As most of us well know, the software industry is guilty of marking prices up for items of comparable functionality to other (cheap or even FREE) solutions, ALL THE TIME.
Still, I can't say I'd be *too* hard on your CIO over the WinZip decision. I actually pushed for a company to license WinZip before, not because cheaper alternatives didn't exist - but because it made user training less of a hassle.
When it comes to a small utility like a file compressor/uncompressor, users just want something they can get in and back out of without confusion. Users have enough problems dealing with ZIP file attachments to emails, and requests to "please zip up documents X and Y and send them to us". Lots of our users had futzed around with WinZip at home before, so it made sense to use it instead of giving them one more unfamiliar interface to master.
I'm a big proponent of "CutePDF" though for making PDFs in Windows. So many people spend hundreds on Acrobat when all they really want is a way to print things to PDF instead of to a real printer.
Acrobat is great if you use the functionality in it, but it's overkill for most people who buy it. They don't even realize or care that you can do document markup/annotation, and all the other things Acrobat gives you.
I think a classic (and relevant) example of cheaper alternatives in software would be JASC Paint Shop Pro vs. Adobe Photoshop.
What really bothers me about this sort of thing is that I rely on a Garmin "Street Pilot" GPS unit every day for my work. These devices plug into a cigarette lighter plug for power and sit on top of your dashboard. They have a small color LCD touchscreen display, and allow entering house addresses, intersections, etc. - and then it reads off directions as you drive.
I've often wondered how long it will be before some ignorant police officer pulls me over for "watching TV while driving".
As others pointed out, what we DON'T need are still more detailed laws stripping of us of rights to use electronic devices as we wish in our cars. If someone is careless, they're careless - and it'll happen as often by them taking their eyes off the road to look at something they see out a side window as by messing with a radio, an in-car DVD player, or whatever.
I don't presume to know whether a particular person is or isn't good enough at "multitasking" to drive safely while some DVD movie is playing. I certainly wouldn't want to charge them with murder over my "guesstimation" of what they did! I don't think the law should try to do so either. In this case, charge the guy with manslaughter but NOT murder, unless you can show he has some sort of past history of making claims that he "watches TV while driving because he doesn't care about other drivers, and hopes he'll hit one sometime", or something outrageous like that.
First of all, comparing property rights to copyrights is ok, up to a point, but there's a "fatal flaw" in the logic. In the case of "property rights", a peson's right is much less than "absolute" because it starts interfering with the rights of others. (EG. Your example of a person who owns a piece of a river, and yet isn't allowed to build a dam on his/her property and charge others for the water.)
Since copyright covers intellectual properties, not physical ones, these problems don't really come up with copyright.
Instead, copyright law *should* simply exist to the extent that it helps further innovation and creation of new works. When you really think about it, that statement boils down to making sure someone is rewarded financially and/or protected from others ripping off his/her original ideas without giving credit where credit is due. Where does extended a copyright well past the lifetime of the creator help achieve either of these 2 things? I'd say it doesn't!
All it really does is put limitations on the public's access to creative works, long past the point where such limits ensure the creator is compensated/rewarded for creating them.
Absolutely! And this is why the people playing the "demographics" game are often foolish wasting their money on marketing research.
If they simply ask which games the teens are playing most, it only gives them a partial picture. It doesn't take into account how many of those games were really purchased by parents as gifts, and how many additional sales they'd have if they managed to release titles with appeal to both the teens and the adults.
As someone getting close to 35 myself, I still find that the games I consider the best are played by the younger generation too. On the other hand, games catering only to the younger generation by using pop-culture references are likely to be titles I skip over.
I'm not quite sure I agree. I mean, it's one thing to talk about someone using a computer as part of their job handling your money - but most spyware/virus/trojan horse threats are making victims of grandma and grandpa, just struggling to use their computer to email the grandkids, or the stay at home mom trying to scan in medical receipts to fax to her insurance company, or even the college student that's only a casual computer user - but just wanted to listen to some music and get some papers typed up and submitted to his/her professor via the net.
Sure, "ignorance" can be pointed to as the reason they have problems - but it's rather elitist to simply act like it's all their fault for not choosing to invest tons of time in mastering the PC, instead of many other things they might be working on instead.
The fact is, when the "home computer" first came out, it never really made any promises to the general public. It was available, and if it piqued your interest, you bought one, sat down and learned how it worked. Most folks passed on them.
Nowdays, it's a huge industry, and you have everyone from Microsoft to Intel and AMD to your local retailers promising "ease of use" and hawking the fact that "you can't live without one!". If the products allow all of these virus infections and spyware threats to damage the computing experience - they're simply not living up to what they promised. I don't fault the users. An OS designed for the "masses" should be able to prevent malware from damaging things, even if the user clicks some pop-up trying to install a free piece of software.
It's sort of like the "heuristic scanning" features in some anti-virus packages, but taken a step further. Make the OS intelligent enough to know when a program is trying to perform destructive activity and prevent it at the OS level. Assume the user isn't smart enough to "just know" which programs are good and which are bad.
I, for one, say Cringley is wrong here. He's certainly not the first to make a comment about Macs being "dangerous to the status-quo in I.T." - but repeating it doesn't make it any more legitimate.
Here's why:
1. I.T. departments are always (but especially in the current economy) supposed to be adding "value" to the workplace in all of their endeavours. If a Mac is the best tool for the job and I.T. really believes it will cut support in half for that task, then I'd say the vast MAJORITY of I.T. workers would recommend it. In reality, the thing that caused loads of I.T. workers to lose their jobs was the perception that they spent far too much money on products and services that didn't offer enough payback to the company. (So in effect, the I.T. workers trying to preserve their jobs by only recommending things that "kept them busy" backfired on them when they couldn't show real cost savings/benefits.)
2. As any *good, functional* I.T. department can testify, there are always more things that can be done to make a company's computers easier to use and more useful to the other employees. More often than not, these things get pushed aside because I.T. is too busy "putting out fires" where the products they have in place keep crashing/misbehaving.
3. I love the Macintosh (I own 3 of them myself), but I also realize some of these claims of far reduced support needs should be taken with a grain of salt. Mac users tend to run only a relative handful of applications. (If you use a Mac for desktop publishing, for example, you probably spend most of your time in Quark Express or InDesign. You may never really do much else with it!) I also see Macs used in such places as dentists' offices, where they pretty much do nothing besides run a proprietary dental billing/records application. The typical Windows PC user tends to have a plethora of things installed, including lots of installing/uninstalling of demo/trialware apps - and of course, the tendency to play around with little games, screen savers, and the like they receive from friends in email or web links. When I see a Mac all loaded up with a variety of apps, I start to see odd issues, just like Windows PCs get. (Look at www.macfixit.com on any given day to see examples of some of this stuff! Lots of weird font corruption problems when people use 3rd. party font managers, etc. etc.)
Actually, in today's environment - I have my doubts you *can* avoid a lawsuit if you work on a similar project to a competitor's existing one, and you previously worked for them in any development capacity.
I'm not an app developer myself, so correct me if this seems "way out of line", but I find it hard to believe someone can memorize enough "proprietary code" to go use it in some new project for a competitor. If they didn't blatantly steal a copy of the source and copy/paste lines in, I think the most you'd normally see is them trying to recreate some basic concepts in their own way.
These days though, it seems like you can get slapped with a lawsuit for making anything that even looks remotely similar on the surface - despite your code being completely different than the claimed "original work" you're borrowing from.
Yeah - you know, I've experienced the same thing a few times, and to be honest, it's totally contradictory to the way I do things myself. I've always felt like anyone who takes the time to physically show up at my door for social reasons is making the "ultimate effort" to spend some time with me.
If I'm on the phone when someone unexpectedly drops in, I give the visitor preference over my phone call. Only if I already have other company over do I have to give things more thought - and then I try my best to split my time between the visitors, if possible.
But I've had friends in the past who practically slammed the door in my face when I dropped by, telling me basically "What the h*ll is your problem? Call me before you just show up here!" Quite frankly, those people quickly lost rank in my list of people I considered friends.
If I did drop by someone's house without calling, it's probably either A) because I was in the area anyway, and it just made sense, or B) because I had an emergency of some sort. I'm not too dense to take a hint and leave quickly if it's obvious I'm interrupting something important - but I at least expect people to be gracious/polite about it.
Yeah.... but I wonder if you said it first, or if I did? Seriously, I was telling people about this idea years and years ago, shortly after CD burners dropped to consumer-level pricing. All I ever heard from people was either A) That's an AWESOME idea! You should try starting a business selling something like that!! or B) That won't ever happen because the recording industry is too scared to place all their content on a single server in a retail outlet. Some employee might get access to it and download a copy of the whole drive for him/herself!
The big reason I'm amazed it hasn't yet caught on is the obvious expense of all the shelf space it takes to sell music. If you go to your local Best Buy store, for example, a huge portion of the store is devoted just to music. Imagine if that could be reduced to a row of kiosk terminals. You could offer all sorts of additional product that you didn't have physical space for before. Furthermore, you'd put an end to the entire problem of being stuck with excess inventory, or being out of a popular title. It's a dream come true for retailers.
Hell, a strip search isn't even too likely to stop those that are determined to smuggle out corporate data. These days, simply by giving someone access to use a web browser on a PC at work, you've given them the ability to take your data. Plenty of online services (such as Yahoo) offer "briefcases" where you can upload files for storage to your personal account.
How many of these places banning USB flash drives from coming in are also preventing users from going anyplace on the Internet except specific web sites designated as "safe"?
Ultimately, it comes down to the same old thing. Treat your employees fairly and keep morale up, and you have a much more effective theft deterrent than any security measures you could ever put in place. Happy employees don't want to see their employer hurt and lose money. (Furthermore, if exceptions do exist in such a workplace, their co-workers are going to rat them out if they see them screwing over the business.)
It depends on which format you're talking about, honestly. If we're just talking MP3 vs. MP3 here, then yes - I can *usually* tell the difference between a 128 bit and a 192 bit encoded song.
Granted, there are exceptions to this rule, but they're usually only when the original source material isn't that great to begin with. (For example, I have MP3s made from a James Brown hits collection CD - and frankly, the original CD has a muddy, low-fi sound to it. There's just not enough detail there to warrant encoding at a higher bitrate than 128. I mean, what do you want? Perfect reproductions of background hiss?)
I've downloaded a few iTunes songs in 128-bit AAC, and my informal "off the cuff" listening experiences with them make me consider them roughly equal to encoding MP3s at 160 bits or so. They sound pretty darn good, but probably not quite "CD quality". I suspect, again, though - some of this depends on the quality of the original source material.
Unless you like modern (90's and beyond) music, you often have to deal with limitations in the original recordings. For example, I'm a big Rush fan - but I find most of their music sounds a tad "muddy" or "muffled". Their "Show of Hands" live CD was a notable exception (recorded and mixed in full digital), and I don't hear any sound quality issues on any of their more recent releases ("Test for Echo", for example). But every time I listen to Hemispheres, Signals, or the like - I think "Great music, but I bet this would sound much better if this was recorded on today's equipment."
Here in St. Louis, it's my observation that with relatively few exceptions, the big traffic jams always happen around the same times and places. Predicting a traffic jam with good reliability is possible primarily because inadequate roads/freeways for traffic flow during rush hour means really good odds of a problem in those key areas.
Basically, we have a situation where a large number of people need to travel from suburbs in the west to their workplaces in the city itself (east). On the ride home, you get the reverse. There are only 2 major interstates running east to west that will be dealing with most of this traffic flow, so they're almost a "given" for a traffic jam. (Technically, there's a 3rd. one - Interstate 44, but it's far enough south that it doesn't get the traffic we see on I-40 or I-70, which are more direct shots back to the majority of the suburbs in the west.)
You can also currently expect traffic jams heading to the northern parts of St. Louis, mainly because road construction has restricted traffic flow on our major interstate taking people north/south (I-270). in that section of the highway.
Yep, it does serve as a deterent. It makes me want to avoid going to the theaters at all to see movies. They've gotten way to expensive anyway, and the thought that I'm being spied on by some schmuck wearing night vision goggles while I watch the movie doesn't make me feel any better about the experience.
As I've said many times before, the movie industry simply doesn't get it, if they really think they have a "big problem" with people like this teenager trying to capture a movie on videotape.
The quality of all of these bootleg movies I've seen is horrible. The sound is the typical, poor quality you'd expect from a built-in condenser microphone in a consumer-grade camcorder, and sometimes, you even miss a piece of the film as some guy gets up and walks in front of the camera lens! On top of all this, you've got to invest the time and hassle to download hundreds or thousands of megabytes of data before you can even begin watching one of these sub-par ripoffs on your computer screen. These just aren't going to serve as good substitutes for people seeing the move on the big screen.
They're chasing after what's largely a non-issue, and making criminals out of a few more teens in the process. Hurray for them....
Actually, there's one scenario where you *might* see an Intel version of OS X. Apple could, theoretically, get upset with IBM and quit using their CPUs. In this scenario, they don't have much choice other than partnering with AMD or Intel and building new Macs with an x86 architecture.
This, in fact, appears to have been a "plan B" for Jobs up until he struck the deal with IBM - because they weren't getting anywhere fast with the Motorola partnership. If this happened though, I'm sure he'd make an effort to write the Intel version of OS X so it would refuse to run on anything other than a custom Apple-made motherboard. (But as we all know, something like this would just get hacked anyway, so we'd see it on standard Wintel PCs within weeks of its release.)
Yep.... Granted, this was at least 5 years ago, but one of my good friends worked for UPS and told me a story about their loading dock here in the midwest.
He said they had been short on space, so they were ordered to stack boxes up in a 6 or 7 foot high "wall". When it came time to get these boxes loaded on the trucks, a supervisor came along, ordering them to "tear it down!". They just let the whole thing fall all over the concrete floor, without any concern as to whether or not boxes near the top of the pile were "fragile".
I'd be more inclined to agree with you, if we were talking about DESKTOPS here, but we're talking NOTEBOOKS!
I don't know how many notebook computers you've personally repaired, but I've worked on quite a few - and I'd say it's by far the most challenging type of computer repair out there.
Among other things, it takes lots of patience and care, because you're dealing with lots of very small screws (often several different sizes for different parts of the system) that can easily get lost, along with fragile ribbon cables, etc. Outer plastic shell parts are often tricky to snap apart without breaking off tabs, and sometimes you have little pieces that have to be carefully placed in just the right spot before snapping other pieces closed around them (CPU cooling ducts and the like).
The last thing I want is some moron rushing through a $3000 laptop repair, losing parts and breaking things in the process!
Is it rocket science? Of course not. But like anything involving tiny parts crammed into small spaces, you have to be CAREFUL.
Umm... I can understand not liking a $500 price tag for *any* piece of software. But realistically, what other commercial server type OS are you going to buy for much less than Apple's price on OS X server? (If you're a student, work for the government in any capacity, or even serve in the military, you should already qualify for at least a small discount already - since Apple always offers that.)
I've never seen Novell offer a copy of Netware real cheap for home users just wanting to try using it for 1 or 2 workstations.... and Microsoft sure doesn't offer Windows 2003 Server at anything resembling "inexpensive pricing".
I think that's pretty much the reason for the popularity of Unix type open-source OS's in the first place. If you just want to tinker at home, Linux or BSD should do the job for you, and not cost you hundreds of dollars.
I'm not so sure about that... For starters, why would the new displays be a step backwards from current models? It looks to me like they're making them in aluminum enclosures to better match the G5 and aluminum Powerbooks, so that just makes good sense from a design standpoint. Also, the decision to change them back to an industry-standard DVI video connection allows them to work with Windows PCs as well as Macs. That means more potential sales for Apple, but also means those of us who own a G5 but a Windows laptop can easily share the display with either machine, without buying an expensive add-on product to convert display connectors.
I'd also argue that the Aluminum Powerbook deserves an award for its design. They've got the only keyboard with backlighting that actually lights up the characters on the keycaps, instead of just the spaces between the keys. There are no exposed doors or hinges to break off. The 17" version is still the lightest weight and thinnest laptop available with that screen size, period. If I had to find anything they did wrong with it, my only change would have been incorporating a numeric keypad on the 17" model - rather than wasting all that horizontal space to the left and right of the keyboard. (But then, that would add complexity for Apple, since they couldn't interchange keyboards with the 15" and 17" models.)
As for complaints about the keyboard not matching the G5, that's true to an extent, but traditionally, I thought black and white were considered "neutral colors" that matched anything. I find that since I added a Kensington Studio mouse to my G5 setup, it acts as a transition between the G5 and the keyboard. (The Kensington mouse is partly white plastic, just like the Apple keyboard, but also silver/metallic on the top.) They could have released an aluminum desktop keyboard I guess.... but the current arrangement isn't too bad, IMHO.
It's a great idea, as far as public disobedience and protesting is concerned. Only problem is, I suspect it would be treated much like waving around a realistic-looking toy gun. It's not illegal to have the toy gun, but you'd certainly at least get thrown out and waste your money you spent to see the movie. (Not to mention, probably get arrested and have to go through the hassle of proving you weren't actually doing anything wrong.)
The thing that bothers me most about this law is the way the movie industry has twisted govt's arm to protect their business interests at the taxpayer's expense. If I carry a camcorder into a theater and start filming a movie I *paid* to see in the first place, it's just as much a "victimless crime" as if I placed a few "illegal bets" on a sports event, or sat at home and smoked a joint, or you name it.... I guess the Senate still hasn't grasped the idea that prosecuting victimless crimes isn't effective and just wastes money.
Certainly possible... but someone good at stage makeup could also alter someone's face as a disguise and trick most people searching for a specific, wanted, individual, as that individual walked right past security and onto a plane.
I think the point of these security measures is just to increase the level of difficulty, not to eliminate all risk....
IMHO, a fingerprint scanner works well enough as a basically useful screening device. Sure, it can be fooled, like most people or devices... but it's like your door locks at home. Won't stop a professional with lockpicks, but serves the general purpose.
Re: appreciation for what lies beyond
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War Kayaking
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I don't think we're really disagreeing that much on this... We should never be "slaves to technology". I also agree that there's a time to put the "toys and tools" away, and just enjoy what's there in front of you.
Still, it doesn't take a whole afternoon to appreciate the beauty of a waterfall or natural spring you hiked to get to, or a huge cliff you reached. You might spend the good part of the day trying to reach one of those things, and that's great. But many camping trips are more about finding a nice, quiet spot to pitch a tent and relaxing. In that scenario, I see nothing inherently wrong with firing up a laptop computer or PDA and catching up on a few things, if you feel like doing so.
I guess my point is, there seem to be some "nature freaks" out there with a decidedly anti-technology outlook, who act like you're commiting a crime if you show up with electronics to a campground. Sorry folks, but maybe I can be *more* relaxed after I've checked my messages and wrote back to a few friends.
Bleah.... I own no less than 3 Macs over here, and yet I never signed up for a.Mac account!
I've used it a fair bit, since I used to work for a guy who hosted 4 different web sites from his.Mac acct. - and it was up to me to maintain all of those for him.
My impression was, it's way too slow. Apple's only attempt to "address" this issue was to try to cache everything locally on your hard drive in OS X Panther, so it *appears* to be more responsive, rather than solving the real problem.
Not only that, but it only "does more than the others" if you're using it from a Mac. If you have to access a.Mac account from something like a Linux box, or even a Windows PC, you run into immediate limitations. (Sure, Apple provides a Windows client for.Mac, but it's annoying you need one in the first place. Why can't I just ftp files directly up to the account, if need-be?)
Apple keeps trying to get more people on-board with.Mac - but it seems like they're trying to bribe users with perks, rather than truly improve the service itself. (EG. Sign up for.Mac, and you'll get 20% off on your next software purchase at the Apple store! Or sign up now, and we'll let you download free anti-virus software.) Thanks, but no thanks..Mac would be fine for some small fee like $25/yr. but it's not worth more than that.
Hey! I have a quick question, if you (or someone in the know in SBC) could answer this for me. What's going on with SBC's "enhanced DSL" service in the St. Louis, Missouri area?
Not that long ago, I upgraded my regular DSL package to "enhanced" which gives me 6 megabit downloads and apparently, about 512K-540K upload speeds. Now, I've been told to make sure "I hang onto that package and don't cancel!" because SBC no longer offers it.
I'm told that the fastest DSL speeds you can buy from them today in St. Louis are 3 megabit? Why'd they do this? Was it a matter of technical difficulties (too many people paid for the 6 megabits and then couldn't really get it due to line errors and the like), or just wasn't popular enough or what?
I'm very pleased with my 6mbit service.... It's been very reliable for me. Granted, it's not exactly cheap - but my roommate was an SBC employee, so we put everything phone-related in his name and got the employee discounted rates, making it a little more affordable.
I was just surprised to see that in a market where max. speeds for broadband seem to be climbing, SBC would drop their fastest speed package.
Re:Yeah, that's why I go kayaking
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I've done the "roughing it" thing a number of times, leaving all the electronics at home. I don't think it really helped me get more out of the experience though. If you're going camping, boating, or what-have-you primarily with intentions of escaping everything else, then sure - it's part of your objective to leave behind communications tools. (The last thing you want are calls or emails telling you to come in to work or something, right?)
But otherwise, nah - I've actually spent weekends in the "great outdoors" and gotten a bit bored. Sometimes, you waste away a good part of the day and suddenly feel a bit guilty, like "Hey, I could have at least gotten items A or B done today, instead of lying in this hammock." I can honestly say I would have had a slightly better experience if I had some sort of laptop w/net access.
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As most of us well know, the software industry is guilty of marking prices up for items of comparable functionality to other (cheap or even FREE) solutions, ALL THE TIME.
Still, I can't say I'd be *too* hard on your CIO over the WinZip decision. I actually pushed for a company to license WinZip before, not because cheaper alternatives didn't exist - but because it made user training less of a hassle.
When it comes to a small utility like a file compressor/uncompressor, users just want something they can get in and back out of without confusion. Users have enough problems dealing with ZIP file attachments to emails, and requests to "please zip up documents X and Y and send them to us". Lots of our users had futzed around with WinZip at home before, so it made sense to use it instead of giving them one more unfamiliar interface to master.
I'm a big proponent of "CutePDF" though for making PDFs in Windows. So many people spend hundreds on Acrobat when all they really want is a way to print things to PDF instead of to a real printer.
Acrobat is great if you use the functionality in it, but it's overkill for most people who buy it. They don't even realize or care that you can do document markup/annotation, and all the other things Acrobat gives you.
I think a classic (and relevant) example of cheaper alternatives in software would be JASC Paint Shop Pro vs. Adobe Photoshop.
What really bothers me about this sort of thing is that I rely on a Garmin "Street Pilot" GPS unit every day for my work. These devices plug into a cigarette lighter plug for power and sit on top of your dashboard. They have a small color LCD touchscreen display, and allow entering house addresses, intersections, etc. - and then it reads off directions as you drive.
I've often wondered how long it will be before some ignorant police officer pulls me over for "watching TV while driving".
As others pointed out, what we DON'T need are still more detailed laws stripping of us of rights to use electronic devices as we wish in our cars. If someone is careless, they're careless - and it'll happen as often by them taking their eyes off the road to look at something they see out a side window as by messing with a radio, an in-car DVD player, or whatever.
I don't presume to know whether a particular person is or isn't good enough at "multitasking" to drive safely while some DVD movie is playing. I certainly wouldn't want to charge them with murder over my "guesstimation" of what they did! I don't think the law should try to do so either. In this case, charge the guy with manslaughter but NOT murder, unless you can show he has some sort of past history of making claims that he "watches TV while driving because he doesn't care about other drivers, and hopes he'll hit one sometime", or something outrageous like that.
They already have that in "Postal 2", except you pretty much just throw the scissors like darts, instead of trying to snip someone with 'em.
I wonder where they recruit trainees for this "snipping" job though? Great Clips or Fantastic Sams, or the ever-popular corner barber shop?
First of all, comparing property rights to copyrights is ok, up to a point, but there's a "fatal flaw" in the logic. In the case of "property rights", a peson's right is much less than "absolute" because it starts interfering with the rights of others. (EG. Your example of a person who owns a piece of a river, and yet isn't allowed to build a dam on his/her property and charge others for the water.)
Since copyright covers intellectual properties, not physical ones, these problems don't really come up with copyright.
Instead, copyright law *should* simply exist to the extent that it helps further innovation and creation of new works. When you really think about it, that statement boils down to making sure someone is rewarded financially and/or protected from others ripping off his/her original ideas without giving credit where credit is due. Where does extended a copyright well past the lifetime of the creator help achieve either of these 2 things? I'd say it doesn't!
All it really does is put limitations on the public's access to creative works, long past the point where such limits ensure the creator is compensated/rewarded for creating them.
Absolutely! And this is why the people playing the "demographics" game are often foolish wasting their money on marketing research.
If they simply ask which games the teens are playing most, it only gives them a partial picture. It doesn't take into account how many of those games were really purchased by parents as gifts, and how many additional sales they'd have if they managed to release titles with appeal to both the teens and the adults.
As someone getting close to 35 myself, I still find that the games I consider the best are played by the younger generation too. On the other hand, games catering only to the younger generation by using pop-culture references are likely to be titles I skip over.
I'm not quite sure I agree. I mean, it's one thing to talk about someone using a computer as part of their job handling your money - but most spyware/virus/trojan horse threats are making victims of grandma and grandpa, just struggling to use their computer to email the grandkids, or the stay at home mom trying to scan in medical receipts to fax to her insurance company, or even the college student that's only a casual computer user - but just wanted to listen to some music and get some papers typed up and submitted to his/her professor via the net.
Sure, "ignorance" can be pointed to as the reason they have problems - but it's rather elitist to simply act like it's all their fault for not choosing to invest tons of time in mastering the PC, instead of many other things they might be working on instead.
The fact is, when the "home computer" first came out, it never really made any promises to the general public. It was available, and if it piqued your interest, you bought one, sat down and learned how it worked. Most folks passed on them.
Nowdays, it's a huge industry, and you have everyone from Microsoft to Intel and AMD to your local retailers promising "ease of use" and hawking the fact that "you can't live without one!". If the products allow all of these virus infections and spyware threats to damage the computing experience - they're simply not living up to what they promised. I don't fault the users. An OS designed for the "masses" should be able to prevent malware from damaging things, even if the user clicks some pop-up trying to install a free piece of software.
It's sort of like the "heuristic scanning" features in some anti-virus packages, but taken a step further. Make the OS intelligent enough to know when a program is trying to perform destructive activity and prevent it at the OS level. Assume the user isn't smart enough to "just know" which programs are good and which are bad.
I, for one, say Cringley is wrong here. He's certainly not the first to make a comment about Macs being "dangerous to the status-quo in I.T." - but repeating it doesn't make it any more legitimate.
Here's why:
1. I.T. departments are always (but especially in the current economy) supposed to be adding "value" to the workplace in all of their endeavours. If a Mac is the best tool for the job and I.T. really believes it will cut support in half for that task, then I'd say the vast MAJORITY of I.T. workers would recommend it. In reality, the thing that caused loads of I.T. workers to lose their jobs was the perception that they spent far too much money on products and services that didn't offer enough payback to the company. (So in effect, the I.T. workers trying to preserve their jobs by only recommending things that "kept them busy" backfired on them when they couldn't show real cost savings/benefits.)
2. As any *good, functional* I.T. department can testify, there are always more things that can be done to make a company's computers easier to use and more useful to the other employees. More often than not, these things get pushed aside because I.T. is too busy "putting out fires" where the products they have in place keep crashing/misbehaving.
3. I love the Macintosh (I own 3 of them myself), but I also realize some of these claims of far reduced support needs should be taken with a grain of salt. Mac users tend to run only a relative handful of applications. (If you use a Mac for desktop publishing, for example, you probably spend most of your time in Quark Express or InDesign. You may never really do much else with it!) I also see Macs used in such places as dentists' offices, where they pretty much do nothing besides run a proprietary dental billing/records application. The typical Windows PC user tends to have a plethora of things installed, including lots of installing/uninstalling of demo/trialware apps - and of course, the tendency to play around with little games, screen savers, and the like they receive from friends in email or web links. When I see a Mac all loaded up with a variety of apps, I start to see odd issues, just like Windows PCs get. (Look at www.macfixit.com on any given day to see examples of some of this stuff! Lots of weird font corruption problems when people use 3rd. party font managers, etc. etc.)
Actually, in today's environment - I have my doubts you *can* avoid a lawsuit if you work on a similar project to a competitor's existing one, and you previously worked for them in any development capacity.
I'm not an app developer myself, so correct me if this seems "way out of line", but I find it hard to believe someone can memorize enough "proprietary code" to go use it in some new project for a competitor. If they didn't blatantly steal a copy of the source and copy/paste lines in, I think the most you'd normally see is them trying to recreate some basic concepts in their own way.
These days though, it seems like you can get slapped with a lawsuit for making anything that even looks remotely similar on the surface - despite your code being completely different than the claimed "original work" you're borrowing from.
Yeah - you know, I've experienced the same thing a few times, and to be honest, it's totally contradictory to the way I do things myself. I've always felt like anyone who takes the time to physically show up at my door for social reasons is making the "ultimate effort" to spend some time with me.
If I'm on the phone when someone unexpectedly drops in, I give the visitor preference over my phone call. Only if I already have other company over do I have to give things more thought - and then I try my best to split my time between the visitors, if possible.
But I've had friends in the past who practically slammed the door in my face when I dropped by, telling me basically "What the h*ll is your problem? Call me before you just show up here!" Quite frankly, those people quickly lost rank in my list of people I considered friends.
If I did drop by someone's house without calling, it's probably either A) because I was in the area anyway, and it just made sense, or B) because I had an emergency of some sort. I'm not too dense to take a hint and leave quickly if it's obvious I'm interrupting something important - but I at least expect people to be gracious/polite about it.
Yeah.... but I wonder if you said it first, or if I did? Seriously, I was telling people about this idea years and years ago, shortly after CD burners dropped to consumer-level pricing. All I ever heard from people was either A) That's an AWESOME idea! You should try starting a business selling something like that!! or B) That won't ever happen because the recording industry is too scared to place all their content on a single server in a retail outlet. Some employee might get access to it and download a copy of the whole drive for him/herself!
The big reason I'm amazed it hasn't yet caught on is the obvious expense of all the shelf space it takes to sell music. If you go to your local Best Buy store, for example, a huge portion of the store is devoted just to music. Imagine if that could be reduced to a row of kiosk terminals. You could offer all sorts of additional product that you didn't have physical space for before. Furthermore, you'd put an end to the entire problem of being stuck with excess inventory, or being out of a popular title. It's a dream come true for retailers.
Hell, a strip search isn't even too likely to stop those that are determined to smuggle out corporate data. These days, simply by giving someone access to use a web browser on a PC at work, you've given them the ability to take your data. Plenty of online services (such as Yahoo) offer "briefcases" where you can upload files for storage to your personal account.
How many of these places banning USB flash drives from coming in are also preventing users from going anyplace on the Internet except specific web sites designated as "safe"?
Ultimately, it comes down to the same old thing. Treat your employees fairly and keep morale up, and you have a much more effective theft deterrent than any security measures you could ever put in place. Happy employees don't want to see their employer hurt and lose money. (Furthermore, if exceptions do exist in such a workplace, their co-workers are going to rat them out if they see them screwing over the business.)
It depends on which format you're talking about, honestly. If we're just talking MP3 vs. MP3 here, then yes - I can *usually* tell the difference between a 128 bit and a 192 bit encoded song.
Granted, there are exceptions to this rule, but they're usually only when the original source material isn't that great to begin with. (For example, I have MP3s made from a James Brown hits collection CD - and frankly, the original CD has a muddy, low-fi sound to it. There's just not enough detail there to warrant encoding at a higher bitrate than 128. I mean, what do you want? Perfect reproductions of background hiss?)
I've downloaded a few iTunes songs in 128-bit AAC, and my informal "off the cuff" listening experiences with them make me consider them roughly equal to encoding MP3s at 160 bits or so. They sound pretty darn good, but probably not quite "CD quality". I suspect, again, though - some of this depends on the quality of the original source material.
Unless you like modern (90's and beyond) music, you often have to deal with limitations in the original recordings. For example, I'm a big Rush fan - but I find most of their music sounds a tad "muddy" or "muffled". Their "Show of Hands" live CD was a notable exception (recorded and mixed in full digital), and I don't hear any sound quality issues on any of their more recent releases ("Test for Echo", for example). But every time I listen to Hemispheres, Signals, or the like - I think "Great music, but I bet this would sound much better if this was recorded on today's equipment."
Here in St. Louis, it's my observation that with relatively few exceptions, the big traffic jams always happen around the same times and places. Predicting a traffic jam with good reliability is possible primarily because inadequate roads/freeways for traffic flow during rush hour means really good odds of a problem in those key areas.
Basically, we have a situation where a large number of people need to travel from suburbs in the west to their workplaces in the city itself (east). On the ride home, you get the reverse. There are only 2 major interstates running east to west that will be dealing with most of this traffic flow, so they're almost a "given" for a traffic jam. (Technically, there's a 3rd. one - Interstate 44, but it's far enough south that it doesn't get the traffic we see on I-40 or I-70, which are more direct shots back to the majority of the suburbs in the west.)
You can also currently expect traffic jams heading to the northern parts of St. Louis, mainly because road construction has restricted traffic flow on our major interstate taking people north/south (I-270). in that section of the highway.
Yep, it does serve as a deterent. It makes me want to avoid going to the theaters at all to see movies. They've gotten way to expensive anyway, and the thought that I'm being spied on by some schmuck wearing night vision goggles while I watch the movie doesn't make me feel any better about the experience.
As I've said many times before, the movie industry simply doesn't get it, if they really think they have a "big problem" with people like this teenager trying to capture a movie on videotape.
The quality of all of these bootleg movies I've seen is horrible. The sound is the typical, poor quality you'd expect from a built-in condenser microphone in a consumer-grade camcorder, and sometimes, you even miss a piece of the film as some guy gets up and walks in front of the camera lens! On top of all this, you've got to invest the time and hassle to download hundreds or thousands of megabytes of data before you can even begin watching one of these sub-par ripoffs on your computer screen. These just aren't going to serve as good substitutes for people seeing the move on the big screen.
They're chasing after what's largely a non-issue, and making criminals out of a few more teens in the process. Hurray for them....
Actually, there's one scenario where you *might* see an Intel version of OS X. Apple could, theoretically, get upset with IBM and quit using their CPUs. In this scenario, they don't have much choice other than partnering with AMD or Intel and building new Macs with an x86 architecture.
This, in fact, appears to have been a "plan B" for Jobs up until he struck the deal with IBM - because they weren't getting anywhere fast with the Motorola partnership. If this happened though, I'm sure he'd make an effort to write the Intel version of OS X so it would refuse to run on anything other than a custom Apple-made motherboard. (But as we all know, something like this would just get hacked anyway, so we'd see it on standard Wintel PCs within weeks of its release.)
Yep.... Granted, this was at least 5 years ago, but one of my good friends worked for UPS and told me a story about their loading dock here in the midwest.
He said they had been short on space, so they were ordered to stack boxes up in a 6 or 7 foot high "wall". When it came time to get these boxes loaded on the trucks, a supervisor came along, ordering them to "tear it down!". They just let the whole thing fall all over the concrete floor, without any concern as to whether or not boxes near the top of the pile were "fragile".
I'd be more inclined to agree with you, if we were talking about DESKTOPS here, but we're talking NOTEBOOKS!
I don't know how many notebook computers you've personally repaired, but I've worked on quite a few - and I'd say it's by far the most challenging type of computer repair out there.
Among other things, it takes lots of patience and care, because you're dealing with lots of very small screws (often several different sizes for different parts of the system) that can easily get lost, along with fragile ribbon cables, etc. Outer plastic shell parts are often tricky to snap apart without breaking off tabs, and sometimes you have little pieces that have to be carefully placed in just the right spot before snapping other pieces closed around them (CPU cooling ducts and the like).
The last thing I want is some moron rushing through a $3000 laptop repair, losing parts and breaking things in the process!
Is it rocket science? Of course not. But like anything involving tiny parts crammed into small spaces, you have to be CAREFUL.
Umm... I can understand not liking a $500 price tag for *any* piece of software. But realistically, what other commercial server type OS are you going to buy for much less than Apple's price on OS X server? (If you're a student, work for the government in any capacity, or even serve in the military, you should already qualify for at least a small discount already - since Apple always offers that.)
I've never seen Novell offer a copy of Netware real cheap for home users just wanting to try using it for 1 or 2 workstations.... and Microsoft sure doesn't offer Windows 2003 Server at anything resembling "inexpensive pricing".
I think that's pretty much the reason for the popularity of Unix type open-source OS's in the first place. If you just want to tinker at home, Linux or BSD should do the job for you, and not cost you hundreds of dollars.
I'm not so sure about that... For starters, why would the new displays be a step backwards from current models? It looks to me like they're making them in aluminum enclosures to better match the G5 and aluminum Powerbooks, so that just makes good sense from a design standpoint. Also, the decision to change them back to an industry-standard DVI video connection allows them to work with Windows PCs as well as Macs. That means more potential sales for Apple, but also means those of us who own a G5 but a Windows laptop can easily share the display with either machine, without buying an expensive add-on product to convert display connectors.
I'd also argue that the Aluminum Powerbook deserves an award for its design. They've got the only keyboard with backlighting that actually lights up the characters on the keycaps, instead of just the spaces between the keys. There are no exposed doors or hinges to break off. The 17" version is still the lightest weight and thinnest laptop available with that screen size, period. If I had to find anything they did wrong with it, my only change would have been incorporating a numeric keypad on the 17" model - rather than wasting all that horizontal space to the left and right of the keyboard. (But then, that would add complexity for Apple, since they couldn't interchange keyboards with the 15" and 17" models.)
As for complaints about the keyboard not matching the G5, that's true to an extent, but traditionally, I thought black and white were considered "neutral colors" that matched anything. I find that since I added a Kensington Studio mouse to my G5 setup, it acts as a transition between the G5 and the keyboard. (The Kensington mouse is partly white plastic, just like the Apple keyboard, but also silver/metallic on the top.) They could have released an aluminum desktop keyboard I guess.... but the current arrangement isn't too bad, IMHO.
It's a great idea, as far as public disobedience and protesting is concerned. Only problem is, I suspect it would be treated much like waving around a realistic-looking toy gun. It's not illegal to have the toy gun, but you'd certainly at least get thrown out and waste your money you spent to see the movie. (Not to mention, probably get arrested and have to go through the hassle of proving you weren't actually doing anything wrong.)
The thing that bothers me most about this law is the way the movie industry has twisted govt's arm to protect their business interests at the taxpayer's expense. If I carry a camcorder into a theater and start filming a movie I *paid* to see in the first place, it's just as much a "victimless crime" as if I placed a few "illegal bets" on a sports event, or sat at home and smoked a joint, or you name it.... I guess the Senate still hasn't grasped the idea that prosecuting victimless crimes isn't effective and just wastes money.
Certainly possible... but someone good at stage makeup could also alter someone's face as a disguise and trick most people searching for a specific, wanted, individual, as that individual walked right past security and onto a plane.
I think the point of these security measures is just to increase the level of difficulty, not to eliminate all risk....
IMHO, a fingerprint scanner works well enough as a basically useful screening device. Sure, it can be fooled, like most people or devices... but it's like your door locks at home. Won't stop a professional with lockpicks, but serves the general purpose.
I don't think we're really disagreeing that much on this... We should never be "slaves to technology". I also agree that there's a time to put the "toys and tools" away, and just enjoy what's there in front of you.
Still, it doesn't take a whole afternoon to appreciate the beauty of a waterfall or natural spring you hiked to get to, or a huge cliff you reached. You might spend the good part of the day trying to reach one of those things, and that's great. But many camping trips are more about finding a nice, quiet spot to pitch a tent and relaxing. In that scenario, I see nothing inherently wrong with firing up a laptop computer or PDA and catching up on a few things, if you feel like doing so.
I guess my point is, there seem to be some "nature freaks" out there with a decidedly anti-technology outlook, who act like you're commiting a crime if you show up with electronics to a campground. Sorry folks, but maybe I can be *more* relaxed after I've checked my messages and wrote back to a few friends.
Bleah.... I own no less than 3 Macs over here, and yet I never signed up for a .Mac account!
.Mac acct. - and it was up to me to maintain all of those for him.
.Mac account from something like a Linux box, or even a Windows PC, you run into immediate limitations. (Sure, Apple provides a Windows client for .Mac, but it's annoying you need one in the first place. Why can't I just ftp files directly up to the account, if need-be?)
.Mac - but it seems like they're trying to bribe users with perks, rather than truly improve the service itself. (EG. Sign up for .Mac, and you'll get 20% off on your next software purchase at the Apple store! Or sign up now, and we'll let you download free anti-virus software.) Thanks, but no thanks. .Mac would be fine for some small fee like $25/yr. but it's not worth more than that.
I've used it a fair bit, since I used to work for a guy who hosted 4 different web sites from his
My impression was, it's way too slow. Apple's only attempt to "address" this issue was to try to cache everything locally on your hard drive in OS X Panther, so it *appears* to be more responsive, rather than solving the real problem.
Not only that, but it only "does more than the others" if you're using it from a Mac. If you have to access a
Apple keeps trying to get more people on-board with
Hey! I have a quick question, if you (or someone in the know in SBC) could answer this for me. What's going on with SBC's "enhanced DSL" service in the St. Louis, Missouri area?
Not that long ago, I upgraded my regular DSL package to "enhanced" which gives me 6 megabit downloads and apparently, about 512K-540K upload speeds. Now, I've been told to make sure "I hang onto that package and don't cancel!" because SBC no longer offers it.
I'm told that the fastest DSL speeds you can buy from them today in St. Louis are 3 megabit? Why'd they do this? Was it a matter of technical difficulties (too many people paid for the 6 megabits and then couldn't really get it due to line errors and the like), or just wasn't popular enough or what?
I'm very pleased with my 6mbit service.... It's been very reliable for me. Granted, it's not exactly cheap - but my roommate was an SBC employee, so we put everything phone-related in his name and got the employee discounted rates, making it a little more affordable.
I was just surprised to see that in a market where max. speeds for broadband seem to be climbing, SBC would drop their fastest speed package.
I've done the "roughing it" thing a number of times, leaving all the electronics at home. I don't think it really helped me get more out of the experience though. If you're going camping, boating, or what-have-you primarily with intentions of escaping everything else, then sure - it's part of your objective to leave behind communications tools. (The last thing you want are calls or emails telling you to come in to work or something, right?)
But otherwise, nah - I've actually spent weekends in the "great outdoors" and gotten a bit bored. Sometimes, you waste away a good part of the day and suddenly feel a bit guilty, like "Hey, I could have at least gotten items A or B done today, instead of lying in this hammock." I can honestly say I would have had a slightly better experience if I had some sort of laptop w/net access.