RE: worth undertaking?
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CNet on WinFS
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· Score: 1
I don't know.... When I first read about this, I thought it was a great concept (if done properly). But as I think about it more,I'm not sure it's worth the effort to develop at all.
It's exactly the type of thing a company like Microsoft would see good reasons to develop - but more for marketing reasons than true performance ones.
I can see how making the file system into some type of relational database could offer more options for searching. I can't see how it would make file saves any faster than they'd be without it. I also think it could make recovery of lost/damaged files much more complicated than it already is. (Imagine a scenario where you have to have the skills of a DBA just to get back your accidently deleted file. I'm not sure it'd be as easy as running Norton Utilities and clicking on "repair disk"....)
It also strikes ne as somewhat relevant that 3rd. party tools and document formats have advanced considerably in recent years. Not THAT long ago, people longed for technology that would let them search for documents containing specific text, rather than just for filenames. Now, we've got numerous tools and options for accomplishing that. (That's what "Document Management Systems" are all about, after all.) We can even text search inside of documents that are essentially a graphics snap-shot of pages using Adobe Acrobat.
What's not to believe about it? Most regression testing is done with automated tools nowdays anyway. The testing tools hammer away at code, looking for obvious errors and overflows. Probably they run that stuff against a new piece of code, find a ton of mistakes, get developers to fix 'em, repeat... and after they get it to where the automated stuff can't break anything else, and the developers themselves haven't stumbled on any more problems, it's proclaimed "good enough" and ships.
I can easily see that whole process taking several weeks (or more!), and yet all of this hardly means the product is really stable or "fairly bug-free".
I mean, look at a little tiny app written by basically one guy... For the sake of example, how about the mIRC Windows client for IRC chat? That thing has gone through an amazing number of revisions, and each time, the guy STILL manages to list at least a full page of bugs found and fixed. It's to the point now, I'm just amazed at the things that people find. It's so obscure most of the time, it's hard to fathom it ever got pinned down and reported by someone. Now, mIRC is an app I think most users of it would say is "incredibly solid/stable" - yet it STILL has all these bugs.
Granted, the developer also doesn't have an army of staff helping QA test and code it - but it's also magnitudes smaller than the average app s company the size of MS releases.
Realistically, the Apple "iApps" are what I'd call strictly "gateway" products. They're inexpensive to own for Mac users, easy for anyone to get started with (and in many cases, eventually grow out of), and generate a lot of positive press for Apple.
By releasing the iTunes portion for Windows, they're just creating one more "bridge" to get people hooked on Apple products, software and services.
You won't see them releasing iDVD for the PC, or even iPhoto. The most the Windows crowd is going to get is the iTunes portion of the suite - because it makes all those people potential Apple Music Store shoppers. (By contrast, Apple's service to get prints made of digital photos in iPhoto is actually done by a 3rd. party.)
I don't think Apple really has their sites on competing with sales of PCs running Windows anyway. I mean, yes, they want to sell to the folks who are tired of their Windows experience, and want something different/new/better. (They did run all those "switcher" ads, after all.) But even Apple management themselves have been quoted as saying they'd "like to see Mac sales in the 10% to 15% range of computer sales". They're not making an effort to convert the "masses". They want to be an upscale minority alternative product - but hopfully one with enough sales and profit margin to make their business a very comfortable/long-lasting one.
Apple doesn't sell at WalMart. They don't do "deep discount" offers via mass mailings like Dell tends to do. They won't even build a retail store unless it's in one of the shopping malls catering to the wealthiest people in a given community.
There's no "selling out" going on here at all. Merely a few "tokens" thrown at Windows users to make money from use of Apple services, if they won't buy/use their systems themselves.
Yes, but I think the issue wasn't with the company editing any of their own employee's outgoing email. It was only with censoring incoming mail.
I have a personal issue with either one, incidently, but there's a considerable legal difference between the two.
While outside works (web pages or even emails) coming in to a company may well be copyrighted and illegal to modify without permission, it's still questionable if the employees' outgoing email (written on company time) is even their own copyrighted property. In most cases, companies already claim copyright to anything you invent/create while working for them - so they'd probably just say this extends to your email, too.
(Note, in all of this, I'm talking about United States law. I can't speak for the situation in other countries.)
As others have already said, your CPU certainly isn't at any additional risk by running these apps. The biggest "wear and tear" item on a PC, overall, is powering it on and off frequently. Just like light-bulbs that always seem to burn out when they're first turned on, hard drives in computers tend to be the same way.
Your monitor *will* wear as it's powered on and used, but there's no good reason to leave it on all the time when Seti@home or another similar app is running.
Considering the average power consumption of a PC, you can easily compensate fully for what it costs to leave it on by replacing 2 or 3 of your standard lightbulbs in the house with the flourescent screw-in "energy saver" replacements. (These don't work well in fully enclosed fixtures because the heat build-up tends to fry the components inside their bases - but they're great anyplace else.) I swapped out 4 standard 60 watt bulbs in my unfinished basement with them, and cut my energy usage from 240 watts to 56 watts total when all the lights are on.
Yes... I'm not really sure it matters "how I feel" about this idea of content editing, because what's more important is where the law stands on it.
As far as I can tell, it's probably still under the umbrella of "legality" for a corporation to censor incoming email content, since they can argue they own the network and the systems, and add the assertion that "your email at work is not private".
I've always felt that email should have the assumption of being private, since it's just the electronic equivalent of postal mail, which IS private and protected by law as such.
At the very least, it's used daily by people in a manner much like a casual phone conversation, which also is considered private and protected by law as such.
The "catch", of course, is that it requires resources on the part of the recipient to provide the service. In the "real world", the cost of delivering a piece of mail is beared solely by the sender. The destination has to do no more than provide a physical address and a place for the mailman to toss the mail.
I'm still not convinced that the existance of expense and a need for resources on the part of the receiver automatically negates people's expectation of privacy in the medium, though. Unfortunately, the courts (and apparently, the majority of people running mail servers) disagree with me.
So ultimately, I'd say - if you want to keep email between 2 people secure, use encryption like PGP. Otherwise, anything can happen between points A and B - and there's precious little you'll be able to do about it.
Well, I'm sure Apple has the ability to give some pretty deep quantity discounts on projects of this sort without "bidding below cost" just to get the sale and publicity.
Some recent reports on their 17" Powerbook, for example, showed their cost of production to be roughly 50% of what they sell them for. That's a much better profit margin than most vendors get for their portables - especially for a new model that just cost them a bundle in "tooling up" expenses (such as dies made to cast the plastic parts in,etc.).
I thought the same thing as you, initially. This is all a bunch of overblown speculation. (Already, many Microsoft technologies are used in competing products, such as Samba. Heck, that's what gives Mac OS X the ability to claim inter-operability with Windows networks too.)
Upon giving it more thought - I think it's a valid concern, but only to the extent that it's always valid to "not put all the eggs in one basket". If Linux developers all hop on the.Net bandwagon and quit developing alternatives - they deserve to have problems, really. We all know how Microsoft is with their products. Linux developers (of all people) should know better than to put too much trust in them and in their implementations of technology.
We have a local computer bulletin board system that's still running on a TRS-80 Model III. The sysop said years ago that he "planned to keep his BBS going until the computer finally died", and it keeps going and going. He said the only problems he's had so far were a couple external modems dying from power surges, and having to replace the 5.25" floppy disks every so often, when they get accessed too many times and wear out. (On some of them, you could see where it nearly wore a hole in a ring-shape where the directory track is saved.)
(I think users donated him the replacement modems, to keep with his original plan to not spend any money on repairing the thing.)
Well, I can tell you this much. In one company I worked for previously, the reason putting Macs on their network will be a "tough sell" isn't because "ignorant I.T. staff" dislikes the Mac, or anything else. It's simply because they've been there and done that before, and got burned!
Back when they were first computerizing/automating the company, the owner was a big Mac fan. He used nothing but Macs at home, and didn't really want to be forced to use one of the new (286) PCs.
I.T. did their best to accomodate him. They purchased the Mac version (1.0!) of Oracle, adapters to allow his Appletalk network to communicate with the networked printers, and so forth.
Every time software got updated on the PC side, though, the Mac lagged behind. Database connectivity issues started coming up with Oracle, where the Mac version wouldn't talk right to the database, even though the PC version did (with updates to the connectors). Software started getting used that had no Mac equivalent, leaving the C.E.O. unable to review documents his own people were getting paid to make for him. It was just becoming a lost cause.
Finally, he admitted his trusty Mac just wasn't the best tool for the job - and went to a PC. All the remaining Mac peripherals and software went in the trash - and they never looked back.
Well, nowdays, things are MUCH different. Most likely, a newer Mac with OS X would work quite nicely on their network (and since they use Citrix, they could even serve a whole Windows session to a Mac user - to cover any cases of incompatibility that might be left). But you're asking the owners of the company to come "full circle" and embrace what it took years to convince them needed discarding.
Bottom line: Apple has a lot of "past history" to "undo" - to prove they belong in corporate America today. Proprietary Apple "standards" like phonenet and Appletalk, proprietary ADB connectors for keyboards/mice and requirements of proprietary Apple compatible local printers didn't win them lots of favor in "mixed environments".
You know, it still stirkes me as rather interesting that so many of these vulnerabilities (and even most of the spyware/ad-ware problems of late) are centered around Active-X technology.
I think many people have forgotten (or never paid attention in the first place) when Active-X was first announced, and quite a few industry pundits warned of all the impending security problems it would cause.
It seems to me MS has been fighting a losing battle ever since Active-X was introduced to convince people they finally made it safe enough to use. Now, they've finally reached a point where their tactics (defaults in Windows Server 2003) are to disable Active-X in most situations.
This is a poorly thought out and implemented technology that I feel wasn't ever needed in the first place. If MS really cared about improving security, I'd suggest they eliminate Active-X completely, proclaim it "obsolete", and move on.
(Of course, they won't do so, because they already invested too heavily in using it to embed their Office applications into web pages, etc. etc. But ultimately, there was no good reason they couldn't have just supported Java all along - and even licensed other 3rd. party plug-ins if need-be, to accomplish all of their goals more safely and securely. Citrix has nice plug-ins to embed applications inside web pages, for example.)
Regretfully, it's not just the "little things" that pose a problem right now. It's usually the "bigger things", like major software releases not coming with a Linux version!
Nowdays, the average person is buying a computer as a means to run whatever software they see and want to be able to use. (I think this is important to realize - because years ago, it didn't really work this way. For a long time, people bought computers only because they had a vague concept that "Once I have a computer, I can do all sorts of useful/cool/fun things with it!")
I just built and sold a new AMD Athlon system to a guy about a week ago. His reason for wanting a new machine and the list of specs he gave me for it? "Well, I really want to play Battlefield 1942 and Flight Simulator. I already bought 1942, in fact. The sides of the boxes say I need a system that meets these specs....."
No matter what you think of Linux, you can't tell me there's currently much likelihood of walking into the local Best Buy, CompUSA or WalMart, selecting an app or game off the shelf, and discovering it requires a Linux OS to run it.
Actually, I had a rather interesting experience with the caller ID and telemarketing.
I live in Missouri, so I was already on our state-wide "no call list". A firm called, trying to sell me something. (I can't even recall what it was anymore, but one of the typical things like life insurance....) Anyway, they called with an automated recording (which I believe is illegal to begin with?), and I noticed my caller ID actually did pick up a phone number and company name. At that point, I heard enough of the recording droning on with their sales pitch, so I hung up on it and filled out a complaint form, mailed to the attorney general's department for handling the no-call list complaints. (In Missouri, you have to download a.PDF document off their web site, print it out, fill it out and sign it, and mail it in.)
I then discovered that the caller ID number displayed was a disconnected number. (I tried to call it back, when I realized the complaint form asked for a lot of additional information I didn't have, such as the company's mailing address.)
Doing a little more research, I found out the company name displayed was the name of a (now defunct) firm that built the auto-dialing machines that play pre-recorded telemarketing messages! The phone number was apparently their company's number too - although I'm just guessing at this, because the area code shown was for the same part of Texas where the firm used to be located.
So all I can guess is that these telemarketers were dialing out via ISDN circuits, and had the ability to tell the phone switch to modify the normal caller ID display info -- and their dialer machine had default info programmed in it showing the manufacturer name/number!
(A guy I knew who worked for Southwestern Bell once told me this was technically quite possible to do if you were on an ISDN line, because you're effectivedly jacked right into the central office computer.)
Oh, give me a break! Before you get all "high and mighty" on me, take a minute to examine the whole situation. I had no idea this card was applied for, first of all. It's something my wife did using her own poor judgement (and at the time, probably assuming she'd be able to pay off since she was working at the time she got it). I already held 4 credit cards of my own which were always paid off on time, so I would never have wanted this card in the first place.
Yes, we were married when she received the card, but the state I live in is not a "community property" state, meaning debts entered into individually are not automatically made the responsibility of both marriage partners.
This entire time, my stance has been that my wife needs to pay off the debts she owes. I advised her several times to work with a credit counseling place as soon as she gets her next job, and try to work something out to pay these debts off. (Unfortunately, she also has quite a bit of past debt with medical bills from before we were married, so those are still on her credit history too.)
My issue with the whole thing is primarily this: The collection agency altered the records in their computer database, to falsely show that *I* personally applied for this card (without my wife so much as even been listed as a co-signer, according to them), and they rattled off MY social security number as the one supposedly entered on the initial application form. Furthermore, NextCard was being stupid to hand out these pre-approved cards like candy to people like my wife, who already had poor credit and would not normally qualify for a card if she tried to fill out a standard application for one!
As soon as I make a payment on this debt, I'm effectively agreeing that it is indeed MY debt that I owe, and I don't feel that's the case at all. (Incidently, there don't even seem to be any tangible goods my wife received using the card, so it's not as easy as saying "Sell whatever you bought with it to pay it back!" It was spent on going out to eat, gas for the car, etc. etc.
Personally, yes, I tend to agree with you. But I also realize I'm one of those people who got sick and tired of all the wargame strategy simulations in the late 80's and early 90's. (Remember when it seems like TSR and others released one of these things every month or so?)
There's obviously a BIG market for re-enacting/simulating real wars, and WWII in particular. (Probably because it had the most interesting variety of weapons used in it?)
FPS games have also divided themselves into 2 different factions: those demanding realism, and those demanding fast action and "if it moves, shoot it!" gameplay.
I find the whole FPS genre to be best for "mindless killing", myself. Any FPS that makes me use a lot of strategy quickly gets more "tedious" than fun to me, and I quit playing it. (EG. Theif and Theif 2, where stealth was more important than shooting.) Therefore, I like futuristic weapons with gratifying special effects, and lots of fast action.
I can understand the interest in the other type (EG. Counterstrike fanatics, who love the "once you're dead, you're out of the game" realism and realistic weapons with very limited ammo.) too. Different people want different things is all.
One would THINK you'd be correct in this case, but I'm not so sure. I've been fighting something similar for well over a year now, with very little success.
A (now defunct) credit card company, NextCard, issued my wife a VISA card via the Internet, based on some spam email she got that basically said "You have a pre-approved card waiting for you, if you just click this link to visit our web site and tell us where to mail it."
She did so (never actually signing anything), and got the card. She proceeded to charge it up, and then ended up getting sick and lost her job. The card went unpaid, and shortly after that, NextCard went belly-up. Some credit ageny must have been appointed to do collections for them anyway though (by the FDIC, I guess?).
Well, the agency conveniently changed the records to show that *I* applied for this credit card myself, and started going after me, personally, for the debt. I argued that this card was never legally signed for in the first place, and challenged them to show me a copy of ANY form they had on file showing what either my signature or my wife's signature looked like. (Someone said they'd mail me a copy of the application form so I could see where it was signed - but of course, nothing ever arrived.)
Well, to make this long story a little shorter - this still stands as a bad mark on my credit history, and every so often, someone calls trying to collect this debt. (It seems this debt is being passed around from one collection agency to another. The last people calling to collect it couldn't even tell me which card it was for. They kept mentioning some other bank I never heard of that I supposedly owed it to. I assume it's some bank that bought out NextCard...)
I refuse to pay this off, on principle, at this point. (Even if I did, I highly doubt they'd ever get things straight, paperwork-wise, to make sure it was taken off my credit report.)
As I said, *some* people are exceptions to the rule and multiple monitors make great sense for them. It sounds like you're one of the exceptions.
The fact is, most people really only have one task to work on at a given time. Everything else that' running in the background is either a distraction, or supposed to be happening invisibly while they work on their project.
Email, for example, is fine to leave running, minimized. It can notify you in many different non-intrusive ways that new messages came in - and you can bring it back up and look at it whenever you get the time. There's not typically a pressing need to leave email open, full-screen, on a seperate monitor. (But I've seen some folks do this with their dual monitor setups - almost as a feeble attempt to justify the usefulness of them.)
If you do software development and work with remote desktops via tools like VNC, all at the same time, then sure - you might need all the screen space.
Well, I think all of these online music pay-download services will, at best, receive only limited success - UNLESS/UNTIL they start offering more exclusive content.
If you think about it, people like receiving something tangible for their money. If you buy a piece of software or a music album in the store, you get a phyical piece of media you can take home and put on a shelf. Not only that, but it typically has some printed material too (instructions in the case of software, or liner notes and photos for music).
People will pay for "instantly downloadable upon receipt of payment" type software because it's typically stuff you can't buy the traditional way. (At best, they offer to mail you a copy for a few dollars more, and then you have to wait weeks to receive it.)
With music, people figure it's just as easy to run down to the local store and pick up the new CD as it is to sit there, waiting through an online download - and then, possibly have to use one of your own blank CDRs to burn it onto.
If artists started releasing new material ONLY on these services, then there would be much more incentive to use them.
Sorry, but I'm not buying into it. First of all, Mitsubishi helped sponsor it. Obviously folks, it's in their best interest to conclude that people need to buy more (or larger) new monitors.
But that aside, I'm not a big advocate of multiple monitors. Yes, they have their place - and the exceptions to the rule who are more productive with them should get them. (Why not, really? It's a less expensive request than many technology-related requests an average corporate I.T. dept. gets.)
But here's the thing: It's all too often used as an "I'm cooler/more important than you!" status symbol. Everyone wants to be the guy in the cubicle with the most impressive toys. But it's typically not needed. There are plenty of excellent screen management tools out there that make it easy to get all the screen "real estate" you need without taking up more desk space with additional monitors.
Most respectable-quality video cards support screen panning/scrolling for a virtual resolution much higher than the real one, for starters. How much does it REALLY cut into your productvity to have to scroll the screen to the side, to get to your extra windows that are open off the edge of the display?
Most GUIs (even KDE and Gnome in Linux) also support multiple virtual desktops. You can have 8 or more simulated screens ready to bring up with a single mouse click.
IMHO, the smartest investment is giving people the largest-sized economical monitor (right now, that's usually a 19" - although you can get used 21" CRTs with Sony Trinitron tubes in them for as little as about $150 from many outlets) you can find. Don't screw around with dual monitors, but be sure they have a good video card and any needed software drivers/extras to make working with what they've got as beneficial as possible.
Again, certain employees will be exceptions, such as perhaps, your CAD/CAM engineers. But treat these people on a case-by-case basis. I've met a number of engineers who can't get used to the border seperating what's supposed to be a single, large image, stretched across two different monitors. I've met others who are quite happy working with a single (even 17"!) monitor, because they're the type that has to do most of their error-finding/correcting from paper printouts. They just use the PC to work on the details, and print the entire thing out to a plotter on a huge sheet of paper to get the "big picture" afterwards.
Well, I'm once again glad I don't live in Canada. Despite being a little bit too old to frequent the nightclubs, I'm still disgusted that things have come to this in Vancouver.
I would never patronize an establishment that wants to swap my information with other nightclubs in some sort of database/network to determine if I'm allowed in or not. I've never caused anyone ANY problems in a bar or nightclub in my whole life, but I've had a couple incidents where I was nearly implicated in things, simply because a drunk buddy did something stupid while we were out. I'd be really mad if I was blacklisted from clubs because some guy I was with (who I might not even really be good friends with to begin with) decides to tip the billiards table to get a stuck cue ball loose, gets in a fight for no good reason, or what have you.
I mean, something like that is bad enough to deal with if it happens when you're at a place you like going to. (People remember you, and associate you with the trouble-makers.) But to have everyplace in town automatically keep you out? Crazy!
Actually, it depends on the child. Kids are unique individuals. They're not like little mass-produced robots that only function according to a fixed set of commands.
A few of my friends have children that are generally pretty calm and mild-mannered. Punishing by spanking isn't really necessary, and probably just hurts the parent more than it does the child. (EG. After a spanking, you have to endure the kid screaming and sobbing, and possibly even putting on a show of ignoring you completely for the next 30 minutes or so.) If a "go sit in the corner for 5 minutes" or "Stop that, or you're going to lose privilege Y!" is effective, great!
On the other hand, yes, some kids won't respond to anything less than spanking. Sometimes, it's because they're at an age where they want to test their limits. If parents won't take things to the level of spanking, the child keeps piling on worse and worse behavior, trying to provoke some sort of response. (Eventually, they just decide they can do anything they want without consequences more serious than threats that don't get backed-up with actions.)
One big problem, nowdays, is with people too concerned with what "the other parent" is doing, and not enough with their own lives. Do I think twice before punishing my daughter in public? Unfortunately, yes! I shouldn't have to - but ignorant people out there will file complaints, report you to store security, or any number of boneheaded things.
Just last week, I barely escape a big incident over nothing at the local WalMart store. I went in with my (18 month old) daughter to buy her some clothes and get some food items. When the cashier rung me up, my kid started fussing (wet diaper), so I was distracted. She bagged everything for me, but when I went to grab the bag I thought she put the clothes in - she stopped me, saying "That one's not yours!"
She was already ringing out a guy behind me who was also buying some clothes - so I figured it must have been my mistake, and I left. When I got to the car, I saw the clothes weren't in my bags at all - even though I just paid for them. I wasn't going to try to run back in with my fussing daughter (and she was more calm sitting in her car seat anyway) so I left her in the car and ran back in.
It wasn't more than a minute, but when I got back to my car, security was already there, starting to write up some kind of report, and a lady was talking to the guy about the "kid abandonned in the car"! Come on, people! I can understand trying to be helpful and all - but don't jump to conclusions about something you know nothing about. At least spend a few minutes making sure the parent isn't right around the corner before filing complaints.....
You bring up several good points. I don't toally disagree with you either. There's a big difference between failing to correct items that are of obviously poor design, and spending the majority of one's development effort on "usability".
In the case of Linux, some of the items (like arcane commands) probably won't really change. Like it or not, editors like "vi" and commands like "top" (not the most intuitive thing to type to get a process list) probably won't go away. These "standards" have been around far too long, and it's detrimental to the people who've been using Unix systems since the 60's to change or eliminate them.
What can and does happen in the free Unixes (BSD, Linux, etc.) is people simply develop new and hopefully easier to use tools that can optionally be added to the default commands, and made use of at will. The downside of that? Well, only that you're never certain if a given system has those newer commands or not. But as distributions make decisions to keep certain ones in - at least you start to learn when you can expect to find them on a particular installation.
Ultimately though, I have my doubts as to whether an OS "designed by all of us" will ever attain the "ease of use" possible when a single entity does all of the design work. There are so many great advantages to an OS built "by committee" like Linux is, but it isn't the ultimate answer to ALL issues either.
I think Apple proved this when they took BSD and turned it into OS X. In 2 years or so, they built a GUI that's miles ahead of anything we've seen to date for Linux. That's no accident. It's pretty much a case of "too many cooks spoil the soup". When anyone can contribute code to a product, you end up with #1, more choices than you'd care to try to document fully for beginning or even average users, and #2, too many conflicting values coming into play.
A Unix type OS requires a certain level of computer mastery to make good use of it. Does that mean it's destiny is to never be more than "a server OS that only geeks use at home"? Perhaps so. Is that bad? Not necessarily.
Fashion isn't really the correct term, IMO
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Software Fashion
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Is it just me, or does this strike you as sort of a fluff-piece? It seems like the author had little to say other than a vague concept that "Gee, a lot of once-popular software ends up not really having any staying power." and realized he could put together something somewhat eye-catching by relating it to the fashion industry.
To me, fashion is a term reserved for defining the look of a thing. If people stopped wearing shorts because the weather got cold, it wouldn't be correct to blame the lack of sales of shorts as due to their being "unashionable anymore". Maybe everyone WANTED to wear their shorts but just couldn't stand to do so anymore because they weren't practical for the conditions.
This is how I view most software. Things get hyped up initially, simply because they're new and different. (I.T. folks generally like variety. We get bored if we use the same old tools every day, for years on end, and no new challenges arise.) Then, as enough people put the new tools to use, they start coming to conclusions. "This product is far more efficient than the last one." or "This thing is bloatware!" The products that are too buggy, insecure, too slow, or just not as practical as they sounded on paper get tossed aside.
The only element of "fashion" I can see in software development is in user interface design. Even this tends to stay within a single product line though. (EG. Apple went through their whole "Aqua" stage - where everything had shades of blue. Now Jobs is fascinated by chrome, and even his new G5 towers have metal cases, to match the chrome look to most of the new Apple apps.)
I have to disagree. Dumbing things down to give more appeal to the "unwashed masses" almost never ends up being beneficial in the long run.
I'm not saying anyone building and offering a product is wise to "look down on" potential customers.... but designing things so "even idiots can use them" isn't the answer either.
To be honest with you, I used to think so. But more and more, I see what really happens. The people who complained before that a product was "too hard to use" won't use the "new, easier to use" version either. They'll simply find other reasons to complain about it, or excuses for not really needing it anyway. Meanwhile, all the energy spent trying to make it easier to use means the effort wasn't spent giving real improvements to the product, that the product's *real* users would appreciate. It may also mean the changes in the interface waste the time of the "power users" who already memorized the old way of doing things.
In the case of Linux, additions like "emulation", "dual-booting" and "clustering" were critical in getting larger businesses to take it seriously. If Linux had no hope of scaling via clustering, do you really think IBM would have ever gotten behind Linux and started backing it commercially?
I have yet to meet a real computer enthusiast who claimed Linux was "too hard to use", who I truly believed wasn't capable of mastering it. What happens is a person spends years learning MS Windows and gets good at it. Then they don't have the motivation to start over from step 1 with an entirely new OS - so they complain instead. "It's not user-friendly enough! It isn't ready for the consumer yet!"
Linux isn't going to do anyone any favors by slacking off on the "geeky" technical innovations, in favor of appeasing the Windows zealots.
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I don't know.... When I first read about this, I thought it was a great concept (if done properly). But as I think about it more,I'm not sure it's worth the effort to develop at all.
It's exactly the type of thing a company like Microsoft would see good reasons to develop - but more for marketing reasons than true performance ones.
I can see how making the file system into some type of relational database could offer more options for searching. I can't see how it would make file saves any faster than they'd be without it. I also think it could make recovery of lost/damaged files much more complicated than it already is. (Imagine a scenario where you have to have the skills of a DBA just to get back your accidently deleted file. I'm not sure it'd be as easy as running Norton Utilities and clicking on "repair disk"....)
It also strikes ne as somewhat relevant that 3rd. party tools and document formats have advanced considerably in recent years. Not THAT long ago, people longed for technology that would let them search for documents containing specific text, rather than just for filenames. Now, we've got numerous tools and options for accomplishing that. (That's what "Document Management Systems" are all about, after all.) We can even text search inside of documents that are essentially a graphics snap-shot of pages using Adobe Acrobat.
What's not to believe about it? Most regression testing is done with automated tools nowdays anyway. The testing tools hammer away at code, looking for obvious errors and overflows. Probably they run that stuff against a new piece of code, find a ton of mistakes, get developers to fix 'em, repeat ... and after they get it to where the automated stuff can't break anything else, and the developers themselves haven't stumbled on any more problems, it's proclaimed "good enough" and ships.
I can easily see that whole process taking several weeks (or more!), and yet all of this hardly means the product is really stable or "fairly bug-free".
I mean, look at a little tiny app written by basically one guy... For the sake of example, how about the mIRC Windows client for IRC chat? That thing has gone through an amazing number of revisions, and each time, the guy STILL manages to list at least a full page of bugs found and fixed. It's to the point now, I'm just amazed at the things that people find. It's so obscure most of the time, it's hard to fathom it ever got pinned down and reported by someone. Now, mIRC is an app I think most users of it would say is "incredibly solid/stable" - yet it STILL has all these bugs.
Granted, the developer also doesn't have an army of staff helping QA test and code it - but it's also magnitudes smaller than the average app s company the size of MS releases.
Realistically, the Apple "iApps" are what I'd call strictly "gateway" products. They're inexpensive to own for Mac users, easy for anyone to get started with (and in many cases, eventually grow out of), and generate a lot of positive press for Apple.
By releasing the iTunes portion for Windows, they're just creating one more "bridge" to get people hooked on Apple products, software and services.
You won't see them releasing iDVD for the PC, or even iPhoto. The most the Windows crowd is going to get is the iTunes portion of the suite - because it makes all those people potential Apple Music Store shoppers. (By contrast, Apple's service to get prints made of digital photos in iPhoto is actually done by a 3rd. party.)
I don't think Apple really has their sites on competing with sales of PCs running Windows anyway. I mean, yes, they want to sell to the folks who are tired of their Windows experience, and want something different/new/better. (They did run all those "switcher" ads, after all.) But even Apple management themselves have been quoted as saying they'd "like to see Mac sales in the 10% to 15% range of computer sales". They're not making an effort to convert the "masses". They want to be an upscale minority alternative product - but hopfully one with enough sales and profit margin to make their business a very comfortable/long-lasting one.
Apple doesn't sell at WalMart. They don't do "deep discount" offers via mass mailings like Dell tends to do. They won't even build a retail store unless it's in one of the shopping malls catering to the wealthiest people in a given community.
There's no "selling out" going on here at all. Merely a few "tokens" thrown at Windows users to make money from use of Apple services, if they won't buy/use their systems themselves.
Yes, but I think the issue wasn't with the company editing any of their own employee's outgoing email. It was only with censoring incoming mail.
I have a personal issue with either one, incidently, but there's a considerable legal difference between the two.
While outside works (web pages or even emails) coming in to a company may well be copyrighted and illegal to modify without permission, it's still questionable if the employees' outgoing email (written on company time) is even their own copyrighted property. In most cases, companies already claim copyright to anything you invent/create while working for them - so they'd probably just say this extends to your email, too.
(Note, in all of this, I'm talking about United States law. I can't speak for the situation in other countries.)
As others have already said, your CPU certainly isn't at any additional risk by running these apps.
The biggest "wear and tear" item on a PC, overall, is powering it on and off frequently. Just like light-bulbs that always seem to burn out when they're first turned on, hard drives in computers tend to be the same way.
Your monitor *will* wear as it's powered on and used, but there's no good reason to leave it on all the time when Seti@home or another similar app is running.
Considering the average power consumption of a PC, you can easily compensate fully for what it costs to leave it on by replacing 2 or 3 of your standard lightbulbs in the house with the flourescent screw-in "energy saver" replacements. (These don't work well in fully enclosed fixtures because the heat build-up tends to fry the components inside their bases - but they're great anyplace else.) I swapped out 4 standard 60 watt bulbs in my unfinished basement with them, and cut my energy usage from 240 watts to 56 watts total when all the lights are on.
Yes... I'm not really sure it matters "how I feel" about this idea of content editing, because what's more important is where the law stands on it.
As far as I can tell, it's probably still under the umbrella of "legality" for a corporation to censor incoming email content, since they can argue they own the network and the systems, and add the assertion that "your email at work is not private".
I've always felt that email should have the assumption of being private, since it's just the electronic equivalent of postal mail, which IS private and protected by law as such.
At the very least, it's used daily by people in a manner much like a casual phone conversation, which also is considered private and protected by law as such.
The "catch", of course, is that it requires resources on the part of the recipient to provide the service. In the "real world", the cost of delivering a piece of mail is beared solely by the sender. The destination has to do no more than provide a physical address and a place for the mailman to toss the mail.
I'm still not convinced that the existance of expense and a need for resources on the part of the receiver automatically negates people's expectation of privacy in the medium, though. Unfortunately, the courts (and apparently, the majority of people running mail servers) disagree with me.
So ultimately, I'd say - if you want to keep email between 2 people secure, use encryption like PGP. Otherwise, anything can happen between points A and B - and there's precious little you'll be able to do about it.
Let's take the name of a well-known web browser and name our Internet service after it!
(Great... Now people will assume they've already got an ISP because they see a "Netscape" icon on their desktop.)
That's about as stupid as Microsoft renaming MSN to "Internet Explorer" - for the sake of "brand recognition".
Well, I'm sure Apple has the ability to give some pretty deep quantity discounts on projects of this sort without "bidding below cost" just to get the sale and publicity.
Some recent reports on their 17" Powerbook, for example, showed their cost of production to be roughly 50% of what they sell them for. That's a much better profit margin than most vendors get for their portables - especially for a new model that just cost them a bundle in "tooling up" expenses (such as dies made to cast the plastic parts in,etc.).
The G5 tower is quite likely a similar story.
I thought the same thing as you, initially. This is all a bunch of overblown speculation. (Already, many Microsoft technologies are used in competing products, such as Samba. Heck, that's what gives Mac OS X the ability to claim inter-operability with Windows networks too.)
.Net bandwagon and quit developing alternatives - they deserve to have problems, really. We all know how Microsoft is with their products. Linux developers (of all people) should know better than to put too much trust in them and in their implementations of technology.
Upon giving it more thought - I think it's a valid concern, but only to the extent that it's always valid to "not put all the eggs in one basket". If Linux developers all hop on the
We have a local computer bulletin board system that's still running on a TRS-80 Model III. The sysop said years ago that he "planned to keep his BBS going until the computer finally died", and it keeps going and going. He said the only problems he's had so far were a couple external modems dying from power surges, and having to replace the 5.25" floppy disks every so often, when they get accessed too many times and wear out. (On some of them, you could see where it nearly wore a hole in a ring-shape where the directory track is saved.)
(I think users donated him the replacement modems, to keep with his original plan to not spend any money on repairing the thing.)
Well, I can tell you this much. In one company I worked for previously, the reason putting Macs on their network will be a "tough sell" isn't because "ignorant I.T. staff" dislikes the Mac, or anything else. It's simply because they've been there and done that before, and got burned!
Back when they were first computerizing/automating the company, the owner was a big Mac fan. He used nothing but Macs at home, and didn't really want to be forced to use one of the new (286) PCs.
I.T. did their best to accomodate him. They purchased the Mac version (1.0!) of Oracle, adapters to allow his Appletalk network to communicate with the networked printers, and so forth.
Every time software got updated on the PC side, though, the Mac lagged behind. Database connectivity issues started coming up with Oracle, where the Mac version wouldn't talk right to the database, even though the PC version did (with updates to the connectors). Software started getting used that had no Mac equivalent, leaving the C.E.O. unable to review documents his own people were getting paid to make for him. It was just becoming a lost cause.
Finally, he admitted his trusty Mac just wasn't the best tool for the job - and went to a PC. All the remaining Mac peripherals and software went in the trash - and they never looked back.
Well, nowdays, things are MUCH different. Most likely, a newer Mac with OS X would work quite nicely on their network (and since they use Citrix, they could even serve a whole Windows session to a Mac user - to cover any cases of incompatibility that might be left). But you're asking the owners of the company to come "full circle" and embrace what it took years to convince them needed discarding.
Bottom line: Apple has a lot of "past history" to "undo" - to prove they belong in corporate America today. Proprietary Apple "standards" like phonenet and Appletalk, proprietary ADB connectors for keyboards/mice and requirements of proprietary Apple compatible local printers didn't win them lots of favor in "mixed environments".
You know, it still stirkes me as rather interesting that so many of these vulnerabilities (and even most of the spyware/ad-ware problems of late) are centered around Active-X technology.
I think many people have forgotten (or never paid attention in the first place) when Active-X was first announced, and quite a few industry pundits warned of all the impending security problems it would cause.
It seems to me MS has been fighting a losing battle ever since Active-X was introduced to convince people they finally made it safe enough to use. Now, they've finally reached a point where their tactics (defaults in Windows Server 2003) are to disable Active-X in most situations.
This is a poorly thought out and implemented technology that I feel wasn't ever needed in the first place. If MS really cared about improving security, I'd suggest they eliminate Active-X completely, proclaim it "obsolete", and move on.
(Of course, they won't do so, because they already invested too heavily in using it to embed their Office applications into web pages, etc. etc. But ultimately, there was no good reason they couldn't have just supported Java all along - and even licensed other 3rd. party plug-ins if need-be, to accomplish all of their goals more safely and securely. Citrix has nice plug-ins to embed applications inside web pages, for example.)
Regretfully, it's not just the "little things" that pose a problem right now. It's usually the "bigger things", like major software releases not coming with a Linux version!
Nowdays, the average person is buying a computer as a means to run whatever software they see and want to be able to use. (I think this is important to realize - because years ago, it didn't really work this way. For a long time, people bought computers only because they had a vague concept that "Once I have a computer, I can do all sorts of useful/cool/fun things with it!")
I just built and sold a new AMD Athlon system to a guy about a week ago. His reason for wanting a new machine and the list of specs he gave me for it? "Well, I really want to play Battlefield 1942 and Flight Simulator. I already bought 1942, in fact. The sides of the boxes say I need a system that meets these specs....."
No matter what you think of Linux, you can't tell me there's currently much likelihood of walking into the local Best Buy, CompUSA or WalMart, selecting an app or game off the shelf, and discovering it requires a Linux OS to run it.
Actually, I had a rather interesting experience with the caller ID and telemarketing.
.PDF document off their web site, print it out, fill it out and sign it, and mail it in.)
I live in Missouri, so I was already on our state-wide "no call list". A firm called, trying to sell me something. (I can't even recall what it was anymore, but one of the typical things like life insurance....) Anyway, they called with an automated recording (which I believe is illegal to begin with?), and I noticed my caller ID actually did pick up a phone number and company name. At that point, I heard enough of the recording droning on with their sales pitch, so I hung up on it and filled out a complaint form, mailed to the attorney general's department for handling the no-call list complaints. (In Missouri, you have to download a
I then discovered that the caller ID number displayed was a disconnected number. (I tried to call it back, when I realized the complaint form asked for a lot of additional information I didn't have, such as the company's mailing address.)
Doing a little more research, I found out the company name displayed was the name of a (now defunct) firm that built the auto-dialing machines that play pre-recorded telemarketing messages! The phone number was apparently their company's number too - although I'm just guessing at this, because the area code shown was for the same part of Texas where the firm used to be located.
So all I can guess is that these telemarketers were dialing out via ISDN circuits, and had the ability to tell the phone switch to modify the normal caller ID display info -- and their dialer machine had default info programmed in it showing the manufacturer name/number!
(A guy I knew who worked for Southwestern Bell once told me this was technically quite possible to do if you were on an ISDN line, because you're effectivedly jacked right into the central office computer.)
Oh, give me a break! Before you get all "high and mighty" on me, take a minute to examine the whole situation. I had no idea this card was applied for, first of all. It's something my wife did using her own poor judgement (and at the time, probably assuming she'd be able to pay off since she was working at the time she got it). I already held 4 credit cards of my own which were always paid off on time, so I would never have wanted this card in the first place.
Yes, we were married when she received the card, but the state I live in is not a "community property" state, meaning debts entered into individually are not automatically made the responsibility of both marriage partners.
This entire time, my stance has been that my wife needs to pay off the debts she owes. I advised her several times to work with a credit counseling place as soon as she gets her next job, and try to work something out to pay these debts off. (Unfortunately, she also has quite a bit of past debt with medical bills from before we were married, so those are still on her credit history too.)
My issue with the whole thing is primarily this: The collection agency altered the records in their computer database, to falsely show that *I* personally applied for this card (without my wife so much as even been listed as a co-signer, according to them), and they rattled off MY social security number as the one supposedly entered on the initial application form. Furthermore, NextCard was being stupid to hand out these pre-approved cards like candy to people like my wife, who already had poor credit and would not normally qualify for a card if she tried to fill out a standard application for one!
As soon as I make a payment on this debt, I'm effectively agreeing that it is indeed MY debt that I owe, and I don't feel that's the case at all. (Incidently, there don't even seem to be any tangible goods my wife received using the card, so it's not as easy as saying "Sell whatever you bought with it to pay it back!" It was spent on going out to eat, gas for the car, etc. etc.
Personally, yes, I tend to agree with you. But I also realize I'm one of those people who got sick and tired of all the wargame strategy simulations in the late 80's and early 90's. (Remember when it seems like TSR and others released one of these things every month or so?)
There's obviously a BIG market for re-enacting/simulating real wars, and WWII in particular. (Probably because it had the most interesting variety of weapons used in it?)
FPS games have also divided themselves into 2 different factions: those demanding realism, and those demanding fast action and "if it moves, shoot it!" gameplay.
I find the whole FPS genre to be best for "mindless killing", myself. Any FPS that makes me use a lot of strategy quickly gets more "tedious" than fun to me, and I quit playing it. (EG. Theif and Theif 2, where stealth was more important than shooting.) Therefore, I like futuristic weapons with gratifying special effects, and lots of fast action.
I can understand the interest in the other type (EG. Counterstrike fanatics, who love the "once you're dead, you're out of the game" realism and realistic weapons with very limited ammo.) too. Different people want different things is all.
One would THINK you'd be correct in this case, but I'm not so sure. I've been fighting something similar for well over a year now, with very little success.
A (now defunct) credit card company, NextCard, issued my wife a VISA card via the Internet, based on some spam email she got that basically said "You have a pre-approved card waiting for you, if you just click this link to visit our web site and tell us where to mail it."
She did so (never actually signing anything), and got the card. She proceeded to charge it up, and then ended up getting sick and lost her job. The card went unpaid, and shortly after that, NextCard went belly-up. Some credit ageny must have been appointed to do collections for them anyway though (by the FDIC, I guess?).
Well, the agency conveniently changed the records to show that *I* applied for this credit card myself, and started going after me, personally, for the debt. I argued that this card was never legally signed for in the first place, and challenged them to show me a copy of ANY form they had on file showing what either my signature or my wife's signature looked like. (Someone said they'd mail me a copy of the application form so I could see where it was signed - but of course, nothing ever arrived.)
Well, to make this long story a little shorter - this still stands as a bad mark on my credit history, and every so often, someone calls trying to collect this debt. (It seems this debt is being passed around from one collection agency to another. The last people calling to collect it couldn't even tell me which card it was for. They kept mentioning some other bank I never heard of that I supposedly owed it to. I assume it's some bank that bought out NextCard...)
I refuse to pay this off, on principle, at this point. (Even if I did, I highly doubt they'd ever get things straight, paperwork-wise, to make sure it was taken off my credit report.)
As I said, *some* people are exceptions to the rule and multiple monitors make great sense for them. It sounds like you're one of the exceptions.
The fact is, most people really only have one task to work on at a given time. Everything else that' running in the background is either a distraction, or supposed to be happening invisibly while they work on their project.
Email, for example, is fine to leave running, minimized. It can notify you in many different non-intrusive ways that new messages came in - and you can bring it back up and look at it whenever you get the time. There's not typically a pressing need to leave email open, full-screen, on a seperate monitor. (But I've seen some folks do this with their dual monitor setups - almost as a feeble attempt to justify the usefulness of them.)
If you do software development and work with remote desktops via tools like VNC, all at the same time, then sure - you might need all the screen space.
Well, I think all of these online music pay-download services will, at best, receive only limited success - UNLESS/UNTIL they start offering more exclusive content.
If you think about it, people like receiving something tangible for their money. If you buy a piece of software or a music album in the store, you get a phyical piece of media you can take home and put on a shelf. Not only that, but it typically has some printed material too (instructions in the case of software, or liner notes and photos for music).
People will pay for "instantly downloadable upon receipt of payment" type software because it's typically stuff you can't buy the traditional way. (At best, they offer to mail you a copy for a few dollars more, and then you have to wait weeks to receive it.)
With music, people figure it's just as easy to run down to the local store and pick up the new CD as it is to sit there, waiting through an online download - and then, possibly have to use one of your own blank CDRs to burn it onto.
If artists started releasing new material ONLY on these services, then there would be much more incentive to use them.
Sorry, but I'm not buying into it. First of all, Mitsubishi helped sponsor it. Obviously folks, it's in their best interest to conclude that people need to buy more (or larger) new monitors.
But that aside, I'm not a big advocate of multiple monitors. Yes, they have their place - and the exceptions to the rule who are more productive with them should get them. (Why not, really? It's a less expensive request than many technology-related requests an average corporate I.T. dept. gets.)
But here's the thing: It's all too often used as an "I'm cooler/more important than you!" status symbol. Everyone wants to be the guy in the cubicle with the most impressive toys. But it's typically not needed. There are plenty of excellent screen management tools out there that make it easy to get all the screen "real estate" you need without taking up more desk space with additional monitors.
Most respectable-quality video cards support screen panning/scrolling for a virtual resolution much higher than the real one, for starters. How much does it REALLY cut into your productvity to have to scroll the screen to the side, to get to your extra windows that are open off the edge of the display?
Most GUIs (even KDE and Gnome in Linux) also support multiple virtual desktops. You can have 8 or more simulated screens ready to bring up with a single mouse click.
IMHO, the smartest investment is giving people the largest-sized economical monitor (right now, that's usually a 19" - although you can get used 21" CRTs with Sony Trinitron tubes in them for as little as about $150 from many outlets) you can find. Don't screw around with dual monitors, but be sure they have a good video card and any needed software drivers/extras to make working with what they've got as beneficial as possible.
Again, certain employees will be exceptions, such as perhaps, your CAD/CAM engineers. But treat these people on a case-by-case basis. I've met a number of engineers who can't get used to the border seperating what's supposed to be a single, large image, stretched across two different monitors. I've met others who are quite happy working with a single (even 17"!) monitor, because they're the type that has to do most of their error-finding/correcting from paper printouts. They just use the PC to work on the details, and print the entire thing out to a plotter on a huge sheet of paper to get the "big picture" afterwards.
Well, I'm once again glad I don't live in Canada. Despite being a little bit too old to frequent the nightclubs, I'm still disgusted that things have come to this in Vancouver.
I would never patronize an establishment that wants to swap my information with other nightclubs in some sort of database/network to determine if I'm allowed in or not. I've never caused anyone ANY problems in a bar or nightclub in my whole life, but I've had a couple incidents where I was nearly implicated in things, simply because a drunk buddy did something stupid while we were out. I'd be really mad if I was blacklisted from clubs because some guy I was with (who I might not even really be good friends with to begin with) decides to tip the billiards table to get a stuck cue ball loose, gets in a fight for no good reason, or what have you.
I mean, something like that is bad enough to deal with if it happens when you're at a place you like going to. (People remember you, and associate you with the trouble-makers.) But to have everyplace in town automatically keep you out? Crazy!
Actually, it depends on the child. Kids are unique individuals. They're not like little mass-produced robots that only function according to a fixed set of commands.
A few of my friends have children that are generally pretty calm and mild-mannered. Punishing by spanking isn't really necessary, and probably just hurts the parent more than it does the child. (EG. After a spanking, you have to endure the kid screaming and sobbing, and possibly even putting on a show of ignoring you completely for the next 30 minutes or so.) If a "go sit in the corner for 5 minutes" or "Stop that, or you're going to lose privilege Y!" is effective, great!
On the other hand, yes, some kids won't respond to anything less than spanking. Sometimes, it's because they're at an age where they want to test their limits. If parents won't take things to the level of spanking, the child keeps piling on worse and worse behavior, trying to provoke some sort of response. (Eventually, they just decide they can do anything they want without consequences more serious than threats that don't get backed-up with actions.)
One big problem, nowdays, is with people too concerned with what "the other parent" is doing, and not enough with their own lives. Do I think twice before punishing my daughter in public? Unfortunately, yes! I shouldn't have to - but ignorant people out there will file complaints, report you to store security, or any number of boneheaded things.
Just last week, I barely escape a big incident over nothing at the local WalMart store. I went in with my (18 month old) daughter to buy her some clothes and get some food items. When the cashier rung me up, my kid started fussing (wet diaper), so I was distracted. She bagged everything for me, but when I went to grab the bag I thought she put the clothes in - she stopped me, saying "That one's not yours!"
She was already ringing out a guy behind me who was also buying some clothes - so I figured it must have been my mistake, and I left. When I got to the car, I saw the clothes weren't in my bags at all - even though I just paid for them. I wasn't going to try to run back in with my fussing daughter (and she was more calm sitting in her car seat anyway) so I left her in the car and ran back in.
It wasn't more than a minute, but when I got back to my car, security was already there, starting to write up some kind of report, and a lady was talking to the guy about the "kid abandonned in the car"! Come on, people! I can understand trying to be helpful and all - but don't jump to conclusions about something you know nothing about. At least spend a few minutes making sure the parent isn't right around the corner before filing complaints.....
You bring up several good points. I don't toally disagree with you either. There's a big difference between failing to correct items that are of obviously poor design, and spending the majority of one's development effort on "usability".
In the case of Linux, some of the items (like arcane commands) probably won't really change. Like it or not, editors like "vi" and commands like "top" (not the most intuitive thing to type to get a process list) probably won't go away. These "standards" have been around far too long, and it's detrimental to the people who've been using Unix systems since the 60's to change or eliminate them.
What can and does happen in the free Unixes (BSD, Linux, etc.) is people simply develop new and hopefully easier to use tools that can optionally be added to the default commands, and made use of at will. The downside of that? Well, only that you're never certain if a given system has those newer commands or not. But as distributions make decisions to keep certain ones in - at least you start to learn when you can expect to find them on a particular installation.
Ultimately though, I have my doubts as to whether an OS "designed by all of us" will ever attain the "ease of use" possible when a single entity does all of the design work. There are so many great advantages to an OS built "by committee" like Linux is, but it isn't the ultimate answer to ALL issues either.
I think Apple proved this when they took BSD and turned it into OS X. In 2 years or so, they built a GUI that's miles ahead of anything we've seen to date for Linux. That's no accident. It's pretty much a case of "too many cooks spoil the soup". When anyone can contribute code to a product, you end up with #1, more choices than you'd care to try to document fully for beginning or even average users, and #2, too many conflicting values coming into play.
A Unix type OS requires a certain level of computer mastery to make good use of it. Does that mean it's destiny is to never be more than "a server OS that only geeks use at home"? Perhaps so. Is that bad? Not necessarily.
Is it just me, or does this strike you as sort of a fluff-piece? It seems like the author had little to say other than a vague concept that "Gee, a lot of once-popular software ends up not really having any staying power." and realized he could put together something somewhat eye-catching by relating it to the fashion industry.
To me, fashion is a term reserved for defining the look of a thing. If people stopped wearing shorts because the weather got cold, it wouldn't be correct to blame the lack of sales of shorts as due to their being "unashionable anymore". Maybe everyone WANTED to wear their shorts but just couldn't stand to do so anymore because they weren't practical for the conditions.
This is how I view most software. Things get hyped up initially, simply because they're new and different. (I.T. folks generally like variety. We get bored if we use the same old tools every day, for years on end, and no new challenges arise.) Then, as enough people put the new tools to use, they start coming to conclusions. "This product is far more efficient than the last one." or "This thing is bloatware!" The products that are too buggy, insecure, too slow, or just not as practical as they sounded on paper get tossed aside.
The only element of "fashion" I can see in software development is in user interface design. Even this tends to stay within a single product line though. (EG. Apple went through their whole "Aqua" stage - where everything had shades of blue. Now Jobs is fascinated by chrome, and even his new G5 towers have metal cases, to match the chrome look to most of the new Apple apps.)
I have to disagree. Dumbing things down to give more appeal to the "unwashed masses" almost never ends up being beneficial in the long run.
I'm not saying anyone building and offering a product is wise to "look down on" potential customers.... but designing things so "even idiots can use them" isn't the answer either.
To be honest with you, I used to think so. But more and more, I see what really happens. The people who complained before that a product was "too hard to use" won't use the "new, easier to use" version either. They'll simply find other reasons to complain about it, or excuses for not really needing it anyway. Meanwhile, all the energy spent trying to make it easier to use means the effort wasn't spent giving real improvements to the product, that the product's *real* users would appreciate. It may also mean the changes in the interface waste the time of the "power users" who already memorized the old way of doing things.
In the case of Linux, additions like "emulation", "dual-booting" and "clustering" were critical in getting larger businesses to take it seriously. If Linux had no hope of scaling via clustering, do you really think IBM would have ever gotten behind Linux and started backing it commercially?
I have yet to meet a real computer enthusiast who claimed Linux was "too hard to use", who I truly believed wasn't capable of mastering it. What happens is a person spends years learning MS Windows and gets good at it. Then they don't have the motivation to start over from step 1 with an entirely new OS - so they complain instead. "It's not user-friendly enough! It isn't ready for the consumer yet!"
Linux isn't going to do anyone any favors by slacking off on the "geeky" technical innovations, in favor of appeasing the Windows zealots.