Just an FYI, but about 95% of my iPhone internet/email use occurs at work, home, or in a couple of local restaurants... ALL of which are WiFi enabled. So while EDGE is a bit pokey elsewhere, by and large it doesn't matter, because event though 3G beats EDGE, WiFi beats 3G.
Wifi may beat 3G in performance, but there are significant downsides for anyone who does not spend most of their time in the same few places. I can maintain the same 3G network connection for miles and miles. There's no need to risk connecting via unsecure networks. There are no hassles with network authentication: no VPNs to access the internet (typically college wifi networks), no EAP-TLS (typically corporate wifi networks), no gateway pages (for pay wifi or free wifi that presents an EULA or asks for an email address). 3G uses less power, especially when idling.
Yeah, but how many file managers and to do lists do you really need?
There's a lot more than that. Think games and emulators, GPS/map applications, streaming media players, etc. There's more out there than just Google Maps and YouTube. Instead of using Google Maps or Live Search, I can buy a full locally stored GPS app that functions more like a hardware GPS unit. I can stream music from services like Sirius or XM or stream video from my home connection using something like Slingbox. I can connect to SSH servers and use VoIP services like Skype. I can use password keeper applications that synchronize with companion applications on my desktop PC.
All of these things are possible today, not at some point in the future when Apple finishes their new firmware. There are no limitations based on what Apple and its business partners choose to allow.
And if the program I want is something trivial like a to-do-list, it's nice to have choice.
It is important to consider that Windows Mobile devices are more popular in the United States than Symbian devices, in part because there are plenty of CDMA Windows Mobile devices.
Except that on Vista *anyone* can install that application. On Unix you would need the root password to do such a thing.
Not entirely true. Anyone on Vista with administrator privileges can install that application. If the user does not have administrator rights on the machine, he or she will be see a password prompt for a proper admin account.
Anyone with root privileges (via sudo) on OS X or Unix can do the same thing.
surely something can be done to cut that down on the cpu wake ups. Or development of a power saving protocol that dosen't use battery when nothing is being sent/received.
are more CPU wakeups bad? It appears this means that the CPU is sleeping more. NICs have to do something with those packets.
My only problem with AMD, is that their CPUs dont seam to scale as low as intel ones, my current 2.0ghz only drops to 800mhz, but my intel one would drop fro 1.6ghz to 200mhz, not sure how this reflects in powerusage though.
Your Intel CPU would drop from 1600 MHz to 200 MHz? Are you sure?
My 1200MHz Core 2 Duo ULV only drops to 800 MHz. My 4 year old Pentium M system dropped from 1400 MHz to 600 MHz.
Thinking of power usage, is anybody working on moving wireless on to CPUs or save power on wifi in other ways?
That makes no sense. Wifi is going to use power no matter what; it takes power to transmit.
because the although nice graphics are welcome, its battery life that laptop users really want, if getting AMD or Intel on a laptop is going to result in having an extra hour, i dont really care which has the better graphics chip.
The CPU and screen still use more power than your wireless transmitter, so get a laptop with an ULV CPU, a LED backlit screen, and a big battery.
But looking back, what practical advantage does an on-die memory controller have for the end-user? HyperTransport has less latency and more bandwidth, but Intel Core CPUs remain competitive performance-wise without these features.
It was never the monumental change many made it out to be for desktop systems; it's another incremental improvement in performance.
Exactly what are you hoping to accomplish by going to all of that bother? Your last mile ISP can't monitor you but the hosting company and THEIR ISP can so you have just shifted the point of attack.
Well, his traffic is flowing through a datacenter that's normally used for hosting websites, not visiting sites. Why would anyone look at outgoing traffic?
And that hosting provider might have more than one ISP.
I think part of the reason for MySQL being so prevalent is the fact that it is probably the easiest backend database you can use for a web app. I've seen quite a few that have started life with MySQl and added in additional database support as the application has grown and matured.
No, the easiest right now would be SQLite. On Windows, the JET Engine (MS Access) has been prevalent in the past, but is being overtaken by SQL Server (which can be used like SQLite or JET - by "connecting" to a file instead of a database on a server).
Are they only supporting SUSE E.S. as an ongoing policy? Or is it just the only one they've certified as of the first release?
Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?
SuSe is currently the only supported Linux distribution, but support for Red Hat is coming in the future (according to the readme for the Linux integration components).
The Integration Components are part binary, part code. They do not appear to be tied to a specific SuSe kernel.
Well put, I installed Win2008 Server last week to start doing some testing for a client and was surprised that the installation process puts games on the machine and has folders like My Pictures and My Music.
The installation process does not install games and picture/music playing software by default. You need to select the "Desktop Experience", which does install this kind of software.
I mean really, is this supposed to be a serious server operating system? If "yes" then why would you have such things installed? It makes no sense to me at all.
If the system is designed to be used as a terminal server, for example.
1) If they're officially supporting SUSE then give them props for at least that much.
They will also officially support RHEL 5 in the future according to the "Integration Components for Linux Read Me". This should (at least) provide support for CentOS.
Hyper-V only costs $28 more as part of a Windows Server 2008 license (that is, if the price for one license was $999 with Hyper-V, the price without Hyper-V would be $973). This is a pretty insigificant cost if you're already going to buy Windows Server 2008. When Hyper-V is done (it's currently a Release Candidate), supposedly MS will release it as a standalone product and sell it for $28.
Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V licenses allow you to run a certain number of guest instances of Windows using that same license (more details). The amount of guests you can run on a Hyper-V server is not limited by the license (only technical limits apply).
But why would a Microsoft only shop want/need virtualization ?
To run multiple instances of Windows Server on one piece of hardware...
I imagine that a vast majority of hyper-v's customers will be those who want to run two OS-es on one system, and lets face it - the OS they're most likely to want to virtualize on a windows machine will be Linux.
Not quite. People already use VMware products to run virtual Windows instances.
Of course, they can already do this with VMware ESX (expensive) or VMware Server (free, but not as good as a hypervisor-based system like VMware ESX or Hyper-V). Hyper-V provides virtualization similar to Xen - one guest is the "host" and is used for management and hardware access. Most x86 operating systems will run without modifications It's not as advanced as VMware ESX Server, but it's closer than VMware ESX in functionality than VMware Server or Virtual PC.
I still don't understand what they mean by "supported" though. How can this *only* work for SuSe ?
Microsoft provides drivers for SuSe for use with a SuSe Xen domU kernel. You can run any other Linux OS, but it will run in a virtualized environment instead. The readme for the integration components state that RHEL 5 will be supported in the future.
The code does not appear to be a binary-only module for a specific kernel. It appears to be part code, part binary, so it may be possible to compile the code for other kernels besides SuSe's.
Hyper-V is not a full fledged cpu/hardware emulator like VMWare and is more of a hypervisor which needs support from the client operating system
False. Hyper-V works with arbitrary guest operating systems (that is, it provides eumlated hardware to run most x86 operating systems). However, it operates better with hypervisor-aware OSes - much like Xen.
I think you've made a key point, although somewhat tangentially. It's probably not Apple that's driving this - it's probably Cingular.
Windows Mobile doesn't come with builtin Java support - many vendors choose to include a runtime. My Motorola Q9h from AT&T includes a J2ME runtime. I can run unsigned / untrusted applications without any problem. If I needed to run an unsigned/untrusted app with full access to my device, I could make the phone trust that app or disable this requirement.
I left Verizon for T-Mobile, a few years back, specifically because of their silly artificial neutering of products. That was easy since Verizon also doesn't offer anything particularly innovative or "cool"
Verizon doesn't do this for Windows Mobile devices.
Pretty much every phone on the market is closed in some form. The iphone in providing an sdk is considerably more open than it's competition.
Demonstrably false. The Windows Mobile SDK is available online. There are no limitations to what you can write or distribute. You can develop using.NET, C, C++, etc. or any other language that targets Windows Mobile. There are a few Java implementations that will run standard J2ME apps. Windows Mobile does use digital signatures to limit what runs on a device, but devices allow a user to run an unsigned application if the user authorizes it. Additionally, developers can sign applications with their own root certificates and instruct users to trust those certificates, and end users can disable signature requirements altogether if they like.
The only limitation is that there is no IDE provided for free.
Application-wise, there are competing email clients and sync drivers (including a BlackBerry client), various web browsers with plugin and JavaScript support, various media players (including streaming players), VoIP clients that will run over EDGE/3G or any other network connection, and various map applications (including Google Maps, Microsoft's own Live Search, and a few free products - all of which support GPS via an internal receiver - as well as many commerical GPS software + map packages that often use the same code as hardware Windows CE-based GPS units.)
My Motorola Q9h allows me to play YouTube videos and stream music from any site I choose; it even shipped with an XM Radio streaming client for XM subscribers (I use Sirius, so I downloaded a free Sirius radio client.)
On a Windows Mobile device, you can install as many applications as you like. There's no need to download the software from Microsoft. There's no need to pay a dime to get a key to even develop apps on a real device. There's no need to have software signed by Microsoft (you can either disable signature checking or add your own certificate authority). There's no certificate revocation if your app breaks Apple's policies.
You must not be operating at a very high level then as 30% to include distribution, hosting, update infrastructure, management, servers, scalability, reliability, and so on is very reasonable. Ask Symbian developers what they get (hint, the number starts with a five and is two digits!)
With Windows Mobile, you have the choice to sell your software however you want.
I can port any GNu thing I like and sell it on the store. Of course lots of other people could as well, so I see little point once the first free versions appeal (and you know they will). I can also of course, as a developer, compile and deploy whatever I like to my phone.
You can, as an Apple developer, pay Apple money to be able to run applications on your phone or give them away for free.
You can, as a Windows Mobile developer, pay nothing and run whatever the hell you want. No $99 initiation fee. Anyone can download the tools and compile the software.
Didn't you get the memo? Those apps, are limited to WiFi.
Programs on my 3G Windows Mobile can access the Internet via 3G. Streaming video, streaming maps, streaming music, email sync, SSH, and more... none of it approved by Microsoft, Motorola, or AT&T.
Ever try to watch a streaming HD vid with Flash? It ain't pretty and I have an AMDx2 6400+ with 8 gigs of ram.
Somehow I suspect that Flash is not the problem, or the problem is specific to your configuration.
However I can watch HD videos all day long on a 1700+ AMD so long as it is some sort of streaming AVI.
AVI is a container for audio and video. Sure, you might be able to play 1280x720 MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP (more commonly known as DivX/XviD), but you'd probably have difficulty with 1920x1080 MPEG-4 AVC (also known as H.264 or MPEG-4 AVC).
A stopgap for what? Since Flash video became popular (thanks to YouTube), it's become the primary method of streaming video on the Internet.
Personally, I never had a whole lot of luck with streaming video on the Internet with a non-IE browser... until everyone started using Flash. Now I can watch video on platforms other than Windows or Mac OS as long as they have a Flash player.
The latest Flash also supports H264.
Interestingly, YouTube also streams video in a format that Windows Media Player supports if you go to the site with a Windows Mobile phone (in addition to the iPhone service).
Opera Mobile is a Web browser that renders HTML/CSS and does JavaScript. It connects to web servers directly if a WAP/HTTP gateway/proxy is not configured. Pages are fully rendered on the device; it's written in native code (C/C++) and is almost certainly based on the 8.6 version of the Opera rendering code. (Opera for Wii uses something close to the in-beta 9.5 code, Opera for Windows/Unix/OS X is at release version 9.26, and Opera Mobile has been at 8.65 for awhile.)
Opera Mini is a Web browser that renders specially processed pages from Opera's proxy server to reduce rendering & download time. It's written in J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition).
Opera Mobile is a regular web browser that does not go through Opera's servers. It'll use your device's connection settings, so it could end up connecting through your wireless provider's WAP/HTTP gateway if your device is set up to use it. (The rendering engine in the current version of Opera Mobile is old - the PC & Wii versions are newer)
POSIX is still around in the form of the Subsystem for Unix Applications. It's downloadable at no cost for users of certain XP and Vista SKUs and for Windows 2003/2008.
MS also has existing software available for making Windows UNIX compatible, "UNIX Services for Windows", if memory serves. It's not a long distance from that to GNU compatibility.
With Cygwin already around, and UNIX being open and readily able to be integrated into Windows, it would be a smart way to envelop potential UNIX users. Personally I'd like a Microsoft supported Cygwin, which isn't as buggy and doesn't feel as detached from Windows.
As of Windows 2003 R2 and later, it's now called Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications.
SFU/SUA applications are not Win32 applications; they operate on the POSIX layer. The apps are still Windows PE formatted binaries. Libraries are also PE and do not have a.dll extension.
The Unix environment is more Unix-like than Cygwin. Executables have no file extension; their names are all lowercase and appear that way in the Task Manager. SUA is aware of NT ACLs and permissions and appears to work with ACLs. It's possible to suspend and kill processes like any unix system.
SUA borrows a lot of stuff from BSD and includes some GNU code. Much of the userland is based on BSD; the SUA FTP application supports HTTP downloads as well, like NetBSD's IIRC. SUA applications can be compiled with the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler or the included gcc (version 3.3). SUA provides a/proc filesystem.
The userland is not as "complete" as a GNU system; commands like top and killall are missing, but ps and kill are functional.
I haven't found much of a need for SFU/SUA, mainly because I typically have some sort of Linux system accessible and because PowerShell makes it possible to do many of the same things. But it doesn't feel too different than any other Unix
Here's the output of a few commands on my Windows Vista box:
Slashdot Mirror
Wifi may beat 3G in performance, but there are significant downsides for anyone who does not spend most of their time in the same few places. I can maintain the same 3G network connection for miles and miles. There's no need to risk connecting via unsecure networks. There are no hassles with network authentication: no VPNs to access the internet (typically college wifi networks), no EAP-TLS (typically corporate wifi networks), no gateway pages (for pay wifi or free wifi that presents an EULA or asks for an email address). 3G uses less power, especially when idling.
There's a lot more than that. Think games and emulators, GPS/map applications, streaming media players, etc. There's more out there than just Google Maps and YouTube. Instead of using Google Maps or Live Search, I can buy a full locally stored GPS app that functions more like a hardware GPS unit. I can stream music from services like Sirius or XM or stream video from my home connection using something like Slingbox. I can connect to SSH servers and use VoIP services like Skype. I can use password keeper applications that synchronize with companion applications on my desktop PC.
All of these things are possible today, not at some point in the future when Apple finishes their new firmware. There are no limitations based on what Apple and its business partners choose to allow.
And if the program I want is something trivial like a to-do-list, it's nice to have choice.
It is important to consider that Windows Mobile devices are more popular in the United States than Symbian devices, in part because there are plenty of CDMA Windows Mobile devices.
Not entirely true. Anyone on Vista with administrator privileges can install that application. If the user does not have administrator rights on the machine, he or she will be see a password prompt for a proper admin account.
Anyone with root privileges (via sudo) on OS X or Unix can do the same thing.
are more CPU wakeups bad? It appears this means that the CPU is sleeping more. NICs have to do something with those packets.
Many NICs already have interrupt moderation.
Your Intel CPU would drop from 1600 MHz to 200 MHz? Are you sure?
My 1200MHz Core 2 Duo ULV only drops to 800 MHz. My 4 year old Pentium M system dropped from 1400 MHz to 600 MHz.
That makes no sense. Wifi is going to use power no matter what; it takes power to transmit.
The CPU and screen still use more power than your wireless transmitter, so get a laptop with an ULV CPU, a LED backlit screen, and a big battery.
But looking back, what practical advantage does an on-die memory controller have for the end-user? HyperTransport has less latency and more bandwidth, but Intel Core CPUs remain competitive performance-wise without these features.
It was never the monumental change many made it out to be for desktop systems; it's another incremental improvement in performance.
The nicer ones should even support unencrypted digital cable (QAM) tuning. My ethernet-connected HDHomeRun does.
Well, his traffic is flowing through a datacenter that's normally used for hosting websites, not visiting sites. Why would anyone look at outgoing traffic?
And that hosting provider might have more than one ISP.
Typically, 24" screens and greater are not TN. This article claims that the first 24" TN panel came out in mid 2007.
I can't imagine that there are many larger LCD TVs with TN panels, even among the cheap ones; the viewing angles would be unacceptable.
No, the easiest right now would be SQLite. On Windows, the JET Engine (MS Access) has been prevalent in the past, but is being overtaken by SQL Server (which can be used like SQLite or JET - by "connecting" to a file instead of a database on a server).
SuSe is currently the only supported Linux distribution, but support for Red Hat is coming in the future (according to the readme for the Linux integration components).
The Integration Components are part binary, part code. They do not appear to be tied to a specific SuSe kernel.
The installation process does not install games and picture/music playing software by default. You need to select the "Desktop Experience", which does install this kind of software.
If the system is designed to be used as a terminal server, for example.
They will also officially support RHEL 5 in the future according to the "Integration Components for Linux Read Me". This should (at least) provide support for CentOS.
Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V licenses allow you to run a certain number of guest instances of Windows using that same license (more details). The amount of guests you can run on a Hyper-V server is not limited by the license (only technical limits apply).
To run multiple instances of Windows Server on one piece of hardware...
Not quite. People already use VMware products to run virtual Windows instances.
Of course, they can already do this with VMware ESX (expensive) or VMware Server (free, but not as good as a hypervisor-based system like VMware ESX or Hyper-V). Hyper-V provides virtualization similar to Xen - one guest is the "host" and is used for management and hardware access. Most x86 operating systems will run without modifications It's not as advanced as VMware ESX Server, but it's closer than VMware ESX in functionality than VMware Server or Virtual PC.
Microsoft provides drivers for SuSe for use with a SuSe Xen domU kernel. You can run any other Linux OS, but it will run in a virtualized environment instead. The readme for the integration components state that RHEL 5 will be supported in the future.
The code does not appear to be a binary-only module for a specific kernel. It appears to be part code, part binary, so it may be possible to compile the code for other kernels besides SuSe's.
False. Hyper-V works with arbitrary guest operating systems (that is, it provides eumlated hardware to run most x86 operating systems). However, it operates better with hypervisor-aware OSes - much like Xen.
Funny, AT&T has no such limitation on the other smartphones they sell, many of which will run Skype over the cellular network.
Windows Mobile doesn't come with builtin Java support - many vendors choose to include a runtime. My Motorola Q9h from AT&T includes a J2ME runtime. I can run unsigned / untrusted applications without any problem. If I needed to run an unsigned/untrusted app with full access to my device, I could make the phone trust that app or disable this requirement.
Verizon doesn't do this for Windows Mobile devices.
Demonstrably false. The Windows Mobile SDK is available online. There are no limitations to what you can write or distribute. You can develop using
The only limitation is that there is no IDE provided for free.
Application-wise, there are competing email clients and sync drivers (including a BlackBerry client), various web browsers with plugin and JavaScript support, various media players (including streaming players), VoIP clients that will run over EDGE/3G or any other network connection, and various map applications (including Google Maps, Microsoft's own Live Search, and a few free products - all of which support GPS via an internal receiver - as well as many commerical GPS software + map packages that often use the same code as hardware Windows CE-based GPS units.)
My Motorola Q9h allows me to play YouTube videos and stream music from any site I choose; it even shipped with an XM Radio streaming client for XM subscribers (I use Sirius, so I downloaded a free Sirius radio client.)
With Windows Mobile, you have the choice to sell your software however you want.
You can, as an Apple developer, pay Apple money to be able to run applications on your phone or give them away for free.
You can, as a Windows Mobile developer, pay nothing and run whatever the hell you want. No $99 initiation fee. Anyone can download the tools and compile the software.
Programs on my 3G Windows Mobile can access the Internet via 3G. Streaming video, streaming maps, streaming music, email sync, SSH, and more... none of it approved by Microsoft, Motorola, or AT&T.
Somehow I suspect that Flash is not the problem, or the problem is specific to your configuration.
AVI is a container for audio and video. Sure, you might be able to play 1280x720 MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP (more commonly known as DivX/XviD), but you'd probably have difficulty with 1920x1080 MPEG-4 AVC (also known as H.264 or MPEG-4 AVC).
A stopgap for what?
Since Flash video became popular (thanks to YouTube), it's become the primary method of streaming video on the Internet.
Personally, I never had a whole lot of luck with streaming video on the Internet with a non-IE browser... until everyone started using Flash. Now I can watch video on platforms other than Windows or Mac OS as long as they have a Flash player.
The latest Flash also supports H264.
Interestingly, YouTube also streams video in a format that Windows Media Player supports if you go to the site with a Windows Mobile phone (in addition to the iPhone service).
Opera Mobile is a Web browser that renders HTML/CSS and does JavaScript. It connects to web servers directly if a WAP/HTTP gateway/proxy is not configured. Pages are fully rendered on the device; it's written in native code (C/C++) and is almost certainly based on the 8.6 version of the Opera rendering code. (Opera for Wii uses something close to the in-beta 9.5 code, Opera for Windows/Unix/OS X is at release version 9.26, and Opera Mobile has been at 8.65 for awhile.)
Opera Mini is a Web browser that renders specially processed pages from Opera's proxy server to reduce rendering & download time. It's written in J2ME (Java 2 Mobile Edition).
Opera Mobile is a regular web browser that does not go through Opera's servers. It'll use your device's connection settings, so it could end up connecting through your wireless provider's WAP/HTTP gateway if your device is set up to use it. (The rendering engine in the current version of Opera Mobile is old - the PC & Wii versions are newer)
Opera Mini is a completely different product.
POSIX is still around in the form of the Subsystem for Unix Applications. It's downloadable at no cost for users of certain XP and Vista SKUs and for Windows 2003/2008.
As of Windows 2003 R2 and later, it's now called Subsystem for UNIX-Based Applications.
SFU/SUA applications are not Win32 applications; they operate on the POSIX layer. The apps are still Windows PE formatted binaries. Libraries are also PE and do not have a
The Unix environment is more Unix-like than Cygwin. Executables have no file extension; their names are all lowercase and appear that way in the Task Manager. SUA is aware of NT ACLs and permissions and appears to work with ACLs. It's possible to suspend and kill processes like any unix system.
SUA borrows a lot of stuff from BSD and includes some GNU code. Much of the userland is based on BSD; the SUA FTP application supports HTTP downloads as well, like NetBSD's IIRC. SUA applications can be compiled with the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler or the included gcc (version 3.3). SUA provides a
The userland is not as "complete" as a GNU system; commands like top and killall are missing, but ps and kill are functional.
Ports of some GNU software are available here.
I haven't found much of a need for SFU/SUA, mainly because I typically have some sort of Linux system accessible and because PowerShell makes it possible to do many of the same things. But it doesn't feel too different than any other Unix
Here's the output of a few commands on my Windows Vista box: