Even if Acer and MS provided that laptop for free, I wouldn't use it in public places.
Nobody with "3d glasses" using a laptop is considered usual, normal outside of NASA and some high end engineering companies.
Go to a 3D cinema and watch people taking off those cool and normal looking 3d glasses as soon as lights on. As Steve Jobs said about tablet PC: "The form is wrong."
While OS X Server is real underrated state of art UNIX which can do amazing things, Apple isn't and can't be a "server" competitor unless they allow OS X Server to run on "generic" x86.
While not widely known, OS X server can be used as a client, you can even play all the games on it even with better performance. So, they can't make "blade only" Apple OS X server. It would mean the end of "OS X working only on Apple hardware". I mean it is not AIX.
Forget everything, Apple can't compete in "support" department for servers. There is Big Blue there, Dell there, HP there and of course, Sun with decades old agreements and happy customers who expects same kind of service.
Of course, if you consider the things you can do with distributed computing (Xserve), spotlight (server version), it is sad but industry hates brand hardware without any competition. Java's (especially J2EE) success and mainframes coming back to life is also related to that trend, people choose Java because it will work anywhere, any CPU and even any OS with minor modifications.
Oh really? Eye TV 2.x (don't know 3.x), it is self contained.app which you drag to/Applications in mac (pre OS X) fashion. It sits idle there until you launch.
When you launch, it asks for admin uname/password to install "a device driver" (kernel extension). What kind of horrible, evil things may happen right?
Well, guess what? Nothing happens. It is because of the kernel/driver model. OS X doesn't give a heck if the device is not plugged in, it just caches the symbols/plist files coming with the driver to a file. So, if you have a Eye TV driver but you don't have Eye TV, that extension will sit there, forever, ignored by the OS _until_ you plug the device having same USB signature. I think you were expecting some stuff outside/System/Extensions , some registry like files, some hidden files... No man, it is just.kext and HFS+ "bundle bit" magic with clever use of directory watching.
There is no software which will bastardize core drivers of OS X. If you listen to some trouble shooting idiots and downgrade your core OS parts in/System, it is your fault. Nobody is idiot (yet) to do it in automated fashion though. Lets not forget all OS X comes with time Machine now, for free, no "ultimate" etc. crap schemes. Every single OS X user having space on somewhere (USB, network doesn't matter) has hourly backups of changed files including a complete backup of system.
Oh if you were speaking about Unsanity APE, it was designed from the ground so nobody would feel the need of modifying system files for trivial hacks. What happened? Ask the Logitech idiots who shipped awfully outdated version of it which wasn't able to disable itself.
That issue is nothing (they asked for it in fact).
The issue which should make to books about the tech irony is Virtual PC for Mac 7.x (if anyone uses, UPDATE!). MS found a theorotical (not sure) issue which Virtual PC's emulated X86/Hypervisor can MODIFY the OS X memory from "there".
While they were decent to fix it very quickly and shipped an update (7.0.3) confusing Mac users, that is one big amazing issue for you. Imagine by running (emulating in fact) a Windows, you risk your OS X memory locations with overwrite.
This is not some Toyota vs. Ferrari thing. With 90.000 workers, MS can't figure a easy, fail safe method of command line registry modification and they teach that horrible UI to users/engineers instead. That defaults command roots back to 1991, NeXT, no kidding. I bet it must have some root in UNIX or even Mainframe.
Can you really dare to double click a.reg or.inf file without looking to its contents under Windows? I even remember removing the file association manually so I won't accidentally double click and try to trace what the heck happened to my Windows.
While some slashdotters think otherwise, Java/Windows install base is huge thanks to couple of very popular apps and tiny games. Since companies these days looks for multi platform, multi arch; MS needed to show that their herd has been installed/infected by.NET too.
So, they haxor the user agent to show that clueless CTO that their 90% of users have.NET so they should use it instead of massively multi platform Java.
Anyway, as you see, karma is a real bitch and if Sun had a real management, they could milk this issue but... Lucky for MS, Sun is under auto pilot, even under Larry Ellison's Oracle.
Users can't use regedit. Apple knows it for the tiny plist files (which are text) so they did a "plutil" (plist utility) command included in OS which they (or developers) can tell users to run Terminal and "paste that command _exactly_ as it appears".
While there are 3.500.000 results for "run regedit" at Yahoo, can't they steal that idea from Apple so it would be basically "regutil --remove HKLM_Software_Mozilla_Firefox_Extensions.net"?
The most insane idea of all is entering Firefox on Windows, you know, the browser which its users use rejecting your built in browser. I wouldn't touch a byte on Firefox dir if I was MS. Even Apple who isn't that "hated" doesn't do anything regarding extensions, they merely install a basic browser plugin which they still get flamed for.
The "fact" is, nobody wants their lame ass Flash wannabe junk. Nobody wants to hand edit a multi megabyte sized database file either. If you have installed Firefox, you have REJECTED Microsoft browser technology to begin with.
You must have installed 3.0? They drive Developers like sheep for new versions, Developers drive users. Find me a single Windows without.NET 3.x+ installed..NET is pre 3.x only in Icaza&Friends weird, sold out mind. All uses "3.5" because it pops up in Windows update.
They somehow managed to convince Telestream to slipstream Silverlight to "Windows Media Components for Quicktime" taking all the responsibility for future disasters. If anyone from that once serious pro media company reading this: Expect a security disaster in upcoming future which YOUR name will be mentioned.
If you install "Windows Media Components for Quicktime" today with default choices (like 99.9%) you will have a nice, shiny Silverlight in your Internet Plugins folder which means _every browser on OS X_ will load by default, to thread 0. (except SL Safari in 64bit mode).
We all thought they bought global license of that $10 shareware to undo the real scandal of Wmedia not being maintained but as usual, some IDIOT there had his own lame little "World domination plan" at MSFT.
Of course, wmedia player is not maintained and yet kept on download site, to bait unsuspecting windows switchers which will definitely result in complete browser instability disaster if installed to ANY modern OS X, both PPC and Intel. Somehow I suspect Silverlight for OS X or Silverlight related stuff on Firefox will be the last to be fixed. You know, you don't use their OS/app, you gotta be punished accordingly.
I think this is more like 1984 scandal of Amazon Kindle, it will have long time impact on cloud computing and the general direction of things to come.
Even if you invent a system about e-ink/store tomorrow which has NOTHING to do with Amazon Kindle, you will still be asked "but will you delete my books remotely?". Just like some dead tech acquired by MS and not managed well will cost even IBM Mainframe dept. sales.
If one is a hopeless conspiracy theorist, he can easily suggest MS did it on purpose to lower general public trust to cloud which they have almost nothing. Cloud is all open source empire right now, Apache Hadoop etc. are being talked about, not some MS enterprise server or technology.
Other options are worse for him, that is what keeps him on Mac. There is also software re-licensing costs, some big investment on Mac hardware etc.
Me? I got 5 macs in house but after iPhone and Apple's really worsening attitude, I may go back to ordering a Asus mainboard, good case etc. You got what I mean.
That $100 paid along with single channel of distribution with a policy like "you can't post your source" means "go away" to freeware/open source developers.
So as there aren't 100 free/open tip calculators, that idiot will release his junk for $0.99 diminishing the overall quality, look of app store. Apple can't understand the true power of open source on commercial OS or ways to exploit (in good way) the open source.
That is one of things Nokia learned in hard way and still trying to fix by helping open source developers with free signing, acquiring trolltech etc...
It is because Developers are afraid of Apple and as the only channel is "app store" for non hacked iPhones, Apple can make one's life real miserable if they want to.
Expect many AC developers talking real stuff but they have to stay anonymous. Hell, I even warned one friend to "stay low profile at least until app approved" myself.
Of course, if Application/Game can be released for Nokia touch phones at least which sells millions with some torture of Symbian C++, they would have some kind of power to show to Apple and they would be treated accordingly. That is the game&app developers fault. So, Nokia dev tools aren't classy/trendy as Apple... So what really? Ship it, if Handango/Ovi gets more share, put $5 price tag... Let user decide. At least Nokia won't say "You duplicated (coded better) my functionality". Look at the success stories like Opera Mini, IM clients, media players etc.
But it is purchased by Microsoft. One wonders if MS "Convert a working thing to Windows server" project went wrong? Conspiracy? This is the same company who tried to convert working perfect FreeBSD Hotmail to Windows server 3 times, failing horribly 2 times and at last managed (!) to do it. Now read each "hotmail performance" "down" news that way, you will know the real reason. They can't scale and their engineers&management are incompetent to run UNIX.
And people wonder why I didn't want Yahoo to be acquired by them.
I think even if sidekick data were housed on geographically away sysplex IBM Z/OS Z10 mainframes, it would be lost somehow with such management. Host OS and filesystem is irrelevant.
Run the most basic backup application, e.g. the one MS gives for free with Windows, you will see it backs up and VALIDATES entire data. I haven't seen a single application, command designed for backup doesn't do it.
Adobe shipped "Adobe Media Player" on Air platform and they recently converted it to "Adobe TV" which gives free videos/TV shows to Developers, designers and so on. I just checked and it has some Actionscript stuff.
I got a iPod touch for free and let me tell you, Objective C and Cocoa requirement doesn't stop people from releasing crap anyway.
I was wondering why there are so many iPhone app review sites, catalogs while I didn't have the device. Now I understand, it is worse than J2ME in signal to crap ratio, that is why you need some people to hunt down good stuff for you.
One must add that people calling themselves a "pro" or "advanced" developer must install Adobe Air to their OS (all supported) and run some non trivial application such as the stuff Adobe advertises. No worries, it is easily uninstalled later.
While trialing those apps, they should imagine what if the same application can ship for anything, down to TV set top boxes with couple of tweaks and the time people asking for a lite version of their game, app on their smart devices.
It is just some small download I talk about. If they are lazy to see it, they should not comment about Adobe. There must be a difference between regular user and a developer. Flash is even relevant to J2ME developers since one day or another, Oracle will end Sun engineers lame childish "use our GUI tools!" which doesn't work and go to Sony Ericsson's idea of using Flash Lite for GUI layer of J2ME. When I say J2ME, I speak about a billion devices. Funny that some developers doesn't even figure that number even after amazing success of Opera Mini which is nr 1 web browser on mobile market.
I have, had to use Gnash on PPC Linux, on a very high end PPC G5 (quad G5) with 4+ GB of RAM. In fact, that was when I lost my hope about PPC/Linux. That Linux distro I used was entirely designed for PPC/Apple for almost a decade so I can't really claim it was badly packaged etc.
Are you serious that Gnash is/can be an alternative to Flash? Ever used/experienced Flash Lite 3 on a high end ARM Symbian phone such as N95, new N97?
Recently, Mono was ported to Apple iPhone claiming to carry Apple requirements. That is "almost".NET for iPhone, a framework which has nothing to do with Cocoa and if you ask me, it is the perfect trojan of MS for iPhone. http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:Iphone
If Apple says "but this is workaround", they will simply show dozens of.NET apps ported via Mono. Also Novell has a little to harm Apple on Pro Desktop but Adobe can do real evil things without Apple able to do anything against it. They can say "We have problems with almost zero backwards compatibility with Apple operating systems, we are giving up OS X to focus on Windows and we may release some of our professional apps to Linux." Apple's "this depreciated, this gone, carbon? no 64bit" really cost them millions already and they are taking the flames, PR disasters when they have to say "no 64bit yet". Apple changed their mind about 64bit carbon (non existence) in 1 day, announced it on some basic event requiring millions of lines to be rewritten in Cocoa. I am really surprised Trolltech/Nokia (Qt) could move to Cocoa that fast to get 64bit support, that framework is the reason why Skype/Google earth can ship in sync on OS X. It is not just KDE.
I wonder how many huge router, server, software high end suits race to sell something to those "freak" sites you mention.
I am talking about real web, the web of Joe Sixpacks and hell, they go to Yahoo. Even their Real Estate sites which are very big deal now (economy) are easily beating anyone on market.
BTW, Comscore keeps track of those sites you mention too, they just don't release it to general web.
Yahoo is used as a gigantic portal, "Internet utility" and some kind of communication platform. They were never a good search engine, their hopes went away as early as DEC got Altavista.com up. Inktomi gave them some band aid but they finally figured it is a good corporate search engine, not something to race with Google.
While Internet was small, their directory was good, that is all. In fact, this is what Yahoo was, originally: http://dir.yahoo.com/ . People tend to forget that for some period of time, they completely gave up "search" and used Google backend. They are switching to Bing now which interestingly surprises people.
Google is the clear "lets do a portal like them" wannabe(!) guy here, their iGoogle isn't at My.Yahoo of 1999 level yet. They also deal with a huge problem as even Joe Sixpacks started to say "enough with your leech of my data" to them. That was never a problem with Yahoo.
You should travel to Asia, especially Japan and Hong Kong to see their real power.
Slashdot Mirror
Note the patent belongs to Steve Jobs, not some Joe Nobody intern guy or some lawyer.
If SJobs gets patent himself, it is unlikely an preemptive patent.
You are right though, a lot of patents are taken just to stop those trolls.
Even if Acer and MS provided that laptop for free, I wouldn't use it in public places.
Nobody with "3d glasses" using a laptop is considered usual, normal outside of NASA and some high end engineering companies.
Go to a 3D cinema and watch people taking off those cool and normal looking 3d glasses as soon as lights on. As Steve Jobs said about tablet PC: "The form is wrong."
While OS X Server is real underrated state of art UNIX which can do amazing things, Apple isn't and can't be a "server" competitor unless they allow OS X Server to run on "generic" x86.
While not widely known, OS X server can be used as a client, you can even play all the games on it even with better performance. So, they can't make "blade only" Apple OS X server. It would mean the end of "OS X working only on Apple hardware". I mean it is not AIX.
Forget everything, Apple can't compete in "support" department for servers. There is Big Blue there, Dell there, HP there and of course, Sun with decades old agreements and happy customers who expects same kind of service.
Of course, if you consider the things you can do with distributed computing (Xserve), spotlight (server version), it is sad but industry hates brand hardware without any competition. Java's (especially J2EE) success and mainframes coming back to life is also related to that trend, people choose Java because it will work anywhere, any CPU and even any OS with minor modifications.
Oh really? Eye TV 2.x (don't know 3.x), it is self contained .app which you drag to /Applications in mac (pre OS X) fashion. It sits idle there until you launch.
When you launch, it asks for admin uname/password to install "a device driver" (kernel extension). What kind of horrible, evil things may happen right?
Well, guess what? Nothing happens. It is because of the kernel/driver model. OS X doesn't give a heck if the device is not plugged in, it just caches the symbols/plist files coming with the driver to a file. So, if you have a Eye TV driver but you don't have Eye TV, that extension will sit there, forever, ignored by the OS _until_ you plug the device having same USB signature. I think you were expecting some stuff outside /System/Extensions , some registry like files, some hidden files... No man, it is just .kext and HFS+ "bundle bit" magic with clever use of directory watching.
There is no software which will bastardize core drivers of OS X. If you listen to some trouble shooting idiots and downgrade your core OS parts in /System, it is your fault. Nobody is idiot (yet) to do it in automated fashion though. Lets not forget all OS X comes with time Machine now, for free, no "ultimate" etc. crap schemes. Every single OS X user having space on somewhere (USB, network doesn't matter) has hourly backups of changed files including a complete backup of system.
Oh if you were speaking about Unsanity APE, it was designed from the ground so nobody would feel the need of modifying system files for trivial hacks. What happened? Ask the Logitech idiots who shipped awfully outdated version of it which wasn't able to disable itself.
That issue is nothing (they asked for it in fact).
The issue which should make to books about the tech irony is Virtual PC for Mac 7.x (if anyone uses, UPDATE!). MS found a theorotical (not sure) issue which Virtual PC's emulated X86/Hypervisor can MODIFY the OS X memory from "there".
While they were decent to fix it very quickly and shipped an update (7.0.3) confusing Mac users, that is one big amazing issue for you. Imagine by running (emulating in fact) a Windows, you risk your OS X memory locations with overwrite.
This is not some Toyota vs. Ferrari thing. With 90.000 workers, MS can't figure a easy, fail safe method of command line registry modification and they teach that horrible UI to users/engineers instead. That defaults command roots back to 1991, NeXT, no kidding. I bet it must have some root in UNIX or even Mainframe.
Can you really dare to double click a .reg or .inf file without looking to its contents under Windows? I even remember removing the file association manually so I won't accidentally double click and try to trace what the heck happened to my Windows.
While some slashdotters think otherwise, Java/Windows install base is huge thanks to couple of very popular apps and tiny games. Since companies these days looks for multi platform, multi arch; MS needed to show that their herd has been installed/infected by .NET too.
So, they haxor the user agent to show that clueless CTO that their 90% of users have .NET so they should use it instead of massively multi platform Java.
Anyway, as you see, karma is a real bitch and if Sun had a real management, they could milk this issue but... Lucky for MS, Sun is under auto pilot, even under Larry Ellison's Oracle.
If you double click a reg file, it enters registry directly. Other way, viewing it is secondary option.
In Apple land, plutil is used this way, consider it as alternative to .reg files wondering around:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defaults_(software)
For example,
defaults read com.apple.dock
Users can't use regedit. Apple knows it for the tiny plist files (which are text) so they did a "plutil" (plist utility) command included in OS which they (or developers) can tell users to run Terminal and "paste that command _exactly_ as it appears".
While there are 3.500.000 results for "run regedit" at Yahoo, can't they steal that idea from Apple so it would be basically "regutil --remove HKLM_Software_Mozilla_Firefox_Extensions .net"?
The most insane idea of all is entering Firefox on Windows, you know, the browser which its users use rejecting your built in browser. I wouldn't touch a byte on Firefox dir if I was MS. Even Apple who isn't that "hated" doesn't do anything regarding extensions, they merely install a basic browser plugin which they still get flamed for.
Or could it be the reason why Apple wants to keep Safari, the default (also last resort) OS X browser "extension free"?
The "fact" is, nobody wants their lame ass Flash wannabe junk. Nobody wants to hand edit a multi megabyte sized database file either. If you have installed Firefox, you have REJECTED Microsoft browser technology to begin with.
You must have installed 3.0? They drive Developers like sheep for new versions, Developers drive users. Find me a single Windows without .NET 3.x+ installed. .NET is pre 3.x only in Icaza&Friends weird, sold out mind. All uses "3.5" because it pops up in Windows update.
They somehow managed to convince Telestream to slipstream Silverlight to "Windows Media Components for Quicktime" taking all the responsibility for future disasters. If anyone from that once serious pro media company reading this: Expect a security disaster in upcoming future which YOUR name will be mentioned.
If you install "Windows Media Components for Quicktime" today with default choices (like 99.9%) you will have a nice, shiny Silverlight in your Internet Plugins folder which means _every browser on OS X_ will load by default, to thread 0. (except SL Safari in 64bit mode).
We all thought they bought global license of that $10 shareware to undo the real scandal of Wmedia not being maintained but as usual, some IDIOT there had his own lame little "World domination plan" at MSFT.
Of course, wmedia player is not maintained and yet kept on download site, to bait unsuspecting windows switchers which will definitely result in complete browser instability disaster if installed to ANY modern OS X, both PPC and Intel. Somehow I suspect Silverlight for OS X or Silverlight related stuff on Firefox will be the last to be fixed. You know, you don't use their OS/app, you gotta be punished accordingly.
I think this is more like 1984 scandal of Amazon Kindle, it will have long time impact on cloud computing and the general direction of things to come.
Even if you invent a system about e-ink/store tomorrow which has NOTHING to do with Amazon Kindle, you will still be asked "but will you delete my books remotely?". Just like some dead tech acquired by MS and not managed well will cost even IBM Mainframe dept. sales.
If one is a hopeless conspiracy theorist, he can easily suggest MS did it on purpose to lower general public trust to cloud which they have almost nothing. Cloud is all open source empire right now, Apache Hadoop etc. are being talked about, not some MS enterprise server or technology.
Other options are worse for him, that is what keeps him on Mac. There is also software re-licensing costs, some big investment on Mac hardware etc.
Me? I got 5 macs in house but after iPhone and Apple's really worsening attitude, I may go back to ordering a Asus mainboard, good case etc. You got what I mean.
That $100 paid along with single channel of distribution with a policy like "you can't post your source" means "go away" to freeware/open source developers.
So as there aren't 100 free/open tip calculators, that idiot will release his junk for $0.99 diminishing the overall quality, look of app store. Apple can't understand the true power of open source on commercial OS or ways to exploit (in good way) the open source.
That is one of things Nokia learned in hard way and still trying to fix by helping open source developers with free signing, acquiring trolltech etc...
It is because Developers are afraid of Apple and as the only channel is "app store" for non hacked iPhones, Apple can make one's life real miserable if they want to.
Expect many AC developers talking real stuff but they have to stay anonymous. Hell, I even warned one friend to "stay low profile at least until app approved" myself.
Of course, if Application/Game can be released for Nokia touch phones at least which sells millions with some torture of Symbian C++, they would have some kind of power to show to Apple and they would be treated accordingly. That is the game&app developers fault. So, Nokia dev tools aren't classy/trendy as Apple... So what really? Ship it, if Handango/Ovi gets more share, put $5 price tag... Let user decide. At least Nokia won't say "You duplicated (coded better) my functionality". Look at the success stories like Opera Mini, IM clients, media players etc.
But it is purchased by Microsoft. One wonders if MS "Convert a working thing to Windows server" project went wrong? Conspiracy? This is the same company who tried to convert working perfect FreeBSD Hotmail to Windows server 3 times, failing horribly 2 times and at last managed (!) to do it. Now read each "hotmail performance" "down" news that way, you will know the real reason. They can't scale and their engineers&management are incompetent to run UNIX.
And people wonder why I didn't want Yahoo to be acquired by them.
I think even if sidekick data were housed on geographically away sysplex IBM Z/OS Z10 mainframes, it would be lost somehow with such management. Host OS and filesystem is irrelevant.
Run the most basic backup application, e.g. the one MS gives for free with Windows, you will see it backs up and VALIDATES entire data. I haven't seen a single application, command designed for backup doesn't do it.
Adobe shipped "Adobe Media Player" on Air platform and they recently converted it to "Adobe TV" which gives free videos/TV shows to Developers, designers and so on. I just checked and it has some Actionscript stuff.
As Adobe Air is available for all OS, better check it out http://www.adobe.com/products/mediaplayer/
I got a iPod touch for free and let me tell you, Objective C and Cocoa requirement doesn't stop people from releasing crap anyway.
I was wondering why there are so many iPhone app review sites, catalogs while I didn't have the device. Now I understand, it is worse than J2ME in signal to crap ratio, that is why you need some people to hunt down good stuff for you.
One must add that people calling themselves a "pro" or "advanced" developer must install Adobe Air to their OS (all supported) and run some non trivial application such as the stuff Adobe advertises. No worries, it is easily uninstalled later.
While trialing those apps, they should imagine what if the same application can ship for anything, down to TV set top boxes with couple of tweaks and the time people asking for a lite version of their game, app on their smart devices.
It is just some small download I talk about. If they are lazy to see it, they should not comment about Adobe. There must be a difference between regular user and a developer. Flash is even relevant to J2ME developers since one day or another, Oracle will end Sun engineers lame childish "use our GUI tools!" which doesn't work and go to Sony Ericsson's idea of using Flash Lite for GUI layer of J2ME. When I say J2ME, I speak about a billion devices. Funny that some developers doesn't even figure that number even after amazing success of Opera Mini which is nr 1 web browser on mobile market.
I have, had to use Gnash on PPC Linux, on a very high end PPC G5 (quad G5) with 4+ GB of RAM. In fact, that was when I lost my hope about PPC/Linux. That Linux distro I used was entirely designed for PPC/Apple for almost a decade so I can't really claim it was badly packaged etc.
Are you serious that Gnash is/can be an alternative to Flash? Ever used/experienced Flash Lite 3 on a high end ARM Symbian phone such as N95, new N97?
Recently, Mono was ported to Apple iPhone claiming to carry Apple requirements. That is "almost" .NET for iPhone, a framework which has nothing to do with Cocoa and if you ask me, it is the perfect trojan of MS for iPhone.
http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:Iphone
If Apple says "but this is workaround", they will simply show dozens of .NET apps ported via Mono. Also Novell has a little to harm Apple on Pro Desktop but Adobe can do real evil things without Apple able to do anything against it. They can say "We have problems with almost zero backwards compatibility with Apple operating systems, we are giving up OS X to focus on Windows and we may release some of our professional apps to Linux." Apple's "this depreciated, this gone, carbon? no 64bit" really cost them millions already and they are taking the flames, PR disasters when they have to say "no 64bit yet". Apple changed their mind about 64bit carbon (non existence) in 1 day, announced it on some basic event requiring millions of lines to be rewritten in Cocoa. I am really surprised Trolltech/Nokia (Qt) could move to Cocoa that fast to get 64bit support, that framework is the reason why Skype/Google earth can ship in sync on OS X. It is not just KDE.
I wonder how many huge router, server, software high end suits race to sell something to those "freak" sites you mention.
I am talking about real web, the web of Joe Sixpacks and hell, they go to Yahoo. Even their Real Estate sites which are very big deal now (economy) are easily beating anyone on market.
BTW, Comscore keeps track of those sites you mention too, they just don't release it to general web.
Yahoo is used as a gigantic portal, "Internet utility" and some kind of communication platform. They were never a good search engine, their hopes went away as early as DEC got Altavista.com up. Inktomi gave them some band aid but they finally figured it is a good corporate search engine, not something to race with Google.
While Internet was small, their directory was good, that is all. In fact, this is what Yahoo was, originally: http://dir.yahoo.com/ . People tend to forget that for some period of time, they completely gave up "search" and used Google backend. They are switching to Bing now which interestingly surprises people.
Google is the clear "lets do a portal like them" wannabe(!) guy here, their iGoogle isn't at My.Yahoo of 1999 level yet. They also deal with a huge problem as even Joe Sixpacks started to say "enough with your leech of my data" to them. That was never a problem with Yahoo.
You should travel to Asia, especially Japan and Hong Kong to see their real power.