Aside from what most of us already know... that this will not stop the sex-crazed hypocrites in Utah from seeking pornography...
The problem with this bill is that it poorly defines what an ISP is. I am internet security engineer for an ISP that is, more or less, mere conduit. That is, we provide no content services whatsoever, unlike AOL... you get a pipe, and a gateway for authenticated TCP/IP traffic... from there, you're on your own.
The Pennsylvania law presents considerable problems for us because we do not monitor content. One cannot filter content fairly without monitoring it. No content filtering system can be expected to not cause collateral damage, and considerable collateral damage will occur where content filtering is "blind" (preprogrammed) and not facilitated by active, intelligent monitoring. These conclusions are supported by the findings of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board in a 2002 publication, titled, "Youth, Pornography and the Internet."
If we move past the boundary of being mere conduit, we may establish a number of false expectations that are not aligned with the scope of services we can reasonably provide. We have thousands of users who are customers of a customer of a customer of ours... As a Tier 1 ISP, this is a reality that Utah has, apparently, ignored.
What's the result? For example... Some enduser of an ISP which leases lines from another ISP which leases lines from us... is surfing the internet. Both the DMCA (17 USC 12) and the Utah statute (HB 260) do not clearly delineate between upstream ISPs and enduser ISPs... so where does the responsibility for providing content filtering begin and end?
It should be only a matter of time before this one gets overturned, because it's incredibly difficult to enforce and, more importantly, it ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. As a parent, you have the ultimate responsibility to police what your child does and doesn't see/read/hear.
In principle, and upheld largely by case law, the Establishment Clause prohibits government from becoming a censor in place of a parent's lack of involvement or judgment. Utah H.B. 260 violates this standard, by way of the exclusion in the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
If this list is accurate... Austin, TX, where my brother resides, has more strip clubs per square mile than any other place I've ever seen. Their zoning is so bizarre... you can be driving along with little Jimmy in the backseat in a residential area, or along I-35, and BAM, out of nowhere, "XXX" signs as plain as day.
Incidentally, Texas is also very heavily Southern Baptist... and Southern Baptists make Mormons look like the Hells Angels. Ah, but you know... the Bible Belt, or as I like to call it, the Ignorance Belt, is the world capital of hypocrisy.
My bad... the E55 is 469hp, not 493hp. The S55 is 493hp. Anyway, my point's the same... C55, E55, S55... fundamentally same drivetrain, displacement, braking and throttle systems... different horsepower.
I should also add... for the most part... the engine technology is all the same. Yes, the displacement, timing, compression and inclusion of a supercharger/turbocharger, or lack thereof, may vary... but if you're going to argue this is a big difference, that's a bit like saying there's a fundamental difference between a 12-oz. Coke and a 2-liter bottle.
That isn't what I'd call a fundamental difference because the way the engines work and interact with the throttle and braking systems is, by and large, the same, from the C to the S... again, with minor exception to AMG Speedshift... but then you'd have to compare the AMG C55 to the AMG E55. Basically the same engine, but different displacement and horsepower (the E55 has 493hp while the C55 has around 362)... same Speedshift system, though.
Sorry... forgot the paragraph stops... a few edits for clarity and this should also be easier to read, with the paragraph stops:
I currently own a CLK430 and my wife worked at a Mercedes dealership up until just recently so I'm pretty informed when it comes to their model lines. An S 430/500 is a completely different car then(sic) a C240, about the only thing they have in common is the symbol on the hood.
Was your wife in sales? As an avid German car enthusiast, I've gained comprehensive knowledge of the history of Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz) for years... and I have to beg to differ with you here. In 2001, when the sub-S class models were being revamped, including the C, Mercedes incorporated a number of technologies into their C and E class that were borrowed from the S class.
While a lot of the bells and whistles (e.g. Parktronic, Distronic, Bose Beta 2 stereo, AMG Speedshift, 12-way vs. 10-way seat adjustment, etc.) are not available in the C240 (AMG C55 notwithstanding), many of the safety, steering, throttle, braking, etc. systems are fundamentally the same.
The technology in Brake Assist derives directly from the Mercedes Sensotronic system previously featured only in the SL line. The body frame, except for dimensions, uses largely the same materials and same safety design. The C240 incorporates, like most E and S models, 3 firewalls instead of the standard single firewall found in most car engine compartments. ESP is also standard. The steering system is power-assisted as in the E and S, capable of phenomenal control at speeds above 100mph (I know, personally, from experience).
All Mercedes sedans (with perhaps the C230 Kompressor being the only exception... I am not certain) feature front, front-side, and rear-side, and A-pillar mounted window-curtain airbags. From the C240 to the SL65, Mercedes models all have Telematics (i.e. Tele-Aid) either standard or optional. The only exceptional difference is in the Maybach, which is a Daimler brand, not a Mercedes model type... the Maybach 57 and 62 feature Tele-Diagnostic which transmits diagnostic information to the CAC. Not even the $190,000 AMG SL65 features Tele-Diagnostic.
The ABS, ESP and BAS systems are all standard from the C240 to the SL65... the key difference is in the SL65, which additionally, on top of the standard BAS system, has brake caliper stabilizers to keep the brake shoes from shuddering when braking from high speeds. Additionally, all models from the C240 to the SL65 feature an electronic throttle. Even 5-speed touch-shift is available in the C240. The only major difference is in the new CLS class which uses a 7-speed automatic transmission. All Mercedes engine timings are managed by the Mercedes engine management system and all require 91 octane minimum. Otherwise, the technology is mostly the same... with obvious exception to the C230 hatchback... but thats why I specifically stated from the C240 up (which is still a standard C-class model, contrary to your observations)... and of course I'm also excluding the Mercedes-branded supercars such as the $350,000 SLR McLaren and the $1.2 million CLK-GTR.
Yes, I admit, the cupholders in the SL65 are neater than mine (though they probably break just as frequently), and the suede leather on the instrument panel scoop is neat (until the goony ergonomics of the SL's cupholders cause you to spill coffee on it, thus destroying it... ), and I admit that there's more legroom in the S600... but the differences that most dealers tend to notice in the Mercedes C, E and S lines are all bells and whistles... fundamentally, the cars most critical features, safety, comfort and control... utilize the same design and technology.
As a person with a background in corporate marketing (no, I don't mean working the retail counter at Foot Locker), those products whose quality doesn't speak for itself generally, yes, do better with a lot of pre-sales hype... but those products which are built upon a reputation for q
I currently own a CLK430 and my wife worked at a Mercedes dealership up until just recently so I'm pretty informed when it comes to their model lines. An S 430/500 is a completely different car then a C240, about the only thing they have in common is the symbol on the hood.
Was your wife in sales? As an avid German car enthusiast, I've gained comprehensive knowledge of the history of Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz) for years... and I have to beg to differ with you here. In 2001, when the sub-S class models were being revamped, including the C, Mercedes incorporated a number of technologies into their C and E class that were borrowed from the S class.
While a lot of the bells and whistles (e.g. Parktronic, Distronic, Bose Beta 2 stereo, AMG Speedshift, 12-way vs. 10-way seat adjustment, etc.) are not available in the C240 (AMG C55 notwithstanding), many of the safety, steering, throttle, braking, etc. systems are fundamentally the same.
The technology in Brake Assist derives directly from the Mercedes Sensotronic system previously featured only in the SL line. The body frame, except for dimensions, uses largely the same materials and same safety design. The C240 incorporates, like most E and S models, 3 firewalls instead of the standard single firewall found in most car engine compartments. ESP is also standard. The steering system is power-assisted as in the E and S, capable of phenomenal control at speeds above 100mph (I know, personally, from experience).
All Mercedes models feature front, front-side, and rear-side, and A-pillar mounted window-curtain airbags. All Mercedes models have Telematics (i.e. Tele-Aid). The only exceptional difference is in the Maybach, which is a Daimler brand, not a Mercedes model type... the Maybach 57 and 62 feature Tele-Diagnostic which transmits diagnostic information to the CAC. Not even the $190,000 AMG SL65 features Tele-Diagnostic.
The ABS, ESP and BAS systems are all standard from the C240 to the SL65... the key difference is in the SL65, which additionally, on top of the standard BAS system, has brake caliper stabilizers to keep the brake shoes from shuddering when braking from high speeds. Additionally, all models from the C240 to the SL65 feature an electronic throttle. Even 5-speed touch-shift is available in the C240. The only major difference is in the new CLS class which uses a 7-speed automatic transmission. All Mercedes engine timings are managed by the Mercedes engine management system and all require 91 octane minimum. Otherwise, the technology is mostly the same... with obvious exception to the C230 hatchback... but thats why I specifically stated from the C240 up (which is still a standard C-class model, contrary to your observations)... and of course I'm also excluding the Mercedes-branded supercars such as the $350,000 SLR McLaren and the $1.2 million CLK-GTR.
Yes, I admit, the cupholders in the SL65 are neater than mine (though they probably break just as frequently), and the suede leather on the instrument panel scoop is neat (until the goony ergonomics of the SL's cupholders cause you to spill coffee on it, thus destroying it... ), and I admit that there's more legroom in the S600... but the differences that most dealers tend to notice in the Mercedes C, E and S lines are all bells and whistles... fundamentally, the cars most critical features, safety, comfort and control.
As a person with a background in corporate marketing (no, I don't mean working the retail counter at Foot Locker), those products whose quality doesn't speak for itself generally, yes, do better with a lot of pre-sales hype... but those products which are built upon a reputation for quality, such as Apple and, bell-and-whistle glitches aside, Mercedes-Benz (which did not buy its way into luxury status like Toyota did with their fabricated badge Lexus), do not necessarily require advance marketing.
Motorola on the other hand does not produce products of the highest quality, and it is therefore to be expected that a phone as shiny, yet cheaply
"[Steve Jobs'] perspective is that you launch a product on Sunday and sell it on Monday," says Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's mobile phone division.
Motorola complaining about how Apple markets? Need anyone remind Mr. Garriques that the Apple brand, which just had its most profitable, highest revenue-generating quarter in the company's entire history, has achieved the status of cultural icon and introduced one "it" product after another since Jobs' return?
Nevermind the fact that Motorola's current line up is, on an economy of scale, as unwiedly, unattractive, unimaginatively-designed and poorly built as the DPC-550 flip phone they introduced some ten years ago.
Garriques has missed the point. Jobs' approach is right (big surprise).
The more advance notice you give of a product offering, the more the momentum dies down when the product is actually available--especially if you aren't ready to deliver. Apple learned this lesson the hard way in the mid-90s when the first PowerPC Macintoshes were not being delivered in time to meet demand.
Apple has taken numerous steps to ensure sustained growth... one of these is delaying marketing until the product arrives. Then they blitz... Doing it the other way around, you're banking everything on that first week. Now people know it's out there, big deal.
When Apple has a great idea, what they want to do is create yet another cultural phenomenon. One way to do this is to rely heavily on word of mouth to generate buzz... Do you see ANY other computer manufacturers inserting logo stickers in their packaging? Do you see anyone driving a car with a Windows or Dell sticker on the rear windshield? You'll see it with Apple owners all the time (myself included). Why? Because since the days of Guy Kawasaki and the EvangeList, evangelizing has always been one of Apple's marketing strongholds... it has to be backed up, of course, by good product.
Dell isn't an amazing piece of machinery, it's a discount box... Naturally, who the hell cares to advertise they own a Dell? Owning a Dell certainly doesn't signal that you have, indeed, arrived. It just means you're cheap.
Another thing... Apple's stores... walk by... do you see how it works? Huge glass windows, uncluttered real estate... white backdrops against which the products stand out like fashion displays.... People are magnetized by it and go in. Make no mistake, every element of the Apple Store design was pretty carefully conceived to maximize marketing potential.
Want a PC Clone? Go to Best Buy and search for it amidst a sea of heavily cluttered displays with unknowledgeable people who don't know the damnedest thing about computers. So there you are.
Apple builds an experience, and they want to keep building it. You know... I never would have thought it, but the first time I was peeking into a Mercedes at the Mercedes-Nissan dealership that serviced my Nissan, the salespeople knew exactly what they were doing when they handed me the keys to an $80,000 S-class sedan with only these words, "Just bring it back before we close."
That's all it took... I was hooked by the experience of driving that thing and could never be the same. Next car I got was a Mercedes C240 with a very competitive lease. Why? Oh, come on... they know I'll be back for more.
Yeah, fuck Windows and its font aliasing that looks like it's on a British dental plan... Jaggies so horrible, you could put someone's eye out with MS Word.
Three More Words: Color Sync, bitch.
I'd like to see proper color separations prepared on a PC that actually deliver imaging on a monitor true to a PANTONE color wheel... Sorry, pal, ain't gonna happen.
Add to that, Apple displays are SWOP Certified.
You know what's more.. have you ever tried inserting a special character into HTML on Windows?
Three More Words: Option Button, stupid.
That's right, all your umlauts, em-dashes, en-dashes, accents, carats, etc. etc. ad infinitum... easily inserted into HTML or posted on a form without crawling back to that horrid, sloppy bastard of a word processor just to use the "Insert character" menu to go scrambling for a symbol.
Let's see...
Font Smoothing below 8pt:
OS X - check
Windows - no dice
Organized Font Manager:
OS X - Font Book
Windows - Buy Adobe ATM or a $700 app that has it
True SWOP-certified color and color profiles:
OS X - You betcha
Windows - Productivity? Who wants that in an OS?
A few last things for everyone bemoaning OS X font management, one-button mice, or the lack of a mechanical eject button on the DVD-ROM drive...
Aside from all of the aforementioned that makes an OS X desktop look picturesque, compared to the Windows desktop that looks like some retard used a buggy version of MS paint with a palette consisting exclusively of garish colors and absolutely no opacity control...
Pages is the streamlined publishing beauty that MS Word wishes it could be... and for everyone who has ever wanted to kill the guy who insists on using the stupidest animations and sound effects Powerpoint can provide, Keynote is Michelangelo by comparison.
All OS X GUI objects have an embedded alpha channel... Being able to manage continuously variable levels of transparency, OS X has a depth of field in the desktop that all versions of Windows can only have wet dreams about.
This may seem superfluous to the wannabe-geeks who simultaneously believe that Windows has real administration capabilities (I'm sorry... did I miss something or did Windows become a UNIX-based platform?)... but if you're going to stare at a screen for more than eight hours a day, it helps if looking at text and images doesn't feel like razor blades are being tossed at your eyeballs.
Lastly, Core Audio, Core Image and Core Video... Core Audio, facilitating almost zero ms latency sampling, is already destroying any hopes of Windows being taken seriously by audio professionals. Core Image and Core Video will do the same to Bill Gates' dream of Windows and Windows Media being multimedia reference standards. Core Image may also spell doom for Adobe, whose After Effects & Premiere market share is already being destroyed by Apple's Shake, Motion and Final Cut Pro... but Core Image will eventually put in the hands of OS X itself, an enormous amount of realtime bitmap filtering that requires rendering time in Photoshop.
The gloves are off, and Apple, in their most profitable, highest-revenue, highest stock price since the 1980s, is poised for their next greatest trick...
Apple's next big move may very well be to combine the strengths of Quicktime 7 (specifically the H.264 codec) and Core Video to deliver HD-quality movies via an online store as the sequel to the hit iTunes Music Store that proved that, yes, indeed, people will pay for music downloads if it means they don't have to sift through countless half-corrupt Mp3s in a nonintuitive interface that has absolutely no browsing or track preview functionality.
It'll be a real slap in the face to Microsoft, the PC industry and the army of DMCA-minded attorneys at the MPAA if Apple reveals that, as a recent Slashdot article speculated, that the Mac Mini was all-along the proverbial trojan horse that would infiltrate millions of homes to facilitate and popularize internet-based movie distribution.
The funniest part about that story in the URL is that Microsoft tried to solve the problem of three uninformative function labels by reducing them to a one-size-fits-all label that is even more uninformative, given that it provides you no context for the variety of things hiding within the menu.
Put it this way... If a person isn't curious enough to explore three menus that very poorly describe where they lead, why would they be inclined to explore one button that tells them even less?
Apple's answer to this came in the form of the Dock. Probably realizing just how prevalent the use of desktop shortcuts had become, they decided to integrate the dock which... compared to XP, gives the user a wealth of information in one uniform lexicon that isn't very hard to grasp because one can immediately correlate the visual response with an action they performed that only someone lacking basic cognitive association functions could not interpret:
1. Available applications
The dock shows a series of icons, some of which may be familiar, others which give the user a good idea what they do... iPhoto, for example, is represented by an icon of a camera and a photograph.
2. State of an application
When an icon is clicked, it bounces, and eventually the application comes up. A couple of attempts at this and most people can deduce their clicking on said icon launched a particular app.
Once the app is launched and open, an indicator shows that it is running... the user can also make this correlation. Each application, once launched, has a file menu that is represented not by the word "File" but by the name of the application. It seems far more logical that the "quit" function for that app is under the app's name in the menu bar.. rather than "File"... which is where you find all file-related functions.
Contextual in OS X actually means contextual.
3. Advanced information
The more a user becomes familiar with OS X, they will find that the dock is the place to locate the application itself... the contextual menu for each icon has a "Show in Finder" function, as well as "Quit" or "Force quit".
By contrast, Windows continues to couch "Exit" under "File" and the only way to force-quit an application that's gone apeshit is to launch task manager... for the entry-level user, this may not be as immediately obvious as, well, looking at the application status icon.
Someone mentioned the eject function earlier... While in previous iterations of Mac OS, it was couched under "File" in the menubar or by drag-dropping to the trash, OS X is ingenius, again, with not only contextual menus but contextual icons...
Instead of, as another poster pointed out, showing you nine zillion indiscernable icons that are all redundantly represented in the menu... OS X has some icons that appear only when appropriate.
The best example is when you grab a removable volume/disk, and take it to the dock... in the trash can's place appears the universal "Eject" icon... the very same that can be found on any optical disk playback device.
You may have not found it, but apparently others did during usability tests when the taskbar was designed.
Bad example... Note that the ignition slot in most cars doesn't have a label "Start" next to it... nor is it called the "On" key. Ignition has two states... on or off... and sometimes, some ignition slots actually have those positions labeled... "on", and "off."
Even worse.. many cars have the unergonomic habit of placing the ignition slot in the steering column, behind the wheel... out of view, perpendicular to your arm's orientation. Goony ergonomics... if you ask me. My car actually has the ignition in the dashboard, just to the right of the wheel, in plain view.
Oh, and it isn't labeled... but then, that also means it's not mislabeled.
Perhaps this begs a more important question... Why would you label the contextual menu item for access to all applications "Start"... It's clear that the computer is already turned on, so you're not telling the user anything useful... Start what, exactly?
Those who know what it's for don't need the label, and those who don't are only going to find it meaningless as it tells them absolutely nothing about what it does... nevermind the illogical nature of nesting the shut down function inside a menu labeled "Start".... the last logical place a user reliant on labels would think to look.
Oh I know... we'll call the ignition the "Off" key...
I feel this is just nonsense. There are lots of people who claim to be nerds because they split hairs over how many frames per second they can run Quake or Diablo or some other banal blow-shit-up game...
I happen to produce audiovisual content... Let me tell you, the average "nerd" can't tell the difference between 24fps film and a 60fps animation. There's a threshold around 22fps that the human eye is simply incapable of distinguishing the difference.
Another example... print... the human eye, because of the way the brain relies so heavily on interpolating visual input, cannot discern any quality differences of four-color images above 300dpi (or 1200dpi for black and white). It just goes beyond the threshold of human perception.
If some kid tells you they need more than 24fps for their Quake game, they're out of their fricking mind. And even then, the real nerd (like me, an internetwork security engineer) would come along and say... "Why do you want a machine that lacks security, lacks superuser/root administrative functionality, lacks a UNIX backend, and, perhaps most pertinent to any audiovisual endeavors... lacks ColorSync.
Then I could go on about the kind of piece of crap monitors your average gamer uses... I could nitpick on every little detail... but that would be beside the point.
The average user who thinks they need the expandable tower never expands it. The average user who thinks they need the best monitor never uses it for serious work, like prepress or video editing. The average user who thinks they need every application under the sun finds little more utility out of a computer, on a daily basis, than emails, web surfing and some word-processing, doing taxes and other mundane activities that don't require invoking the powers of Zeus... much less DDR RAM.
No, sir, for the average user, the Mac Mini is one of the most brilliant innovations to come along since the microcomputer itself.
Beyond that, I'll say you get what you pay for... PCs that try to emulate the Mac look and feel always seem like they were pieced together by former McDonald's employees... the ingredients slapped together, the raw materials are about as cheaply made as they come.
Look at the neck design of the last two generations of iMacs... If Dell tried to articulate a similar joint, it would probably require two or three tightening knobs, have all the mechanical ease of Rubik's Revenge (the 4x4x4 cube), the ergonomics of a Yugo, and the material strength of a cardboard box.
You get what you pay for.
I had a 2000 Nissan Altima that, at 70mph, was so noisy and sounded like it was going to rattle itself to pieces... compared to the 2003 Mercedes Benz C240 I have now. The first thing people notice is that there's not so much as a squeaky screw or any body panel that feels like it was built by Playskool... and once, when I had that thing up to 110mph, it didn't wake up my wife, who was sleeping in the passenger's seat.
Sure, I bet there's a guy who has twice as many speakers as my 10-speaker, 300-watt Bose factory system (say what you will about their speakers, but a die-hard Bose hater heard, and felt, the dynamic range in the C240 and he never spoke another ill word about Bose)... maybe he's got 3000 watts and 20 speakers... but his ears can only take so much.
With a decent head by Becker, 300 watt amp powering smaller, more intelligently placed drivers, I can push the sound pressure level above 105dB... the difference is, compared to that guy with the tricked out Honda Civic... there isn't so much as a screw rattling when I run earth-shattering bass... people don't hear unintelligible rumbles five blocks away (much less one block away)... even though the perceptible loudness in the car is about the same... and, most importantly, your ears aren't screaming for mercy... as loud as it is, you only feel enveloped by the sound, not like you're eardrums are going to bleed.
You get what you pay for... Yeah, the guy with the Civic *could* get
This is precisely the point I made to a friend a minute ago... One of the most difficult things to do in the business world is push a truly revolutionary design concept. But we've seen Apple buck conventional wisdom many times... and every PC user on earth should be glad they did.
Here, Apple's design people did their homework, again, figured out how people really use these devices in their day-to-day life activities, and got rid of a few superfluous things that... well, I know everybody loves "that button", but if they have no idea what "that button" does... wouldn't it be wiser to get rid of it?
Apple's mantra is simplicity... but their genius is delivering simplicity that still has enormous functionality in its given economy of scale.
Pushing boundaries is what Apple does best. That doesn't always mean adding more crap to the console... Remember when every stereo component system just "had" to have a graphic or parametric EQ unit? And now? If people don't use it, why is it there?
These are the kind of questions Apple's people apparently ask when brainstorming new ideas... and here they have the perfect opportunity to leverage the Mac platform's security, functionality, design and user-friendliness against the Windows PC market in a very big, very threatening way.
You're missing my point... the product is coming out anyway... but by letting the word out before the product is ready to hit the street, you're giving Microsoft a chance to formulate a reaction strategy.
In management, we tend to be very protective of these secrets so as to maintain, especially in industries with as ridiculously brief product life cycles as personal computers. Every day's lead you have by protecting those trade secrets, increases your strategic competitive advantage...
If you can get the drop on them with a truly brilliant innovation (such as a $49 office suite that runs circles around the competitor's behemoth)... by the time they formulate a strategy to counter the market share you just stole, it'll be too late.
The sales momentum is largest within the first week of the product's release... after that, it's mostly downhill until the next revision. So you have to put as much distance as possible between you and your competitors... especially to recoup the fixed costs of R&D, product development and initial operating costs at launch.
You want someone like Microsoft to be caught with their pants down.
.... come to think of it... If these products are real, as they appear to be from the basis for this litigation... This move could be the most significant in the history of Apple computers.
Think about it... with iPod acting as a loss-leader (well, really a profit-leader, considering the margins on those things) attracting many users away from PCs to Macs, and a swarm of W.32 exploits allowing viruses and trojan horses to trample Windows like the Vandals sacked Rome, and the increasing appeal of the Apple brand... what do you think a $500 iMac and a $49 (as opposed to $400) office suite means for them?
That's right... they're poised to drop the H-bomb on Microsoft.
You're damned right I'd be pissed off if this were my moment of triumph being blown to shit by some impatient morons.
ThinkExcrement - Helping Microsoft Keep Its Lead
on
Apple Sues Think Secret
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The problem I have with this situation is, if the folks at ThinkSecret really cared about how Mac fares... why on earth would they be so stupid as to give everyone, Microsoft included, advance notice?
The entire purpose of maintaining trade secrets is to be able to give the competition as little time as possible to react... The hope here would be that Apple burst out with the product, and Microsoft and the PC manufacturers would be scrambling to react... by which time it'd already be too late and Apple would, as they have done with iMac and iPod in the past, rake in a chunk before the non-innovators in the industry knew what hit them.
The Apple customer base is characteristically known for its sense of community... we like Apple, their products, their ideology (well, the pre-Sculley, post-Amelio ideology of Steve Jobs)... we want to see them do well so we can continue to enjoy their products.
What kind of idiot ruins the surprise? The same kind of idiot that makes an entire business model out of telling you what you're bound to find out a few days later... Yes, I'm referring to that self-absorbed idiot who can't seem to stop stammering about his great comic book collection, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News.
At any rate, Apple has a legitimate concern... and their concern affects not only their bottom line, but ours as well.
That is, unless there are any individuals here who really believe that Microsoft Windows is the most innovative, most productive operating system on the market, or that Microsoft Office is the most efficient, most cost-effective and most intuitively-designed productivity suite ever made...
One of the problems with a device like this, or any other labelling scheme for DVDs, is the potential for errors caused by an unevenly-weighted label.
If a special coating is used on the disks for this burner, then when you burn text and graphics to it, you're etching off parts of the label. I have to wonder how this affects the weight distribution across the surface area of the disk. At best, this could cause tracking/sampling errors
Paper labels are much worse... because the adhesive backing is often unevenly distributed. Additionally, I cringe whenever someone puts a paper label disc into a slot-loading player, in the fear that any wear on the adhesive might cause a lip off the label to come loose and gum up your hardware.
The best recommendation is to use a very soft-tipped permanent marker... Any harder pen on the label side of the disc can lead to wear that causes those ugly perforations in the metal playback surface because of oxidization.
If you have a professional need for labeling relatively low quantities... most probably using duplication (i.e. burned copies made from a CD-R) instead of high-volume replication (i.e. pressings made from a "glass" master) then use a manufacturer who does direct thermal transfer on clear or white-coated stock.
What I was referring to concerns people who manage their own mail, or have their mail hosting company (whether it's the ISP or a third party), and need to leave the catchall open for various reasons.
It's not as simple as switching to another ISP if you own your own domain and want control over your mail server, whether you put the mail server on the ISP's pipe, or you pay a third party to do your mail hosting.
I should add that I have already stated in my original post, that they are most likely not in the right by completely prohibiting usage of those devices... I also stated in that post that they would be right in doing so if the restriction applied only to devices connected to the University-owned network.
This is irrelevant. The prohibition on local restriction of unlicensed wireless space applies to everyone, including private parties who receive no federal funding. If you live in a rented condo in a private building, neither the building owner nor your landlord have any legal authority to prohibit you from running a wireless AP network of your own.
Actually it's not irrelevant. They are not proposing to interfere with or usurp the FCC's role of spectrum allocation of the airwaves. They only assert their right to restrict usage of certain devices... which happen to exist as one of several means to access the frequency spectrum they are not allowed to allocate or restrict. As an FCC licensed operator, it's my responsibility to know this.
I'm not necessarily arguing that they should be able to restrict the usage of certain devices on campuses, either.
Private agencies can restrict people's rights in ways that publicly-funded agencies cannot. When you are a federal agency, or awarded grants, contracts or other funding from a federal agency, you are subject to much of the legislation that applies to federal agencies, e.g. federal anti-discrimination standards, federal censorship prohibitions, etc.
This is a complicated issue in more ways than you can imagine because it raises the question as to where the line can be drawn... If a wireless access point is a communications device, does its use fall under first amendment protections as a means of expression?
Conversely, if a precedent is set whereby such devices are prohibitable on the basis that they interfere with other communications, at what point do we consider verbal communication to be interference prohibitable under law?
At what point do we consider a human being a communications device, the placement of which can be restricted by organizations on the basis of claim of interference?
You didn't read the original article - or the university policy - either. This is not what they are restricting. The university is attempting to claim it can ban all non-university network 802b and g access points, even where it's someone else's network completely unconnected to the university's and used legally by the persons having access to that network.
Actually yes, I did read the original article. I know what they are restricting. I am speaking purely in principle when I say they "have the right to restrict b" when I know what they are actually doing is restricting "a". I believe that distinction was implicit in the context in which my remark was made.
Simply because I enumerated the fact that they do have the right to do "a", and yet are doing "b", doesn't mean that I endorse "a" or "b" as an effective security policy.
In my post, I believe I made it abundantly clear that they are going about this entirely in the wrong fashion... that they are applying a non-uniform security policy. Had they applied a uniform security policy, they wouldn't need to resort to such restrictions in the first place--regardless of whether they have the right to make them or not.
I've been experimenting with several methods simultaneously on my POP-mail accounts to see which works better... and my obvious conclusion is that several methods operating concomitantly are the best solution. But I'm still experimenting to determine what sets of methods, and the most effective order...
It's important to use the email filter rules much in the same way you'd use a firewall rulebase... as a sequential set of rules that increase or decrease in specificity depending on how you want to prioritize mail.
Some addresses need to receive from everybody. i.e. If you have an info@blah.org, you are expecting mail from unexpected sources. Then some addresses are personal. But here's where it gets interesting.
Years ago in high school, I had a civics teacher who looked like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Every year he begins the first day of class with these words:
MAN IS GREGARIOUS BY NATURE.
Indeed... We are social creatures. We also like feeling important. That is part of the reason I'm wasting my time on message boards pontificating on subjects that the people who already understand don't need to know, and the people who don't probably won't care for my opinion! But it makes me feel important that I have something to say.
So too is the nature of this thing called e-mail. Most people do not want to implement the easiest form of security (implicit deny-all w/a whitelist) because, hey, who knows... you might receive an important message from someone you don't know.
For example:
YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS!
So there you are. The problem is, people aren't easily convinced that there are no truly important messages except those from people they alerady do know, who have business or personal interests with them that they already are aware of. Why? Well, probably because that would require admitting to ourselves that we're less famous or less important in the grander scheme of society than we fancy ourselves to be.
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? OKAY!
Spammers and most mail servers are like audio equipment salesmen, they don't know when to shut up. That being said, I found that a challenge-response rule works well, but doesn't solve the bigger problem.
Sure, a challenge-response rule, if properly implemented, will drop inbound mail that doesn't pass the test... but there's just one problem.... two actually...
1. When a spammer gets an autoack challenge from a mail server they are attempting to send to (because C-R is not readily implemented at the application layer), now they know there's a box there. Their bulk mailer scripts don't care that there may not be a real person there... they'll waste your bandwidth all the same.
2. When an autoack challenge goes out to, say, a generic address that sends you maybe a confirmation of a credit card payment, that system sends an autoack back to you. Unless you are actively policing your rules every day, you're multiplying the amount of bandwidth being wasted by causing an autoack loop that doesn't stop until someone kills their autoacks or changes their ruleset. Waste of time, and resources.
So, until password authentication, or even DNS authentication (verifying that the rDNS for the sender's IP matches the senders e-mail address to confirm it wasn't spoofed) becomes an integral part of the application, challenge-response won't work very smoothly for most endusers who lack the scripting skills to build their own mail server running a C-R script far smarter than any deliberately vulnerable Microsoft application will ever be designed to offer--for obvious commercial reasons.
As this site can attest, making such specific functionalities part of the internet protocol itself is not a good idea. Challenge-response should exist at the application layer.
HEY, I THINK I GOT IT!
A good security policy is to implement several layers of security.
1. The first layer of ru
The University of Texas, which does receive some funds from the federal government, and probably some research grants, too, does not have the right to ban the presence of wireless access points on the campus. They do, however, have the right to restrict what types of devices can connect to their network (unless the network is funded with public money).
SECURITY
While the University may have a right to dictate what devices can connect to their LAN, they don't have a uniform security policy nor do they seem to have taken the means to enforce it properly.
The security policy on the one hand bans 802.11b and 802.11g devices from use on the campus. However, the security policy does not implement strict guidelines for using MAC authentication, WEP/WPA encryption, and/or disabling auto-connect to the nearest/strongest signal.
Note that they don't ban radios, cell phones, pagers, cordless telephones, CB or other transceivers, PDAs, etc. Many of these devices operate at or near 2.4GHz.
If the University implemented a uniform security policy that addressed all interference issues, recommended authentication standards, etc. as I mentioned before... the local interference or security gaps they cite wouldn't necessarily be an issue.
A good policy will be able to balance the needs of the students while implementing as adequate security as possible. Simply banning the devices doesn't really accomplish that.
A security policy for a place of learning should be robust but not be too tight that it restricts people's right to conveniently access information networks. That is contrary to the scope and purpose of an institution of learning... but then so are basketball scholarships.
He basically sounds like he's asking for a keyer, switcher and old school CG (character generator). Well, in that event, there's no logic behind using the firewire interface or a computer in the mix for that matter. It's entirely impractical to the cause. However, given the fact that these other systems are so outdated, finding one might prove far more costly (not to mention technically cumbersome) than even the cheapest, most basic NLE software packages today.
If what you want is on the fly keying of text, and switching to do dissolves, cuts, inserts, basic composites, etc. then look for an analog keyer/switcher and a character generator to interface with the keyer.
It makes no sense to want these things in a post-production environment over a digital non-linear editing system with a software based titler (like Livetype)... unless your interest is exclusively in live broadcasts.
The reason is quite simple.. whereas the keyer/switcher provides immediate response, the NLE provides unmatched flexibility, scalability and allows you to plan, storyboard, execute and correct your edits. Trying to do live keying/switching for what will ultimately be a taped program or go to DVD doesn't make much sense, IMO.
Why? Because whatever time you gain in immediacy, you lose in accuracy of your timing. Then you have to go back and correct, over and over again... and it's not easy unless you're a keying/switching expert... and even then, if you've mastered a keying/switching system, most NLEs do so much realtime rendering these days that you should be equally capable of quickly adapting to and using such systems.
If you aren't proficient in using NLEs for keying, switching and compositing, then you are presumably a hobbyist... or an editor without marketable skills. The time you spend trying to sharpen your live keying/switching abilities, you could be mastering the NLEs that are cheaper, actually easier to use, more agile and (if you're semi-pro or professional) will keep you employed.
Furthermore, it still takes an enormous amount of time to output to tape when doing linear editing. You forget that you still have to manually scrub, and dub in realtime... In non-linear editing systems, you won't be waiting for the VTR to physically reach each clip you're searching/scrubbing in your raw footage any time after the initial full-res capture. In linear systems, you'll have to deal with this every single time you scrub and execute an edit.
Every time you redo an edit in a linear system, you have to redub the entire edit, all the keying, switching and compositing in that edit playing back all sources in real-time in order to re-record the cahnges... rather than making a few corrections and re-rendering in a fraction of the time.
Add it all up, and a proficient NLE editor can do a Non-linear edit in a fraction of the time... and Non-linear edits are non-destructive.
Lastly, you can speed up the process even more by doing off-line non-linear editing. By using off-line, low-res thumbnails, or the default off-line inserts from batch logging (e.g. in Final Cut Pro), you are working all your edits, transitions, composites, keys, titles, etc. first in either low-res or with totally off-line clips.
Once all your edit decisions are finished, the computer only needs to batch capture the clips you've logged ONCE rather than repeatedly switching tapes, scrubbing and playing back through the loads of raw footage, to execute every single edit (especially nightmarish if you're going to break up and frequently insert pieces of or entire clips repeatedly in various places throughout the video). Screw up an edit on an NLE, and all you have to do is nudge your captured clip... rather than re-record.
It takes most people a few minutes to figure out how to maximize their work productivity from the benefit of logging and batch capturing in an NLE. The time you spend striping, indexing tapes and logging, and capturing, will be well-invested... instead of spending ten tim
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with this bill is that it poorly defines what an ISP is. I am internet security engineer for an ISP that is, more or less, mere conduit. That is, we provide no content services whatsoever, unlike AOL... you get a pipe, and a gateway for authenticated TCP/IP traffic... from there, you're on your own.
The Pennsylvania law presents considerable problems for us because we do not monitor content. One cannot filter content fairly without monitoring it. No content filtering system can be expected to not cause collateral damage, and considerable collateral damage will occur where content filtering is "blind" (preprogrammed) and not facilitated by active, intelligent monitoring. These conclusions are supported by the findings of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board in a 2002 publication, titled, "Youth, Pornography and the Internet."
If we move past the boundary of being mere conduit, we may establish a number of false expectations that are not aligned with the scope of services we can reasonably provide. We have thousands of users who are customers of a customer of a customer of ours... As a Tier 1 ISP, this is a reality that Utah has, apparently, ignored.
What's the result? For example... Some enduser of an ISP which leases lines from another ISP which leases lines from us... is surfing the internet. Both the DMCA (17 USC 12) and the Utah statute (HB 260) do not clearly delineate between upstream ISPs and enduser ISPs... so where does the responsibility for providing content filtering begin and end?
It should be only a matter of time before this one gets overturned, because it's incredibly difficult to enforce and, more importantly, it ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. As a parent, you have the ultimate responsibility to police what your child does and doesn't see/read/hear.
In principle, and upheld largely by case law, the Establishment Clause prohibits government from becoming a censor in place of a parent's lack of involvement or judgment. Utah H.B. 260 violates this standard, by way of the exclusion in the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Incidentally, Texas is also very heavily Southern Baptist... and Southern Baptists make Mormons look like the Hells Angels. Ah, but you know... the Bible Belt, or as I like to call it, the Ignorance Belt, is the world capital of hypocrisy.
My bad... the E55 is 469hp, not 493hp. The S55 is 493hp. Anyway, my point's the same... C55, E55, S55... fundamentally same drivetrain, displacement, braking and throttle systems... different horsepower.
Scratch that... same displacement in the C55 and E55 (obviously... they're both 5.5 liter V8 engines)... just different horsepower.
That isn't what I'd call a fundamental difference because the way the engines work and interact with the throttle and braking systems is, by and large, the same, from the C to the S... again, with minor exception to AMG Speedshift... but then you'd have to compare the AMG C55 to the AMG E55. Basically the same engine, but different displacement and horsepower (the E55 has 493hp while the C55 has around 362)... same Speedshift system, though.
Again, not a fundamental difference.
Was your wife in sales? As an avid German car enthusiast, I've gained comprehensive knowledge of the history of Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz) for years... and I have to beg to differ with you here. In 2001, when the sub-S class models were being revamped, including the C, Mercedes incorporated a number of technologies into their C and E class that were borrowed from the S class.
While a lot of the bells and whistles (e.g. Parktronic, Distronic, Bose Beta 2 stereo, AMG Speedshift, 12-way vs. 10-way seat adjustment, etc.) are not available in the C240 (AMG C55 notwithstanding), many of the safety, steering, throttle, braking, etc. systems are fundamentally the same.
The technology in Brake Assist derives directly from the Mercedes Sensotronic system previously featured only in the SL line. The body frame, except for dimensions, uses largely the same materials and same safety design. The C240 incorporates, like most E and S models, 3 firewalls instead of the standard single firewall found in most car engine compartments. ESP is also standard. The steering system is power-assisted as in the E and S, capable of phenomenal control at speeds above 100mph (I know, personally, from experience).
All Mercedes sedans (with perhaps the C230 Kompressor being the only exception... I am not certain) feature front, front-side, and rear-side, and A-pillar mounted window-curtain airbags. From the C240 to the SL65, Mercedes models all have Telematics (i.e. Tele-Aid) either standard or optional. The only exceptional difference is in the Maybach, which is a Daimler brand, not a Mercedes model type... the Maybach 57 and 62 feature Tele-Diagnostic which transmits diagnostic information to the CAC. Not even the $190,000 AMG SL65 features Tele-Diagnostic.
The ABS, ESP and BAS systems are all standard from the C240 to the SL65... the key difference is in the SL65, which additionally, on top of the standard BAS system, has brake caliper stabilizers to keep the brake shoes from shuddering when braking from high speeds. Additionally, all models from the C240 to the SL65 feature an electronic throttle. Even 5-speed touch-shift is available in the C240. The only major difference is in the new CLS class which uses a 7-speed automatic transmission. All Mercedes engine timings are managed by the Mercedes engine management system and all require 91 octane minimum. Otherwise, the technology is mostly the same... with obvious exception to the C230 hatchback... but thats why I specifically stated from the C240 up (which is still a standard C-class model, contrary to your observations)... and of course I'm also excluding the Mercedes-branded supercars such as the $350,000 SLR McLaren and the $1.2 million CLK-GTR.
Yes, I admit, the cupholders in the SL65 are neater than mine (though they probably break just as frequently), and the suede leather on the instrument panel scoop is neat (until the goony ergonomics of the SL's cupholders cause you to spill coffee on it, thus destroying it... ), and I admit that there's more legroom in the S600... but the differences that most dealers tend to notice in the Mercedes C, E and S lines are all bells and whistles... fundamentally, the cars most critical features, safety, comfort and control... utilize the same design and technology.
As a person with a background in corporate marketing (no, I don't mean working the retail counter at Foot Locker), those products whose quality doesn't speak for itself generally, yes, do better with a lot of pre-sales hype... but those products which are built upon a reputation for q
I currently own a CLK430 and my wife worked at a Mercedes dealership up until just recently so I'm pretty informed when it comes to their model lines. An S 430/500 is a completely different car then a C240, about the only thing they have in common is the symbol on the hood. Was your wife in sales? As an avid German car enthusiast, I've gained comprehensive knowledge of the history of Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz) for years... and I have to beg to differ with you here. In 2001, when the sub-S class models were being revamped, including the C, Mercedes incorporated a number of technologies into their C and E class that were borrowed from the S class. While a lot of the bells and whistles (e.g. Parktronic, Distronic, Bose Beta 2 stereo, AMG Speedshift, 12-way vs. 10-way seat adjustment, etc.) are not available in the C240 (AMG C55 notwithstanding), many of the safety, steering, throttle, braking, etc. systems are fundamentally the same. The technology in Brake Assist derives directly from the Mercedes Sensotronic system previously featured only in the SL line. The body frame, except for dimensions, uses largely the same materials and same safety design. The C240 incorporates, like most E and S models, 3 firewalls instead of the standard single firewall found in most car engine compartments. ESP is also standard. The steering system is power-assisted as in the E and S, capable of phenomenal control at speeds above 100mph (I know, personally, from experience). All Mercedes models feature front, front-side, and rear-side, and A-pillar mounted window-curtain airbags. All Mercedes models have Telematics (i.e. Tele-Aid). The only exceptional difference is in the Maybach, which is a Daimler brand, not a Mercedes model type... the Maybach 57 and 62 feature Tele-Diagnostic which transmits diagnostic information to the CAC. Not even the $190,000 AMG SL65 features Tele-Diagnostic. The ABS, ESP and BAS systems are all standard from the C240 to the SL65... the key difference is in the SL65, which additionally, on top of the standard BAS system, has brake caliper stabilizers to keep the brake shoes from shuddering when braking from high speeds. Additionally, all models from the C240 to the SL65 feature an electronic throttle. Even 5-speed touch-shift is available in the C240. The only major difference is in the new CLS class which uses a 7-speed automatic transmission. All Mercedes engine timings are managed by the Mercedes engine management system and all require 91 octane minimum. Otherwise, the technology is mostly the same... with obvious exception to the C230 hatchback... but thats why I specifically stated from the C240 up (which is still a standard C-class model, contrary to your observations)... and of course I'm also excluding the Mercedes-branded supercars such as the $350,000 SLR McLaren and the $1.2 million CLK-GTR. Yes, I admit, the cupholders in the SL65 are neater than mine (though they probably break just as frequently), and the suede leather on the instrument panel scoop is neat (until the goony ergonomics of the SL's cupholders cause you to spill coffee on it, thus destroying it... ), and I admit that there's more legroom in the S600... but the differences that most dealers tend to notice in the Mercedes C, E and S lines are all bells and whistles... fundamentally, the cars most critical features, safety, comfort and control. As a person with a background in corporate marketing (no, I don't mean working the retail counter at Foot Locker), those products whose quality doesn't speak for itself generally, yes, do better with a lot of pre-sales hype... but those products which are built upon a reputation for quality, such as Apple and, bell-and-whistle glitches aside, Mercedes-Benz (which did not buy its way into luxury status like Toyota did with their fabricated badge Lexus), do not necessarily require advance marketing. Motorola on the other hand does not produce products of the highest quality, and it is therefore to be expected that a phone as shiny, yet cheaply
Motorola complaining about how Apple markets? Need anyone remind Mr. Garriques that the Apple brand, which just had its most profitable, highest revenue-generating quarter in the company's entire history, has achieved the status of cultural icon and introduced one "it" product after another since Jobs' return?
Nevermind the fact that Motorola's current line up is, on an economy of scale, as unwiedly, unattractive, unimaginatively-designed and poorly built as the DPC-550 flip phone they introduced some ten years ago.
Garriques has missed the point. Jobs' approach is right (big surprise).
The more advance notice you give of a product offering, the more the momentum dies down when the product is actually available--especially if you aren't ready to deliver. Apple learned this lesson the hard way in the mid-90s when the first PowerPC Macintoshes were not being delivered in time to meet demand.
Apple has taken numerous steps to ensure sustained growth... one of these is delaying marketing until the product arrives. Then they blitz... Doing it the other way around, you're banking everything on that first week. Now people know it's out there, big deal.
When Apple has a great idea, what they want to do is create yet another cultural phenomenon. One way to do this is to rely heavily on word of mouth to generate buzz... Do you see ANY other computer manufacturers inserting logo stickers in their packaging? Do you see anyone driving a car with a Windows or Dell sticker on the rear windshield? You'll see it with Apple owners all the time (myself included). Why? Because since the days of Guy Kawasaki and the EvangeList, evangelizing has always been one of Apple's marketing strongholds... it has to be backed up, of course, by good product.
Dell isn't an amazing piece of machinery, it's a discount box... Naturally, who the hell cares to advertise they own a Dell? Owning a Dell certainly doesn't signal that you have, indeed, arrived. It just means you're cheap.
Another thing... Apple's stores... walk by... do you see how it works? Huge glass windows, uncluttered real estate... white backdrops against which the products stand out like fashion displays.... People are magnetized by it and go in. Make no mistake, every element of the Apple Store design was pretty carefully conceived to maximize marketing potential.
Want a PC Clone? Go to Best Buy and search for it amidst a sea of heavily cluttered displays with unknowledgeable people who don't know the damnedest thing about computers. So there you are.
Apple builds an experience, and they want to keep building it. You know... I never would have thought it, but the first time I was peeking into a Mercedes at the Mercedes-Nissan dealership that serviced my Nissan, the salespeople knew exactly what they were doing when they handed me the keys to an $80,000 S-class sedan with only these words, "Just bring it back before we close." That's all it took... I was hooked by the experience of driving that thing and could never be the same. Next car I got was a Mercedes C240 with a very competitive lease. Why? Oh, come on... they know I'll be back for more.
So does Apple.
WTF... ok, the above is mine... for some reason it didn't log me in.
Three words: Font Book, motherfucker.
Yeah, fuck Windows and its font aliasing that looks like it's on a British dental plan... Jaggies so horrible, you could put someone's eye out with MS Word.
Three More Words: Color Sync, bitch.
I'd like to see proper color separations prepared on a PC that actually deliver imaging on a monitor true to a PANTONE color wheel... Sorry, pal, ain't gonna happen.
Add to that, Apple displays are SWOP Certified.
You know what's more.. have you ever tried inserting a special character into HTML on Windows?
Three More Words: Option Button, stupid.
That's right, all your umlauts, em-dashes, en-dashes, accents, carats, etc. etc. ad infinitum... easily inserted into HTML or posted on a form without crawling back to that horrid, sloppy bastard of a word processor just to use the "Insert character" menu to go scrambling for a symbol.
Let's see...
Font Smoothing below 8pt:
OS X - check
Windows - no dice
Organized Font Manager:
OS X - Font Book
Windows - Buy Adobe ATM or a $700 app that has it
True SWOP-certified color and color profiles:
OS X - You betcha
Windows - Productivity? Who wants that in an OS?
A few last things for everyone bemoaning OS X font management, one-button mice, or the lack of a mechanical eject button on the DVD-ROM drive... Aside from all of the aforementioned that makes an OS X desktop look picturesque, compared to the Windows desktop that looks like some retard used a buggy version of MS paint with a palette consisting exclusively of garish colors and absolutely no opacity control...
Pages is the streamlined publishing beauty that MS Word wishes it could be... and for everyone who has ever wanted to kill the guy who insists on using the stupidest animations and sound effects Powerpoint can provide, Keynote is Michelangelo by comparison.
All OS X GUI objects have an embedded alpha channel... Being able to manage continuously variable levels of transparency, OS X has a depth of field in the desktop that all versions of Windows can only have wet dreams about.
This may seem superfluous to the wannabe-geeks who simultaneously believe that Windows has real administration capabilities (I'm sorry... did I miss something or did Windows become a UNIX-based platform?)... but if you're going to stare at a screen for more than eight hours a day, it helps if looking at text and images doesn't feel like razor blades are being tossed at your eyeballs.
Lastly, Core Audio, Core Image and Core Video... Core Audio, facilitating almost zero ms latency sampling, is already destroying any hopes of Windows being taken seriously by audio professionals. Core Image and Core Video will do the same to Bill Gates' dream of Windows and Windows Media being multimedia reference standards. Core Image may also spell doom for Adobe, whose After Effects & Premiere market share is already being destroyed by Apple's Shake, Motion and Final Cut Pro... but Core Image will eventually put in the hands of OS X itself, an enormous amount of realtime bitmap filtering that requires rendering time in Photoshop.
The gloves are off, and Apple, in their most profitable, highest-revenue, highest stock price since the 1980s, is poised for their next greatest trick...
Apple's next big move may very well be to combine the strengths of Quicktime 7 (specifically the H.264 codec) and Core Video to deliver HD-quality movies via an online store as the sequel to the hit iTunes Music Store that proved that, yes, indeed, people will pay for music downloads if it means they don't have to sift through countless half-corrupt Mp3s in a nonintuitive interface that has absolutely no browsing or track preview functionality.
It'll be a real slap in the face to Microsoft, the PC industry and the army of DMCA-minded attorneys at the MPAA if Apple reveals that, as a recent Slashdot article speculated, that the Mac Mini was all-along the proverbial trojan horse that would infiltrate millions of homes to facilitate and popularize internet-based movie distribution.
Put it this way... If a person isn't curious enough to explore three menus that very poorly describe where they lead, why would they be inclined to explore one button that tells them even less?
Apple's answer to this came in the form of the Dock. Probably realizing just how prevalent the use of desktop shortcuts had become, they decided to integrate the dock which... compared to XP, gives the user a wealth of information in one uniform lexicon that isn't very hard to grasp because one can immediately correlate the visual response with an action they performed that only someone lacking basic cognitive association functions could not interpret: 1. Available applications
The dock shows a series of icons, some of which may be familiar, others which give the user a good idea what they do... iPhoto, for example, is represented by an icon of a camera and a photograph.
2. State of an application
When an icon is clicked, it bounces, and eventually the application comes up. A couple of attempts at this and most people can deduce their clicking on said icon launched a particular app.
Once the app is launched and open, an indicator shows that it is running... the user can also make this correlation. Each application, once launched, has a file menu that is represented not by the word "File" but by the name of the application. It seems far more logical that the "quit" function for that app is under the app's name in the menu bar.. rather than "File"... which is where you find all file-related functions.
Contextual in OS X actually means contextual.
3. Advanced information
The more a user becomes familiar with OS X, they will find that the dock is the place to locate the application itself... the contextual menu for each icon has a "Show in Finder" function, as well as "Quit" or "Force quit".
By contrast, Windows continues to couch "Exit" under "File" and the only way to force-quit an application that's gone apeshit is to launch task manager... for the entry-level user, this may not be as immediately obvious as, well, looking at the application status icon.
Someone mentioned the eject function earlier... While in previous iterations of Mac OS, it was couched under "File" in the menubar or by drag-dropping to the trash, OS X is ingenius, again, with not only contextual menus but contextual icons...
Instead of, as another poster pointed out, showing you nine zillion indiscernable icons that are all redundantly represented in the menu... OS X has some icons that appear only when appropriate.
The best example is when you grab a removable volume/disk, and take it to the dock... in the trash can's place appears the universal "Eject" icon... the very same that can be found on any optical disk playback device.
Bad example... Note that the ignition slot in most cars doesn't have a label "Start" next to it... nor is it called the "On" key. Ignition has two states... on or off... and sometimes, some ignition slots actually have those positions labeled... "on", and "off."
Even worse.. many cars have the unergonomic habit of placing the ignition slot in the steering column, behind the wheel... out of view, perpendicular to your arm's orientation. Goony ergonomics... if you ask me. My car actually has the ignition in the dashboard, just to the right of the wheel, in plain view.
Oh, and it isn't labeled... but then, that also means it's not mislabeled.
Perhaps this begs a more important question... Why would you label the contextual menu item for access to all applications "Start"... It's clear that the computer is already turned on, so you're not telling the user anything useful... Start what, exactly?
Those who know what it's for don't need the label, and those who don't are only going to find it meaningless as it tells them absolutely nothing about what it does... nevermind the illogical nature of nesting the shut down function inside a menu labeled "Start".... the last logical place a user reliant on labels would think to look.
Oh I know... we'll call the ignition the "Off" key...
I happen to produce audiovisual content... Let me tell you, the average "nerd" can't tell the difference between 24fps film and a 60fps animation. There's a threshold around 22fps that the human eye is simply incapable of distinguishing the difference.
Another example... print... the human eye, because of the way the brain relies so heavily on interpolating visual input, cannot discern any quality differences of four-color images above 300dpi (or 1200dpi for black and white). It just goes beyond the threshold of human perception.
If some kid tells you they need more than 24fps for their Quake game, they're out of their fricking mind. And even then, the real nerd (like me, an internetwork security engineer) would come along and say... "Why do you want a machine that lacks security, lacks superuser/root administrative functionality, lacks a UNIX backend, and, perhaps most pertinent to any audiovisual endeavors... lacks ColorSync.
Then I could go on about the kind of piece of crap monitors your average gamer uses... I could nitpick on every little detail... but that would be beside the point.
The average user who thinks they need the expandable tower never expands it. The average user who thinks they need the best monitor never uses it for serious work, like prepress or video editing. The average user who thinks they need every application under the sun finds little more utility out of a computer, on a daily basis, than emails, web surfing and some word-processing, doing taxes and other mundane activities that don't require invoking the powers of Zeus... much less DDR RAM.
No, sir, for the average user, the Mac Mini is one of the most brilliant innovations to come along since the microcomputer itself.
Beyond that, I'll say you get what you pay for... PCs that try to emulate the Mac look and feel always seem like they were pieced together by former McDonald's employees... the ingredients slapped together, the raw materials are about as cheaply made as they come.
Look at the neck design of the last two generations of iMacs... If Dell tried to articulate a similar joint, it would probably require two or three tightening knobs, have all the mechanical ease of Rubik's Revenge (the 4x4x4 cube), the ergonomics of a Yugo, and the material strength of a cardboard box.
You get what you pay for.
I had a 2000 Nissan Altima that, at 70mph, was so noisy and sounded like it was going to rattle itself to pieces... compared to the 2003 Mercedes Benz C240 I have now. The first thing people notice is that there's not so much as a squeaky screw or any body panel that feels like it was built by Playskool... and once, when I had that thing up to 110mph, it didn't wake up my wife, who was sleeping in the passenger's seat.
Sure, I bet there's a guy who has twice as many speakers as my 10-speaker, 300-watt Bose factory system (say what you will about their speakers, but a die-hard Bose hater heard, and felt, the dynamic range in the C240 and he never spoke another ill word about Bose)... maybe he's got 3000 watts and 20 speakers... but his ears can only take so much.
With a decent head by Becker, 300 watt amp powering smaller, more intelligently placed drivers, I can push the sound pressure level above 105dB... the difference is, compared to that guy with the tricked out Honda Civic... there isn't so much as a screw rattling when I run earth-shattering bass... people don't hear unintelligible rumbles five blocks away (much less one block away)... even though the perceptible loudness in the car is about the same... and, most importantly, your ears aren't screaming for mercy... as loud as it is, you only feel enveloped by the sound, not like you're eardrums are going to bleed.
You get what you pay for... Yeah, the guy with the Civic *could* get
Here, Apple's design people did their homework, again, figured out how people really use these devices in their day-to-day life activities, and got rid of a few superfluous things that... well, I know everybody loves "that button", but if they have no idea what "that button" does... wouldn't it be wiser to get rid of it?
Apple's mantra is simplicity
Pushing boundaries is what Apple does best. That doesn't always mean adding more crap to the console... Remember when every stereo component system just "had" to have a graphic or parametric EQ unit? And now? If people don't use it, why is it there?
These are the kind of questions Apple's people apparently ask when brainstorming new ideas... and here they have the perfect opportunity to leverage the Mac platform's security, functionality, design and user-friendliness against the Windows PC market in a very big, very threatening way.
You're missing my point... the product is coming out anyway... but by letting the word out before the product is ready to hit the street, you're giving Microsoft a chance to formulate a reaction strategy. In management, we tend to be very protective of these secrets so as to maintain, especially in industries with as ridiculously brief product life cycles as personal computers. Every day's lead you have by protecting those trade secrets, increases your strategic competitive advantage... If you can get the drop on them with a truly brilliant innovation (such as a $49 office suite that runs circles around the competitor's behemoth)... by the time they formulate a strategy to counter the market share you just stole, it'll be too late. The sales momentum is largest within the first week of the product's release... after that, it's mostly downhill until the next revision. So you have to put as much distance as possible between you and your competitors... especially to recoup the fixed costs of R&D, product development and initial operating costs at launch. You want someone like Microsoft to be caught with their pants down.
Think about it... with iPod acting as a loss-leader (well, really a profit-leader, considering the margins on those things) attracting many users away from PCs to Macs, and a swarm of W.32 exploits allowing viruses and trojan horses to trample Windows like the Vandals sacked Rome, and the increasing appeal of the Apple brand... what do you think a $500 iMac and a $49 (as opposed to $400) office suite means for them?
That's right... they're poised to drop the H-bomb on Microsoft. You're damned right I'd be pissed off if this were my moment of triumph being blown to shit by some impatient morons.The entire purpose of maintaining trade secrets is to be able to give the competition as little time as possible to react... The hope here would be that Apple burst out with the product, and Microsoft and the PC manufacturers would be scrambling to react... by which time it'd already be too late and Apple would, as they have done with iMac and iPod in the past, rake in a chunk before the non-innovators in the industry knew what hit them.
The Apple customer base is characteristically known for its sense of community... we like Apple, their products, their ideology (well, the pre-Sculley, post-Amelio ideology of Steve Jobs)... we want to see them do well so we can continue to enjoy their products.
What kind of idiot ruins the surprise? The same kind of idiot that makes an entire business model out of telling you what you're bound to find out a few days later... Yes, I'm referring to that self-absorbed idiot who can't seem to stop stammering about his great comic book collection, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News.
At any rate, Apple has a legitimate concern... and their concern affects not only their bottom line, but ours as well.
That is, unless there are any individuals here who really believe that Microsoft Windows is the most innovative, most productive operating system on the market, or that Microsoft Office is the most efficient, most cost-effective and most intuitively-designed productivity suite ever made...
If a special coating is used on the disks for this burner, then when you burn text and graphics to it, you're etching off parts of the label. I have to wonder how this affects the weight distribution across the surface area of the disk. At best, this could cause tracking/sampling errors
Paper labels are much worse... because the adhesive backing is often unevenly distributed. Additionally, I cringe whenever someone puts a paper label disc into a slot-loading player, in the fear that any wear on the adhesive might cause a lip off the label to come loose and gum up your hardware.
The best recommendation is to use a very soft-tipped permanent marker... Any harder pen on the label side of the disc can lead to wear that causes those ugly perforations in the metal playback surface because of oxidization.
If you have a professional need for labeling relatively low quantities... most probably using duplication (i.e. burned copies made from a CD-R) instead of high-volume replication (i.e. pressings made from a "glass" master) then use a manufacturer who does direct thermal transfer on clear or white-coated stock.
It's not as simple as switching to another ISP if you own your own domain and want control over your mail server, whether you put the mail server on the ISP's pipe, or you pay a third party to do your mail hosting.
I should add that I have already stated in my original post, that they are most likely not in the right by completely prohibiting usage of those devices... I also stated in that post that they would be right in doing so if the restriction applied only to devices connected to the University-owned network.
Actually it's not irrelevant. They are not proposing to interfere with or usurp the FCC's role of spectrum allocation of the airwaves. They only assert their right to restrict usage of certain devices... which happen to exist as one of several means to access the frequency spectrum they are not allowed to allocate or restrict. As an FCC licensed operator, it's my responsibility to know this.
I'm not necessarily arguing that they should be able to restrict the usage of certain devices on campuses, either.
Private agencies can restrict people's rights in ways that publicly-funded agencies cannot. When you are a federal agency, or awarded grants, contracts or other funding from a federal agency, you are subject to much of the legislation that applies to federal agencies, e.g. federal anti-discrimination standards, federal censorship prohibitions, etc.
This is a complicated issue in more ways than you can imagine because it raises the question as to where the line can be drawn... If a wireless access point is a communications device, does its use fall under first amendment protections as a means of expression?
Conversely, if a precedent is set whereby such devices are prohibitable on the basis that they interfere with other communications, at what point do we consider verbal communication to be interference prohibitable under law?
At what point do we consider a human being a communications device, the placement of which can be restricted by organizations on the basis of claim of interference?
You didn't read the original article - or the university policy - either. This is not what they are restricting. The university is attempting to claim it can ban all non-university network 802b and g access points, even where it's someone else's network completely unconnected to the university's and used legally by the persons having access to that network.
Actually yes, I did read the original article. I know what they are restricting. I am speaking purely in principle when I say they "have the right to restrict b" when I know what they are actually doing is restricting "a". I believe that distinction was implicit in the context in which my remark was made.
Simply because I enumerated the fact that they do have the right to do "a", and yet are doing "b", doesn't mean that I endorse "a" or "b" as an effective security policy.
In my post, I believe I made it abundantly clear that they are going about this entirely in the wrong fashion... that they are applying a non-uniform security policy. Had they applied a uniform security policy, they wouldn't need to resort to such restrictions in the first place--regardless of whether they have the right to make them or not.
It's important to use the email filter rules much in the same way you'd use a firewall rulebase... as a sequential set of rules that increase or decrease in specificity depending on how you want to prioritize mail.
Some addresses need to receive from everybody. i.e. If you have an info@blah.org, you are expecting mail from unexpected sources. Then some addresses are personal. But here's where it gets interesting.
Years ago in high school, I had a civics teacher who looked like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Every year he begins the first day of class with these words:
MAN IS GREGARIOUS BY NATURE.
Indeed... We are social creatures. We also like feeling important. That is part of the reason I'm wasting my time on message boards pontificating on subjects that the people who already understand don't need to know, and the people who don't probably won't care for my opinion! But it makes me feel important that I have something to say.
So too is the nature of this thing called e-mail. Most people do not want to implement the easiest form of security (implicit deny-all w/a whitelist) because, hey, who knows... you might receive an important message from someone you don't know.
For example:
YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON TEN MILLION DOLLARS!
So there you are. The problem is, people aren't easily convinced that there are no truly important messages except those from people they alerady do know, who have business or personal interests with them that they already are aware of. Why? Well, probably because that would require admitting to ourselves that we're less famous or less important in the grander scheme of society than we fancy ourselves to be.
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? OKAY!
Spammers and most mail servers are like audio equipment salesmen, they don't know when to shut up. That being said, I found that a challenge-response rule works well, but doesn't solve the bigger problem.
Sure, a challenge-response rule, if properly implemented, will drop inbound mail that doesn't pass the test... but there's just one problem.... two actually...
1. When a spammer gets an autoack challenge from a mail server they are attempting to send to (because C-R is not readily implemented at the application layer), now they know there's a box there. Their bulk mailer scripts don't care that there may not be a real person there... they'll waste your bandwidth all the same.
2. When an autoack challenge goes out to, say, a generic address that sends you maybe a confirmation of a credit card payment, that system sends an autoack back to you. Unless you are actively policing your rules every day, you're multiplying the amount of bandwidth being wasted by causing an autoack loop that doesn't stop until someone kills their autoacks or changes their ruleset. Waste of time, and resources.
So, until password authentication, or even DNS authentication (verifying that the rDNS for the sender's IP matches the senders e-mail address to confirm it wasn't spoofed) becomes an integral part of the application, challenge-response won't work very smoothly for most endusers who lack the scripting skills to build their own mail server running a C-R script far smarter than any deliberately vulnerable Microsoft application will ever be designed to offer--for obvious commercial reasons.
As this site can attest, making such specific functionalities part of the internet protocol itself is not a good idea. Challenge-response should exist at the application layer.
HEY, I THINK I GOT IT! A good security policy is to implement several layers of security. 1. The first layer of ru
The University of Texas, which does receive some funds from the federal government, and probably some research grants, too, does not have the right to ban the presence of wireless access points on the campus. They do, however, have the right to restrict what types of devices can connect to their network (unless the network is funded with public money).
SECURITY
While the University may have a right to dictate what devices can connect to their LAN, they don't have a uniform security policy nor do they seem to have taken the means to enforce it properly.
The security policy on the one hand bans 802.11b and 802.11g devices from use on the campus. However, the security policy does not implement strict guidelines for using MAC authentication, WEP/WPA encryption, and/or disabling auto-connect to the nearest/strongest signal.
Note that they don't ban radios, cell phones, pagers, cordless telephones, CB or other transceivers, PDAs, etc. Many of these devices operate at or near 2.4GHz.
If the University implemented a uniform security policy that addressed all interference issues, recommended authentication standards, etc. as I mentioned before... the local interference or security gaps they cite wouldn't necessarily be an issue.
A good policy will be able to balance the needs of the students while implementing as adequate security as possible. Simply banning the devices doesn't really accomplish that.
A security policy for a place of learning should be robust but not be too tight that it restricts people's right to conveniently access information networks. That is contrary to the scope and purpose of an institution of learning... but then so are basketball scholarships.
2. digi001 - 24-bit, 8/8/8 analog, digital coax, optical I/O - I use with ProTools LE for 32 channel multitrack recording
3. Revolution M-Audio 7.1 ch output - for monitoring video projects with audio mastered to Dolby Digital AC-3 surround (5.1)
If what you want is on the fly keying of text, and switching to do dissolves, cuts, inserts, basic composites, etc. then look for an analog keyer/switcher and a character generator to interface with the keyer.
It makes no sense to want these things in a post-production environment over a digital non-linear editing system with a software based titler (like Livetype)... unless your interest is exclusively in live broadcasts.
The reason is quite simple.. whereas the keyer/switcher provides immediate response, the NLE provides unmatched flexibility, scalability and allows you to plan, storyboard, execute and correct your edits. Trying to do live keying/switching for what will ultimately be a taped program or go to DVD doesn't make much sense, IMO.
Why? Because whatever time you gain in immediacy, you lose in accuracy of your timing. Then you have to go back and correct, over and over again... and it's not easy unless you're a keying/switching expert... and even then, if you've mastered a keying/switching system, most NLEs do so much realtime rendering these days that you should be equally capable of quickly adapting to and using such systems.
If you aren't proficient in using NLEs for keying, switching and compositing, then you are presumably a hobbyist... or an editor without marketable skills. The time you spend trying to sharpen your live keying/switching abilities, you could be mastering the NLEs that are cheaper, actually easier to use, more agile and (if you're semi-pro or professional) will keep you employed.
Furthermore, it still takes an enormous amount of time to output to tape when doing linear editing. You forget that you still have to manually scrub, and dub in realtime... In non-linear editing systems, you won't be waiting for the VTR to physically reach each clip you're searching/scrubbing in your raw footage any time after the initial full-res capture. In linear systems, you'll have to deal with this every single time you scrub and execute an edit.
Every time you redo an edit in a linear system, you have to redub the entire edit, all the keying, switching and compositing in that edit playing back all sources in real-time in order to re-record the cahnges... rather than making a few corrections and re-rendering in a fraction of the time.
Add it all up, and a proficient NLE editor can do a Non-linear edit in a fraction of the time... and Non-linear edits are non-destructive.
Lastly, you can speed up the process even more by doing off-line non-linear editing. By using off-line, low-res thumbnails, or the default off-line inserts from batch logging (e.g. in Final Cut Pro), you are working all your edits, transitions, composites, keys, titles, etc. first in either low-res or with totally off-line clips.
Once all your edit decisions are finished, the computer only needs to batch capture the clips you've logged ONCE rather than repeatedly switching tapes, scrubbing and playing back through the loads of raw footage, to execute every single edit (especially nightmarish if you're going to break up and frequently insert pieces of or entire clips repeatedly in various places throughout the video). Screw up an edit on an NLE, and all you have to do is nudge your captured clip... rather than re-record.
It takes most people a few minutes to figure out how to maximize their work productivity from the benefit of logging and batch capturing in an NLE. The time you spend striping, indexing tapes and logging, and capturing, will be well-invested... instead of spending ten tim