You want a perspective on the history and future of RSS? I'll give you mine.
I've tried:
NewsGator
Google Reader
The RSS reader on my Nokia N770
The RSS Reader in Outlook
Thee RSS Reader on my PSP
None of them made much sense to me. I figure, why should I use something for feeding me updates if I couldn't get comfortable using with it after playing with it for half an hour?
Plus,it makes much more sense to me to visit sites I like manually in a browser. "Original content" sites like CNN, The Consumerist and woot.com. "Aggregator" sites like Slashdot and Fazed.net. Why? The content is just there. The content is also put into context. I also get social features like comments on Slashdot. RSS doesn't give me context and social features for content.
In summary, RSS isn't user friendly, doesn't deliver content in context, and leaves out social features. The way RSS was and is, it's destined to fade away. It'll be replaced by mechanisms that deliver context and social features alongside "killer" features no one has even thought of yet.
^This. The Java VM on my previous Sprint Samsung and LG feature phones (I mention the brands and provider because I don't know who pushed for such granular permissions) gave me more granular controls, meaning I could grant various permissions to an app once, never, or forever.
When I tried the Droid Incredible for a month, I was appalled to see A)How vague Android was about the type of permissions apps asked for, and B)How it Android didn't offer the same once, never or forever options as my feature phones.
Why is 64 bit running neck-to-neck for most popular Windows 7 edition? Because the Alpha and Beta versions were XP-64, and version 1.0 was Vista. Now, OEM PC makers, developers, peripheral makers, they're all buying in because it's 64-bit Windows version 2.0! No one wanted to buy in to a buggy alpha or 1.0 release.
Oh, and because MS required hardware partners to develop 64-bit drivers in order to earn the right to be called "Windows 7" compatible. That's a good way to "convince" vendors buy into this whole "64-bit thing".
No I'm not bitter about waiting seven years for MS to release a usable 64-bit PC/desktop version of Windows since buying an Athlon64. Why do you ask?
Windows Phone 7 shows how the phone OS development process is broken industry wide. Software houses* rush out an incomplete release, expect people to pay for it, and plan to use the proceeds to finance the development of a later, usable release.
First, MS is leaving out two important features that belong together:
Websurfing
Copy and paste: Copying, searching with, and sharing text information
Notice how neither Ida nor Myerson includes them in the list of things Windows Phone 7 does:
Merging personal and work contacts
Integrating Xbox Live games and Zune music and video
Including mobile versions of Office
Unifying social photos from social networking services
I want my copy and paste now and millions of others will later when Windows Phone 7 comes out. It's a great way to do things with information I find while using my phone, especially on web pages.
However, to MS's own detriment, Windows Phone Executive Todd Brix says they're replacing the tried and true data manipulation tool. '"It's actually an intentional design decision," Brix says. "We try to anticipate what the user wants so copy and paste isn't necessary."' But, the thing is, MS can't anticipate all the times a user needs copy and paste, so taking away control from users will only leave them missing it
Second, MS is pushing a beta quality release and calling it a 1.0 release. Ida says,
Doing so many things from scratch means that in a lot of ways Windows Phone 7 is more like the first version of a product than the seventh major release.
Meanwhile, Myerson has warned everyone,
"We're going to reset, but it is going to take us five years to build a product we all want to have. There were people that looked in the mirror a year ago and said, well, if we aren't going to win next year, I am out of here. I think when we look back on the release five years from now, this was a foundational release, not the release that broke through."
Overall, Windows Phone 7 breaks the established and useful copy and paste paradigm and the project leader also says what the OS can do, it will do poorly. MS should sit on Windows Phone 7 until they can make it feature complete.
----
*MS, Google, Apple, but in this case, MS. Here are examples:
Apple: Copy and paste, video camera, multitasking
Google: Exchange support in Android, hands free profile, no task manager, voice dialing
MS: The rest of this post is about MS aiming to release a beta quality OS as a 1.0 release
Prior to you even mentioning it, I've thought of how developers program for a fixed platform, and enabling advanced graphics isn't anti-thetical to console development.
Developers could make two options for their games: normal and high. For example, in "high" mode, the polygon count could increase, the anti-aliasing stepped up, or more bullet holes could be left painted. This would be a good thing for consumers because they'd be getting a better experience for the same as or less than the original cost of a system. This would be good for console makers because it'd extend the life of each console generation. It works: Nintendo did it for the N64.
Developers could perhaps take advantage of the increased memory with just a few tweaks to the "normal" game engine. Developers could have a tougher time, too, but again, consumers would get a better experience than the original revisions of a console, and the manufacturer (Microsoft, for example) could extend the life of an aging console design.
What if the ad was also the product? And, if there weren't laws (there are, thankfully, in the USA) against mailing and billing for things without the recipient's permission, we'd all have FASRADs, whether we wanted to or not.
I'm a little scared, disgusted and disappointed. It seems we're already moving towards a future like that with thrusters on full.
Just so I understand: They are going to tap into it again, yes? That'd be a good permanent solution to the leaking, and if there be oil there, I say, "Why not pump it?" (more safely this time though)
You're saying "You can write it once and run on many." But at the same time, you're saying "You can't target the latest platform, write once and run on many." Double talk aside, the problem is even worse than you are hinting at.
Case in point: a program written targeting a basic API fails to run on a Droid Incredible. A highly rated Lightsaber app I tried didn't work. The motion sensor API is the most basic, isn't it? Is there an Android phone without an accelerometer? And yet the app didn't work.
Something is rotten. Fragmentation, obsolescence, whatever pundits call it. You can't say it isn't happening though. It's happening, and at breakneck speed. New features come out with minor version releases, programs break, and the end users who depend on stock ROMs are left behind.
I have to buy handsets for bugfixes and features when they are clearly hardware independent. My HTC Touch Pro 2 came out of the box with different Sprint Navigation software than my Touch Pro original. I couldn't get the same software for my TP original through official channels. Android users are also at the mercy of manufacture's whims to release or not release ROMSs with the latest Android major/minor version: Android might support Google navigation, it may support Flash, but a user's device may not. Handset manufactures stop caring about a phone after they release it (especially after only a year). They neglect to fix all but the worst bugs and never seem to add features,
You seem to be denying all of this. When it comes do Android, it is not "Write once, run on many." Stale ROMS, manufacturer neglect, feature releases at breakneck speeds, and bugs of nebulous nature blow away your "Write once, run on many" assertion. You have to target a specific phone when you write an Android app.
They look like almost-but-not-quite smart phones that are already on the market today
Indeed, they do look like today's features phones. However, look closer and you'll see that their friends and "internet friends" social hub could be a killer app. People seem to think condensing all the social networks into one spot is the bee's knees.
Then throw in the "Apple pretty" interface thanks to the nVidia Tegra chip, and you've got a feature phone ahead of the curve.
For $20, you can buy a not-exactly-new 1-actuator vest here (or eBAY)
We need to fight back to keep free sites running
on
Window Pain
·
· Score: 1
Some of us want to keep ad-supported sites running. However, something has to be done. A couple reputable sites in the last two weeks have apparently served malware to me or people I know through doubleclick.net. The sites were wunderground.com and startribune.com (story here)
I don't want to pay to support those sites. Neither do I want to pay slashdot (gasp). For that reason, I allow all the ads on these sites by whitelisting nearly everything NoScipt asks me about on each.
Sites want to get paid for showing ads so they can keep running. I want to support my favorite free sites by allowing their ads. But I also want to keep my machine annoyance and security-risk free. Users and webmasters need to fight back somehow. Bennett's feedback idea sounds good enough to try. Let's give it a shot.
Google is simply indexing the deep web with their toolbar. Someone with the Google toolbar searches Target.com for something non-existent, gets an html page that says there are no matching results, and Google indexes it. The irrelevant Target.com results on Google are systemic to Google's indexing of sites and content that it can't reach but its toolbar users can. The irrelevant results are Google's fault, not an evil search engine optimization ploy by Target.
By the way, someone mentioned Target should use a 404 error, but that doesn't seem right. A search that doesn't have any results shouldn't give you a 404, it should give you page that says there aren't any results. Google's toolbar is simply indexing those "no results" pages.
Apparently, tons of people search for (funny) stuff that doesn't exist on Target.com (check out the results for inurl searches for "not found" on Target.com).
Sounds like you're going to wire up a home with super multimedia, automation, and a decent amount of security hardware too. Is that correct?
I'm a bit envious: it sounds like a house I'd like.
Tiny buttons, scroll bars and radio buttons keep it from being finger friendly. However, the platform is more open than the iPhone so I can choose my apps and let them run in the background.
Besides making it more finger friendly, there also should be an official JVM from Sun. That'd be awesome.
I had that unit (actually, had two of them)! That's the one with only two USB ports, one firewire port, and a cable for a proprietary LCD monitor, right?
Stupid thing also wouldn't recognize RAM past 256 megs and wouldn't boot with HDDs equal to or greater than 40 gigs without a hacked BIOS image.
In Mirror's Edge on the PS3, I somehow managed to run to the bottom of the mall and find an odd room in the sequence where the cops start storming the mall. Most of the textures were reversed (mirrored)in the room.
It was as if I was in unused space looking through textures on the outside of the walls as if the textures were translucent. It's more accurate to call the room a courtyard. There was an entrance, two walls, and a ledge that led to a platform. I hopped onto the platform, looked into the gray abyss and jumped. I fell for a minute before I tried to pause and that's when the game hung. I think the timed events in the sequence were there in part to keep me out of that room.
It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice. He had seen it both times. Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and a second later heard the blast of sound that followed. Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane.
At first, he had been only fascinated. He had never seen aircraft so close, for it was against the rules for Pilots to fly over the community. Occasionally, when supplies were delivered by cargo planes to the landing field across the river, the children rode their bicycles to the river bank and watched, intrigued, the unloading and then the takeoff directed to the west, always away from the community.
But the aircraft a year ago had been different. It was not a squat, fat-bellied cargo plane but a needle-nosed single-pilot jet. Jonas, looking around anxiously, had seen others adults as well as children stop what they were doing and wait, confused, for an explanation of the frightening event.
Then all of the citizens had been ordered to go into the nearest building and stay there. IMMEDIATELY, the rasping voice through the speakers had said. LEAVE YOUR BICYCLES WHERE THEY ARE.
Instantly, obediently, Jonas had dropped his bike on its side on the path behind his familys dwelling. He had run indoors and stayed there, alone. His parents were both at work, and his little sister, Lily, was at the Childcare Center where she spent her after-school hours.
Looking through the front window, he had seen no people: none of the busy afternoon crew of Street Cleaners, Landscape Workers, and Food Delivery people who usually populate the community at that time of day. He saw only the abandoned bikes here and there on their sides; an upturned wheel on one was still revolving slowly.
He had been frightened then. The sense of his own community silent, waiting, had made his stomach churn. He had trembled.
But it had been nothing. Within minutes the speakers had crackled again, and the voice, reassuring now and less urgent, had explained that a Pilot-in-Training had misread his navigational instructions and made a wrong turn. Desperately the Pilot had been trying to make his way back before his error was notice.
NEEDLESS TO SAY, HE WILL BE RELEASED, the voice had said, followed by silence. There was an ironic tone to that finally message, as if the Speaker found it amusing; and Jonas had smiled a little, though he knew what a grim statement it had been. For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.
Even the children were scolded if they used the term lightly at play, jeering at a teammate who missed a catch or stumbled in a race. Jonas had done it once, had shouted at his best friend, Thats it, Asher! Youre released! when Ashers clumsy error had lost a match for his team. He had been taken aside for a brief and serious talk by the coach, had hung his head with guilt and embarrassment, and apologized to Asher after the game.
Now, thinking about the feeling of fear as he pedaled home along the river path, he remembered that moment of palpable, stomach-sinking terror when the aircraft had streaked above.
Slashdot Mirror
You want a perspective on the history and future of RSS? I'll give you mine. I've tried:
NewsGator
Google Reader
The RSS reader on my Nokia N770
The RSS Reader in Outlook
Thee RSS Reader on my PSP
None of them made much sense to me. I figure, why should I use something for feeding me updates if I couldn't get comfortable using with it after playing with it for half an hour?
Plus,it makes much more sense to me to visit sites I like manually in a browser. "Original content" sites like CNN, The Consumerist and woot.com. "Aggregator" sites like Slashdot and Fazed.net. Why? The content is just there. The content is also put into context. I also get social features like comments on Slashdot. RSS doesn't give me context and social features for content.
In summary, RSS isn't user friendly, doesn't deliver content in context, and leaves out social features. The way RSS was and is, it's destined to fade away. It'll be replaced by mechanisms that deliver context and social features alongside "killer" features no one has even thought of yet.
The problem lies in that most US people seem to equal justice with revenge.
Oh great. Another example of us not understanding equals!
^This. The Java VM on my previous Sprint Samsung and LG feature phones (I mention the brands and provider because I don't know who pushed for such granular permissions) gave me more granular controls, meaning I could grant various permissions to an app once, never, or forever.
When I tried the Droid Incredible for a month, I was appalled to see A)How vague Android was about the type of permissions apps asked for, and B)How it Android didn't offer the same once, never or forever options as my feature phones.
Why is 64 bit running neck-to-neck for most popular Windows 7 edition? Because the Alpha and Beta versions were XP-64, and version 1.0 was Vista. Now, OEM PC makers, developers, peripheral makers, they're all buying in because it's 64-bit Windows version 2.0! No one wanted to buy in to a buggy alpha or 1.0 release.
Oh, and because MS required hardware partners to develop 64-bit drivers in order to earn the right to be called "Windows 7" compatible. That's a good way to "convince" vendors buy into this whole "64-bit thing".
No I'm not bitter about waiting seven years for MS to release a usable 64-bit PC/desktop version of Windows since buying an Athlon64. Why do you ask?
Windows Phone 7 shows how the phone OS development process is broken industry wide. Software houses* rush out an incomplete release, expect people to pay for it, and plan to use the proceeds to finance the development of a later, usable release.
First, MS is leaving out two important features that belong together:
Notice how neither Ida nor Myerson includes them in the list of things Windows Phone 7 does:
I want my copy and paste now and millions of others will later when Windows Phone 7 comes out. It's a great way to do things with information I find while using my phone, especially on web pages.
However, to MS's own detriment, Windows Phone Executive Todd Brix says they're replacing the tried and true data manipulation tool. '"It's actually an intentional design decision," Brix says. "We try to anticipate what the user wants so copy and paste isn't necessary."' But, the thing is, MS can't anticipate all the times a user needs copy and paste, so taking away control from users will only leave them missing it
Second, MS is pushing a beta quality release and calling it a 1.0 release. Ida says,
Doing so many things from scratch means that in a lot of ways Windows Phone 7 is more like the first version of a product than the seventh major release.
Meanwhile, Myerson has warned everyone,
"We're going to reset, but it is going to take us five years to build a product we all want to have. There were people that looked in the mirror a year ago and said, well, if we aren't going to win next year, I am out of here. I think when we look back on the release five years from now, this was a foundational release, not the release that broke through."
Overall, Windows Phone 7 breaks the established and useful copy and paste paradigm and the project leader also says what the OS can do, it will do poorly. MS should sit on Windows Phone 7 until they can make it feature complete.
----
*MS, Google, Apple, but in this case, MS. Here are examples:
Prior to you even mentioning it, I've thought of how developers program for a fixed platform, and enabling advanced graphics isn't anti-thetical to console development.
Developers could make two options for their games: normal and high. For example, in "high" mode, the polygon count could increase, the anti-aliasing stepped up, or more bullet holes could be left painted. This would be a good thing for consumers because they'd be getting a better experience for the same as or less than the original cost of a system. This would be good for console makers because it'd extend the life of each console generation. It works: Nintendo did it for the N64.
Developers could perhaps take advantage of the increased memory with just a few tweaks to the "normal" game engine. Developers could have a tougher time, too, but again, consumers would get a better experience than the original revisions of a console, and the manufacturer (Microsoft, for example) could extend the life of an aging console design.
Who couldn't use more RAM?
What if the ad was also the product? And, if there weren't laws (there are, thankfully, in the USA) against mailing and billing for things without the recipient's permission, we'd all have FASRADs, whether we wanted to or not.
I'm a little scared, disgusted and disappointed. It seems we're already moving towards a future like that with thrusters on full.
Just so I understand: They are going to tap into it again, yes? That'd be a good permanent solution to the leaking, and if there be oil there, I say, "Why not pump it?" (more safely this time though)
So, did Symantec do what they could to A) report the server and botnet; B) take it down; and C) prosecute the alleged criminals?
You're saying "You can write it once and run on many." But at the same time, you're saying "You can't target the latest platform, write once and run on many." Double talk aside, the problem is even worse than you are hinting at.
Case in point: a program written targeting a basic API fails to run on a Droid Incredible. A highly rated Lightsaber app I tried didn't work. The motion sensor API is the most basic, isn't it? Is there an Android phone without an accelerometer? And yet the app didn't work.
Something is rotten. Fragmentation, obsolescence, whatever pundits call it. You can't say it isn't happening though. It's happening, and at breakneck speed. New features come out with minor version releases, programs break, and the end users who depend on stock ROMs are left behind.
I have to buy handsets for bugfixes and features when they are clearly hardware independent. My HTC Touch Pro 2 came out of the box with different Sprint Navigation software than my Touch Pro original. I couldn't get the same software for my TP original through official channels. Android users are also at the mercy of manufacture's whims to release or not release ROMSs with the latest Android major/minor version: Android might support Google navigation, it may support Flash, but a user's device may not. Handset manufactures stop caring about a phone after they release it (especially after only a year). They neglect to fix all but the worst bugs and never seem to add features,
You seem to be denying all of this. When it comes do Android, it is not "Write once, run on many." Stale ROMS, manufacturer neglect, feature releases at breakneck speeds, and bugs of nebulous nature blow away your "Write once, run on many" assertion. You have to target a specific phone when you write an Android app.
They look like almost-but-not-quite smart phones that are already on the market today
Indeed, they do look like today's features phones. However, look closer and you'll see that their friends and "internet friends" social hub could be a killer app. People seem to think condensing all the social networks into one spot is the bee's knees.
Then throw in the "Apple pretty" interface thanks to the nVidia Tegra chip, and you've got a feature phone ahead of the curve.
Since when is an annoyingly-high volume email campaign illegal?
For $20, you can buy a not-exactly-new 1-actuator vest here (or eBAY)
Some of us want to keep ad-supported sites running. However, something has to be done. A couple reputable sites in the last two weeks have apparently served malware to me or people I know through doubleclick.net. The sites were wunderground.com and startribune.com (story here)
I don't want to pay to support those sites. Neither do I want to pay slashdot (gasp). For that reason, I allow all the ads on these sites by whitelisting nearly everything NoScipt asks me about on each.
Except now, I've had to blacklist doubleclick.net because it seems to be the site serving malware for its reputable clients, wunderground, slashdot and the Star Tribune.
Sites want to get paid for showing ads so they can keep running. I want to support my favorite free sites by allowing their ads. But I also want to keep my machine annoyance and security-risk free. Users and webmasters need to fight back somehow. Bennett's feedback idea sounds good enough to try. Let's give it a shot.
Google is simply indexing the deep web with their toolbar. Someone with the Google toolbar searches Target.com for something non-existent, gets an html page that says there are no matching results, and Google indexes it. The irrelevant Target.com results on Google are systemic to Google's indexing of sites and content that it can't reach but its toolbar users can. The irrelevant results are Google's fault, not an evil search engine optimization ploy by Target.
By the way, someone mentioned Target should use a 404 error, but that doesn't seem right. A search that doesn't have any results shouldn't give you a 404, it should give you page that says there aren't any results. Google's toolbar is simply indexing those "no results" pages.
Apparently, tons of people search for (funny) stuff that doesn't exist on Target.com (check out the results for inurl searches for "not found" on Target.com).
Sounds like you're going to wire up a home with super multimedia, automation, and a decent amount of security hardware too. Is that correct?
I'm a bit envious: it sounds like a house I'd like.
This is another message that scammers will spoof. Know all those fake/rogue virus warning pop ups? Yeah, just like that.
Tiny buttons, scroll bars and radio buttons keep it from being finger friendly. However, the platform is more open than the iPhone so I can choose my apps and let them run in the background.
Besides making it more finger friendly, there also should be an official JVM from Sun. That'd be awesome.
I've heard they overheat and cause solder joints to fail.
I had that unit (actually, had two of them)! That's the one with only two USB ports, one firewire port, and a cable for a proprietary LCD monitor, right?
Stupid thing also wouldn't recognize RAM past 256 megs and wouldn't boot with HDDs equal to or greater than 40 gigs without a hacked BIOS image.
U of MN Twincities, right? Tate lab?
In Mirror's Edge on the PS3, I somehow managed to run to the bottom of the mall and find an odd room in the sequence where the cops start storming the mall. Most of the textures were reversed (mirrored)in the room.
It was as if I was in unused space looking through textures on the outside of the walls as if the textures were translucent. It's more accurate to call the room a courtyard. There was an entrance, two walls, and a ledge that led to a platform. I hopped onto the platform, looked into the gray abyss and jumped. I fell for a minute before I tried to pause and that's when the game hung. I think the timed events in the sequence were there in part to keep me out of that room.
they're the Opera of Linux.
They make an internet browser that runs on many non-traditional devices like the Nintendo DSi? Cool!