i'm not asking for a free lunch or complaining about the current state of web browsers. i was simply arguing against the idea that just because we have more memory a basic web browser (by itself, not including the memory cost of actual content) ought to use as much memory as it can. after all, like you said, it takes a lot more resources to render many modern web apps and their responsive interfaces.
i'm not arguing that a web app that works like a desktop application should take up as little resources as a plain html document; quite the opposite actually.
in regards to the dual core system, it's less about cost and more to do with efficiency and finding the appropriate system for the task (or the right tool for the job). i guess i brought it up partly because there was an earlier article about IT energy-conservation. that really got me thinking about whether we still need the full processing power of a desktop computer just for the typical office computing work.
it seems to me like wouldn't need a full ATX desktop system with a 500-600 Watt power supply when there are so many sub-ATX solutions available. i mean, in theory most tasks that the average person uses their computer for shouldn't require anything more than an 800 MHz VIA C7 running on a micro-ATX motherboard. less power consumption equals less heat, less heat equals less cooling, which in turn reduces noise and also conserves energy.
of course, in practice things are quite different. VIA's Eden chipsets have little to no driver support. and i'm also not sure if the C7 processor is supported by Windows XP. but the point remains, perhaps there needs to be a range of low-power desktop computers for the average person who doesn't need to run the latest 3D games or do CPU-intensive computational modeling or do digital media production. we have internet tablets and all kinds of sub-laptop smart devices which can surf the web these days. so it obviously doesn't take a fat client just to browse the web.
i think you misunderstood me. i was simply responding to the statement "since, the memory is there, you might as well use it." the hyperbole was intentional, not to criticize any existing browser (hence the word "if"), but to illustrate where resources could be better spent. so everything you wrote about actual memory usage is moot. it's a good thing that modern desktop browsers use very little resources by themselves.
regarding the web as an application development platform, i think you're neglecting the other part of the picture, which is the expansion of the web beyond desktop computing towards smart devices/portables--such as cell phones, portable entertainment devices, internet tablets, etc.
right now we're moving away from WAP browsers for portable devices as we develop more powerful smart devices with full-fledged web browsers capable of rendering most sites just as well as a desktop or laptop can. if the portable web experience is converging with the desktop experience, then clearly a fat client isn't the future direction of the web browser.
Personally, I'd rather see alternatives being independently developed and improved; all the while competing with each other for mindshare and technical superiority. The alternative, of relying on a single rendering engine for all browsers, is a bad idea. History has taught us it will lead to stagnation and quirky (rather than standards-compliant) rendering.
that depends entirely on who's maintaining/developing the rendering engine. if it's a open-standards-flouting company like Microsoft, then you're absolutely right. but if it's a professional team of open source developers who work closely with the community and adhere to open standards & W3C recommendations, then it'd only improve things.
if you only have to code for a single rendering engine, then you spend a lot less time coming up with cross-browser compatibility hacks. and if that engine is standards compliant, then everyone would develop standards-compliant sites. it would make web development easier, more efficient, and lead to better and more robust web apps.
part of the reason why XHTML hasn't gained widespread adoption yet is because IE still hasn't implemented XHTML support, likewise with CSS level 2. similarly, it's nearing 2009 and we're still unable to use PNG's with alpha-layer transparency because IE doesn't support transparent PNGs (why are we even still using JPEGs and GIFs?).
because one single browser, albeit a popular one, still uses a non-standards-compliant rendering engine and proprietary specifications, the entire web development community is being held back from the adoption of common sense, well-established open standards.
i mean, would things be better if there were 2 competing organizations for establishing open web standards--and each one backed their own standard?
i understand that the web has evolved quite a bit over the years--trust me, i know.
but when you discuss the relative importance of the browser compared to other applications, you still need to look at things in context:
one of the main benefits of the web as an application platform is that you can start accomplishing previous desktop computing tasks using a thin client. why is that? because with software as a service, all of the data processing is done server-side. all your browser needs to do is render the presentation, everything else is run on the web server.
but you're absolutely right, even web UIs have become much more involved; today's web apps/interfaces are a lot more interactive, and significantly more responsive. some of this is due to increased capabilities/complexity of the desktop browser. however, much of this is also because the actual content to be rendered by the browser's layout engine is much more complex and resource-intensive.
it's like watching a QuickTime video in your browser, or playing a Flash game. the actual content is much more resource intensive, just as a Web 2.0 interface with lots of div layers, images, event-tracking, JavaScript libraries, and not to mention all the CSS style rules that are loaded with each site. but these are resource requirements in addition to the actual browser application. if a browser with a single blank page loaded eats up 1 GB of memory, then how is it going to deal with 10-15 tabs, each loaded with rich web content.
i've also become quite dependent on a lot of Firefox extensions that help me check my mail and even develop/debug web applications. but these are all superstructures that are loaded on top of the basic browser application. my Firefox installation takes significantly longer to load than a standard installation. if Firefox were to become more of a resource hog, then how would i even run these plugins that i use daily?
IE is the scourge of web developers--at least the one who care about standard compliance.
to be honest, it's not really any harder to design to one set of browser specifications over another. it's very easy to design a web page that will render properly in any browser--if you only care about just that one browser. the problem arises from having to design a page that looks correctly in multiple browsers.
if you're coding for reasonably standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc. it's relatively easy to build a cross-browser compatible, and even cross-platform compatible, site. but IE follows its own specifications with proprietary extensions and non-standard implementations which conflict with open web standards. so it's incredibly difficult to get a site to render properly in both, IE and a standards-compliant browser.
making another version of the page just for IE is not a viable solution. user-agent checking is a bad practice and not an ideal means of achieving cross-browser compatibility. trying to predict every single browser type that might visit your site is simply infeasible, and it ends up making your site inaccessible to a lot of people whose user-agent string aren't recognized but still might render the site properly (this blocks Firefox users from a lot sites/services).
the only half-way decent solution is to use hacks to bridge the gap between IE specifications and open web standards. and this usually ends up requiring lots of trial-and-error and experimentation.
that's not an argument for having a memory-hogging web browser.
yes, CPU clock speeds are going up, and memory prices are going down, but a web browser should still be a relatively lightweight application by itself.
there are much better uses for the increase in standard memory size in desktop computers. with computers as advanced as they are today, i should be able to have a web browser running in the background while i'm working in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other memory-intensive applications. even if you're not multi-tasking, the extra memory should go towards opening more tabs, running java applets, rendering flash applications, or streaming media.
there seems to be a negative trend of basic office applications becoming increasingly resource-intensive at a pace that negates simultaneous increases in computer processing power. that's not technological progress, that's just inefficient software development.
there's no reason that an office secretary should require a dual-core CPU and 2 GB of RAM when all she really needs to use her computer for is checking e-mail, word processing, web browsing, and possibly edit spreadsheets or run slide show presentations like PowerPoint.
i mean, what good is increased CPU efficiency and cheaper memory when all of that is offset by increased hardware requirements for basic software applications? with the current energy-crisis, we ought to consider whether or not the average person should need to keep pace with Moore's law for simple computing tasks like web surfing or word processing. given the huge strides made in CPU efficiency, a modern web browser should be lean enough in its most basic configuration to be capable of running on a modern low-power PC.
it doesn't make sense to constantly upgrade one's computer just so all applications run just as slow as they did before.
yes, life is dangerous also. so let's just forget about risk analysis.
i think i'll just pop some oxy-contin, muscle relaxants, and sleep pills, wash it all down with 151, then drive down to TJ to have unprotected sex with some hookers. and if i'm still alive the next day, maybe i'll shoot some coke and then ride a motorcycle on the freeway without a helmet.
well, that's obviously the most important change on the level of infrastructure. but i think what the infoworld article is talking about is how our day to day operations can be more energy-efficient.
if we want to survive as a species, we need to embrace conservation on a fundamental level. that doesn't just mean dropping our dependency on fossil fuels. the public needs to change its basic attitude towards energy-conservation--or just conservation in general. leaving it all to the energy companies to change fuel sources ignores actions that each of us can take in our daily lives to contribute to lower energy consumption.
likewise, IT departments can also implement cost-saving and energy-saving initiatives. perhaps instead of expending electricity on cooling needs, one can simply run more energy-efficient & low power-consumption hardware, which naturally produce less heat (this also has the side-effect of creating a quieter computing environment).
similarly, bigger/more powerful is not always better. outside of CPU-intensive applications (CAD, multimedia design, computational modeling, etc.) there's really no need for a super fast system that consumes tons of electricity. does your accounting department need the same quad-core workstation as your CAD/engineering department? i would venture to guess that 80% of the desktop computers in most companies don't need to run anything more CPU intensive than an Office Suite(word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail client, PowerPoint, etc.) and a standard web browser. as long as you're not trying to run Windows Vista and IE 8, most office computing needs can be met by lower clock speed, low power-consumption CPUs.
i don't know what processors on the market today are aimed at the low power-consumption market segment aside from mobile processors (perhaps an energy-efficient desktop market needs to be created), but that's probably another way to reduce energy usage, as is telecommuting, effective use of sleep/hibernation mode, and smart buildings. the same conservationist attitude one uses at home can also be employed in the office.
first off, Google's processing capacity isn't static, it's constantly growing. just because it takes more than 24 hrs to process a certain set of data doesn't mean that the backlog will increase without limit. that isn't a logically sound argument.
if you take that argument and reduce the time frame from 1 day to 1 hour->1 minute->1 millisecond... so on and so forth, you reach the conclusion that if Google is unable to instantaneously process/analyze every piece of data the exact moment it is received or created, then their backlog will increase without limit.
sometimes data needs to accumulated before it can be processed. for instance, to observe search trends, or to compare e-mails for spam analysis, etc. sometimes logs need to be kept for extended periods of time--that's why they're called logs--or data is retained for repeat analysis.
i don't know what exactly Google retains user data for or what kind of analysis they do, but it's understandable if some data needs to be retained in its original state for certain types of research or analysis. if they were going to release network measurement data to 3rd parties, as that paper you linked to discusses, then, yes, i would expect Google to follow their own anonymization guidelines. but like they've stated in their press release, it's all about finding a balance between protecting user privacy and improving the quality of their services.
perhaps the best thing to do is to give users the option to have their search requests retained for improving personalized search results, and let them enable/disable this feature as it suits them. all other data will simply be processed for a set period of time and then expunged.
if they're not releasing server logs to anyone, anonymization isn't really necessary. though i'm sure they allow users to access their services through anonymous proxies.
i don't have room in my wallet for 200 numbers and e-mail addresses. but, hey, whatever works for you.
also, there's an easier way to avoid unsolicited calls than not having a phone. it's called "not giving out your number to people whom you don't want calling you."
of course, being a presumptuous asshole also works for some people.
right, because fracturing your communications network will make your IT infrastructure more efficient...
having a corporation-dominated digital TV network for the transmission of multimedia is completely redundant when there's already a more generalized infrastructure for the public transmission of digital data, which includes multimedia as well as other forms of communication.
and why should TV networks be the only ones who can distribute digital videos? the internet allows anyone, including independent filmmakers, to distribute their work without the financial backing of the handful of film & TV studios that dominate television.
the only people you have the right to call bandwidth "hogs" are roommates or family members who are using bandwidth you're paying for. if someone pays for a 3 Mbps DSL subscription, who are you to tell them how they're allowed to use it? get over your righteous indignation. people can access the internet however they want.
honestly, only someone completely unfamiliar with network management would buy the lame "it's the bandwidth hogs/power users/p2p file sharers" excuse given by ISPs for why their service is slow when they're overselling.
if your network capacity comprises of a 1200 Mbps OC-24 line, then it's not hard to cap each subscriber at 3 Mbps and sell subscriptions to 400 people. then every person can stream movies, download porn, play online games, serve web pages, transfer video files, etc. to their hearts desire without overloading the network. but if you have a 1200 Mbps WAN line, and you sell 3 Mbps sonnections to 800 people, then of course you'll have network problems when all your users are trying to use the service they've paid for at the same.
that's why i just don't bother with cable, or even TV.
we never had cable in our home while i was growing up, and when i was a kid it felt like i was missing out on a lot. i didn't have MTV, so i didn't know what the latest bands were; didn't have comedy central so i didn't get any of the South Park references other students--and sometimes teachers--made at school; didn't have HBO or Nickelodeon so i was completely lost when people talked about The Sopranos, Sponge Bob Square Pants, etc.
but once i got to college and actually had cable for the first time in my life, the novelty wore off pretty quickly. by my second year of college i was already sick of everything that was on TV. sure, it was fun getting stoned and watching South Park or Aqua Teen Hunger Force (i still love this show) but most of the time we'd just be channel surfing, trying to find something interesting.
nowadays i don't even bother with the TV. i just download programs that i want to watch, and watch them when i want. BBC, the National Geographic Channel, and PBS/Nova are about the only networks that i really watch programs from. aside from that there's just Futurama and Arrested Development--both of which are now off the air. occasionally something like The Office or Aqua Teen Hunger Force will come along, but 99% of the shows that are recommend to me are just utterly retarded.
considering the amount of data Google processes on a regular basis, a 9 Month backlog isn't that unreasonable.
i'm more concerned about Google not handing my data over to 3rd parties or governments than their retaining records of my searches. as long as they're willing to stand up for the rights of users, they can hold my search data for as long as they need to improve search results, reduce spam, and develop personalized search features.
well, makers of consumer devices generally care more about projecting a 'sense' of security to the public rather than providing actual security. that's why security through obscurity is still widely used in consumer devices. outside of computer geek circles, the general public has no concept of security awareness. it's hard for a layperson to understand why RFIDs are a bad idea for secure applications, or why it's unwise to use a single password for everything, or why encryption is so important when using a public network. they're just not used to thinking in terms of security.
of course, this is good for malicious hackers and also government agencies like the NSA, FBI, and other law-enforcement agencies. perfect security/privacy would make the jobs of such agencies much more difficult. if TransferJet gains widespread adoption, you can bet that there'll be government surveillance vans fitted with oversized antennas that can park outside of someone's home and eavesdrop on any TransferJet signals like they can already do with cellphone signals.
and judging from the actions of the major telecoms, i'm sure the TransferJet Consortium will be more than willing to work with government agencies to help them develop these surveillance solutions. let's just hope that they don't design a backdoor into the protocol that would let police officers (or anyone with special knowledge) remotely initiate spontaneous transfers of personal data without a device user's knowledge.
that's how i used to view owning a car, but after a while people stopped inviting me to get-togethers...
but seriously, there's relying on your friends when you accidentally leave your phone at home or in the car, and then there's treating your friends as walking pay phones. perhaps it's not as bad as telling people that you quit smoking and then bumming cigarettes off of everyone else. but it's still a pain in the ass trying to reach someone who doesn't have a cellphone.
i guess it all depends on your social life. maybe your friends are cool with it, or maybe you just don't need to use a cellphone very often. but i couldn't live without my cellphone. since getting a cellphone in high school i've lost the ability to remember people's phone numbers. this led to a rather embarrassing situation at the hospital when i couldn't tell the nurse what number to dial to reach my girlfriend.
i dunno. i think a lot of consumers would be able to see the idiocy in having the TransferJet feature automatically kick on just through a device's proximity.
you'll have family members constantly finding each other's text messages, address book, photos, and what not randomly showing up on one another's phones and portable devices just because they sat them down next to each other on the kitchen counter or on a table. and you'll have people finding random garbage on their phones because they sat down next to someone on the subway who also had a TransferJet compatible device in their pocket.
it would just become too much of a hassle--which, like you said, is much more of a concern for most consumers than security.
yea, i think it's deceptive to assign a hard limit for the range of the radio transmission. obviously if you scale up the receiver you can intercept the signal from much further away.
but i think this is where the 3 cm optimal range is significant. if a transmission protocol is designed to be receivable for up to 3 ft, it'll be much easier to intercept it from 5-6 ft away with a slightly larger receiver. however, if the protocol is only designed for a range for 3 cm, then the signal will inherently be much weaker, and you'll need a much larger receiver to pick it up from just 3-4 ft away. and it may be impractical to build a receiver large enough to intercept the signal from across the room.
obviously both devices still have to activate their TransferJet feature so you won't accidentally start a transfer just by brushing your cellphone against someone else's. i think what they mean is that the devices need to be within 3 cm of each other during the transfer so that someone can't walk up behind you while you're transferring to an intended target and intercept the transmission.
so if you want to transfer sensitive data, you just need to survey the area within a 3 cm radius of your device to make sure that you can safely make the transfer. as opposed to having a 6 ft. transmission distance and having to survey a much larger area.
if something is within 3 cm of your device, you'll know. but it's much harder (and more awkward) to try to extend your personal bubble 6 ft. and keep other people from snooping in on your transfer.
if the $20 is going to the actual makers of the DVD, then i suppose it's legit, so it depends on what you're copying.
i don't know how Real Network is handling this for things like independent films exactly, but i'm guessing it's probably the same way as how the ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC handle music royalties from bars/clubs/stores/etc.--charge everyone a standard royalty fee for playing music in a public venue, regardless of whether the actual copyright owners of the music is a member or even demands royalties or not (just to be on the safe side). so if you want your royalties, you have to pay ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for membership. if not, they'll charge people for your music anyway.
it's a rather brilliant system. they make tons of money on artists who don't make enough royalties to warrant the cost of membership and probably don't want royalties collected on their music. it also removes the potential incentive to play music by independent artists who aren't part of the ASCAP/etc. since you'll still be paying the same amount of royalties each year anyway.
besides, who's to say that copying a non-DRMed DVD without having to pay extra money isn't legit? the same people who say that playing a DVD on Linux is not legit? or that ripping your CDs or DVDs onto your harddrive isn't legit?
there's what's legal and what's illegal. and there's what's ethical and unethical. these two may not always be the same, but if something is both legal, and perfectly ethical, then why shouldn't it be considered 'legit'? because it pisses off certain corporations and deviates from dominant corporate attitudes?
for the sake of this country i hope that most Americans don't feel the need to have the complete approval of corporate America for everything they do, and that they will learn to make moral judgments on their own rather than have industry lobbies tell them what they should or shouldn't do. it's bad enough that the RIAA & MPAA have already legislated laws restricting the rights of consumers, but do we have to capitulate our rights to them before they've even passed such legislations just because the industry frowns upon perfectly legal actions?
the military doesn't like to look incompetent. after all, if they can't defend themselves against a computer hacker, how can they defend our nation from 'real' threats?
so, since he embarrassed us, let's just lock him up and throw away the key--set an example of him to deter other curious/non-malicious hackers rather than actually address the gaping holes in our security.
after all, it's not like hostile governments or potential terrorists would ever risk 70 years in jail by hacking into our network--problem solved. mission complete!
right. as opposed to an interface designed for a sophisticated patrician such as yourself?
i've yet to see a physical interface on a portable music player that is more intuitive and optimally designed for scrolling through huge lists of song titles/artists/albums than the iPod's click wheel. and the iPod's software interface is just as simple and straight-forward, but perhaps you need something more complicated and awkward to distinguish yourself from us lowly commoners.
i got rid of both, my iPod nano and Video iPod, because i much prefer the PSP in terms of features & value. i like being able to surf the web, read e-books, and play games on it, though, sadly, the Zune is still the only portable media player that takes advantage of its WiFi capabilities for sharing music. i also think a portable media player should have some kind of expandable flash memory, though preferably Micro SD. the Video iPod's LCD screen is simply too small for watching movies or TV shows, and it's just too overpriced.
far from being any kind of a fanboy, i see merits and flaws in all of the popular portables on the market. but even i have to admit that the iPod line has the smartest menu interface of any portable media player on the market. other media players have since caught up to the iPod (except for the PSP, of course, which Sony has left with a crippled media player that still can't handle play lists or anything but the most basic stop, play, pause, fwd/rew functions.), but the iPod was first to revolutionize usability on portable media players.
so i'm sorry you have such an aversion to "solid colors" and polished surfaces. maybe you can get a leopard print mp3 player that's wrapped in sandpaper--how'd that work for ya?
CloneDVD isn't free, but it does everything that this program claims to do, except without any DRM (AnyDVD, often sold together with CloneDVD, helps eliminate DRM and region codes). all it takes is a few mouse clicks on the "next" button after you've popped the DVD and a blank into your computer, and the program starts making a duplicate of whatever movie you want. works on any video DVD, and it will also strip out previews/warnings for you (AnyDVD will also automatically skip over previews/warnings for DVDs you watch on your computer) and let you select the language/audio tracks you want on the copy. if you have a dual-layer DVD9 burner, you can just click "next" without changing any settings at all.
RealDVD is worthless plain and simple. it's not going to spawn anything except some suckers who are willing to waste their money on crippled software/DVDs.
wow, i actually hadn't heard of ADSL2+ until now. is it very popular in the UK? i haven't heard of any major ISPs offering it here in the states, though it does seem to have limited deployment in North America.
24 Mbps for $31/month is definitely much lower than the rate cited on the muniwireless page (£5.60/$11.31 per Mbps). it also makes the broadband services (Cable & DSL/ADSL) offered here in Southern California look slower than molasses.
we generally pay about ~$30/month for ~3 Mbps/768 Kbps. though the basic pricing plan offered by Verzon (probably the largest DSL provider in the U.S.) right now is 768 Kbps/128 Kbps for $19.99/month, which comes out to about $26 per Mbps.
if you have a 22 Mbit connection then you're not using a standard broadband package (DSL, Cable, Satellite, etc.) so these numbers won't correspond to your pricing plan, which is probably some kind of dedicated T-carrier line. these figures don't apply to high-speed voice/data services which are geared towards businesses and not available in residential areas. generally, telecoms have completely different rates for T-3/DS-3-type services.
also, these prices and speeds are averages. i imagine if you live in an urban area or the suburbs then your internet access will be fairly cheap compared to rural areas.
these figures are from last year. so if they're incorrect or you have a better set of figures then by all means please share them. but both sites seem like legitimate news sources to me, and i haven't seen anything that would challenge their figures.
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i'm not asking for a free lunch or complaining about the current state of web browsers. i was simply arguing against the idea that just because we have more memory a basic web browser (by itself, not including the memory cost of actual content) ought to use as much memory as it can. after all, like you said, it takes a lot more resources to render many modern web apps and their responsive interfaces.
i'm not arguing that a web app that works like a desktop application should take up as little resources as a plain html document; quite the opposite actually.
in regards to the dual core system, it's less about cost and more to do with efficiency and finding the appropriate system for the task (or the right tool for the job). i guess i brought it up partly because there was an earlier article about IT energy-conservation. that really got me thinking about whether we still need the full processing power of a desktop computer just for the typical office computing work.
it seems to me like wouldn't need a full ATX desktop system with a 500-600 Watt power supply when there are so many sub-ATX solutions available. i mean, in theory most tasks that the average person uses their computer for shouldn't require anything more than an 800 MHz VIA C7 running on a micro-ATX motherboard. less power consumption equals less heat, less heat equals less cooling, which in turn reduces noise and also conserves energy.
of course, in practice things are quite different. VIA's Eden chipsets have little to no driver support. and i'm also not sure if the C7 processor is supported by Windows XP. but the point remains, perhaps there needs to be a range of low-power desktop computers for the average person who doesn't need to run the latest 3D games or do CPU-intensive computational modeling or do digital media production. we have internet tablets and all kinds of sub-laptop smart devices which can surf the web these days. so it obviously doesn't take a fat client just to browse the web.
i think you misunderstood me. i was simply responding to the statement "since, the memory is there, you might as well use it." the hyperbole was intentional, not to criticize any existing browser (hence the word "if"), but to illustrate where resources could be better spent. so everything you wrote about actual memory usage is moot. it's a good thing that modern desktop browsers use very little resources by themselves.
regarding the web as an application development platform, i think you're neglecting the other part of the picture, which is the expansion of the web beyond desktop computing towards smart devices/portables--such as cell phones, portable entertainment devices, internet tablets, etc.
right now we're moving away from WAP browsers for portable devices as we develop more powerful smart devices with full-fledged web browsers capable of rendering most sites just as well as a desktop or laptop can. if the portable web experience is converging with the desktop experience, then clearly a fat client isn't the future direction of the web browser.
that depends entirely on who's maintaining/developing the rendering engine. if it's a open-standards-flouting company like Microsoft, then you're absolutely right. but if it's a professional team of open source developers who work closely with the community and adhere to open standards & W3C recommendations, then it'd only improve things.
if you only have to code for a single rendering engine, then you spend a lot less time coming up with cross-browser compatibility hacks. and if that engine is standards compliant, then everyone would develop standards-compliant sites. it would make web development easier, more efficient, and lead to better and more robust web apps.
part of the reason why XHTML hasn't gained widespread adoption yet is because IE still hasn't implemented XHTML support, likewise with CSS level 2. similarly, it's nearing 2009 and we're still unable to use PNG's with alpha-layer transparency because IE doesn't support transparent PNGs (why are we even still using JPEGs and GIFs?).
because one single browser, albeit a popular one, still uses a non-standards-compliant rendering engine and proprietary specifications, the entire web development community is being held back from the adoption of common sense, well-established open standards.
i mean, would things be better if there were 2 competing organizations for establishing open web standards--and each one backed their own standard?
i understand that the web has evolved quite a bit over the years--trust me, i know.
but when you discuss the relative importance of the browser compared to other applications, you still need to look at things in context:
one of the main benefits of the web as an application platform is that you can start accomplishing previous desktop computing tasks using a thin client. why is that? because with software as a service, all of the data processing is done server-side. all your browser needs to do is render the presentation, everything else is run on the web server.
but you're absolutely right, even web UIs have become much more involved; today's web apps/interfaces are a lot more interactive, and significantly more responsive. some of this is due to increased capabilities/complexity of the desktop browser. however, much of this is also because the actual content to be rendered by the browser's layout engine is much more complex and resource-intensive.
it's like watching a QuickTime video in your browser, or playing a Flash game. the actual content is much more resource intensive, just as a Web 2.0 interface with lots of div layers, images, event-tracking, JavaScript libraries, and not to mention all the CSS style rules that are loaded with each site. but these are resource requirements in addition to the actual browser application. if a browser with a single blank page loaded eats up 1 GB of memory, then how is it going to deal with 10-15 tabs, each loaded with rich web content.
i've also become quite dependent on a lot of Firefox extensions that help me check my mail and even develop/debug web applications. but these are all superstructures that are loaded on top of the basic browser application. my Firefox installation takes significantly longer to load than a standard installation. if Firefox were to become more of a resource hog, then how would i even run these plugins that i use daily?
IE is the scourge of web developers--at least the one who care about standard compliance.
to be honest, it's not really any harder to design to one set of browser specifications over another. it's very easy to design a web page that will render properly in any browser--if you only care about just that one browser. the problem arises from having to design a page that looks correctly in multiple browsers.
if you're coding for reasonably standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, etc. it's relatively easy to build a cross-browser compatible, and even cross-platform compatible, site. but IE follows its own specifications with proprietary extensions and non-standard implementations which conflict with open web standards. so it's incredibly difficult to get a site to render properly in both, IE and a standards-compliant browser.
making another version of the page just for IE is not a viable solution. user-agent checking is a bad practice and not an ideal means of achieving cross-browser compatibility. trying to predict every single browser type that might visit your site is simply infeasible, and it ends up making your site inaccessible to a lot of people whose user-agent string aren't recognized but still might render the site properly (this blocks Firefox users from a lot sites/services).
the only half-way decent solution is to use hacks to bridge the gap between IE specifications and open web standards. and this usually ends up requiring lots of trial-and-error and experimentation.
that's not an argument for having a memory-hogging web browser.
yes, CPU clock speeds are going up, and memory prices are going down, but a web browser should still be a relatively lightweight application by itself.
there are much better uses for the increase in standard memory size in desktop computers. with computers as advanced as they are today, i should be able to have a web browser running in the background while i'm working in Photoshop, Illustrator, or other memory-intensive applications. even if you're not multi-tasking, the extra memory should go towards opening more tabs, running java applets, rendering flash applications, or streaming media.
there seems to be a negative trend of basic office applications becoming increasingly resource-intensive at a pace that negates simultaneous increases in computer processing power. that's not technological progress, that's just inefficient software development.
there's no reason that an office secretary should require a dual-core CPU and 2 GB of RAM when all she really needs to use her computer for is checking e-mail, word processing, web browsing, and possibly edit spreadsheets or run slide show presentations like PowerPoint.
i mean, what good is increased CPU efficiency and cheaper memory when all of that is offset by increased hardware requirements for basic software applications? with the current energy-crisis, we ought to consider whether or not the average person should need to keep pace with Moore's law for simple computing tasks like web surfing or word processing. given the huge strides made in CPU efficiency, a modern web browser should be lean enough in its most basic configuration to be capable of running on a modern low-power PC.
it doesn't make sense to constantly upgrade one's computer just so all applications run just as slow as they did before.
yes, life is dangerous also. so let's just forget about risk analysis.
i think i'll just pop some oxy-contin, muscle relaxants, and sleep pills, wash it all down with 151, then drive down to TJ to have unprotected sex with some hookers. and if i'm still alive the next day, maybe i'll shoot some coke and then ride a motorcycle on the freeway without a helmet.
well, that's obviously the most important change on the level of infrastructure. but i think what the infoworld article is talking about is how our day to day operations can be more energy-efficient.
if we want to survive as a species, we need to embrace conservation on a fundamental level. that doesn't just mean dropping our dependency on fossil fuels. the public needs to change its basic attitude towards energy-conservation--or just conservation in general. leaving it all to the energy companies to change fuel sources ignores actions that each of us can take in our daily lives to contribute to lower energy consumption.
likewise, IT departments can also implement cost-saving and energy-saving initiatives. perhaps instead of expending electricity on cooling needs, one can simply run more energy-efficient & low power-consumption hardware, which naturally produce less heat (this also has the side-effect of creating a quieter computing environment).
similarly, bigger/more powerful is not always better. outside of CPU-intensive applications (CAD, multimedia design, computational modeling, etc.) there's really no need for a super fast system that consumes tons of electricity. does your accounting department need the same quad-core workstation as your CAD/engineering department? i would venture to guess that 80% of the desktop computers in most companies don't need to run anything more CPU intensive than an Office Suite(word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail client, PowerPoint, etc.) and a standard web browser. as long as you're not trying to run Windows Vista and IE 8, most office computing needs can be met by lower clock speed, low power-consumption CPUs.
i don't know what processors on the market today are aimed at the low power-consumption market segment aside from mobile processors (perhaps an energy-efficient desktop market needs to be created), but that's probably another way to reduce energy usage, as is telecommuting, effective use of sleep/hibernation mode, and smart buildings. the same conservationist attitude one uses at home can also be employed in the office.
first off, Google's processing capacity isn't static, it's constantly growing. just because it takes more than 24 hrs to process a certain set of data doesn't mean that the backlog will increase without limit. that isn't a logically sound argument.
if you take that argument and reduce the time frame from 1 day to 1 hour->1 minute->1 millisecond... so on and so forth, you reach the conclusion that if Google is unable to instantaneously process/analyze every piece of data the exact moment it is received or created, then their backlog will increase without limit.
sometimes data needs to accumulated before it can be processed. for instance, to observe search trends, or to compare e-mails for spam analysis, etc. sometimes logs need to be kept for extended periods of time--that's why they're called logs--or data is retained for repeat analysis.
i don't know what exactly Google retains user data for or what kind of analysis they do, but it's understandable if some data needs to be retained in its original state for certain types of research or analysis. if they were going to release network measurement data to 3rd parties, as that paper you linked to discusses, then, yes, i would expect Google to follow their own anonymization guidelines. but like they've stated in their press release, it's all about finding a balance between protecting user privacy and improving the quality of their services.
perhaps the best thing to do is to give users the option to have their search requests retained for improving personalized search results, and let them enable/disable this feature as it suits them. all other data will simply be processed for a set period of time and then expunged.
if they're not releasing server logs to anyone, anonymization isn't really necessary. though i'm sure they allow users to access their services through anonymous proxies.
i don't have room in my wallet for 200 numbers and e-mail addresses. but, hey, whatever works for you.
also, there's an easier way to avoid unsolicited calls than not having a phone. it's called "not giving out your number to people whom you don't want calling you."
of course, being a presumptuous asshole also works for some people.
right, because fracturing your communications network will make your IT infrastructure more efficient...
having a corporation-dominated digital TV network for the transmission of multimedia is completely redundant when there's already a more generalized infrastructure for the public transmission of digital data, which includes multimedia as well as other forms of communication.
and why should TV networks be the only ones who can distribute digital videos? the internet allows anyone, including independent filmmakers, to distribute their work without the financial backing of the handful of film & TV studios that dominate television.
the only people you have the right to call bandwidth "hogs" are roommates or family members who are using bandwidth you're paying for. if someone pays for a 3 Mbps DSL subscription, who are you to tell them how they're allowed to use it? get over your righteous indignation. people can access the internet however they want.
honestly, only someone completely unfamiliar with network management would buy the lame "it's the bandwidth hogs/power users/p2p file sharers" excuse given by ISPs for why their service is slow when they're overselling.
if your network capacity comprises of a 1200 Mbps OC-24 line, then it's not hard to cap each subscriber at 3 Mbps and sell subscriptions to 400 people. then every person can stream movies, download porn, play online games, serve web pages, transfer video files, etc. to their hearts desire without overloading the network. but if you have a 1200 Mbps WAN line, and you sell 3 Mbps sonnections to 800 people, then of course you'll have network problems when all your users are trying to use the service they've paid for at the same.
that's why i just don't bother with cable, or even TV.
we never had cable in our home while i was growing up, and when i was a kid it felt like i was missing out on a lot. i didn't have MTV, so i didn't know what the latest bands were; didn't have comedy central so i didn't get any of the South Park references other students--and sometimes teachers--made at school; didn't have HBO or Nickelodeon so i was completely lost when people talked about The Sopranos, Sponge Bob Square Pants, etc.
but once i got to college and actually had cable for the first time in my life, the novelty wore off pretty quickly. by my second year of college i was already sick of everything that was on TV. sure, it was fun getting stoned and watching South Park or Aqua Teen Hunger Force (i still love this show) but most of the time we'd just be channel surfing, trying to find something interesting.
nowadays i don't even bother with the TV. i just download programs that i want to watch, and watch them when i want. BBC, the National Geographic Channel, and PBS/Nova are about the only networks that i really watch programs from. aside from that there's just Futurama and Arrested Development--both of which are now off the air. occasionally something like The Office or Aqua Teen Hunger Force will come along, but 99% of the shows that are recommend to me are just utterly retarded.
considering the amount of data Google processes on a regular basis, a 9 Month backlog isn't that unreasonable.
i'm more concerned about Google not handing my data over to 3rd parties or governments than their retaining records of my searches. as long as they're willing to stand up for the rights of users, they can hold my search data for as long as they need to improve search results, reduce spam, and develop personalized search features.
well, makers of consumer devices generally care more about projecting a 'sense' of security to the public rather than providing actual security. that's why security through obscurity is still widely used in consumer devices. outside of computer geek circles, the general public has no concept of security awareness. it's hard for a layperson to understand why RFIDs are a bad idea for secure applications, or why it's unwise to use a single password for everything, or why encryption is so important when using a public network. they're just not used to thinking in terms of security.
of course, this is good for malicious hackers and also government agencies like the NSA, FBI, and other law-enforcement agencies. perfect security/privacy would make the jobs of such agencies much more difficult. if TransferJet gains widespread adoption, you can bet that there'll be government surveillance vans fitted with oversized antennas that can park outside of someone's home and eavesdrop on any TransferJet signals like they can already do with cellphone signals.
and judging from the actions of the major telecoms, i'm sure the TransferJet Consortium will be more than willing to work with government agencies to help them develop these surveillance solutions. let's just hope that they don't design a backdoor into the protocol that would let police officers (or anyone with special knowledge) remotely initiate spontaneous transfers of personal data without a device user's knowledge.
that's how i used to view owning a car, but after a while people stopped inviting me to get-togethers...
but seriously, there's relying on your friends when you accidentally leave your phone at home or in the car, and then there's treating your friends as walking pay phones. perhaps it's not as bad as telling people that you quit smoking and then bumming cigarettes off of everyone else. but it's still a pain in the ass trying to reach someone who doesn't have a cellphone.
i guess it all depends on your social life. maybe your friends are cool with it, or maybe you just don't need to use a cellphone very often. but i couldn't live without my cellphone. since getting a cellphone in high school i've lost the ability to remember people's phone numbers. this led to a rather embarrassing situation at the hospital when i couldn't tell the nurse what number to dial to reach my girlfriend.
i dunno. i think a lot of consumers would be able to see the idiocy in having the TransferJet feature automatically kick on just through a device's proximity.
you'll have family members constantly finding each other's text messages, address book, photos, and what not randomly showing up on one another's phones and portable devices just because they sat them down next to each other on the kitchen counter or on a table. and you'll have people finding random garbage on their phones because they sat down next to someone on the subway who also had a TransferJet compatible device in their pocket.
it would just become too much of a hassle--which, like you said, is much more of a concern for most consumers than security.
yea, i think it's deceptive to assign a hard limit for the range of the radio transmission. obviously if you scale up the receiver you can intercept the signal from much further away.
but i think this is where the 3 cm optimal range is significant. if a transmission protocol is designed to be receivable for up to 3 ft, it'll be much easier to intercept it from 5-6 ft away with a slightly larger receiver. however, if the protocol is only designed for a range for 3 cm, then the signal will inherently be much weaker, and you'll need a much larger receiver to pick it up from just 3-4 ft away. and it may be impractical to build a receiver large enough to intercept the signal from across the room.
obviously both devices still have to activate their TransferJet feature so you won't accidentally start a transfer just by brushing your cellphone against someone else's. i think what they mean is that the devices need to be within 3 cm of each other during the transfer so that someone can't walk up behind you while you're transferring to an intended target and intercept the transmission.
so if you want to transfer sensitive data, you just need to survey the area within a 3 cm radius of your device to make sure that you can safely make the transfer. as opposed to having a 6 ft. transmission distance and having to survey a much larger area.
if something is within 3 cm of your device, you'll know. but it's much harder (and more awkward) to try to extend your personal bubble 6 ft. and keep other people from snooping in on your transfer.
if the $20 is going to the actual makers of the DVD, then i suppose it's legit, so it depends on what you're copying.
i don't know how Real Network is handling this for things like independent films exactly, but i'm guessing it's probably the same way as how the ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC handle music royalties from bars/clubs/stores/etc.--charge everyone a standard royalty fee for playing music in a public venue, regardless of whether the actual copyright owners of the music is a member or even demands royalties or not (just to be on the safe side). so if you want your royalties, you have to pay ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for membership. if not, they'll charge people for your music anyway.
it's a rather brilliant system. they make tons of money on artists who don't make enough royalties to warrant the cost of membership and probably don't want royalties collected on their music. it also removes the potential incentive to play music by independent artists who aren't part of the ASCAP/etc. since you'll still be paying the same amount of royalties each year anyway.
besides, who's to say that copying a non-DRMed DVD without having to pay extra money isn't legit? the same people who say that playing a DVD on Linux is not legit? or that ripping your CDs or DVDs onto your harddrive isn't legit?
there's what's legal and what's illegal. and there's what's ethical and unethical. these two may not always be the same, but if something is both legal, and perfectly ethical, then why shouldn't it be considered 'legit'? because it pisses off certain corporations and deviates from dominant corporate attitudes?
for the sake of this country i hope that most Americans don't feel the need to have the complete approval of corporate America for everything they do, and that they will learn to make moral judgments on their own rather than have industry lobbies tell them what they should or shouldn't do. it's bad enough that the RIAA & MPAA have already legislated laws restricting the rights of consumers, but do we have to capitulate our rights to them before they've even passed such legislations just because the industry frowns upon perfectly legal actions?
hey, just because you don't live in this country doesn't mean that our laws don't apply to you!
i mean, our rights don't apply to you. you don't get habeas corpus or anything like that.
but our laws, yea, those apply to everyone.
the military doesn't like to look incompetent. after all, if they can't defend themselves against a computer hacker, how can they defend our nation from 'real' threats?
so, since he embarrassed us, let's just lock him up and throw away the key--set an example of him to deter other curious/non-malicious hackers rather than actually address the gaping holes in our security.
after all, it's not like hostile governments or potential terrorists would ever risk 70 years in jail by hacking into our network--problem solved. mission complete!
right. as opposed to an interface designed for a sophisticated patrician such as yourself?
i've yet to see a physical interface on a portable music player that is more intuitive and optimally designed for scrolling through huge lists of song titles/artists/albums than the iPod's click wheel. and the iPod's software interface is just as simple and straight-forward, but perhaps you need something more complicated and awkward to distinguish yourself from us lowly commoners.
i got rid of both, my iPod nano and Video iPod, because i much prefer the PSP in terms of features & value. i like being able to surf the web, read e-books, and play games on it, though, sadly, the Zune is still the only portable media player that takes advantage of its WiFi capabilities for sharing music. i also think a portable media player should have some kind of expandable flash memory, though preferably Micro SD. the Video iPod's LCD screen is simply too small for watching movies or TV shows, and it's just too overpriced.
far from being any kind of a fanboy, i see merits and flaws in all of the popular portables on the market. but even i have to admit that the iPod line has the smartest menu interface of any portable media player on the market. other media players have since caught up to the iPod (except for the PSP, of course, which Sony has left with a crippled media player that still can't handle play lists or anything but the most basic stop, play, pause, fwd/rew functions.), but the iPod was first to revolutionize usability on portable media players.
so i'm sorry you have such an aversion to "solid colors" and polished surfaces. maybe you can get a leopard print mp3 player that's wrapped in sandpaper--how'd that work for ya?
CloneDVD isn't free, but it does everything that this program claims to do, except without any DRM (AnyDVD, often sold together with CloneDVD, helps eliminate DRM and region codes). all it takes is a few mouse clicks on the "next" button after you've popped the DVD and a blank into your computer, and the program starts making a duplicate of whatever movie you want. works on any video DVD, and it will also strip out previews/warnings for you (AnyDVD will also automatically skip over previews/warnings for DVDs you watch on your computer) and let you select the language/audio tracks you want on the copy. if you have a dual-layer DVD9 burner, you can just click "next" without changing any settings at all.
RealDVD is worthless plain and simple. it's not going to spawn anything except some suckers who are willing to waste their money on crippled software/DVDs.
wow, i actually hadn't heard of ADSL2+ until now. is it very popular in the UK? i haven't heard of any major ISPs offering it here in the states, though it does seem to have limited deployment in North America.
24 Mbps for $31/month is definitely much lower than the rate cited on the muniwireless page (£5.60/$11.31 per Mbps). it also makes the broadband services (Cable & DSL/ADSL) offered here in Southern California look slower than molasses.
we generally pay about ~$30/month for ~3 Mbps/768 Kbps. though the basic pricing plan offered by Verzon (probably the largest DSL provider in the U.S.) right now is 768 Kbps/128 Kbps for $19.99/month, which comes out to about $26 per Mbps.
if you have a 22 Mbit connection then you're not using a standard broadband package (DSL, Cable, Satellite, etc.) so these numbers won't correspond to your pricing plan, which is probably some kind of dedicated T-carrier line. these figures don't apply to high-speed voice/data services which are geared towards businesses and not available in residential areas. generally, telecoms have completely different rates for T-3/DS-3-type services.
also, these prices and speeds are averages. i imagine if you live in an urban area or the suburbs then your internet access will be fairly cheap compared to rural areas.
these figures are from last year. so if they're incorrect or you have a better set of figures then by all means please share them. but both sites seem like legitimate news sources to me, and i haven't seen anything that would challenge their figures.