Slightly sarcastic? But indeed you're right. My Tablet PC works much better with software designed with just one button in mind.
While most tablet styluses come with a right-button in the lower half of the pen, they're often easy to accidentally press and many users like myself instead disable it and set the tablet settings to treat a TAP-AND-HOLD as a right-click.
When you're not holding a mouse, "right-clicking" a tablet is a slower means of interacting. Software designed with one button in mind works much more efficiently and naturally.
This is quite important, as until Tablet PC "takes off" (it hasn't by any means), most software that runs on is mainstream, non-tablet-aware software. An OS which encourages one-mouse development could have a distinct advantage.
Don't schools use a lot of software that runs on top of either of the Windows or Mac platforms?
Are there OSS equivalents for titles like The Way Things Work, or science lab programs, astronomy simulations, or all those Director based multimedia titles, etc?
OSS is great at replacing an office suite, email program, graphics editor, etc.
But are there a lot of OSS educational programs out there, or educators going to rely on web site content?
Based on my past experience with running PocketPC software, Mr Freeze might be a better codename.
Of course, that would mean switching to the Batman world. If we're staying with X-Men, then the Iceman could substitute.
(Not really trying to troll. I use my iPAQ every day. It's just the apps I use have a habit of leaking memory and needing a soft reset with the stylus fairly frequently.)
Is this the first time Apple releases software that works on Windows?
QuickTime... iTunes...
Now the question is wether we'll eventually see Mac OS X for x86...........
Rumor is that Apple does indeed do internal builds on x86, in case some day they have to switch processor architectures like they almost did before IBM took up the PowerPC slack.
But since Apple is primarily a "whole box" company, it's unlikely they'd use it for anything other than a x86-based computer of their own design, not a normal PC.
Though it'd be nice to think some day they'd license clone makers again... An "HP Mac" would be an interesting concept.
I hope they also include options for writing documentation and proof-reading.
That is an area that is often lacking in OSS projects.
This is so true, you should be modded +10 Knows What He's Talking About.
Too often it seems that OSS contributers only code for other coders and have the attitude:
"I know how to use the software, I wrote it. If you don't know how to use it, here's the source code, now spend 10 hours deciphering it."
I'm hoping that one day there will be an RMS who preaches the great benefits to mankind to be derived from the transfer of knowledge in a speedy and effective manner...
Okay, it's probably just me but when I read that I had a vision of Brent Spiner rattling the bars of a cage yelling "Picard, get your bald ass down here, Data want to be free!"
This is a bit off topic, but so can QuickTime's.mov, as I found when I downloaded the Hitchhiker's (radio) Tertiary Phase in the (to me) non-useful.ogg format.
Just grabbed the codec, QuickTime could then read ogg, so I saved it as a.mov, and iTunes converted it to AAC no sweat.
installed by Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and is now all fired up about RSS.
The screensaver shows a swirling mist of RSS headlines from a selected feed, and every few seconds zooms in on one, lets you read it, then twists it away into vapor.
Hard to describe, but there's a movie here which shows it in action.
They did recently acknowledge Linux as an operating system, instead of a cancer (they included support for it in VirtualPC).
Support for Linux in Virtual PC existed long before Microsoft bought it from Connectix. In fact, at one stage you could buy it with an OS pack that had Red Hat Linux pre-installed. That is not available now.
And glancing through the web site product specs to research my post, there is no mention of Linux. Since Virtual PC emulates a hardware PC, they'd have to purposely somehow disable emulation for Linux (if that is even possible, it's like Intel making a CPU that wouldn't run an OS).
In other words, I don't think Virtual PC is an acknowledgment of Linux as an alternative OS that PC users would want to run.
The FUD that they pay "research" companies to publish is though...
They've got to do it. If they don't make the switch, how can they expect customers to?!
If you read the original article, the server is apparently quite stable (makes sense: servers run just a few processes intensively but repetitively, and cracks would show quickly), it's the client that is more questionable:
while Microsoft is keen to tout the server version's stability, the desktop version is not as mature. Greg Sullivan, a lead product manager in the company's Windows unit told ZDNet Australia's sister site CNET News.com the desktop version "is not quite there" in terms of quality, and even hardware makers admit there might be issues.
Ben (Annie's old MENTOR) rescues Annie's SON who is accompanied by the droid that Annie BUILT and another droid from Ben's past when he fought and almost KILLED Annie. And the only reaction Ben shows is... none.
Here's another take...
Droids are a dime a dozen in the Star Wars universe. They are mass produced shells into which commodity robotics are placed. One droid with XYZ covering looks pretty much like another with XYZ covering.
Ben didn't have to know that this droid was C3PO, when he could have been C4QP, C5RQ, C6SR, C7TS, etc, etc.
(Just as if you'd showed me my 1995 PowerBook in amongst a thousand others I'd be able to pick it out.)
Also, if you look at Alec Guinness's expression, it IS slightly thoughtful... as if to suggest "These machines look similar to others I've seen... I wonder."
Okay, I agree George Lucas had no idea at the time that he'd be backstorying Kenobi and connecting him to the droids, but I don't see it as a gaping story hole.
Information needs to be free and distributed and not in control by one person/company/...
I agree with this sentiment.
Monocultures are bad. Bad in the natural world, and bad in the IT world.
In the natural world, lack of diversity in agriculture causes plagues of pests; in the corporate world, lack of diversity in the IT world (95% of the world uses the same Operating System / Email reader / Office suite) causes massive security vulnerabilities.
At a stretch, I can imagine the same could be true of information storage...
On a different tack, at the moment Google is the golden child, but who's to say they won't be the next Microsoft in 10 years time?
I think the upshot is that anyone with half a brain is going to stay on XP, and the only way that Longhorn will proliferate is by being included by default on new machines.
Yes, but at the rate machines are replaced these days (either to get new tech or because they fall to bits - there is a consequence of PCs continually getting cheaper), that factor alone will see Longhorn at 80+% within 3 years...
Perhaps Microsorft have finally realised that such an invasive DRM system will cause a mass exodus of people from windows to Lenix. Microsoft seems determined to play into Lonis Torvaldez's hands with issues like these and I can't say that I'm ungrateful.
I doubt Linus Torvalds has a masterplan for defeating Windows! He works on the kernel.
It's really up to those who assemble a distro from all the good (getting better) open source stuff that runs on top of it to bring out something better. And then for the Linux enthusiasts to encourage the masses to try it. That is really the issue.
WINHEC finishes and then Tiger is released. Longhorn is shown to be an investment in distant future mediocrity and Tiger is released tomorrow.
Interesting point. It's a possibility, but is there much crossover though?
The sort of people WinHEC is for are very committed Win32 API developers. They aren't necessarily interested in anything else, Linux, OS X, or any other *nix, whether its tech is inviting or not.
These folk have years invested in the Windows architecture and WinHEC helps them prepare for the future of THEIR platform.
If the timing had been a more general consumer or business focussed conference, where it was important to grab the hearts and minds of potentially swinging technology pundits, then the deliberate timing theory might have more weight.
I think the so-called "looks over the shoulder" the Windows camp gives OS X are largely mythical. Apple's relevance is very small in the grander scheme of things, is it not?
Maybe you've got a point though. The topics of WinHEC itself did seem to address future developments in Windows that are currently strengths of OS X.
That leapt out at me too. What I'm surprised at is that you're the only one in the comments to mention it and you haven't even been modded up. Usually there are more science-minded folk on Slashdot. Oh well.
For the record:
Joule = SI unit of energy, equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one metre in the direction of the action of the force, equivalent to 1/3600th of a watt-hour, named after James Prescott Joule, 19th Centry British physicist who identified the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Jules = first name of Jules Verne, 19th Century French sci-fi writer who wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, and other ripping yarns.
I'd be a little wary of this guy's answers. Everything that sounds like a bad idea in the conversion to the movie, he insists that Adams himself was workng on. This bascially alleviates and nullifies any possible criticism.
Rather than nullify criticism, he could have just been shifting the blame...
DNA's ideas were mostly brilliant, but he had his misses too. To his credit, he often admitted them himself.
For example, if you watch the "making of" segments on the BBC's TV Hitchhiker's DVD, Adams admits that he was the one that gave the go-ahead for the Trillian actress, who didn't really work, especially her voice.
Stranger things have happened (AOL Time Warner being one).
But I'd doubt that would happen. It would be just too hard to pull off simply to pick a proprietary standard.
In the software stakes, I actually think Apple these days is capable of writing better software than Adobe, witness the industry acclaimed Final Cut Pro vs. a rather klutzy Adobe Premiere, or iPhoto vs a technically capable but uninspired Adobe Elements, or the calibre of other interesting apps such as Keynote.
If Apple decided to draw on its CoreImage technology, a "Photoshop for the rest of us" could be mighty interesting (not that they would dare awaken that sleeping tiger!)
"According to that most famous of sages, Douglas Adams, the Jartravartids believe that the entire Universe was, in fact, sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief..."
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, selected MP3 players which support Windows Media Audio format as well.
"MP3 player" is probably being used as a generic name for portable music player.
No need to, they've got the originals... left behind when the Newton got thrown out with the bath water.
Slightly sarcastic? But indeed you're right. My Tablet PC works much better with software designed with just one button in mind.
While most tablet styluses come with a right-button in the lower half of the pen, they're often easy to accidentally press and many users like myself instead disable it and set the tablet settings to treat a TAP-AND-HOLD as a right-click.
When you're not holding a mouse, "right-clicking" a tablet is a slower means of interacting. Software designed with one button in mind works much more efficiently and naturally.
This is quite important, as until Tablet PC "takes off" (it hasn't by any means), most software that runs on is mainstream, non-tablet-aware software. An OS which encourages one-mouse development could have a distinct advantage.
Don't schools use a lot of software that runs on top of either of the Windows or Mac platforms?
Are there OSS equivalents for titles like The Way Things Work, or science lab programs, astronomy simulations, or all those Director based multimedia titles, etc?
OSS is great at replacing an office suite, email program, graphics editor, etc.
But are there a lot of OSS educational programs out there, or educators going to rely on web site content?
Just curious.
Based on my past experience with running PocketPC software, Mr Freeze might be a better codename.
Of course, that would mean switching to the Batman world. If we're staying with X-Men, then the Iceman could substitute.
(Not really trying to troll. I use my iPAQ every day. It's just the apps I use have a habit of leaking memory and needing a soft reset with the stylus fairly frequently.)
This is so true, you should be modded +10 Knows What He's Talking About.
Too often it seems that OSS contributers only code for other coders and have the attitude:
"I know how to use the software, I wrote it. If you don't know how to use it, here's the source code, now spend 10 hours deciphering it."
I'm hoping that one day there will be an RMS who preaches the great benefits to mankind to be derived from the transfer of knowledge in a speedy and effective manner...
Okay, it's probably just me but when I read that I had a vision of Brent Spiner rattling the bars of a cage yelling "Picard, get your bald ass down here, Data want to be free!"
This is a bit off topic, but so can QuickTime's .mov, as I found when I downloaded the Hitchhiker's (radio) Tertiary Phase in the (to me) non-useful .ogg format.
Just grabbed the codec, QuickTime could then read ogg, so I saved it as a .mov, and iTunes converted it to AAC no sweat.
installed by Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and is now all fired up about RSS.
The screensaver shows a swirling mist of RSS headlines from a selected feed, and every few seconds zooms in on one, lets you read it, then twists it away into vapor.
Hard to describe, but there's a movie here which shows it in action.
Pure eye candy of course, but majorly cool!
Not only that, it was the hero (James Bond) who was strapped to the bench about to be cut in half by Goldfinger's laser thingy.
It was the evil villain bent on world domination who uttered the words you've assigned to OSS. Flip them around and the post is still funny though.
Even more so since later in the movie, Goldfinger gassed all his cooperating partners to death.
Support for Linux in Virtual PC existed long before Microsoft bought it from Connectix. In fact, at one stage you could buy it with an OS pack that had Red Hat Linux pre-installed. That is not available now.
And glancing through the web site product specs to research my post, there is no mention of Linux. Since Virtual PC emulates a hardware PC, they'd have to purposely somehow disable emulation for Linux (if that is even possible, it's like Intel making a CPU that wouldn't run an OS).
In other words, I don't think Virtual PC is an acknowledgment of Linux as an alternative OS that PC users would want to run.
The FUD that they pay "research" companies to publish is though...
They've got to do it. If they don't make the switch, how can they expect customers to?!
If you read the original article, the server is apparently quite stable (makes sense: servers run just a few processes intensively but repetitively, and cracks would show quickly), it's the client that is more questionable:
Every time I see Ogg Vorbis, I think what an excellent Star Wars character he'd make!
No, NASA uses OS X to check the weather, not to launch shuttles. Mission critical, not mission chic.
(I'll admit, the dashboard weather widget is pretty cool though.)
Yeah, but then some religious nutcase would only blow it up.
At least this way, a religious nutcase asks congress to pay for it.
Here's another take...
Droids are a dime a dozen in the Star Wars universe. They are mass produced shells into which commodity robotics are placed. One droid with XYZ covering looks pretty much like another with XYZ covering.
Ben didn't have to know that this droid was C3PO, when he could have been C4QP, C5RQ, C6SR, C7TS, etc, etc.
(Just as if you'd showed me my 1995 PowerBook in amongst a thousand others I'd be able to pick it out.)
Also, if you look at Alec Guinness's expression, it IS slightly thoughtful... as if to suggest "These machines look similar to others I've seen... I wonder."
Okay, I agree George Lucas had no idea at the time that he'd be backstorying Kenobi and connecting him to the droids, but I don't see it as a gaping story hole.
I agree with this sentiment.
Monocultures are bad. Bad in the natural world, and bad in the IT world.
In the natural world, lack of diversity in agriculture causes plagues of pests; in the corporate world, lack of diversity in the IT world (95% of the world uses the same Operating System / Email reader / Office suite) causes massive security vulnerabilities.
At a stretch, I can imagine the same could be true of information storage...
On a different tack, at the moment Google is the golden child, but who's to say they won't be the next Microsoft in 10 years time?
Yes, but at the rate machines are replaced these days (either to get new tech or because they fall to bits - there is a consequence of PCs continually getting cheaper), that factor alone will see Longhorn at 80+% within 3 years...
I doubt Linus Torvalds has a masterplan for defeating Windows! He works on the kernel.
It's really up to those who assemble a distro from all the good (getting better) open source stuff that runs on top of it to bring out something better. And then for the Linux enthusiasts to encourage the masses to try it. That is really the issue.
Doable...
Interesting point. It's a possibility, but is there much crossover though?
The sort of people WinHEC is for are very committed Win32 API developers. They aren't necessarily interested in anything else, Linux, OS X, or any other *nix, whether its tech is inviting or not.
These folk have years invested in the Windows architecture and WinHEC helps them prepare for the future of THEIR platform.
If the timing had been a more general consumer or business focussed conference, where it was important to grab the hearts and minds of potentially swinging technology pundits, then the deliberate timing theory might have more weight.
I think the so-called "looks over the shoulder" the Windows camp gives OS X are largely mythical. Apple's relevance is very small in the grander scheme of things, is it not?
Maybe you've got a point though. The topics of WinHEC itself did seem to address future developments in Windows that are currently strengths of OS X.
That leapt out at me too. What I'm surprised at is that you're the only one in the comments to mention it and you haven't even been modded up. Usually there are more science-minded folk on Slashdot. Oh well.
For the record:
Joule = SI unit of energy, equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one metre in the direction of the action of the force, equivalent to 1/3600th of a watt-hour, named after James Prescott Joule, 19th Centry British physicist who identified the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Jules = first name of Jules Verne, 19th Century French sci-fi writer who wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, and other ripping yarns.
Rather than nullify criticism, he could have just been shifting the blame...
DNA's ideas were mostly brilliant, but he had his misses too. To his credit, he often admitted them himself.
For example, if you watch the "making of" segments on the BBC's TV Hitchhiker's DVD, Adams admits that he was the one that gave the go-ahead for the Trillian actress, who didn't really work, especially her voice.
Unless they bought Adobe in a leveraged buyout...
Stranger things have happened (AOL Time Warner being one).
But I'd doubt that would happen. It would be just too hard to pull off simply to pick a proprietary standard.
In the software stakes, I actually think Apple these days is capable of writing better software than Adobe, witness the industry acclaimed Final Cut Pro vs. a rather klutzy Adobe Premiere, or iPhoto vs a technically capable but uninspired Adobe Elements, or the calibre of other interesting apps such as Keynote.
If Apple decided to draw on its CoreImage technology, a "Photoshop for the rest of us" could be mighty interesting (not that they would dare awaken that sleeping tiger!)
The Great Green Arkleseizure Theory
"According to that most famous of sages, Douglas Adams, the Jartravartids believe that the entire Universe was, in fact, sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. They live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief..."