Laptops are killing desktops for knowledge workers for one reason; keeping your data with you wherever you are. Ten or more years ago you'd find people went to work, worked, then went home again. However, it's not the laptop per se that's killed off the desktop, it's peripheral advances like wireless technology, increased mobile bandwidth and minaturisation that have done this. Wireless is without a doubt the number one reason why laptops boomed massively in the last 3 or so years.
Mobile technology also means a mobile workforce. I currently deal with around 250+ users across three locations. A lot of the supplemental departments (finance, HR, operations) move between sites and visit clients, and it's easier for them to take their whole work environment with them than mess about with software licenses, having redundant desktops lying dormant for 50% of the time etc. etc.
Granted, it's great from their point of view, but laptops are a much bigger concern for IT departments like ours, especially when they get lugged home, used on broadband conections or used on a VPN connection. They're also a pain to keep updated as users tend to move around more - maybe even connect to client networks that don't have the same level of security. In the long run though, we'd rather supply them with a manageable device like a laptop rather than have them mess around with assorted PDAs and smartphones. laptops also have a more tangible value associated with them, so in 99% of cases you don't get silly accidents.
That said, the laptop may be killing off the humble desktop, but it will never kill off the workstation. For other departments - CGI, storyboard, development, edit etc. - a laptop simply would never cut it. Lots of nearline storage (TB+), colour-matched dual monitors, renderfarms and gigs of RAM are things I'd never want to lug around in a laptop. I know some people will say it can be done, but I would hate to ever consider cutting broadcast quality video and audio on a laptop. It's also important to note that these people don't need to take their data with them. They aren't 'knowledge workers' like the others, but employed to utilise their skills on the material in situ.
That said, laptops still have a long way to go before they approach the reliability of a desktop - I think we get a fourfold increase in failures on laptops generally.
Red Dwarf Blake's 7 Battle of the Planets (C'mon, Futurama's in there!) Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy DS9 Lexx The Prisoner Seaquest DSV Stingray Captain Scarlett
...should simply not be allowed to be posted here; magazines make a point of not doing it, so should websites. We all seen those articles in the past slating graphics cards before helpfully pointing out that the drivers are still being working on and this doesn't seem any different.
While I wouldn't expect Microsoft to touch Photoshop with a beta version of a graphics package, I'd prefer to reserve judgement until the packages is shrink wrapped on the shelves. As it stands, it's a cheap shot at Microsoft which is undeserved, especially if you consider the large number of open source projects which are continually being worked on that would be equally at home under the label 'dodgy beta'.
People - Microsoft included - that put betas out tend to do so for constructive criticism, not for review.
I think common sense is evidence enough. This is happening on a world scale, unless you can point out areas of the planet's surface that have been devoid of human interaction over the last 20-30 years. As far as seasons go, the effects that the study concentrates on tend to be long-term rather than seasonal, so seasonal evidence would be pointless.
Look at the basic facts; we are on a planet with finite resources. World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.
Long term, the math doesn't work out. It's not a case of if we screw up this planet, it's a case of when, and more people equals acceleration towards that point, more space used, more fuels used, more products consumed.
The main problem is that as a planet, we all have to act to make it a sustainable environment. This means actually reducing what we use, not slowing down, or keeping it the same, but actually reducing the amount of resources we use. If one country *cough* decides to ignore this fact, it undermines the point of the exercise.
As far as your comment about hippies who want the developing countries to starve to death; well, they already do starve. But if world poverty was wiped out tomorrow the world over, the developed world would have to change its consumptive habits overnight for the world to sustain itself.
At the end of the day, everything on this planet is not okay, and all of our eggs are in one basket.
From the linked article, it's also important to note that "The Korean site, unlike U.S. versions, was operated by another company". So the pilot wasn't even Microsoft.
This wasn't mentioned by the story poster at all, which probably wouldn't have been accepted if it read - more truthfully - Unpatch Microsoft Web Server Compromised. We all know that an unpatched MS server is vulnerable. With that in mind, it just reads like well-crafted front page FUD.
There is a complete lack of Microsoft stuff in the article which leaves what I'd consider quite a gaping hole in the history of PDAs.
The reason is simply because when Microsoft entered the market, it was the first time a compatible desktop architecture and design had been ported across to a PDA. To a certain extent, they have also been instrumental in turning a PDA into a fully fledged, compatible and capable platform, adding Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, colour screens etc. Palm would certainly have rested on their laurels more if it wasn't for MS entering the market and we'd probably still be using black and white 2MB Palms.
The Microwriter Agenda. While the linked article incorrectly mentions it was the first PDA, it did have one very inetersting feature; built into the right hand side of the device was a 5-key microwriter input system which allowed for 'blind' input. This is a variant of a chorded keyboard - quite an interesting read.
Has anyone ever done any reseach on how often Bill Gates has been right in his predictions?
"A computer on every desk and in every home" - 1977
I'd say he was pretty much on the ball with that one, although it took until 1995 for him to realise that they'd all be connected together with wires...
I've often worried about the entire Apple product line in this sense.
If you look at how much design work they've put into their products, you can't help feeling that at some point soon, they're going to end up with the ideal solution. And at about that point, you suddenly have a major problem; stagnation of the product range, or change for the sake of change.
The iMac is a good example; where exactly do you go from an all in one LCD? Same with the iPod. It plays music, and it plays it really well. How do you improve on it without making it more complex, or adding features some users would find redundant? Or do you simply make cosmetic changes now and again to keep it fresh?
"Just goes to show that making something painless for the user can often lead to the technology being abused by more nefarious individuals"
Yup, it's a bit like scripting in Outlook and ActiveX in IE; incredibly useful in a fully controlled environment, but incredibly vulnerable in the wild and hugely open to exploitation. I would have assumed Apple would've seen the fun and games that MS has had with scripting, embedding and browser/OS interaction over the years to not let something like this happen.
Microsoft seemed to end up in knots trying to sort out the ActiveX and scripting debacles, the result being lots of dialog boxes and the IE info bar (easily faked in a web page too!), so it will be interesting to see how Apple go about fixing it, which I'd assume would be a simple block on automatic installs.
I don't know much about these kinds of systems, but I would've always assumed that partial unencrypted data would be much easier to recover in a plane crash situation. I guess it would pretty much instantaneously stop transmitting from the engine in question when the system failed.
However, wouldn't encrypted data bring with it the risk that you couldn't get the data back? What happens if you have partial encrypted data in the system? Is there a risk that the encryption could make piecing together accidents more time-consuming or render the data useless to the investigation?
In theory, could it even assist denying responsibility if the engine itself was the cause of a crash?
It is useful until you find that error -36 is written up as:
-36 ioErr I/O error
It'll point you in the right direction I guess, but it's by no means a definitive description of the error.
I must admit that I'm a little baffled as to why Apple don't include better error reporting and descriptions in OSX. It is because they are still assuming these kind of errors will only be seen by techs that know what they mean, or are they still living in a world where they refuse to acknowledge that Macs do throw up the occasional message to the user?
Credit for system-wide scripting languages goes to Xerox PARC and SmallTalk on the Alto. Smalltalk formed the inspiration for HyperCard and later AppleScript.
You also have AREXX on the Amiga (1985), RiscOS on the Archimedes was also fully scripted (1987), and you could argue that the MS-DOS command shell (1979) and batch filing methods are akin to an OS-wide scripting language, particularly as a major goal of AppleScript was to make up for the Mac's lack of a CLI. Interesting to note that the opposite happened for NT 3.51 - the MS-DOS shell was slated for removal, but left in to fulfil the role of system scripting.
If you go to the maps.google.com, zoom right out and switch to satellite view, you can scroll over to the right where the UK is and hey presto satellite views!
It's not complete yet and only zooms halfway in before you're notified it's incomplete, but it should definitely be something to look forward to.
While the iPod is probably being used to get headlines and generate column inches for the Uni, the iPod simply isn't a great tool for kids at college.
How about a Palm? Pocket PC? Treo? Creative Nomad, Olympus dictaphone for Pete's sake? Lots more features designed to assist you plan, organise and take notes, moreso than an iPod. Even cheaper Flash players have built in dictaphones, radios and suchlike. Probably cheaper too - a Palm has Bluetooth a camera, voice recording. See what students can do with that.
So while I think iPods are great as MP3 players, I'm pretty sure that the real value here is probably why we're discussing it; publicity.
And if that's the motive then sorry, but it's a misuse of funds.
Came with Office Professional 95, indexed Office documents only, but it did it extremely well and ran in the background. As far as I remember, searches were done without copious disk thrashing.
I have no idea where Mac desktop searches were in 1995, but that was probably the first time I saw a search that pre-archived results and indexed content within a document. Ok, so it was only Office documents but it was a breakthrough at the time. Since then they've fiddled around with Index Services, but they're awful and system intensive.
Re:It would not be good for Dell's bottom line
on
Dell Still Intel Only
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, although with Dell, sticking to their guns will ultimately keep their costs down.
The reason is the way Dell do business. They have very little inventory, and an incredibly streamlined build process. Adding an additional CPU to the mix means that it would need to be rolled out across a number of servers, meaning more components, more suppliers, more support and more staff. In the end, people buy from Dell because they're Dell, not because they sell Opterons. So the net effect here is that by competing against another 3 manufacturers in Opteron territory, they're making the choices harder for their own customers who want Dell and don't give a monkey about what's in it.
I can agree that product range is a great idea, but that's the key to confusion and lack of product identity rather than choice. I came across a company recently that sold 30 models of laptop, 44 mono laser printers and 41 types of colour inkjet. Some of those products were competing against each other and certainly didn't have time to research it so I didn't buy.
That company was HP, and I certainly think some conservative business talk could help them out right now.
I wouldn't say the Tablet PC has failed (I own one, and I think it's an awesome device), but if the basic forms of computing gadget for the foreseeable future are limited to desktop, notebook and PDA and we're happy with that, then we may as well stop innovating now. I sure as hell don't want to be stuck with three form factors 20 years from now...
Desktop computers, servers, laptops and phones have all started in their niche markets in the past, and I'm happy for MS to use their cash to kickstart market segments that may or may not yield results. In some cases, they might stumble on something worthwhile. A one-handed interface has benefits for in-car PCs, industrial devices, phones and related devices like touchscreens and mouse design. Long term, the aggregation of ideas from this with existing PDA and tablet technology might yield devices that appeal more to the mainstream.
You have a point. If you add up the amount of cash you'd've spent since 2000 updating OSX, then you're looking at around $380 including 10.4.
However, while each one does contain a substantial number of bug fixes and roll-ups of previous patches, they also contain a large number of additional features, and I assume that the underlying codebase has changed enough to warrant the 10.x change. I personally think Apple are allowed to do this. It certainly doesn't need an 11.x moniker, but is related to the same family of OS - a bit like Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME. So in hindsight, OSX's current five year history of changes, fixes and additions pretty much parallels the Windows 95 to ME path; same codebase, different versions.
I can see where you're coming from though - the point update does seem a little strange, but with OSX, I guess Apple need to get a little more mileage out of their 'X' symbol. You certainly shouldn't have been marked a troll, I think it's a valid point.
"enough list that something will probably not work on a high percentage of machines in any sizable deployment of Windows XP."
From experience, larger deployments of machines tend to have a much smaller pool of applications that are used. This is partly down to administration overheads, machine build overheads and user permissions - most in a large deployment won't have the ability to add new software themselves. If you use a piece of software widely, then it's easier to replace/patch/whatever. A worse scenario would be a small number of machines that are managed by their users.
"Windows admins have a good reason to be a bit careful here. Windows Service Packs have a long tradition of making systems or applications no longer function."
I'd agree with you here, although I'd also point out that a big deployment would also point towards some decent testing and a rollout plan. XP SP2 has been around for a year now, as has the knowledge that some applications break. For an IT admin to sit on a known problem for a year is a little daft, especially in a large setup. Even a gradual rollout, or rebuilding/deploying new machines with SP2 would have given useful knowledge vital to their specific setup. Instead, 12 months down the line, they're still flying blind.
The point is; the risks of upgrading to XP SP2 are known and can be managed. The risks of not upgrading to it are unknown, and potentially problematic to everyone.
I've always assumed that they work out their losses on a dollar price per track to reach these over-inflated figures. However, when Napster first appeared, many people either used it to:
grab older tracks that had been deleted and hence weren't making the record companies any money
download tracks they owned on vinyl because they didn't have the time to rip them
downloaded song simply becasue they were free and never in a month of Sundays would they ever consider buying them.
Just because they logged a downloaded doesn't guarantee that it was lost income.
"RIAA use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination."
...that the atmosphere immediately before the extinction of life on this planet will not be favourable.
Heck, we live in a window of opportunity on this planet. It started when conditions became favourable and it'll end when they become unfavourable, or we blow ourselves up... which after careful thought is pretty much the same thing.
All things considered though, I suppose it's nice that they've found out a bit more about conditions then, but maybe the title of their study should've been a more accurate:
Early Earth atmosphere more favourable to life than we first thought.
Hmmm, I suppose that I'd better clarify that I don't think getting the government involved is a good thing at all (especially when they are open to lobbying and all sorts of underhand tricks).
The player is really good, the store interface is the best (IMHO), the amount of music choices available legally is the best, the software is easy to use, the value is decent, the DRM protecting the files is the least intrusive and annoying of all their (legal) competitors.
Yes the iPod is good, I own one, I like it. I used to own a godawful Creative slab of junk, it was crap, I threw it.
What I don't like is Apple changing how I share my music without so much as an acknowledgement of a change like this. Was that the result of industry pressure and if so, how far is it likely to go?
The danger as I see it is that if Apple continues to run with a closed system that both supplies them with a large chunk of revenue from their hardware sales and relies on content from others, then they're open to abuse plain and simple. To extricate themselves from that, they'll either need to allow other players to use their shop, or allow their players to use other shops, otherwise the music industry that currently feeds them could potentially be their downfall.
Slashdot Mirror
Laptops are killing desktops for knowledge workers for one reason; keeping your data with you wherever you are. Ten or more years ago you'd find people went to work, worked, then went home again. However, it's not the laptop per se that's killed off the desktop, it's peripheral advances like wireless technology, increased mobile bandwidth and minaturisation that have done this. Wireless is without a doubt the number one reason why laptops boomed massively in the last 3 or so years.
Mobile technology also means a mobile workforce. I currently deal with around 250+ users across three locations. A lot of the supplemental departments (finance, HR, operations) move between sites and visit clients, and it's easier for them to take their whole work environment with them than mess about with software licenses, having redundant desktops lying dormant for 50% of the time etc. etc.
Granted, it's great from their point of view, but laptops are a much bigger concern for IT departments like ours, especially when they get lugged home, used on broadband conections or used on a VPN connection. They're also a pain to keep updated as users tend to move around more - maybe even connect to client networks that don't have the same level of security. In the long run though, we'd rather supply them with a manageable device like a laptop rather than have them mess around with assorted PDAs and smartphones. laptops also have a more tangible value associated with them, so in 99% of cases you don't get silly accidents.
That said, the laptop may be killing off the humble desktop, but it will never kill off the workstation. For other departments - CGI, storyboard, development, edit etc. - a laptop simply would never cut it. Lots of nearline storage (TB+), colour-matched dual monitors, renderfarms and gigs of RAM are things I'd never want to lug around in a laptop. I know some people will say it can be done, but I would hate to ever consider cutting broadcast quality video and audio on a laptop. It's also important to note that these people don't need to take their data with them. They aren't 'knowledge workers' like the others, but employed to utilise their skills on the material in situ.
That said, laptops still have a long way to go before they approach the reliability of a desktop - I think we get a fourfold increase in failures on laptops generally.
Top 10 missing ones:
Red Dwarf
Blake's 7
Battle of the Planets (C'mon, Futurama's in there!)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
DS9
Lexx
The Prisoner
Seaquest DSV
Stingray
Captain Scarlett
Seems someone's got selective-memoryitis...
HP technology has always been my number one choice for helping me tolerate defective chips...
...should simply not be allowed to be posted here; magazines make a point of not doing it, so should websites. We all seen those articles in the past slating graphics cards before helpfully pointing out that the drivers are still being working on and this doesn't seem any different.
While I wouldn't expect Microsoft to touch Photoshop with a beta version of a graphics package, I'd prefer to reserve judgement until the packages is shrink wrapped on the shelves. As it stands, it's a cheap shot at Microsoft which is undeserved, especially if you consider the large number of open source projects which are continually being worked on that would be equally at home under the label 'dodgy beta'.
People - Microsoft included - that put betas out tend to do so for constructive criticism, not for review.
I think common sense is evidence enough. This is happening on a world scale, unless you can point out areas of the planet's surface that have been devoid of human interaction over the last 20-30 years. As far as seasons go, the effects that the study concentrates on tend to be long-term rather than seasonal, so seasonal evidence would be pointless.
Look at the basic facts; we are on a planet with finite resources. World population is growing, and human consumption of resources is growing.
Long term, the math doesn't work out. It's not a case of if we screw up this planet, it's a case of when, and more people equals acceleration towards that point, more space used, more fuels used, more products consumed.
The main problem is that as a planet, we all have to act to make it a sustainable environment. This means actually reducing what we use, not slowing down, or keeping it the same, but actually reducing the amount of resources we use. If one country *cough* decides to ignore this fact, it undermines the point of the exercise.
As far as your comment about hippies who want the developing countries to starve to death; well, they already do starve. But if world poverty was wiped out tomorrow the world over, the developed world would have to change its consumptive habits overnight for the world to sustain itself.
At the end of the day, everything on this planet is not okay, and all of our eggs are in one basket.
From the linked article, it's also important to note that "The Korean site, unlike U.S. versions, was operated by another company". So the pilot wasn't even Microsoft.
This wasn't mentioned by the story poster at all, which probably wouldn't have been accepted if it read - more truthfully - Unpatch Microsoft Web Server Compromised. We all know that an unpatched MS server is vulnerable. With that in mind, it just reads like well-crafted front page FUD.
There is a complete lack of Microsoft stuff in the article which leaves what I'd consider quite a gaping hole in the history of PDAs.
The reason is simply because when Microsoft entered the market, it was the first time a compatible desktop architecture and design had been ported across to a PDA. To a certain extent, they have also been instrumental in turning a PDA into a fully fledged, compatible and capable platform, adding Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, colour screens etc. Palm would certainly have rested on their laurels more if it wasn't for MS entering the market and we'd probably still be using black and white 2MB Palms.
The Microwriter Agenda. While the linked article incorrectly mentions it was the first PDA, it did have one very inetersting feature; built into the right hand side of the device was a 5-key microwriter input system which allowed for 'blind' input. This is a variant of a chorded keyboard - quite an interesting read.
Has anyone ever done any reseach on how often Bill Gates has been right in his predictions?
"A computer on every desk and in every home" - 1977
I'd say he was pretty much on the ball with that one, although it took until 1995 for him to realise that they'd all be connected together with wires...
I've often worried about the entire Apple product line in this sense.
If you look at how much design work they've put into their products, you can't help feeling that at some point soon, they're going to end up with the ideal solution. And at about that point, you suddenly have a major problem; stagnation of the product range, or change for the sake of change.
The iMac is a good example; where exactly do you go from an all in one LCD? Same with the iPod. It plays music, and it plays it really well. How do you improve on it without making it more complex, or adding features some users would find redundant? Or do you simply make cosmetic changes now and again to keep it fresh?
"Just goes to show that making something painless for the user can often lead to the technology being abused by more nefarious individuals"
Yup, it's a bit like scripting in Outlook and ActiveX in IE; incredibly useful in a fully controlled environment, but incredibly vulnerable in the wild and hugely open to exploitation. I would have assumed Apple would've seen the fun and games that MS has had with scripting, embedding and browser/OS interaction over the years to not let something like this happen.
Microsoft seemed to end up in knots trying to sort out the ActiveX and scripting debacles, the result being lots of dialog boxes and the IE info bar (easily faked in a web page too!), so it will be interesting to see how Apple go about fixing it, which I'd assume would be a simple block on automatic installs.
I don't know much about these kinds of systems, but I would've always assumed that partial unencrypted data would be much easier to recover in a plane crash situation. I guess it would pretty much instantaneously stop transmitting from the engine in question when the system failed.
However, wouldn't encrypted data bring with it the risk that you couldn't get the data back? What happens if you have partial encrypted data in the system? Is there a risk that the encryption could make piecing together accidents more time-consuming or render the data useless to the investigation?
In theory, could it even assist denying responsibility if the engine itself was the cause of a crash?
It is useful until you find that error -36 is written up as:
-36 ioErr I/O error
It'll point you in the right direction I guess, but it's by no means a definitive description of the error.
I must admit that I'm a little baffled as to why Apple don't include better error reporting and descriptions in OSX. It is because they are still assuming these kind of errors will only be seen by techs that know what they mean, or are they still living in a world where they refuse to acknowledge that Macs do throw up the occasional message to the user?
Credit for system-wide scripting languages goes to Xerox PARC and SmallTalk on the Alto. Smalltalk formed the inspiration for HyperCard and later AppleScript.
You also have AREXX on the Amiga (1985), RiscOS on the Archimedes was also fully scripted (1987), and you could argue that the MS-DOS command shell (1979) and batch filing methods are akin to an OS-wide scripting language, particularly as a major goal of AppleScript was to make up for the Mac's lack of a CLI. Interesting to note that the opposite happened for NT 3.51 - the MS-DOS shell was slated for removal, but left in to fulfil the role of system scripting.
If you go to the maps.google.com, zoom right out and switch to satellite view, you can scroll over to the right where the UK is and hey presto satellite views!
It's not complete yet and only zooms halfway in before you're notified it's incomplete, but it should definitely be something to look forward to.
While the iPod is probably being used to get headlines and generate column inches for the Uni, the iPod simply isn't a great tool for kids at college.
How about a Palm? Pocket PC? Treo? Creative Nomad, Olympus dictaphone for Pete's sake? Lots more features designed to assist you plan, organise and take notes, moreso than an iPod. Even cheaper Flash players have built in dictaphones, radios and suchlike. Probably cheaper too - a Palm has Bluetooth a camera, voice recording. See what students can do with that.
So while I think iPods are great as MP3 players, I'm pretty sure that the real value here is probably why we're discussing it; publicity.
And if that's the motive then sorry, but it's a misuse of funds.
Came with Office Professional 95, indexed Office documents only, but it did it extremely well and ran in the background. As far as I remember, searches were done without copious disk thrashing.
I have no idea where Mac desktop searches were in 1995, but that was probably the first time I saw a search that pre-archived results and indexed content within a document. Ok, so it was only Office documents but it was a breakthrough at the time. Since then they've fiddled around with Index Services, but they're awful and system intensive.
Yes, although with Dell, sticking to their guns will ultimately keep their costs down.
The reason is the way Dell do business. They have very little inventory, and an incredibly streamlined build process. Adding an additional CPU to the mix means that it would need to be rolled out across a number of servers, meaning more components, more suppliers, more support and more staff. In the end, people buy from Dell because they're Dell, not because they sell Opterons. So the net effect here is that by competing against another 3 manufacturers in Opteron territory, they're making the choices harder for their own customers who want Dell and don't give a monkey about what's in it.
I can agree that product range is a great idea, but that's the key to confusion and lack of product identity rather than choice. I came across a company recently that sold 30 models of laptop, 44 mono laser printers and 41 types of colour inkjet. Some of those products were competing against each other and certainly didn't have time to research it so I didn't buy.
That company was HP, and I certainly think some conservative business talk could help them out right now.
I wouldn't say the Tablet PC has failed (I own one, and I think it's an awesome device), but if the basic forms of computing gadget for the foreseeable future are limited to desktop, notebook and PDA and we're happy with that, then we may as well stop innovating now. I sure as hell don't want to be stuck with three form factors 20 years from now...
Desktop computers, servers, laptops and phones have all started in their niche markets in the past, and I'm happy for MS to use their cash to kickstart market segments that may or may not yield results. In some cases, they might stumble on something worthwhile. A one-handed interface has benefits for in-car PCs, industrial devices, phones and related devices like touchscreens and mouse design. Long term, the aggregation of ideas from this with existing PDA and tablet technology might yield devices that appeal more to the mainstream.
You have a point. If you add up the amount of cash you'd've spent since 2000 updating OSX, then you're looking at around $380 including 10.4.
However, while each one does contain a substantial number of bug fixes and roll-ups of previous patches, they also contain a large number of additional features, and I assume that the underlying codebase has changed enough to warrant the 10.x change. I personally think Apple are allowed to do this. It certainly doesn't need an 11.x moniker, but is related to the same family of OS - a bit like Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME. So in hindsight, OSX's current five year history of changes, fixes and additions pretty much parallels the Windows 95 to ME path; same codebase, different versions.
I can see where you're coming from though - the point update does seem a little strange, but with OSX, I guess Apple need to get a little more mileage out of their 'X' symbol. You certainly shouldn't have been marked a troll, I think it's a valid point.
Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?
Obviously people at telco companies go to great lengths to avoid out of hours work calls from the boss...
"enough list that something will probably not work on a high percentage of machines in any sizable deployment of Windows XP."
From experience, larger deployments of machines tend to have a much smaller pool of applications that are used. This is partly down to administration overheads, machine build overheads and user permissions - most in a large deployment won't have the ability to add new software themselves. If you use a piece of software widely, then it's easier to replace/patch/whatever. A worse scenario would be a small number of machines that are managed by their users.
"Windows admins have a good reason to be a bit careful here. Windows Service Packs have a long tradition of making systems or applications no longer function."
I'd agree with you here, although I'd also point out that a big deployment would also point towards some decent testing and a rollout plan. XP SP2 has been around for a year now, as has the knowledge that some applications break. For an IT admin to sit on a known problem for a year is a little daft, especially in a large setup. Even a gradual rollout, or rebuilding/deploying new machines with SP2 would have given useful knowledge vital to their specific setup. Instead, 12 months down the line, they're still flying blind.
The point is; the risks of upgrading to XP SP2 are known and can be managed. The risks of not upgrading to it are unknown, and potentially problematic to everyone.
- grab older tracks that had been deleted and hence weren't making the record companies any money
- download tracks they owned on vinyl because they didn't have the time to rip them
- downloaded song simply becasue they were free and never in a month of Sundays would they ever consider buying them.
Just because they logged a downloaded doesn't guarantee that it was lost income."RIAA use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination."
...that the atmosphere immediately before the extinction of life on this planet will not be favourable.
Heck, we live in a window of opportunity on this planet. It started when conditions became favourable and it'll end when they become unfavourable, or we blow ourselves up... which after careful thought is pretty much the same thing.
All things considered though, I suppose it's nice that they've found out a bit more about conditions then, but maybe the title of their study should've been a more accurate:
Early Earth atmosphere more favourable to life than we first thought .
Hmmm, I suppose that I'd better clarify that I don't think getting the government involved is a good thing at all (especially when they are open to lobbying and all sorts of underhand tricks).
The player is really good, the store interface is the best (IMHO), the amount of music choices available legally is the best, the software is easy to use, the value is decent, the DRM protecting the files is the least intrusive and annoying of all their (legal) competitors.
Yes the iPod is good, I own one, I like it. I used to own a godawful Creative slab of junk, it was crap, I threw it.
What I don't like is Apple changing how I share my music without so much as an acknowledgement of a change like this. Was that the result of industry pressure and if so, how far is it likely to go?
The danger as I see it is that if Apple continues to run with a closed system that both supplies them with a large chunk of revenue from their hardware sales and relies on content from others, then they're open to abuse plain and simple. To extricate themselves from that, they'll either need to allow other players to use their shop, or allow their players to use other shops, otherwise the music industry that currently feeds them could potentially be their downfall.