Actually, you would be wrong. Java is installed by the big OEMs, and lots of people install it themselves. Sun used to claim 85-90% or something, which I am not sure I quite believe, but it is at least three quarters in my experience.
Maybe corporate desktops don't have it installed (although they would if the IT department just left the OEM base install on the hard drive), but corporate users aren't going to be downloading a new video codec not matter what anyway.
No, you are correct - but I guess most people just click "OK - update" and get on with their lives.
There are very few companies that actually have the power to deploy ubiquitous software - Microsoft (with Widows update), Apple (with iTunes/Quicktime), Sun (with Java update) and maybe Shockwave. Nobody else has the ability to even attempt it.
Actually, I think Sun is one of the only companies that could possibly do this. Java is installed on the majority of Windows desktops, and self-updates on each new version. Sun could roll this out as part of a Java update and hardly anyone would notice.
Now their only problem is getting content producers to use the codec - good luck with that.
Cool ideas, but nothing like this exists in Flash at the moment, and if you are thinking of creating these games specifically for the iPhone you would use the just-announced SDK. Does Flash even have support for multitouch? My guess is that it does not.
Flash would be useful for showing existing content already developed on the web, but as I said in my original post, there are several reasons why it may not be a good match for the iPhone.
But far too many websites use flash for their entry portals, and don't have a non-flash alternative
True, but I bet those entry portals would work poorly even on a Flash supporting iPhone. Flash doesn't have a way to scale to smaller screens like (well written) HTML. Can anyone tell us how flash works on other mobile devices? Does the reduced real-estate cause problems, or does it work well in practice?
Video: Flash video is becoming the dominant video delivery mechanism for the web, its only competition is Quicktime. Perhaps flash video does take large amounts of processing power to decode (the Wii certainly doesn't do a very good job), but I suspect that Apple doesn't care too much if people find a reason not to serve video content in flash rather than quicktime.
Ads and sneaky cookie storage: Flash ads are annoying, and rather worryingly Flash programs can store rather large amounts of data in a sort of large cookie on your computer. This is often used to identify a user even if they have disabled cookies. Good riddance.
Games: it is a shame that flash games will never work on the iPhone, but this is somewhat understandable. The iPhone does not have keyboard and the pointing device works in a very different way to a mouse. Most games would not work well without recoding them for the iPhone and battery life would be bad since the screen would be continually updating.
Apps: well actually there are only a handful of sites I know of the actually use flash for something that couldn't be done in HTML. Mobile Safari is actually one of the more capable browsers out there, even compared to desktop browsers.
Additionally, while I don't doubt there are technical reasons for the decision, Adobe and Apple have always had a love/hate relationship - there may be political reasons why Apple wants to shut Flash out.
What do you mean "a more feasible product"? The Air is selling well and has caught the imagination of a certain segment of the population. Larger laptops are always going to be more powerful because you can just fit more stuff in them (especially more powerful batteries - there is no point in having 4 USB ports if the battery can't power them.) This is going to be true in 5 years as well.
There already is an iPod Touch that can be used as a cell phone - it is called a iPhone. The problem with a WiFi Skype phone is that pretty much anywhere you could use it you would be within reach of a real phone, which seems kind of pointless.
Imagine being out on the town and making a call to your friend with the iPod Touch to say you will be late. You need to duck into the nearest Starbucks, log onto their WiFi service just to place the call. Of course, you can't actually take to your friend because he also uses an iPod Touch and is not logged onto a Wifi service because he is in a nightclub. You can't even leave a message! Even if you could stay logged on to Wifi (lets pretend both you and your friend are at home) then your battery would be flat with 90 minutes.
Apple made exactly the right choice by partnering with a company that would provide a consistent, universal, and flat-rate data plan instead of relying on WiFi. You get most of the benefits of network connectivity (except transfer speed) along with all the benefits of being a proper cell phone. For the average customer that can afford a fancy cell phone, the iPhone is almost perfect. You can quibble about the price, but Apple won't hear you over the sounds of cash registers.
First up: The MacBook Air is not a very good laptop but yours or my standards, but many people just love it. A small, light good looking laptop is exactly what many people on the go are looking for. It in no way replaces the MacBook and MBPro, it supplements Apple's lineup and has by all accounts found its market niche. Is Apple supposed to wait 5 years (5 years!) to create the perfect laptop with the solar_blitz seal of approval?
Secondly: the iPod touch isn't a cell phone because it isn't supposed to be. If you want a cell phone buy the iPhone, the touch may have network connectivity but it would make a pretty poor phone - the battery life would be pitiful and WiFi coverage is no-existent anywhere you would want to use it. The touch seems to be selling OK regardless.
Honestly, you only look smart if second guess non-commercially successful products.
Would be nice, but we are probably out of luck. Time Machine relies on some filesystem trickery (specifically links to directories) that no other generally available filesystems support.
What I really want to know is if a Time Capsule is really a cut down Mac in disguise like the AppleTV, and can it be modded to run other services like the Linux-based NASes can.
Actually, I have been using MacOSX.5 for a few hours now, and I must say that I actually like the changes to the finder. I like the new dock and the new look finder - the coverflow mode is actually useful when browsing for photos. On the other hand, replacing the folder icons with icons representing their contents probably sounded really cool in front of the design whiteboard, but it really confuses things.
Everybody is complaining about the translucent menu bar, but it really isn't that bad. Every minute I am coming across neat little changes from Tiger (I love the new Help system) - on the whole Leopard is well worth the price.
In case anyone is interested, I wrote a quick blog entry on Time Machine. The Ars Technica review is better though, so don't bother if you actually RTFA.
I came across this article this morning. It's great to see Ars Technica pumping out another of their signature ridiculously-in-depth technical reviews.
I have just (like 15 minutes ago) finished installing OSX 10.5 on my MacBook. The review is right about some of the aesthetic changes being a step backwards, but on the whole it feels snappier and some of the new functionality (stacks, time machine) is fantastic. I am looking forward to having a proper play tonight.
I don't know why this was modded funny, the iPhone OS has been cracked wide open to run 3rd party apps without hardware modifications, with a complete development toolchain available. Its not even that different from normal OSX programming, from what I have seen. I would love to be able to a nice looking portable device that could run MAME or a terminal emulator at a pinch.
GUIDs have to be stored somewhere and are open to users changing them, or not being unique because the software is installed in a lab with 50 cloned machines. At a previous job we looked into using the IDs that are supposed to be in the SMBIOS tables to identify each machine. We gave up on that approach (although we read the SMBIOS tables for other reasons) because the supposedly unique BIOS ids are usually not.
Good theory, in theory the SMBIOS tables (which is what I think they are trying to read) can contain serial numbers for the motherboard, etc. But in practice these fields are often blank or change after every BIOS update, making them useless for identification.
I don't know why Skype is reading the BIOS, others have speculated that they are trying to generate a unique key from the SMBIOS tables or perhaps lock certain features to certain processors. Sounds plausible I guess. What I do know is the Skype programmers are überl4m3rz; the BIOS can be mapped into a process's address space using perfectly good Win32 calls. Resorting to calling a COM program to read the memory is an incredibly cheap hack, and obviously a badly tested one.
Many people of commented that I, in fact, have the best picture from video chat software. I put it down to just being very good looking. Have you tried getting a better hair cut?
WMI is standard, in that the object model was set by an industry wide body, but Microsoft went their own way with the programming interfaces and network transport parts, using DCOM. Remember that the W stands for Windows. I always thought this was a shame, it would be cool to have a single console that managed all the Windows and Unix (and Mac?) machines on the network - which is exactly what Microsoft didn't want, I suppose.
I am not sure that WMI really counts as agentless anyway, one of its great features is plugging in custom providers which are essentually mini-agents in their own right.
I agree that WMI has not been widely use in the past. Microsoft are having another go at the problem with their MOM console (although might be called something else this week). Its not clear to me whether it builds on top of WMI providers or uses its own scheme, I haven't kept up with it.
It all really depends on how important the service is. If you can stand a few minutes delay in getting the information, then pinging the service remotely every 2 minutes is going suit you fine. If not, then a specific agent will be required to send out the alert. To be really safe you really need to do both, in case the whole data centre blows up and takes out your agent as well.
A lot of Windows software that claims to be agentless really just remotely installs a small stub using a domain account behind the scenes to do the task. Microsoft is actually making a decent stab at the problem with WMI, a sort of big brother to SNMP. Unfortunately the implementation is complex, non-standard, and up until now nobody has really used it for the type of remote instrumentation that this article talks about. Even Microsoft's own software has not really been instrumented properly.
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Actually, you would be wrong. Java is installed by the big OEMs, and lots of people install it themselves. Sun used to claim 85-90% or something, which I am not sure I quite believe, but it is at least three quarters in my experience.
Maybe corporate desktops don't have it installed (although they would if the IT department just left the OEM base install on the hard drive), but corporate users aren't going to be downloading a new video codec not matter what anyway.
No, you are correct - but I guess most people just click "OK - update" and get on with their lives.
There are very few companies that actually have the power to deploy ubiquitous software - Microsoft (with Widows update), Apple (with iTunes/Quicktime), Sun (with Java update) and maybe Shockwave. Nobody else has the ability to even attempt it.
Actually, I think Sun is one of the only companies that could possibly do this. Java is installed on the majority of Windows desktops, and self-updates on each new version. Sun could roll this out as part of a Java update and hardly anyone would notice. Now their only problem is getting content producers to use the codec - good luck with that.
Cool ideas, but nothing like this exists in Flash at the moment, and if you are thinking of creating these games specifically for the iPhone you would use the just-announced SDK. Does Flash even have support for multitouch? My guess is that it does not.
Flash would be useful for showing existing content already developed on the web, but as I said in my original post, there are several reasons why it may not be a good match for the iPhone.
True, but I bet those entry portals would work poorly even on a Flash supporting iPhone. Flash doesn't have a way to scale to smaller screens like (well written) HTML. Can anyone tell us how flash works on other mobile devices? Does the reduced real-estate cause problems, or does it work well in practice?
Lets face it, Flash is used for four things:
Video: Flash video is becoming the dominant video delivery mechanism for the web, its only competition is Quicktime. Perhaps flash video does take large amounts of processing power to decode (the Wii certainly doesn't do a very good job), but I suspect that Apple doesn't care too much if people find a reason not to serve video content in flash rather than quicktime.
Ads and sneaky cookie storage: Flash ads are annoying, and rather worryingly Flash programs can store rather large amounts of data in a sort of large cookie on your computer. This is often used to identify a user even if they have disabled cookies. Good riddance.
Games: it is a shame that flash games will never work on the iPhone, but this is somewhat understandable. The iPhone does not have keyboard and the pointing device works in a very different way to a mouse. Most games would not work well without recoding them for the iPhone and battery life would be bad since the screen would be continually updating.
Apps: well actually there are only a handful of sites I know of the actually use flash for something that couldn't be done in HTML. Mobile Safari is actually one of the more capable browsers out there, even compared to desktop browsers.
Additionally, while I don't doubt there are technical reasons for the decision, Adobe and Apple have always had a love/hate relationship - there may be political reasons why Apple wants to shut Flash out.
What do you mean "a more feasible product"? The Air is selling well and has caught the imagination of a certain segment of the population. Larger laptops are always going to be more powerful because you can just fit more stuff in them (especially more powerful batteries - there is no point in having 4 USB ports if the battery can't power them.) This is going to be true in 5 years as well.
There already is an iPod Touch that can be used as a cell phone - it is called a iPhone. The problem with a WiFi Skype phone is that pretty much anywhere you could use it you would be within reach of a real phone, which seems kind of pointless.
Imagine being out on the town and making a call to your friend with the iPod Touch to say you will be late. You need to duck into the nearest Starbucks, log onto their WiFi service just to place the call. Of course, you can't actually take to your friend because he also uses an iPod Touch and is not logged onto a Wifi service because he is in a nightclub. You can't even leave a message! Even if you could stay logged on to Wifi (lets pretend both you and your friend are at home) then your battery would be flat with 90 minutes.
Apple made exactly the right choice by partnering with a company that would provide a consistent, universal, and flat-rate data plan instead of relying on WiFi. You get most of the benefits of network connectivity (except transfer speed) along with all the benefits of being a proper cell phone. For the average customer that can afford a fancy cell phone, the iPhone is almost perfect. You can quibble about the price, but Apple won't hear you over the sounds of cash registers.
What the hell are you smoking?
First up: The MacBook Air is not a very good laptop but yours or my standards, but many people just love it. A small, light good looking laptop is exactly what many people on the go are looking for. It in no way replaces the MacBook and MBPro, it supplements Apple's lineup and has by all accounts found its market niche. Is Apple supposed to wait 5 years (5 years!) to create the perfect laptop with the solar_blitz seal of approval?
Secondly: the iPod touch isn't a cell phone because it isn't supposed to be. If you want a cell phone buy the iPhone, the touch may have network connectivity but it would make a pretty poor phone - the battery life would be pitiful and WiFi coverage is no-existent anywhere you would want to use it. The touch seems to be selling OK regardless.
Honestly, you only look smart if second guess non-commercially successful products.
Would be nice, but we are probably out of luck. Time Machine relies on some filesystem trickery (specifically links to directories) that no other generally available filesystems support.
What I really want to know is if a Time Capsule is really a cut down Mac in disguise like the AppleTV, and can it be modded to run other services like the Linux-based NASes can.
Actually, I have been using MacOSX.5 for a few hours now, and I must say that I actually like the changes to the finder. I like the new dock and the new look finder - the coverflow mode is actually useful when browsing for photos. On the other hand, replacing the folder icons with icons representing their contents probably sounded really cool in front of the design whiteboard, but it really confuses things.
Everybody is complaining about the translucent menu bar, but it really isn't that bad. Every minute I am coming across neat little changes from Tiger (I love the new Help system) - on the whole Leopard is well worth the price.
In case anyone is interested, I wrote a quick blog entry on Time Machine. The Ars Technica review is better though, so don't bother if you actually RTFA.
I came across this article this morning. It's great to see Ars Technica pumping out another of their signature ridiculously-in-depth technical reviews. I have just (like 15 minutes ago) finished installing OSX 10.5 on my MacBook. The review is right about some of the aesthetic changes being a step backwards, but on the whole it feels snappier and some of the new functionality (stacks, time machine) is fantastic. I am looking forward to having a proper play tonight.
I don't know why this was modded funny, the iPhone OS has been cracked wide open to run 3rd party apps without hardware modifications, with a complete development toolchain available. Its not even that different from normal OSX programming, from what I have seen. I would love to be able to a nice looking portable device that could run MAME or a terminal emulator at a pinch.
Aaarrggh! Thats the secret! I always thought that level must be bugged.
I like your idea, you could have a a real Godwin's Law Killer there.
GUIDs have to be stored somewhere and are open to users changing them, or not being unique because the software is installed in a lab with 50 cloned machines. At a previous job we looked into using the IDs that are supposed to be in the SMBIOS tables to identify each machine. We gave up on that approach (although we read the SMBIOS tables for other reasons) because the supposedly unique BIOS ids are usually not.
Good theory, in theory the SMBIOS tables (which is what I think they are trying to read) can contain serial numbers for the motherboard, etc. But in practice these fields are often blank or change after every BIOS update, making them useless for identification.
I don't know why Skype is reading the BIOS, others have speculated that they are trying to generate a unique key from the SMBIOS tables or perhaps lock certain features to certain processors. Sounds plausible I guess.
What I do know is the Skype programmers are überl4m3rz; the BIOS can be mapped into a process's address space using perfectly good Win32 calls. Resorting to calling a COM program to read the memory is an incredibly cheap hack, and obviously a badly tested one.
Many people of commented that I, in fact, have the best picture from video chat software. I put it down to just being very good looking. Have you tried getting a better hair cut?
I am not sure that WMI really counts as agentless anyway, one of its great features is plugging in custom providers which are essentually mini-agents in their own right.
I agree that WMI has not been widely use in the past. Microsoft are having another go at the problem with their MOM console (although might be called something else this week). Its not clear to me whether it builds on top of WMI providers or uses its own scheme, I haven't kept up with it.
A lot of Windows software that claims to be agentless really just remotely installs a small stub using a domain account behind the scenes to do the task. Microsoft is actually making a decent stab at the problem with WMI, a sort of big brother to SNMP. Unfortunately the implementation is complex, non-standard, and up until now nobody has really used it for the type of remote instrumentation that this article talks about. Even Microsoft's own software has not really been instrumented properly.
True, but has it been on digg.com? Thats all we seem to care about 'round here.
I should really take more time to proofread my 5 word witticisms.