How about Claude.A? I mean, really, *YOU* named *one* mac virus in *your* post.
Do you count that as a Mac virus? First it does not work on a default install. Second, the payload does nothing on MacOS, thus it is not exactly "for" OS X. Third, it is entirely possible to infect my mac with all sorts of viruses. I just open up my Windows virtual machine to the internet an voila! I still don't count them as MacOS X viruses.
Doesn't it ship with Python? At the very least bash scripts are equivalent in a fairly functional way. Trusting silly scripts is required, and dumb, but in the most cases this is required on Windows too.
Yes it ships with a number of scripting languages. The differences are nothing auto-executes scripts, privilege escalations are non-trivial, and users are warned when downloading anything that may execute and again the first time they try to execute something. Even then, most users are not root, so it requires a password to install a rootkit.
Also, ActiveX isn't really a security problem these days either.
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Whew. That's a good one.
As you mention, the main benefit of OSX (and other fairly sensible OSs) is damage limitation.
This is in no way true. Most exploits are via worms that execute without user intervention. The next largest chunk are viruses that execute by tricking the user into thinking they are data. The third largest chunk are data that is malformed and auto executes on a web page or in an e-mail or IM. The fourth largest chunk is a trojan masquerading as a desired application. The first is due to a whole lot of unnecessary, exposed services in Windows (Think RPC, yeah we need a network service for the system to run local programs, brilliant!). OS X does not, and has never shipped with a bunch of exposed services. As the the next vector, OS X warns the user when executables tries to masquerade as data when being downloaded and when clicked. For the third vector, this is mostly nullified by network applications that do not mingle code with the subsystem and by the warning the first time executables are run. This only leaves trojans masquerading as applications. This is the only type where OS X's damage control figures in, and hopefully Apple will implement default jails or VMs for new applications by default (as some BSD distributions are looking at) and ameliorate this problem as well.
Sure running as administrator is part of the problem, but it is not the biggest part, especially given the numerous unpatched local privilege escalations available on Windows. Both of those problems would need to be fixed to have any real affect and fixing the other flaws I mentioned are more important to preventing exploits.
One annoyance of OSX is that it is oriented towards a single-user running local (cocoa) programs, rather than a multiuser system.
The non-server version is certainly geared towards one or few local users, but what I think you're talking about here is multiple, remote users. You're right that it is not geared towards this and assumes you will use a real client server model for remote uses. Still X11 works remotely just as well as on Linux, so at worst you are forced to use the same subset of programs as on Linux. I'm not sure how this is any worse than Linux.
Another annoyance is the idea of tiered sales. With linux, you generally get unencumbered software. With OSX, I understand you get a client to browse windows file shares - but not the server.
Again, this is only true for software that is not available for Linux. As you even mention you can always just install and run Samba or whatever yourself.
It seems to be a lot easier to find Open Source software for linux (or X11) than for native OSX.
I don't know of much open source software that you might run on Linux that you can't find a OS X port of. Everything I use I found a version of for OS X. Conversely, however, I don't find a lot of of the closed source shareware/payware that is available OS X on Linux. Companies like Adobe, Macromedia, MS, etc. have ports of almost everything for the mac, but little for Linux. I also find the body of OS X only open source freeware to be useful. I can't count the number of times I've wanted some functionality only to have Google hand me a nice, polished little app that does just that.
I'm not the person to answer your questions for development on OS X (I played a little but don't have the time to code non-work things). Obviously there is some sort of model for re-using code since so many things offer system services that do run in any application, regardless of whether or not the originating application is running. I haven't seen real, working examples of this type of thing anywhere in Windows or Linux (although I really wish it would take hold).
I guess, in the end, OSX just ends up feeling a bit too proprietary, and the limitations are not ones I can readily accept. Sure, features like Expose are cool - but if it weren't there, I could still use Alt-Tab or click on the Launcher. If network transparency isn't there, there is no suitable substitute.
I guess I know how you feel. I need certain applications that just aren't on Linux. I have a hard time living without translation services in my publishing application and e-mail and without a pile of text manipulation scripts I apply everywhere. The problem is, on Linux I have to copy and paste between formats to apply them. I can use VNC for the rare instances I need a remote GUI on my machine and SSH the rest of the time. What is important is your way of working and what it is you need.
The original point I was trying to make, however, is how so many things on OS X are superior and how working on other systems often feels like a downgrade. All of the points I made in my original post stand. OS X is superior in those ways. It is inferior in its ability to display applications over a network, but never in a way that has restricted me. I hope if you stick with Linux, some day it manages to copy applications as folders, services, and the other features I mentioned. Good luck.
They believe that their systems are more secure (which is justified to and extent). But they believe they are so secure that they don't bother running any protection.
So far, they have been right. More people running virus protection have suffered ill effects from it malfunctioning than have been saved from damage by that anti-virus. There have been two instances now where companies have released defective virus protection software that damaged data and systems. There have been no instances of viruses in the wild. Until there are (and believe me we'll find out about it bloody quickly when it happens) there is no point running software that scans for nothing. Having a steel breastplate is useful if you live in a jungle full of people shooting poison darts. Here in macland, however, it is more likely to cause you to die of heat exhaustion. Until that environment changes, the reasonable person will not use it.
I think Mac users will need a wake up call (i.e. devestating worm or virus) before they actually show any interest in security at all.
You're dead wrong. Most mac users, like most other suers, have no interest in security. If it becomes an issue they will do something. One of the reasons I feel more confident on an OS X machine is that I know how many security experts are using them and I know a honeypot or IDS is going to find anything propagating in the wild really, really quickly. OS X has its issues and it makes sense to look for trojans and use good security practices, but out of the box, I feel confident in letting my mother run it and that just isn't true of Windows. Your opinion may differ, but we'll see whose mother has problems first.
I don't have time to do more research to help your denial, but I would suggest you actually do a bit of research yourself and see that OSX is no more perfect than any other OS. PERIOD.
"More perfect" is improper English. OS X is not perfect. It is more secure than most other OS's, especially as a default install. Your "research" has turned up a trojan (not a virus or worm) that Apple has even made harder to use and which has no exploit code included. This does not qualify as an exploit in the wild.
You also turned up a half-assed rootkit, with no way to get it on the box. This is not a virus or worm or even an exploit of any sort, let alone one in the wild. This is a really poorly written example of what someone might install after they did run a successful exploit.
Finally, you found a decent rootkit, again with no way to get it on the box.
So you found three programs that do what they are supposed to provided you have the permissions and passwords needed to run them. And you call these exploits? You know what? There are almost certainly OS X exploits existing in the wild. They are used by individuals with some skill to compromise specific machines for specific purposes. These exist for pretty much all platforms. They are not, however, worms or viruses, or anything a normal user has to worry about. Trying to equate whatever non-public exploits and a few programs that do what they are intended to with the permissions they are given with the unholy mess that is Windows exploits in the form of worms, viruses, and known hacks is a joke.
The next time you feel like doing some "research" how about starting with some definitions of malware and a basic understanding of what constitutes an exploit. Basically, get a clue.
1. No castle wall in the past ever kept the invaders out indefinetly[sic]
This is patently untrue. There are plenty of castles that were never taken, just abandoned or decommissioned.
2. Never understimate[sic] a determined person.
Guess what, there are people out there that can hack your Windows, Linux, or OS X box. There are some really smart people out there and they can always find a way into a generic box. Guess what, there are also really smart people out there that can lock down a box so well, obfuscated behind honeypot VMs and with such tight permissions, ACLs, and hardware keys that no one will ever hack them. We're not talking about either type of people. We're talking about virus/worm authors. Most of them are in it for the fun or to make a profit selling bots. A few want to use them for a DoS attack or for some other purpose. The majority of these people with any clue have so much low hanging fruit to gather they will probably never bother with an OS X machine unless Windows actually implements reasonable security. What is the real risk? The risk is that someone will write a mac virus just because it hasn't been done yet. It certainly can happen, but with the default security, the giant target next door, the number of profession security people on macs, and the relative speed of Apple's responses to threats it just isn't something that I'm going to bother worry much about.
That's beside the point of the article. The article wasn't blasting security on the Mac, it was pointing out that Mac's are susceptible to problems to. Doesn't the vulnerability of software running on a Mac constitute a security problem on the Mac? If I can get in does it matter if it's through the OS directly or through an application?
Yes, it does matter. A remote exploit available in the default install of an OS is what allows for a worm to propagate and is what makes plugging an unpatched Windows machine into a network suicide. Local vulnerabilities that don't even include a privilege escalation are a completely different severity. When those vulnerabilities further do not even have any payload that will affect OS X, well that is less of a threat as well.
The article was suggesting that Mac users need to be every bit as cautious as the "rest of us" on our Windows boxes. It was railing against the same type of thinking that causes parents to decide not to get their children vaccinated against things like measles because you never hear of measles cases anymore. Of course not! It's because we've been vaccinated! So Mac users: go get your booster shots.
Your analogy is flawed. How about if parents on the remote island of Wabbachucha don't go to the bother of flying to the mainland to get their kids vaccinated when their has never been a single reported case of measles on the island, while there have been a number of plane crashes flying to the mainland. Right now the mac neighborhood is in pretty good shape. By default the machines are relatively secure, and the architecture lends itself to containing and preventing security issues. It makes sense to be cautious and it makes sense to take precautions, but you have to have a reasonable threat assessment. If you have an 18 year old daughter living in Detroit, it might make sense for her to get a concealed pistol permit, especially if she goes out at night. On Wabbachucha, crime is so low the risk is greater that she will injure or kill herself than prevent harm to herself.
So far there have been no worms or viruses that have affected the mac. All vulnerabilities have been fixed before that becomes a problem. So far there have been two instances of virus scanning software for the mac that have had adverse affects and damaged files. Personally, I run ClamAV and LittleSnitch as well as some other useful precautions, but for the average user, they really are better off without these days. Mac users, don't get your booster shots until there is something in the syringe. Until there actually are viruses for the Mac propagating in the wild, don't risk installing possibly buggy virus scanners and certainly don't pay money for them.
But besides that, what would be the practical reason for XP on a Mac? It's not like the PC hardware is too expensive or anything.
I carry a laptop with me every day. You don't see any value in that laptop being able to run applications for Windows, OS X, and Linux as opposed to just two of those three? Well, we probably use our machines for very different things then.
I'd much rather see Apple port OSX to the PC, if that happened software makers would do more things for the OS, and then M$ would finally have some strong competition. (Yea, don't flame, but Linux is not going to compete against M$ for the home market anytime soon). Apple would make a killing, but would risk being known as M$ v. 2.0 since Apple's advantage is they own the hardware and can write the OS around one type of hardware.
This is not really an option. The computer OS market is 99% the pre-installed computer OS market. If it does not come on the machine, most users will never buy it. No major OEM will pre-install OS X, since they rely upon MS's differential pricing goodwill. MS can raise the OEM price for Dell from $25 to $100 and suddenly they are dying on price comparisons. If you ran Dell would you risk your successful business on the gamble that OS X would suddenly take off? Only a new hardware maker with a bundled OS has any hope of competing, like Apple. Maybe a new company would be created, but then they would be beholden to Apple, just as the existing companies are to MS, except also directly competing. At the same time as all of this, many Apple users, who are among the tech savvy minority, would purchase the OS and run it on x86, thus greatly hurting their main source of income, hardware sales. So Apple loses half it's incoming profit in an attempt to gain market share for the tiny percentage of users who will use a non-preinstalled OS. And what can they hope to achieve here? Dell hold abut 20% of the market right now (they are number 1) and they are valued as less than Apple already. You are proposing huge risks and changing a successful business model with very little potential return.
Yes, people on Slashdot and other technical sites would like Apple to release OS X for generic x86. That does not mean it makes business sense to do so.
Someome please, for the love of all that is holy explain to me why you would spend that kind of money to get intel hardware and then boot Windows XP?
I'll buy one for consolidating functionality onto fewer machines. Not all applications will run well in a virtual machine. VMware has no OS X client. It is still being developed. VirtualPC would be Intel emulating PPC emulating Intel. That is to say, slow as a dead monkey. No word yet on a timetable for a new version. So for today, Dual booting is the only option available.
If you want to boot windows XP, AMD is your friend. Price AND Performance crowns are with AMD.
This is true on desktops and servers, but not on laptops right now. The Intel Duo blows away any AMD offering I have seen for performance/power consumption. AMDs are cheap and fast, but they suck power like mad compared to the 65nm Intel CPUs and the AMD competitor is not due till Q4.
This is tantamount to saying something like "Hey, I just got a new Ferrari and the engine bay will accept a four-cylinder Chevrolet engine...."
Your analogy is not very apt. Computers are made to run OS's and programs. Cars are made to drive on roads. Your Ferrari will drive the same places with either engine. The computer will be able to run completely different software. Allow me to attempt a better analogy. Hey, I can detach the Ferrari's suspension and reattach to a tracked vehicle system. Now I can drive my Ferrari up to my place in the mountains in the winter, or through the river ford. I can still use it to drive like a maniac on the Autobahn too.
To be honest, OS X doesn't impress me - as a user. If I were in an artistic field, maybe my opinion would be different, but I can't see any reason to pay the Apple tax either. My computers are tools. I make my purchasing decision just as if I were buying a cordless drill or something. Except with computers, I keep in mind that the technology will be obsolete in a year.
Really? I don't know anyone who is computer savvy and who has used OS X for any length of time that is not impressed by it. Some of the features are so obvious that after using one I'm astounded that every OS has not implemented them. I mean some of the features like Expose and Dashboard are really convenient once you get to use them, but no UI feature will be everyone's cup of tea. Other features, however, like system wide services and apps that are directories are just so obviously superior to everything that has come before that I can't see how anyone would doubt that they are the way things should be done. How could one argue that having features from one program (or independent of any program) that can be used by all other programs. It saves the hassle and overhead from multiple programs replicating the same functionality. It will be very difficult to convince me to downgrade to a system where you can't use your spellchecker in all applications. I'd never pay money to have my word processor be able to translate from German, but I'm happy to pay a few bucks to let my word processor, chat client, e-mail, web browser, terminal, and newsgroup reader do the same.
And applications as folders. I can e-mail or transfer via chat programs that actually work properly when they get to recipient. I can copy a program onto a flash drive or an ipod and it works just fine. I can back up programs without worrying about installers. I can look at the resources within a program and copy or edit them without any special tools. It's so simple it is obvious. The real question is, why can't all OSs do this?
The UI is great and more consistent, but more importantly for me is the multitasking. It actually works under high loads. I have a dozen applications running right now, and that is normal. Having one open does not cause all the others to crawl, as happens on Windows. Stability is great. My uptime on my laptop right now is 45 days, even though I carry it back an forth to work every day and used it to game at a LAN party last weekend. I reboot when I upgrade the kernel or major system components. I can run the vast majority of software designed for Linux, including X apps, as well as most mainstream software, since most things have a mac port. It saves me from having to maintain a separate Linux workstation. I run Windows in emulation in order to test a few things when I'm away from a test box.
I guess what I'm not seeing is how you consider another OS to be superior. Maybe if you need some specific, resource intensive application that only runs on Windows, you're stuck. But in general OS X is simply the best workstation OS I have ever used. I'd also question your comments about it being an OS for artists. I work at a firm that creates network security devices. We have a lot of engineers and a handful of well respected security experts. Guess what OS most of them run? OS X is pretty prominent in a lot of fields, especially computers, sciences, arts, news, publishing, video production, etc. The areas it is not popular are home users (MS monopoly on pre-installs), office work (too expensive in the short term), and fields with specific, locked-in applications (like CAD).
With the new, intel based machines now being released I'm looking at consolidating three workstations into one. I don't know any other system that will let me do this, especially given that the performance hit for running Windows and Linux as virtual machines will be relatively small. I like having a screwdriver and a good knife and a good pair of pliers in my workshop. On my belt, however, I carry a multi-tool that combines all of these and more. I only carry one laptop. Guess which one it is and will be for the foreseeable future?
I've asked this before, but does anyone know when NeoOffice will be ported?
The port is non-trivial and work is ongoing. They hope to have it working sometime this year. Detailed information is available in this support forum thread. I looked this up because I was curious about the answer too, but it took me all of five seconds to google this. You might want to try that in future, rather than Slashdot.
Apple agreed not to let Mac OS run on regular PCs for the same duration. As long as they keep it tied to their hardware, Microsoft really has no worries about a Windows competitor.
You've got this very wrong. MS has a desktop OS monopoly. Believe it or not, but the pre-installed OS market is the only one that matters. Unlike Slashdot, the rest of the world does not ever install a new OS on their machines. The market for non-preinstalled OS is basically non-existent. Since all OEMs that don't have their own OS to ship with are wholly dependent upon MS, and MS has different prices with each one, MS can kill any PC maker that does something like selling OS X pre-installed. I doubt, then, that they made a deal with Apple to keep Apple from selling to OEMs. They don't need Apple's agreement to do this. In fact the only way any other OS can really gain market share is if they find or are a hardware maker that exclusively sells their own OS. Right now, that is Apple. Should they grab a significant market share (say 20%) another OEM might be willing to bet the company on switching to OS X. Until that time, however, MS does not need to worry.
I would surmise the deal that is keeping MS making office is either the threat of a new anti-trust lawsuit (that is what made this same deal last time) or Apple agreeing not to ship a competitor to Office. It probably did not take too much on the table since MS would be in hard position as a convicted monopolist killing a very profitable product that works on their largest competitors platform. It would be a slam dunk lawsuit against them.
I think the UI is fine too. And I am fine with paying $1.99 to stream a video. I don't understand what the fuss over the DRM is. The fee doesn't buy you a copy of the film.
You'll note, I did not object to the price. I objected to the limited functionality versus a download or DVD. If I want to watch a TV show with limited resolution, that means I'm probably not going to want to watch it on my TV. Instead I'll be watching it on my screen. When would I want to do that? Pretty much only when I'm waiting for a plane, commuting, or otherwise away from home. Since I can't stream without a fast internet connection, I can't watch these shows anytime I'd be interested in watching shows of that quality. That is how the DRM is a problem.
I saw a piece on this the other day, so I checked out the Web site. I'm one of those people who is pretty critical of bad UIs (just ask my co-workers). I don't see any major problems with their Web site UI. It's nothing especially good or bad. I did not have any problem using it. I'm not too keen on the DRM, as it seems to be implemented and it seems a little deceptive if you can't actually download the files for viewing, only stream them. That isn't really buying a video, just subscribing to a service that will stream it for you. It makes it pretty useless for watching shows on your laptop while commuting, or on a drive.
My opinion is the service is technologically too limited to be useful to me, but the UI is just fine.
You don't need to install any files to any restricted directory to do Java development in any form. Period.
Your comment is nonsense. You don't even know what platform we're talking about, or what restrictions are placed on users in that environment. Maybe he is running on a locked down Linux box and has no permission to install executables at all.
However the GP specifically said the whole debacle started when he needed the sysadmin to install the JDK, which is not Open Source.
This much is true.
Third - That's pretty much standard operation procedure for big corporations... Not where I work
I've worked a number of places where legal was over-enthusiastically paranoid and banned everything they could think of left and right. On company I worked at developed software that ran on Linux and a number of UNIX's. We did all out development on cheap Dells running, Linux or BSD. Note this was our company's only product and source of income. Corporate banned all freeware specifically including Linux and banned all e-mail programs except outlook. Obeying those rules would have meant absolutely all production in the company would come to a halt. After that kind of foolishness, I'm not surprised by anything lawyers dream up. Before that job Dilbert was funny, then one day it just became really, really depressing. I stopped reading it for about a year after something in one of the comics actually happened to me the same day. Luckily, I don't work there anymore and things like this are funny again. Do not, however, doubt the stupidity of corporate lawyers.
If he has been assigned to develop an application that is going to run on Apache/Tomcat, then someone already approved Apache/Tomcat to be used. So why does it need to go through a re-approval process?
Usually approval for servers is given on a per-machine basis in more locked-down environments.
Not every company is staffed by idiots. We aren't even talking about PHBs here - this sounds like idiots tfrom the top through the whole chain down, including the GP poster. Supposedly a Java developer, yet not even knowing he does not need admin access to install the JDK/Tomcat/Eclipse. Obviously he does not know much about the Java platform.
Certainly there is paranoia, but not necessarily idiocy. As mentioned earlier, we don't know the state of security, lockdown, etc. For that matter, maybe the user is on generic Windows, but this is their first Java project and the JDK would not install for some unrelated reason. As for all the bureaucracy, it may be warranted, depending upon the environment, liability, etc. Be careful about labeling people idiots before you have all the information.
In reality, the legal team should just go through the major F/OSS libraries then they would have no need to continually ask people about "what ifs". They could have a checklist of things that the software will be used for and you could probably tell in 15 minutes whether or not that licence is acceptable for that case.
Your description looks a lot like an e-mail I received the other day at work. If you want to include software on/in products list the code, license, use and send it to legal. They review it, approve it, and add it to our license database. The nicest thing is they can give us guidelines in advance listing what we should be able to do with code from a particular license (dynamic linking, static linking, include but without alterations). Companies that aren't leveraging open source code are at a serious disadvantage due to their substandard legal team.
I hate macs. Bastardized UNIX with an infuriating and unconventional graphical interface.
So you're saying you're interested in news about things that might make them more prevalent and thus force you to use said interface? And you're interested in news that means you might be able to install Windows on macs so you don't have to use said interface? See even mac haters are interested in the latest news.
Yup. Call me "old fashioned", but who am I likely to trust more on sight, someone who looks neat, clean, and obviously cares about their appearance, or someone sloppy, slovenly, who apprently doesn't care what other people think?
You're a fool. Some of those people who look "neat and clean" are anti-social and are planning on using your implicit trust to take advantage of you. Some of them are just conformist who for one reason or another wish to or must dress a particular way. Half of them just walked out of a catholic school and are now planning to slash your tires and beat the crap out of you in an angst ridden unfocused attack on their "oppression." Judging someone based on their clothes is very foolhardy unless you can show me some real evidence that there is a correlation between dress and behavior. I've certainly never seen such a correlation despite common nonsense.
And now for the shocker -- some of these "reporbates" are actually decent kids. The problem is that they've been fed a lie, that adults are the cause of all their problems, adults don't understand them, and adults don't deserve any respect. They find it easier to be malcontents than to take a good hard look at their own behavior and realize that they do it to themselves. We all do. How we act and how we react to the things going on in this world shapes who we are, not the events themselves.
You seem to be forgetting what it is like to be underage in this country. Sure lots of young people have not yet learned personal responsibility. That is the fault of their parents and teachers as much as it is their own though. They should have learned those lessons when they were ten.
At the same time, however, you can't demand a person be responsible when they are not given corresponding rights. The two concepts are implicitly intertwined. Juveniles have a lot demanded of them and are not given the choice of where they live, how they dress, where they go, what they say. They basically have none of the basic freedoms granted to all people by international human rights laws. That is right and proper, to a point. Children mature at different rates and if you expect them to be responsible, you have to grant them the power to use that responsibility. This doesn't mean saying, "OK you can pick out your own clothes now so long as it meets my specifications." This means actually letting them make their own choices and live with the results of those choices.
So forgive me if my attitude seems a bit out of place in the modern world, but perhaps we need to go back to some "old fashioned" values like decency, honesty, and respect.
Don't forget other olde fashioned values like slavery, child abuse, sexism, racism, hatred, intolerance, ignorance, etc., etc. The "good olde days" were old, but they were rarely good. In your post you've already advocated prejudice and lack of respect for people who choose to dress differently. Decency is a catch-all term without real meaning as a "value." It is usually used by people who want to promote a particular religious doctrine without appearing to be doing so. Do tell. How is dressing in a different fashion than you dishonest?
Take a look at "appropriate" clothing over time. You''ll find such variation. It has not been so long since formal gowns exposed the nipples, nor since short hair was considered improper without a wig. Clothing styles change all the time and this foolish ideal that whatever our grandparents wore is "proper" is just that... foolish. What your grandparents wore was different from what their grandparents wore and so on. They were not being "proper." Your grandchildren (should you have any) will wear something else. Please, really consider this issue. What values are you demonstrating to others by being intolerant of changes in clothing styles and ridiculing others for choosing differently than you? Objectively apply real ethics to this issue. What is unethical about their choices and why are you so against them?
Depending upon the clock speed, Intel seems to be between 15% and 60% better for power consumption in real world applications. That is a lot when you're looking at a laptop. Right now The intel duo uses less power when pegged than the best available AMD while idle. Maybe AMD will catch up. AMD is doing really well for server/desktop chips especially for price/power but are behind for laptops. Maybe Apple will use AMD processors in future. Right now, it looks like they made the right choice to me.
I agree with most of your post, but then I read the following:
Kids walk around dressed in mismatched, mis-sized clothes. Where di they get them? Most of them don't have jobs, so it must be dear-old-mom-and-dad who are letting them dress like hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates.
What does this have to do with anything? You think the style of kids clothing is a problem? They aren't dressing like "hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates" because those people can't afford new clothing in the latest style or fad. Even if kids do dress like tramps, who cares? Do you really judge a person by their clothes? If so, you've chose a foolish metric. I know both children and adults of all levels of intelligence and responsibility and let em tell you, the only correlation between clothing and either characteristic is as imposed by employers due to social expectations. Perpetuating the belief that people have to dress in whatever fashion is similar to our grandparents is in no way productive. Give it a rest.
Who would give a fuck about intel-based mac laptops except an apple fanboy?
All those people who are either curious about macs and would like to try them, with the option of going back to Windows for mainstream applications or all those people like me who use a handful of OS's daily and would finally like one portable that can run all the apps I need.
Eventually OSX will be hacked to run on other x86-based laptops, so arguably even software compatibility is not a reason to buy one.
Yeah, I'm sure that will work really well. For some of us computers are tools. I don't want to waste my time with some hacked version of an OS. I want one box that does all I need and has good support and service.
I would be excited if they had gone AMD, which would have been cheaper and faster. They didn't. I don't care.
AMD is not there for low power. They just don't have good portable chips right now.
Re:Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 820
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The Media's Crush on Apple
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 8200
For the last umpteen years I could buy an intel machine and run Linux or Windows or Solaris or a BSD. I could also buy a PPC laptop that ran OSX or Linux or BSD. What I wanted was a Laptop of either variety with reasonable speed that could run Linux and Windows and OS X. As of February I may be able to buy such a laptop. This is different and is news. I'll read an article about this. I don't care about articles about other random laptops unless they can run OS X.
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it.
Pretty much. They also created a bluetooth remote control and incorporated a camera, in the laptop.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX.
Well, that and they created an EFI implementation, the first in a laptop I know of. Oh, and they tested things and got them working smoothly on 32 and 64 bit PPC at the same time as 32 bit intel. Oh, and they got all of their core applications working on the same. Oh and they announced they will have all their pro applications upgraded by march.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform.
You've missed the point entirely. News is not just when someone does something very well, it is when someone does something that changes things. Anybody can pull a trigger, but When John Wilkes Booth did it the news reported it constantly. Everyone knew Apple could release for the intel platform, but it is still news that they have done so.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose[sic] needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel.
Do compare what Apple has released lately to what MS has released. The press reports on what there is to report on. Apple releases new things. They report. MS releases nothing, they try to make up something and end up publishing articles that don't have any news in them.
Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has[sic] in the computer world, zero!
Actually, I use Widgets regularly. Every day, I press a button and see the weather, doppler radar, traffic reports. Many days I use the quick yellow pages, google map widget, or the simple timer to send me an alert in time to meet people for lunch. They impact my life, much more so than some random laptop I have no interest in buying.
The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it.
Yeah, but they aren't cool. They don't run OS X, just crappy old WinXP. They don't have a cool remote. They don't let you do new things. You just don't get it. Apple moving to intel is the news. It changes the industry dynamic and will change the way a lot of us work. I might be able to finally be down to one workstation. Who cares if there is a Windows box with the same specs, it isn't challenging MS's stranglehold on the market and it isn't going to fix the industry so that we can have competition and reasonable progress again. It does not carry with it the hope for an end to these computing dark ages. If Einstein had a brother who looked just like him, but would work for cheaper, would it make news?
If Hamilton-beach, sunbeam, Oster or any other appliance manufacturer came out with a blender that attacked you in the middle of the night I'm fairly confident that company would be bankrupt very shortly. The market would take care of itself and adjust accordingly.
Ahh, but that is an extreme example, extreme enough to get media attention and overcome apathy. Also, you're assuming people found out about it quickly. What if the blender army collected enough blood in a night so that it was more profitable than the company would otherwise make in many years of honest dealings. You can't rely upon the market to police based upon profitability because, as MS has proved, breaking the law is often profitable.
Making data mining illegal is NOT a valid way to stop it for several reasons. First, it's not enforceable in any kind of practical way.
Sure it is. In fact forms of data mining are illegal in some countries right now.
Politicians and many of their constituents seem to think that just because a law is made the problem will go away. History has shown us that this is just not true. Drug laws haven't stopped drugs, traffic laws haven't stopped speeders and data mining laws won't stop data miners.
The first two items on your list are attempting to change the behaviors of the populace as a whole using a an inadequately small police force. Speeding laws are not supposed to stop speeding. They are designed to motivate people to not speed "too much" and to provide an alternative income to outright taxation. Laws against murder actually do stop a lot of murders. Laws against embezzlement deter much embezzlement. Are you trying to argue all laws are useless?
There just aren't enough resources available to supervise every revision of every software product out there.
Who cares? Prosecuting some provides a deterrent to others and money to prosecute still more.
Second, when the law was enforced, it's unlikely the law would be enforced evenhandedly. Our current legal climate is favoring large businesses.
So? This has always been true. It is no reason not to create such a law and in fact is less likely to be abused against an individual, since most individuals do not mine data for commercial purposes.
Third, the penalties would have to be outrageous to make data mining stop being an economically viable activity. How much more music do you think iTunes will sell by being able to target their customers more accurately?
Large fines are not a problem. It has come out, in the last day that Apple is not data mining and keeps no personally identifying information on customers. So they won't sell any more or less.
Finally, how could 'data mining' be defined? Would we arrest, as someone else in this article pointed out, the hippy down at the used book store that remembers what you like? All the grocery stores with their discount cards? Webmasters that watch their stats to see which page is most popular?
Grocery stores don't care about your data, they just use it to count sales to market themselves to manufacturers. As for defining data mining, that would require more legalese than I car to attempt right now. This is all beside the point. The original issue is not creating databases of information. The problem is with collecting information using your computer and internet connection, secretly, without warning. The issue is spyware, not databases of information collected from spyware. The issue is deceptive software that does things users have no reason to assume it is doing. Trying to change the subject to data mining is just avoiding the issue.
Can't the slashdot editors answer this one? Why do you have half of the front page filled with apple stories?
Because Apple announced a bunch of new products and many users want to know about them and discuss them. I mean what nerd is not interested in intel macs on a site peopled by computer geeks?
Slashdot Mirror
How about Claude.A? I mean, really, *YOU* named *one* mac virus in *your* post.
Do you count that as a Mac virus? First it does not work on a default install. Second, the payload does nothing on MacOS, thus it is not exactly "for" OS X. Third, it is entirely possible to infect my mac with all sorts of viruses. I just open up my Windows virtual machine to the internet an voila! I still don't count them as MacOS X viruses.
Doesn't it ship with Python? At the very least bash scripts are equivalent in a fairly functional way. Trusting silly scripts is required, and dumb, but in the most cases this is required on Windows too.
Yes it ships with a number of scripting languages. The differences are nothing auto-executes scripts, privilege escalations are non-trivial, and users are warned when downloading anything that may execute and again the first time they try to execute something. Even then, most users are not root, so it requires a password to install a rootkit.
Also, ActiveX isn't really a security problem these days either.
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Whew. That's a good one.
As you mention, the main benefit of OSX (and other fairly sensible OSs) is damage limitation.
This is in no way true. Most exploits are via worms that execute without user intervention. The next largest chunk are viruses that execute by tricking the user into thinking they are data. The third largest chunk are data that is malformed and auto executes on a web page or in an e-mail or IM. The fourth largest chunk is a trojan masquerading as a desired application. The first is due to a whole lot of unnecessary, exposed services in Windows (Think RPC, yeah we need a network service for the system to run local programs, brilliant!). OS X does not, and has never shipped with a bunch of exposed services. As the the next vector, OS X warns the user when executables tries to masquerade as data when being downloaded and when clicked. For the third vector, this is mostly nullified by network applications that do not mingle code with the subsystem and by the warning the first time executables are run. This only leaves trojans masquerading as applications. This is the only type where OS X's damage control figures in, and hopefully Apple will implement default jails or VMs for new applications by default (as some BSD distributions are looking at) and ameliorate this problem as well.
Sure running as administrator is part of the problem, but it is not the biggest part, especially given the numerous unpatched local privilege escalations available on Windows. Both of those problems would need to be fixed to have any real affect and fixing the other flaws I mentioned are more important to preventing exploits.
One annoyance of OSX is that it is oriented towards a single-user running local (cocoa) programs, rather than a multiuser system.
The non-server version is certainly geared towards one or few local users, but what I think you're talking about here is multiple, remote users. You're right that it is not geared towards this and assumes you will use a real client server model for remote uses. Still X11 works remotely just as well as on Linux, so at worst you are forced to use the same subset of programs as on Linux. I'm not sure how this is any worse than Linux.
Another annoyance is the idea of tiered sales. With linux, you generally get unencumbered software. With OSX, I understand you get a client to browse windows file shares - but not the server.
Again, this is only true for software that is not available for Linux. As you even mention you can always just install and run Samba or whatever yourself.
It seems to be a lot easier to find Open Source software for linux (or X11) than for native OSX.
I don't know of much open source software that you might run on Linux that you can't find a OS X port of. Everything I use I found a version of for OS X. Conversely, however, I don't find a lot of of the closed source shareware/payware that is available OS X on Linux. Companies like Adobe, Macromedia, MS, etc. have ports of almost everything for the mac, but little for Linux. I also find the body of OS X only open source freeware to be useful. I can't count the number of times I've wanted some functionality only to have Google hand me a nice, polished little app that does just that.
I'm not the person to answer your questions for development on OS X (I played a little but don't have the time to code non-work things). Obviously there is some sort of model for re-using code since so many things offer system services that do run in any application, regardless of whether or not the originating application is running. I haven't seen real, working examples of this type of thing anywhere in Windows or Linux (although I really wish it would take hold).
I guess, in the end, OSX just ends up feeling a bit too proprietary, and the limitations are not ones I can readily accept. Sure, features like Expose are cool - but if it weren't there, I could still use Alt-Tab or click on the Launcher. If network transparency isn't there, there is no suitable substitute.
I guess I know how you feel. I need certain applications that just aren't on Linux. I have a hard time living without translation services in my publishing application and e-mail and without a pile of text manipulation scripts I apply everywhere. The problem is, on Linux I have to copy and paste between formats to apply them. I can use VNC for the rare instances I need a remote GUI on my machine and SSH the rest of the time. What is important is your way of working and what it is you need.
The original point I was trying to make, however, is how so many things on OS X are superior and how working on other systems often feels like a downgrade. All of the points I made in my original post stand. OS X is superior in those ways. It is inferior in its ability to display applications over a network, but never in a way that has restricted me. I hope if you stick with Linux, some day it manages to copy applications as folders, services, and the other features I mentioned. Good luck.
They believe that their systems are more secure (which is justified to and extent). But they believe they are so secure that they don't bother running any protection.
So far, they have been right. More people running virus protection have suffered ill effects from it malfunctioning than have been saved from damage by that anti-virus. There have been two instances now where companies have released defective virus protection software that damaged data and systems. There have been no instances of viruses in the wild. Until there are (and believe me we'll find out about it bloody quickly when it happens) there is no point running software that scans for nothing. Having a steel breastplate is useful if you live in a jungle full of people shooting poison darts. Here in macland, however, it is more likely to cause you to die of heat exhaustion. Until that environment changes, the reasonable person will not use it.
I think Mac users will need a wake up call (i.e. devestating worm or virus) before they actually show any interest in security at all.
You're dead wrong. Most mac users, like most other suers, have no interest in security. If it becomes an issue they will do something. One of the reasons I feel more confident on an OS X machine is that I know how many security experts are using them and I know a honeypot or IDS is going to find anything propagating in the wild really, really quickly. OS X has its issues and it makes sense to look for trojans and use good security practices, but out of the box, I feel confident in letting my mother run it and that just isn't true of Windows. Your opinion may differ, but we'll see whose mother has problems first.
I don't have time to do more research to help your denial, but I would suggest you actually do a bit of research yourself and see that OSX is no more perfect than any other OS. PERIOD.
"More perfect" is improper English. OS X is not perfect. It is more secure than most other OS's, especially as a default install. Your "research" has turned up a trojan (not a virus or worm) that Apple has even made harder to use and which has no exploit code included. This does not qualify as an exploit in the wild.
You also turned up a half-assed rootkit, with no way to get it on the box. This is not a virus or worm or even an exploit of any sort, let alone one in the wild. This is a really poorly written example of what someone might install after they did run a successful exploit.
Finally, you found a decent rootkit, again with no way to get it on the box.
So you found three programs that do what they are supposed to provided you have the permissions and passwords needed to run them. And you call these exploits? You know what? There are almost certainly OS X exploits existing in the wild. They are used by individuals with some skill to compromise specific machines for specific purposes. These exist for pretty much all platforms. They are not, however, worms or viruses, or anything a normal user has to worry about. Trying to equate whatever non-public exploits and a few programs that do what they are intended to with the permissions they are given with the unholy mess that is Windows exploits in the form of worms, viruses, and known hacks is a joke.
The next time you feel like doing some "research" how about starting with some definitions of malware and a basic understanding of what constitutes an exploit. Basically, get a clue.
1. No castle wall in the past ever kept the invaders out indefinetly[sic]
This is patently untrue. There are plenty of castles that were never taken, just abandoned or decommissioned.
2. Never understimate[sic] a determined person.
Guess what, there are people out there that can hack your Windows, Linux, or OS X box. There are some really smart people out there and they can always find a way into a generic box. Guess what, there are also really smart people out there that can lock down a box so well, obfuscated behind honeypot VMs and with such tight permissions, ACLs, and hardware keys that no one will ever hack them. We're not talking about either type of people. We're talking about virus/worm authors. Most of them are in it for the fun or to make a profit selling bots. A few want to use them for a DoS attack or for some other purpose. The majority of these people with any clue have so much low hanging fruit to gather they will probably never bother with an OS X machine unless Windows actually implements reasonable security. What is the real risk? The risk is that someone will write a mac virus just because it hasn't been done yet. It certainly can happen, but with the default security, the giant target next door, the number of profession security people on macs, and the relative speed of Apple's responses to threats it just isn't something that I'm going to bother worry much about.
That's beside the point of the article. The article wasn't blasting security on the Mac, it was pointing out that Mac's are susceptible to problems to. Doesn't the vulnerability of software running on a Mac constitute a security problem on the Mac? If I can get in does it matter if it's through the OS directly or through an application?
Yes, it does matter. A remote exploit available in the default install of an OS is what allows for a worm to propagate and is what makes plugging an unpatched Windows machine into a network suicide. Local vulnerabilities that don't even include a privilege escalation are a completely different severity. When those vulnerabilities further do not even have any payload that will affect OS X, well that is less of a threat as well.
The article was suggesting that Mac users need to be every bit as cautious as the "rest of us" on our Windows boxes. It was railing against the same type of thinking that causes parents to decide not to get their children vaccinated against things like measles because you never hear of measles cases anymore. Of course not! It's because we've been vaccinated! So Mac users: go get your booster shots.
Your analogy is flawed. How about if parents on the remote island of Wabbachucha don't go to the bother of flying to the mainland to get their kids vaccinated when their has never been a single reported case of measles on the island, while there have been a number of plane crashes flying to the mainland. Right now the mac neighborhood is in pretty good shape. By default the machines are relatively secure, and the architecture lends itself to containing and preventing security issues. It makes sense to be cautious and it makes sense to take precautions, but you have to have a reasonable threat assessment. If you have an 18 year old daughter living in Detroit, it might make sense for her to get a concealed pistol permit, especially if she goes out at night. On Wabbachucha, crime is so low the risk is greater that she will injure or kill herself than prevent harm to herself.
So far there have been no worms or viruses that have affected the mac. All vulnerabilities have been fixed before that becomes a problem. So far there have been two instances of virus scanning software for the mac that have had adverse affects and damaged files. Personally, I run ClamAV and LittleSnitch as well as some other useful precautions, but for the average user, they really are better off without these days. Mac users, don't get your booster shots until there is something in the syringe. Until there actually are viruses for the Mac propagating in the wild, don't risk installing possibly buggy virus scanners and certainly don't pay money for them.
But besides that, what would be the practical reason for XP on a Mac? It's not like the PC hardware is too expensive or anything.
I carry a laptop with me every day. You don't see any value in that laptop being able to run applications for Windows, OS X, and Linux as opposed to just two of those three? Well, we probably use our machines for very different things then.
I'd much rather see Apple port OSX to the PC, if that happened software makers would do more things for the OS, and then M$ would finally have some strong competition. (Yea, don't flame, but Linux is not going to compete against M$ for the home market anytime soon). Apple would make a killing, but would risk being known as M$ v. 2.0 since Apple's advantage is they own the hardware and can write the OS around one type of hardware.
This is not really an option. The computer OS market is 99% the pre-installed computer OS market. If it does not come on the machine, most users will never buy it. No major OEM will pre-install OS X, since they rely upon MS's differential pricing goodwill. MS can raise the OEM price for Dell from $25 to $100 and suddenly they are dying on price comparisons. If you ran Dell would you risk your successful business on the gamble that OS X would suddenly take off? Only a new hardware maker with a bundled OS has any hope of competing, like Apple. Maybe a new company would be created, but then they would be beholden to Apple, just as the existing companies are to MS, except also directly competing. At the same time as all of this, many Apple users, who are among the tech savvy minority, would purchase the OS and run it on x86, thus greatly hurting their main source of income, hardware sales. So Apple loses half it's incoming profit in an attempt to gain market share for the tiny percentage of users who will use a non-preinstalled OS. And what can they hope to achieve here? Dell hold abut 20% of the market right now (they are number 1) and they are valued as less than Apple already. You are proposing huge risks and changing a successful business model with very little potential return.
Yes, people on Slashdot and other technical sites would like Apple to release OS X for generic x86. That does not mean it makes business sense to do so.
Someome please, for the love of all that is holy explain to me why you would spend that kind of money to get intel hardware and then boot Windows XP?
I'll buy one for consolidating functionality onto fewer machines. Not all applications will run well in a virtual machine. VMware has no OS X client. It is still being developed. VirtualPC would be Intel emulating PPC emulating Intel. That is to say, slow as a dead monkey. No word yet on a timetable for a new version. So for today, Dual booting is the only option available.
If you want to boot windows XP, AMD is your friend. Price AND Performance crowns are with AMD.
This is true on desktops and servers, but not on laptops right now. The Intel Duo blows away any AMD offering I have seen for performance/power consumption. AMDs are cheap and fast, but they suck power like mad compared to the 65nm Intel CPUs and the AMD competitor is not due till Q4.
This is tantamount to saying something like "Hey, I just got a new Ferrari and the engine bay will accept a four-cylinder Chevrolet engine...."
Your analogy is not very apt. Computers are made to run OS's and programs. Cars are made to drive on roads. Your Ferrari will drive the same places with either engine. The computer will be able to run completely different software. Allow me to attempt a better analogy. Hey, I can detach the Ferrari's suspension and reattach to a tracked vehicle system. Now I can drive my Ferrari up to my place in the mountains in the winter, or through the river ford. I can still use it to drive like a maniac on the Autobahn too.
To be honest, OS X doesn't impress me - as a user. If I were in an artistic field, maybe my opinion would be different, but I can't see any reason to pay the Apple tax either. My computers are tools. I make my purchasing decision just as if I were buying a cordless drill or something. Except with computers, I keep in mind that the technology will be obsolete in a year.
Really? I don't know anyone who is computer savvy and who has used OS X for any length of time that is not impressed by it. Some of the features are so obvious that after using one I'm astounded that every OS has not implemented them. I mean some of the features like Expose and Dashboard are really convenient once you get to use them, but no UI feature will be everyone's cup of tea. Other features, however, like system wide services and apps that are directories are just so obviously superior to everything that has come before that I can't see how anyone would doubt that they are the way things should be done. How could one argue that having features from one program (or independent of any program) that can be used by all other programs. It saves the hassle and overhead from multiple programs replicating the same functionality. It will be very difficult to convince me to downgrade to a system where you can't use your spellchecker in all applications. I'd never pay money to have my word processor be able to translate from German, but I'm happy to pay a few bucks to let my word processor, chat client, e-mail, web browser, terminal, and newsgroup reader do the same.
And applications as folders. I can e-mail or transfer via chat programs that actually work properly when they get to recipient. I can copy a program onto a flash drive or an ipod and it works just fine. I can back up programs without worrying about installers. I can look at the resources within a program and copy or edit them without any special tools. It's so simple it is obvious. The real question is, why can't all OSs do this?
The UI is great and more consistent, but more importantly for me is the multitasking. It actually works under high loads. I have a dozen applications running right now, and that is normal. Having one open does not cause all the others to crawl, as happens on Windows. Stability is great. My uptime on my laptop right now is 45 days, even though I carry it back an forth to work every day and used it to game at a LAN party last weekend. I reboot when I upgrade the kernel or major system components. I can run the vast majority of software designed for Linux, including X apps, as well as most mainstream software, since most things have a mac port. It saves me from having to maintain a separate Linux workstation. I run Windows in emulation in order to test a few things when I'm away from a test box.
I guess what I'm not seeing is how you consider another OS to be superior. Maybe if you need some specific, resource intensive application that only runs on Windows, you're stuck. But in general OS X is simply the best workstation OS I have ever used. I'd also question your comments about it being an OS for artists. I work at a firm that creates network security devices. We have a lot of engineers and a handful of well respected security experts. Guess what OS most of them run? OS X is pretty prominent in a lot of fields, especially computers, sciences, arts, news, publishing, video production, etc. The areas it is not popular are home users (MS monopoly on pre-installs), office work (too expensive in the short term), and fields with specific, locked-in applications (like CAD).
With the new, intel based machines now being released I'm looking at consolidating three workstations into one. I don't know any other system that will let me do this, especially given that the performance hit for running Windows and Linux as virtual machines will be relatively small. I like having a screwdriver and a good knife and a good pair of pliers in my workshop. On my belt, however, I carry a multi-tool that combines all of these and more. I only carry one laptop. Guess which one it is and will be for the foreseeable future?
I've asked this before, but does anyone know when NeoOffice will be ported?
The port is non-trivial and work is ongoing. They hope to have it working sometime this year. Detailed information is available in this support forum thread. I looked this up because I was curious about the answer too, but it took me all of five seconds to google this. You might want to try that in future, rather than Slashdot.
Apple agreed not to let Mac OS run on regular PCs for the same duration. As long as they keep it tied to their hardware, Microsoft really has no worries about a Windows competitor.
You've got this very wrong. MS has a desktop OS monopoly. Believe it or not, but the pre-installed OS market is the only one that matters. Unlike Slashdot, the rest of the world does not ever install a new OS on their machines. The market for non-preinstalled OS is basically non-existent. Since all OEMs that don't have their own OS to ship with are wholly dependent upon MS, and MS has different prices with each one, MS can kill any PC maker that does something like selling OS X pre-installed. I doubt, then, that they made a deal with Apple to keep Apple from selling to OEMs. They don't need Apple's agreement to do this. In fact the only way any other OS can really gain market share is if they find or are a hardware maker that exclusively sells their own OS. Right now, that is Apple. Should they grab a significant market share (say 20%) another OEM might be willing to bet the company on switching to OS X. Until that time, however, MS does not need to worry.
I would surmise the deal that is keeping MS making office is either the threat of a new anti-trust lawsuit (that is what made this same deal last time) or Apple agreeing not to ship a competitor to Office. It probably did not take too much on the table since MS would be in hard position as a convicted monopolist killing a very profitable product that works on their largest competitors platform. It would be a slam dunk lawsuit against them.
I think the UI is fine too. And I am fine with paying $1.99 to stream a video. I don't understand what the fuss over the DRM is. The fee doesn't buy you a copy of the film.
You'll note, I did not object to the price. I objected to the limited functionality versus a download or DVD. If I want to watch a TV show with limited resolution, that means I'm probably not going to want to watch it on my TV. Instead I'll be watching it on my screen. When would I want to do that? Pretty much only when I'm waiting for a plane, commuting, or otherwise away from home. Since I can't stream without a fast internet connection, I can't watch these shows anytime I'd be interested in watching shows of that quality. That is how the DRM is a problem.
I saw a piece on this the other day, so I checked out the Web site. I'm one of those people who is pretty critical of bad UIs (just ask my co-workers). I don't see any major problems with their Web site UI. It's nothing especially good or bad. I did not have any problem using it. I'm not too keen on the DRM, as it seems to be implemented and it seems a little deceptive if you can't actually download the files for viewing, only stream them. That isn't really buying a video, just subscribing to a service that will stream it for you. It makes it pretty useless for watching shows on your laptop while commuting, or on a drive.
My opinion is the service is technologically too limited to be useful to me, but the UI is just fine.
You don't need to install any files to any restricted directory to do Java development in any form. Period.
Your comment is nonsense. You don't even know what platform we're talking about, or what restrictions are placed on users in that environment. Maybe he is running on a locked down Linux box and has no permission to install executables at all.
However the GP specifically said the whole debacle started when he needed the sysadmin to install the JDK, which is not Open Source.
This much is true.
Third - That's pretty much standard operation procedure for big corporations... Not where I work
I've worked a number of places where legal was over-enthusiastically paranoid and banned everything they could think of left and right. On company I worked at developed software that ran on Linux and a number of UNIX's. We did all out development on cheap Dells running, Linux or BSD. Note this was our company's only product and source of income. Corporate banned all freeware specifically including Linux and banned all e-mail programs except outlook. Obeying those rules would have meant absolutely all production in the company would come to a halt. After that kind of foolishness, I'm not surprised by anything lawyers dream up. Before that job Dilbert was funny, then one day it just became really, really depressing. I stopped reading it for about a year after something in one of the comics actually happened to me the same day. Luckily, I don't work there anymore and things like this are funny again. Do not, however, doubt the stupidity of corporate lawyers.
If he has been assigned to develop an application that is going to run on Apache/Tomcat, then someone already approved Apache/Tomcat to be used. So why does it need to go through a re-approval process?
Usually approval for servers is given on a per-machine basis in more locked-down environments.
Not every company is staffed by idiots. We aren't even talking about PHBs here - this sounds like idiots tfrom the top through the whole chain down, including the GP poster. Supposedly a Java developer, yet not even knowing he does not need admin access to install the JDK/Tomcat/Eclipse. Obviously he does not know much about the Java platform.
Certainly there is paranoia, but not necessarily idiocy. As mentioned earlier, we don't know the state of security, lockdown, etc. For that matter, maybe the user is on generic Windows, but this is their first Java project and the JDK would not install for some unrelated reason. As for all the bureaucracy, it may be warranted, depending upon the environment, liability, etc. Be careful about labeling people idiots before you have all the information.
In reality, the legal team should just go through the major F/OSS libraries then they would have no need to continually ask people about "what ifs". They could have a checklist of things that the software will be used for and you could probably tell in 15 minutes whether or not that licence is acceptable for that case.
Your description looks a lot like an e-mail I received the other day at work. If you want to include software on/in products list the code, license, use and send it to legal. They review it, approve it, and add it to our license database. The nicest thing is they can give us guidelines in advance listing what we should be able to do with code from a particular license (dynamic linking, static linking, include but without alterations). Companies that aren't leveraging open source code are at a serious disadvantage due to their substandard legal team.
I hate macs. Bastardized UNIX with an infuriating and unconventional graphical interface.
So you're saying you're interested in news about things that might make them more prevalent and thus force you to use said interface? And you're interested in news that means you might be able to install Windows on macs so you don't have to use said interface? See even mac haters are interested in the latest news.
Yup. Call me "old fashioned", but who am I likely to trust more on sight, someone who looks neat, clean, and obviously cares about their appearance, or someone sloppy, slovenly, who apprently doesn't care what other people think?
You're a fool. Some of those people who look "neat and clean" are anti-social and are planning on using your implicit trust to take advantage of you. Some of them are just conformist who for one reason or another wish to or must dress a particular way. Half of them just walked out of a catholic school and are now planning to slash your tires and beat the crap out of you in an angst ridden unfocused attack on their "oppression." Judging someone based on their clothes is very foolhardy unless you can show me some real evidence that there is a correlation between dress and behavior. I've certainly never seen such a correlation despite common nonsense.
And now for the shocker -- some of these "reporbates" are actually decent kids. The problem is that they've been fed a lie, that adults are the cause of all their problems, adults don't understand them, and adults don't deserve any respect. They find it easier to be malcontents than to take a good hard look at their own behavior and realize that they do it to themselves. We all do. How we act and how we react to the things going on in this world shapes who we are, not the events themselves.
You seem to be forgetting what it is like to be underage in this country. Sure lots of young people have not yet learned personal responsibility. That is the fault of their parents and teachers as much as it is their own though. They should have learned those lessons when they were ten.
At the same time, however, you can't demand a person be responsible when they are not given corresponding rights. The two concepts are implicitly intertwined. Juveniles have a lot demanded of them and are not given the choice of where they live, how they dress, where they go, what they say. They basically have none of the basic freedoms granted to all people by international human rights laws. That is right and proper, to a point. Children mature at different rates and if you expect them to be responsible, you have to grant them the power to use that responsibility. This doesn't mean saying, "OK you can pick out your own clothes now so long as it meets my specifications." This means actually letting them make their own choices and live with the results of those choices.
So forgive me if my attitude seems a bit out of place in the modern world, but perhaps we need to go back to some "old fashioned" values like decency, honesty, and respect.
Don't forget other olde fashioned values like slavery, child abuse, sexism, racism, hatred, intolerance, ignorance, etc., etc. The "good olde days" were old, but they were rarely good. In your post you've already advocated prejudice and lack of respect for people who choose to dress differently. Decency is a catch-all term without real meaning as a "value." It is usually used by people who want to promote a particular religious doctrine without appearing to be doing so. Do tell. How is dressing in a different fashion than you dishonest?
Take a look at "appropriate" clothing over time. You''ll find such variation. It has not been so long since formal gowns exposed the nipples, nor since short hair was considered improper without a wig. Clothing styles change all the time and this foolish ideal that whatever our grandparents wore is "proper" is just that... foolish. What your grandparents wore was different from what their grandparents wore and so on. They were not being "proper." Your grandchildren (should you have any) will wear something else. Please, really consider this issue. What values are you demonstrating to others by being intolerant of changes in clothing styles and ridiculing others for choosing differently than you? Objectively apply real ethics to this issue. What is unethical about their choices and why are you so against them?
Depending upon the clock speed, Intel seems to be between 15% and 60% better for power consumption in real world applications. That is a lot when you're looking at a laptop. Right now The intel duo uses less power when pegged than the best available AMD while idle. Maybe AMD will catch up. AMD is doing really well for server/desktop chips especially for price/power but are behind for laptops. Maybe Apple will use AMD processors in future. Right now, it looks like they made the right choice to me.
I agree with most of your post, but then I read the following:
Kids walk around dressed in mismatched, mis-sized clothes. Where di they get them? Most of them don't have jobs, so it must be dear-old-mom-and-dad who are letting them dress like hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates.
What does this have to do with anything? You think the style of kids clothing is a problem? They aren't dressing like "hoodlums, tramps, and reprobates" because those people can't afford new clothing in the latest style or fad. Even if kids do dress like tramps, who cares? Do you really judge a person by their clothes? If so, you've chose a foolish metric. I know both children and adults of all levels of intelligence and responsibility and let em tell you, the only correlation between clothing and either characteristic is as imposed by employers due to social expectations. Perpetuating the belief that people have to dress in whatever fashion is similar to our grandparents is in no way productive. Give it a rest.
Who would give a fuck about intel-based mac laptops except an apple fanboy?
All those people who are either curious about macs and would like to try them, with the option of going back to Windows for mainstream applications or all those people like me who use a handful of OS's daily and would finally like one portable that can run all the apps I need.
Eventually OSX will be hacked to run on other x86-based laptops, so arguably even software compatibility is not a reason to buy one.
Yeah, I'm sure that will work really well. For some of us computers are tools. I don't want to waste my time with some hacked version of an OS. I want one box that does all I need and has good support and service.
I would be excited if they had gone AMD, which would have been cheaper and faster. They didn't. I don't care.
AMD is not there for low power. They just don't have good portable chips right now.
Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 8200
For the last umpteen years I could buy an intel machine and run Linux or Windows or Solaris or a BSD. I could also buy a PPC laptop that ran OSX or Linux or BSD. What I wanted was a Laptop of either variety with reasonable speed that could run Linux and Windows and OS X. As of February I may be able to buy such a laptop. This is different and is news. I'll read an article about this. I don't care about articles about other random laptops unless they can run OS X.
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it.
Pretty much. They also created a bluetooth remote control and incorporated a camera, in the laptop.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX.
Well, that and they created an EFI implementation, the first in a laptop I know of. Oh, and they tested things and got them working smoothly on 32 and 64 bit PPC at the same time as 32 bit intel. Oh, and they got all of their core applications working on the same. Oh and they announced they will have all their pro applications upgraded by march.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform.
You've missed the point entirely. News is not just when someone does something very well, it is when someone does something that changes things. Anybody can pull a trigger, but When John Wilkes Booth did it the news reported it constantly. Everyone knew Apple could release for the intel platform, but it is still news that they have done so.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose[sic] needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel.
Do compare what Apple has released lately to what MS has released. The press reports on what there is to report on. Apple releases new things. They report. MS releases nothing, they try to make up something and end up publishing articles that don't have any news in them.
Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has[sic] in the computer world, zero!
Actually, I use Widgets regularly. Every day, I press a button and see the weather, doppler radar, traffic reports. Many days I use the quick yellow pages, google map widget, or the simple timer to send me an alert in time to meet people for lunch. They impact my life, much more so than some random laptop I have no interest in buying.
The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it.
Yeah, but they aren't cool. They don't run OS X, just crappy old WinXP. They don't have a cool remote. They don't let you do new things. You just don't get it. Apple moving to intel is the news. It changes the industry dynamic and will change the way a lot of us work. I might be able to finally be down to one workstation. Who cares if there is a Windows box with the same specs, it isn't challenging MS's stranglehold on the market and it isn't going to fix the industry so that we can have competition and reasonable progress again. It does not carry with it the hope for an end to these computing dark ages. If Einstein had a brother who looked just like him, but would work for cheaper, would it make news?
If Hamilton-beach, sunbeam, Oster or any other appliance manufacturer came out with a blender that attacked you in the middle of the night I'm fairly confident that company would be bankrupt very shortly. The market would take care of itself and adjust accordingly.
Ahh, but that is an extreme example, extreme enough to get media attention and overcome apathy. Also, you're assuming people found out about it quickly. What if the blender army collected enough blood in a night so that it was more profitable than the company would otherwise make in many years of honest dealings. You can't rely upon the market to police based upon profitability because, as MS has proved, breaking the law is often profitable.
Making data mining illegal is NOT a valid way to stop it for several reasons. First, it's not enforceable in any kind of practical way.
Sure it is. In fact forms of data mining are illegal in some countries right now.
Politicians and many of their constituents seem to think that just because a law is made the problem will go away. History has shown us that this is just not true. Drug laws haven't stopped drugs, traffic laws haven't stopped speeders and data mining laws won't stop data miners.
The first two items on your list are attempting to change the behaviors of the populace as a whole using a an inadequately small police force. Speeding laws are not supposed to stop speeding. They are designed to motivate people to not speed "too much" and to provide an alternative income to outright taxation. Laws against murder actually do stop a lot of murders. Laws against embezzlement deter much embezzlement. Are you trying to argue all laws are useless?
There just aren't enough resources available to supervise every revision of every software product out there.
Who cares? Prosecuting some provides a deterrent to others and money to prosecute still more.
Second, when the law was enforced, it's unlikely the law would be enforced evenhandedly. Our current legal climate is favoring large businesses.
So? This has always been true. It is no reason not to create such a law and in fact is less likely to be abused against an individual, since most individuals do not mine data for commercial purposes.
Third, the penalties would have to be outrageous to make data mining stop being an economically viable activity. How much more music do you think iTunes will sell by being able to target their customers more accurately?
Large fines are not a problem. It has come out, in the last day that Apple is not data mining and keeps no personally identifying information on customers. So they won't sell any more or less.
Finally, how could 'data mining' be defined? Would we arrest, as someone else in this article pointed out, the hippy down at the used book store that remembers what you like? All the grocery stores with their discount cards? Webmasters that watch their stats to see which page is most popular?
Grocery stores don't care about your data, they just use it to count sales to market themselves to manufacturers. As for defining data mining, that would require more legalese than I car to attempt right now. This is all beside the point. The original issue is not creating databases of information. The problem is with collecting information using your computer and internet connection, secretly, without warning. The issue is spyware, not databases of information collected from spyware. The issue is deceptive software that does things users have no reason to assume it is doing. Trying to change the subject to data mining is just avoiding the issue.
Can't the slashdot editors answer this one? Why do you have half of the front page filled with apple stories?
Because Apple announced a bunch of new products and many users want to know about them and discuss them. I mean what nerd is not interested in intel macs on a site peopled by computer geeks?