 is definitely faster and more responsive than 2.0, and the improvements to the location bar are very welcome, to the point where I can't imagine wanting to browse the web without them.
- Vista apparently cannot connect to a network for which it has been configured, if you turn off SSID broadcast.
- Vista takes forever to connect to wireless networks, when compared to other operating systems.
- Vista is more prone to dropping connection, etc.
- Networking in general on Vista performs horribly.
Are you shilling for Vista? (Accept) (Deny)I use VMware Fusion regularly on Mac OS X, and do not have any problems with the mouse integration; both the trackpad on my MacBook Pro and any attached mice work as they should. Is there some reason that you feel this isn't the case?
From my experience, VMware Fusion (especially the latest 2.0 beta) seems superior to Parallels, and is more portable (e.g. if you want to use a virtual machine on a non-Mac OS, i.e. in VMware Player or Workstation). If you use the beta, be sure to turn off debugging for better performance.
Just make sure that you're using XP with it, so you can take advantage of hardware-accelerated DirectX, and that you give it a good chunk of RAM. Also, if you're talking about a dual-core iMac, which you most likely are, let it use 2 virtual processors. You'll notice a difference.
Hope this helps.
This actually was the original premise of The Black Hole, but then sanity prevailed and they realized this would only appeal to very geeky lawyers and process-servers.
Dr. Hans Reinhardt was actually supposed to be the leading process-server of his time, undaunted by the prospect of being crushed by a black hole in the pursuit of his quarry... ;)
That sound you just heard was my stupendously feeble attempt at a joke going over your head.
There, fixed that for you. Normally attempts at humor should be distinguishable from the person making the comment being blind or obtuse (e.g. a large majority of the internet). Nice trite attempt at a comeback, though. ;)
With the exception of Ray Tracing To Debut in DirectX 11, all the stories listed there are from 2007.
Unless you're saying that they posted them a year early, as an elaborate hoax. ;) Hover the links with your mouse and look at the URLs on your browser's status bar (or turn it on with View -> Show Status Bar, if you're using Safari with default settings).
So basically, you're saying that it's a bald-face lie that other browsers have better support for web standards than Internet Explorer, and that Internet Explorer is, in actuality, more than other browsers? If so, perhaps you should check out other stories on Slashdot, or look at this page, this page, this page, or perhaps even this page.
Statistically, IE is the least secure browser, with the most vulnerabilities that have yet to be patched. This is documented in enough places that I'd like to see you prove that I'm lying. While you're at it, please demonstrate that a shipping version of IE has better standards-compliance than Firefox, Opera, or Safari. Ideally, use widely accepted tests, such as this one.
See also: argumentum ad hominem .
Yes, my reading comprehension is quite good, thanks. *laughs* You, on the other hand, seemed to miss my commentary on how the positive spin is not necessarily the result of Apple-fan(boy|girl)ism. Please explain how urging "anything other than IE" with Firefox, then Opera, then Safari (i.e. Safari is last) constitutes RDF influence? Is it that I even mention Safari as an alternative (albeit the last recommendation)? Personally, I'd attribute it to the Monkey-Dance-Aversion phenomenon.
I doubt I'm the only one here who curses IE for its lack of standards support (which burdens me with additional effort to have to support it), or for it contributing to family and friends who want me to help them with fixing their computer, after they hose it with the rampant malware to which IE so easily falls victim. Because of both of these, I tend to feel that anything that steers people away from continuing to use IE is possibly a good thing.