From a pure programming language perspective, Java and C# are very comparable. I personally prefer Java. C# put in a lot of effort to remove programming "hassles" like automatic boxing, enums, generics, etc., but Java has caught up in 1.5. And both are very good for learning OO concepts and software design.
The main difference (IMO) comes from the APIs. Unless you happen to be one of those people who write command-line apps for their desktop computing fibonacci numbers, you will need to understand a billion APIs - XML, SOA, GUI, and god-only-knows what. And good-luck trying to master both...
( putting on fireproof vest). C# today seems to be more popular for "desktop" and "GUI" kind of applications. Java OTOH seems to be more popular with "server" kind of applications. So your choice finally boils down to - what kind of applications do you see yourself developing.
The _REAL_ reason for American companies to be testing drugs on
India is not to save money - its to reduce (eliminate?) their
legal liability. In a country like India, they can literally
get away with murder. And if someone does sue the company, you
can always depend on snail-pace of the Indian legal system to
tie up the case for 10-30 years in court.
Personally I cannot blame American companies for doing something
like this - after all, they are running a business. It is really
the Indian Government's reponsibility to ensure high standards
and proper accountability for drug testing. But then, a small
"donation" of a few thousand dollars is often enough to buy the
silence of most govt. officials.
An iPod is basically an entertainment device albeit with some limited
productivity-oriented features ( Contacts/Addressbook). The PDA is more
of a productivity-oriented device, and (to me) the cell phone is a basically
a productivity device. I use the "how painful is it when it runs out of battery?" test to figure out which category a device falls into.
I cannot see all the three ever being rolled into one device ( imagine running
out of battery listening to songs and then realizing you need to make a phone
call). So I would like to have ONE "productivity" device and ONE "entertainment"
device. In my world, my iPod would have my music, video, and (yes!) games. And
my cellphone would have my addressbook/calendar/email etc.
However, since most carriers/cellphone manufacturers do not provide an open or
elegant interface to pull in the addressbook/calendar information into a phone,
people with complex schedules and large addressbooks are basically stuck carrying all three. ( Yes, the Blackberry changed some of that, and I know that you can get sync your phone using bluetooth/ugly cables etc..)
In the future, mobile phones will likely provide better "integration" of the productivity features such as addressbook / calendar / simple applications for order taking etc etc. But I never see them being used as an "entertainment device" ( due to the "running out of battery" issue) - that need will always
be fullfilled by stand-alone devices.
In either case, the PDA is dead... and that is the trend that we see..
The U.S. military is developing technology to disable, jam, and even destroy enemy satellites.
oh goody !! since we clearly cannot defend ourselves
against roadside bombs, explosive laden speedboats, and backpacks, we must spend $$ to defend ourselves against non-existent threats..
Shouldn't we first be spending $$ to armour the
humvees... ?
I have often thought of using a mac mini as a
media server, but always got turned off by the
idea of having to use a kbd/mouse (even a wireless
one) to control it.
It seems that is should be possible to create a bluetooth remote control for a Mac to do all
the "media-like" functions. It would probably look
just like a Tivo remote with maybe a few more buttons that could be used to trigger pre-programmed macros.
Providing a good support organization is a matter
of hitting a balance between "cost" and "competence". Unfortunately, the latter is difficult to measure, so most companies end up being heavily biased towards "cost".
The first step to fixing a problem is an
organization wide acceptance that the problem
is real. This kind of a meeting between the
"establishment" and "hackers" is so unprecedented, I can only assume that Microsoft is totally serious about fixing security.
The one thing we do know from the Netscape vs IE war is that when Microsoft puts it mind to it, they are capable of working miracles. The same
story goes for the WinCE vs Palm OS war. So I am
quite confident that Microsoft will evenually be
able to deliver it promise of "secure computing environment".
Maybe Microsoft will have to take some drastic changes to the OS to get there, but then Apple had to do the same to get where they are today
with OSX.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I run both WinXP and MAC OSX at home, and own MSFT stock:)
Maybe we can look at "safety" in terms of
(a) fatalities per million miles _or
(b) fatalities per trip.
I do not know what the numbers are, but i figure
it should be easy to find out the total number of fatalities in US related to car accidents, the number of cars in the country and approx how many miles they travel annually. You can then use that to
compute (a) and (b).
My gut feel is that cars would fare better on both counts. Of course, _your_ Nissan Quest could be an exception...
So Digital TV will allow me to have a billion TV channels. So what I am going to watch on them ? I hear people tell me that "don't worry, there will be a channel for almost anything you want, and it will be on demand".
Well, guess what ? I ALREADY have a billion channels TODAY, on DEMAND. Its called the internet. Yeah Yeah, I cannot stream video but still I do have access to billion channels of _information_
I am already overloaded with too much JUNK on TV. Uptil 3 months ago I had extended basic (50? channels), and I had a hard time finding anything decent. Now I am back to my 12-channels of basic TV.
This whole digital TV thing seems to be a massive conspiracy on part of the entertainment / cable industry to screw you out of another $80 per month. Time to say NO! to your Cable Company.
Let me start off by saying that I have been
using Quicken since 1998, and I used to upgrade
every year. But starting from 2001 IMO their product has been going downhill. I recently was considering upgrading to 2004, and the universal feedback was that it is a piece of C***. Ditto for Quicken 2005. As one of my friends put it
"Unlike MSFT which takes a crappy product and improves it over time, Intuit took a perfectly good product and destroyed it over time".
Back to "what do you expect?"...
I do NOT expect Intuit to support old software for T_infinity. That is unreasonable. However,
I do expect Intuit to improve their software
over time. Assuming that is... they want to
retain some of their loyal customer base.
I do not know how Quicken's market share has
been doing over the past few years, but anectodotal experience suggests that fewer
and fewer Quicken "loyalists" are upgrading to
newer versions. And that cannot be too good
for INTU.
It will be very funny it the constant "improvements" in Quicken turn out to be the very reason for its doom.
-SD
"Gilmore first sued the government and several airlines in July 2002 after airline agents refused to let him board planes in San Francisco and Oakland without first showing an ID or submitting to a more intense search. He claimed in his lawsuit the ID requirement was vague and ineffective and violated his constitutional protections against illegal searches and seizures."
Maybe Mr. Gilmore would take a slightly different position if his wife/kids were on one of the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11. Or maybe Mr. Gilmore would like to be subjected to a full body cavity search in lieu of showing an ID.
I am a foreigner in this country, and frankly I think the security people at the airport are doing
a good job. Yes, I do have to take off my shoes once in a while, and it is a hassle to have to put all my electronic items in my backback before going thru the metal detector. But if that were NOT happening, I would really really be scared to get on a plane after 9/11.
I don't want any "constitutional protection" that is going to increase the probabbilty of me getting killed.
Okay, fans, how does this compare to the T-Mobile Sidekick or RIM Blackberry?
My company just switched over all us to the the Blackberry 7750 on the Verizon network.
The BB is an awesome device for email / calendar / contacts, but it totally totally sucks as a phone. Its lacking features that are present in even the most basic phones today. Some examples
(a) I cannot have a custom ring-tone for a specific number. So now everytime my phone rings, I need to actually look at the phone in order to figure out if this is call from my boss/wife
(b) No voice-activated dialing.
(c) No auto-detect of hands-free mode. Most phones can be configured to "auto answer" (or "auto answer if incoming number is in address book") in the hands-free mode, and the phone will automatically switch to hands free mode when you plug in the headset. Not the Blackberry
The list goes on and on...
As PDA, my main complaint is the lack of good (and free) 3rd party software. No RPN, Pocket Quicken, etc. etc.
> To get access to the AP, you need to try to
> pull up something in your Web browser. When you > do, you first get redirected to a page that
> says, "Hi, welcome to our network!" or
> something similar.
Isn't this what http://nocat.net/ does ?
but then I am a newbie, so may be confused...
Slashdot Mirror
The main difference (IMO) comes from the APIs. Unless you happen to be one of those people who write command-line apps for their desktop computing fibonacci numbers, you will need to understand a billion APIs - XML, SOA, GUI, and god-only-knows what. And good-luck trying to master both ...
( putting on fireproof vest). C# today seems to be more popular for "desktop" and "GUI" kind of applications. Java OTOH seems to be more popular with "server" kind of applications. So your choice finally boils down to - what kind of applications do you see yourself developing.
Personally I cannot blame American companies for doing something like this - after all, they are running a business. It is really the Indian Government's reponsibility to ensure high standards and proper accountability for drug testing. But then, a small "donation" of a few thousand dollars is often enough to buy the silence of most govt. officials.
An iPod is basically an entertainment device albeit with some limited productivity-oriented features ( Contacts/Addressbook). The PDA is more of a productivity-oriented device, and (to me) the cell phone is a basically a productivity device. I use the "how painful is it when it runs out of battery?" test to figure out which category a device falls into. I cannot see all the three ever being rolled into one device ( imagine running out of battery listening to songs and then realizing you need to make a phone call). So I would like to have ONE "productivity" device and ONE "entertainment" device. In my world, my iPod would have my music, video, and (yes!) games. And my cellphone would have my addressbook/calendar/email etc. However, since most carriers/cellphone manufacturers do not provide an open or elegant interface to pull in the addressbook/calendar information into a phone, people with complex schedules and large addressbooks are basically stuck carrying all three. ( Yes, the Blackberry changed some of that, and I know that you can get sync your phone using bluetooth/ugly cables etc ..)
In the future, mobile phones will likely provide better "integration" of the productivity features such as addressbook / calendar / simple applications for order taking etc etc. But I never see them being used as an "entertainment device" ( due to the "running out of battery" issue) - that need will always
be fullfilled by stand-alone devices.
In either case, the PDA is dead ... and that is the trend that we see ..
oh goody !! since we clearly cannot defend ourselves against roadside bombs, explosive laden speedboats, and backpacks, we must spend $$ to defend ourselves against non-existent threats ..
Shouldn't we first be spending $$ to armour the humvees ... ?
It seems that is should be possible to create a bluetooth remote control for a Mac to do all the "media-like" functions. It would probably look just like a Tivo remote with maybe a few more buttons that could be used to trigger pre-programmed macros.
Wonder if stuff like this exists ..
Providing a good support organization is a matter of hitting a balance between "cost" and "competence". Unfortunately, the latter is difficult to measure, so most companies end up being heavily biased towards "cost".
The one thing we do know from the Netscape vs IE war is that when Microsoft puts it mind to it, they are capable of working miracles. The same story goes for the WinCE vs Palm OS war. So I am quite confident that Microsoft will evenually be able to deliver it promise of "secure computing environment".
Maybe Microsoft will have to take some drastic changes to the OS to get there, but then Apple had to do the same to get where they are today with OSX.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I run both WinXP and MAC OSX at home, and own MSFT stock :)
My gut feel is that cars would fare better on both counts. Of course, _your_ Nissan Quest could be an exception ...
Well, guess what ? I ALREADY have a billion channels TODAY, on DEMAND. Its called the internet. Yeah Yeah, I cannot stream video but still I do have access to billion channels of _information_
I am already overloaded with too much JUNK on TV. Uptil 3 months ago I had extended basic (50? channels), and I had a hard time finding anything decent. Now I am back to my 12-channels of basic TV.
This whole digital TV thing seems to be a massive conspiracy on part of the entertainment / cable industry to screw you out of another $80 per month. Time to say NO! to your Cable Company.
Ho Hum ..... If you REALLY want to impress
people, then design a simulation of how
corporate management ( and IT in particular)
thinks and behaves.
Let me start off by saying that I have been using Quicken since 1998, and I used to upgrade every year. But starting from 2001 IMO their product has been going downhill. I recently was considering upgrading to 2004, and the universal feedback was that it is a piece of C***. Ditto for Quicken 2005. As one of my friends put it "Unlike MSFT which takes a crappy product and improves it over time, Intuit took a perfectly good product and destroyed it over time". Back to "what do you expect?"... I do NOT expect Intuit to support old software for T_infinity. That is unreasonable. However, I do expect Intuit to improve their software over time. Assuming that is ... they want to
retain some of their loyal customer base.
I do not know how Quicken's market share has
been doing over the past few years, but anectodotal experience suggests that fewer
and fewer Quicken "loyalists" are upgrading to
newer versions. And that cannot be too good
for INTU.
It will be very funny it the constant "improvements" in Quicken turn out to be the very reason for its doom.
-SD
Maybe Mr. Gilmore would take a slightly different position if his wife/kids were on one of the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11. Or maybe Mr. Gilmore would like to be subjected to a full body cavity search in lieu of showing an ID.
I am a foreigner in this country, and frankly I think the security people at the airport are doing a good job. Yes, I do have to take off my shoes once in a while, and it is a hassle to have to put all my electronic items in my backback before going thru the metal detector. But if that were NOT happening, I would really really be scared to get on a plane after 9/11.
I don't want any "constitutional protection" that is going to increase the probabbilty of me getting killed.
Mr. Gilmore ... take a hike.
Okay, fans, how does this compare to the T-Mobile Sidekick or RIM Blackberry?
...
My company just switched over all us to the the
Blackberry 7750 on the Verizon network.
The BB is an awesome device for email / calendar / contacts, but it totally totally sucks as a phone. Its lacking features that are present in even the most basic phones today. Some examples
(a) I cannot have a custom ring-tone for a specific number. So now everytime my phone rings, I need to actually look at the phone in order to figure out if this is call from my boss/wife
(b) No voice-activated dialing.
(c) No auto-detect of hands-free mode. Most phones
can be configured to "auto answer" (or "auto answer if incoming number is in address book") in the hands-free mode, and the phone will automatically switch to hands free mode when you plug in the headset. Not the Blackberry
The list goes on and on
As PDA, my main complaint is the lack of good (and free) 3rd party software. No RPN, Pocket
Quicken, etc. etc.
> To get access to the AP, you need to try to > pull up something in your Web browser. When you > do, you first get redirected to a page that > says, "Hi, welcome to our network!" or > something similar. Isn't this what http://nocat.net/ does ? but then I am a newbie, so may be confused ...