The idea of Android isn't bad - far from it. From what I've seen, HTC's software was pretty shoddy before Anrdoid, but the hardware was solid, for instance. And while I don't own an Android device, I have used it and heard great feedback from friends.
Google's rules on Android are important, because Google has reached a fork in the road.
Google can continue to keep Android very free in its usage terms. ODMs will continue to like and adapt the OS to their devices, but they may provide custom interfaces, choose not to release upgrades for the phone OS. Inconsistency may drive people away.
Google restricts the terms of usage, sets forth rules on UI consistency, upgrades, etc...this provides a more consistent experience but may scare device makers away.
Google might do the former now (to spur adoption) and the latter later, once everyone is using the OS. It's tough to say, because if Google tries to tighten control too early, they'll lose their support, while if they're too late, people may have already given up on developing for the platform.
I wasn't even aware that the PSI used the Trident rendering engine. I thought for sure they'd use Gecko or WebKit.
The more you know, I suppose.
The tool works very well though- it warns me about having insecure versions of GTK, for instance.
(Note: Trying not to slashvertise, just sharing some info about a program that's helped me stay secure. I have no affiliation with Secunia, I just like the tool a lot.)
I scan with Secunia's (a Danish computer security company) freeware tool to check if I have insecure applications.
3 times out of 4, when something has a category 4 or category 5 exploit (e.x. click2own), it's Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave, AIR, Reader/Acrobat, etc.
It's also interesting because it tells you if your browsers are insecure (due to plugins or the browser itself). Both IE8 and Chrome are insecure in current versions with all patches.
It was pretty eye opening for me, because I thought that I kept secure, but I had 20 insecure applications when I first got the scanner. I'm always skeptical about getting stuff for free, but I imagine that Secunia uses the data to improve the accuracy of their business software.
To return to the story topic... when possible, use Adobe alternatives (e.x. Sumatra instead of Adobe Reader) and check your flash player and shockwave player versions at least once a week.
One more thing in my diatribe...recent versions of the Shockwave Player don't update correctly. I installed the latest version to fix a couple critical vulnerabilities only to find out that it wouldn't reomve the vulnerable files from my system directory. I had to download the Shockwave uninstaller, reboot my PC, reinstall shockwave, and reboot again. I felt like I was back on Windows 9x again.
That's why I've told anyone who jailbroke to use a separate account for apps on jailbroken devices.
Kind of silly, IMO. You're going to ban people from possibly paying for apps? Not every app is jailbroken, some are cracked incorrectly (some of the antipiracy mechanisms in apps I've seen are nothing short of hilarious trolling), and some are out of date. Additionally, if an app is really good, a user may buy the app to support the dev.
So you ban people and what happens? People jailbreak all the free apps too.
Man, Flash Player locks up the CPU and crashes more often with gold releases than most alpha software. I think you'd have to be sadist to run software in alpha for Linux from Adobe.
Seriously, I hope it leads to an improvement for the Flash Player for the platform- it's sorely needed.
On another note, I was surprised to hear that H.264 GPU video acceleration in Flash Player 10.1, in addition to being limited to very new cards, only works on Windows, the platform with the most stable Flash Player (stable is relative).
It's not the war of privacy- it's the war of privacy vs. convenience.
Facebook lets me keep in touch and aware of what my friends are doing. On the other hand, photos of me doing something that may reflect poorly on myself to an employer or other friends. I have pretty strict privacy settings on Facebook, but the reality is that something bad could easily be associated with my profile and seen by many before I could get it pulled.
On the other hand, if I didn't share quite a bit of personal info on Facebook, I wouldn't even be aware when I was tagged in a photo.
Today, people are accepting convenience at the sacrifice of some privacy. It's nice when I can call up the cable company and have them able to see what services I have, that I'm paying the bill, and the modem has the wrong DOCSIS file. On the other hand, I'm in a database that is easier to access than ever. I accept the sacrifice for convenience when I have to work with the cable company.
Or credit cards. The majority of my purchases are now associated with my SSN in a database. The ability to track my spending and have some degree of purchase security is worth the sacrifice for me, so I choose to use electronic payment.
So did we lose, giving up so much? On one hand, there are plenty of alternatives- I can buy online with a Visa Gift Card, registered to whatever name and address and purchased in cash. I can buy in cash in person. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible NOT to be in a database- even if you were to forego electricity, television, cable, etc., you'd still be in a government tax database. Someone I know got a letter last year saying "an IRS employee with your and a couple million other taxpayer documents, including your taxpayer ID number, full name, and address, lost their laptop. We'll try not to let it happen again. Here's a year of credit monitoring from one of the three bureaus, then you're on your own. Seeya!"
So, yes, to some degree we lost. It's hard to avoid changes that the rest of society is fine with. Living like a hermit in a powerless shack in the woods is still possible, but for the average person, it definitely has been eroded.
It's extremely common... I've bought 4 Kingston MicroSD cards, all but 1 are dead in a year. A-DATA and other brands work fine, so I'm sure it's a problem with Kingston's quality control.
Putting one badge on the top and having memory from another manufacturer is extremely common, but it's more surprising for a big brand.
Kingston's warranty departmen was meh. I sent in a couple of the cards that were defective and got 2 more cards that died quickly a month after sending them in.
On a side note, Kingston's rebate house sucks and Kingston refused to resolve a properly filled rebate rejection. With Corsair and OCZ using reputable rebate houses, working memory, and good, quick repair, I now ignore Kingston when purchasing.
An understatement, to say the least. iTunes feature creep has made it a massive piece of bloatware- Bonjour, QuickTime, Mobile Device Service, iPodhelper, etc... not to mention the main applicaiton.
The number of ways in which iTunes can break, just giving a cryptic error code is pretty pathetic.
The UI is a little awkward but can be learned.
Good UI shouldn't be awkward. Granted, for the amount shoved into iTunes, very few functions are completely broken interface-wise.
It gets the job of searching, navigating, and organizing my large library done well enough.
There are much better alternatives, trust me.
Overall, it is functional and provides integration with the two entities you admit could have merit: iPod (iPhone) and iTunes store.
I know you were talking to the OP, but I can't give you the latter. Foobar2k and numerous other players have full iPod support, are much less bloated, and actually write tags back to music instead of a database (so you can switch audio applications easily). I would have to give you the latter since Apple's move to lossless DRM free music.
Are you kidding? They've been controlling the leaks for months.
There was an article her on/. from a marketing director admitting that, off the record, senior executives purposely "let it slip" and suggested reporting it to build up hype.
The textbook CEO yesterday knew damn well what he was doing- that was completely intentional to sustain the hype.
After resting on the success of the iPhones and what they had, AT&T now has to spend the money to catch up.
Expect the majority of shareholders, who are ridiculously short sighted, to hate AT&T for it and decry it as a waste of money, just like how all the Verizon stockholders were whining about the investment per household for FiOS.
I'm running the latest firmware on my A-110 and it runs like a dream. Sorry to hear about your C200 issues, but my unit is not buggy in my experience, and I highly recommend it.
In NY, IIRC, when lenders deny you a credit report, they are required to tell you the specific reason why (lack of history, if you are paying another lender late, etc.)
In some states (I also believe NY is one of them), they are required to give you a copy of the report they used upon request if they deny you.
Actually, according to the story, his consoles are banned, one of which he claims is never played online.
Microsoft does not ban gamertags on modded consoles. If he violated the Xbox Live ToS in some other way, they might, in which case they would email him separately. Most modders can recover their gamertag on another console fine, however.
As I said above (not in my original post, but as a part of this comment thread), I don't debate that the Vista Capable debacle is Microsoft's fault. I'm just finding it funny that the Mojave experiment worked the second time.
Memory & performance pig: 7 is a bit trimmed, but the difference really isn't that big.
Oh, MS totally shot themselves in the foot by putting out minimum requirements for OEMs to stamp on PCs that the computer was "Vista Capable", and for disabling driver signing in x86 versions of Windows. Not debating that.
Vista wasn't inherently bad. MS just put out minimum specs that were way too low and didn't enforce driver quality.
For security, and for forcing developers to have GOOD coding practices, I thought UAC was a good idea. So many Windows devs coded lazily, writing apps that shouldn't have required admin access, but did.
All Microsoft did in 7 is reduce the security, since many users will blindly click through whatever is shown anyways, and power users turn it off.
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Google's rules on Android are important, because Google has reached a fork in the road.
Google might do the former now (to spur adoption) and the latter later, once everyone is using the OS. It's tough to say, because if Google tries to tighten control too early, they'll lose their support, while if they're too late, people may have already given up on developing for the platform.
I think Symantec should detect their own product as Trojan.Symantec.
Seriously, Symantec and McAfee applications are more ill behaved with system resources than most viruses.
I wasn't even aware that the PSI used the Trident rendering engine. I thought for sure they'd use Gecko or WebKit.
The more you know, I suppose.
The tool works very well though- it warns me about having insecure versions of GTK, for instance.
(Note: Trying not to slashvertise, just sharing some info about a program that's helped me stay secure. I have no affiliation with Secunia, I just like the tool a lot.)
I scan with Secunia's (a Danish computer security company) freeware tool to check if I have insecure applications.
3 times out of 4, when something has a category 4 or category 5 exploit (e.x. click2own), it's Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave, AIR, Reader/Acrobat, etc.
It's also interesting because it tells you if your browsers are insecure (due to plugins or the browser itself). Both IE8 and Chrome are insecure in current versions with all patches.
It was pretty eye opening for me, because I thought that I kept secure, but I had 20 insecure applications when I first got the scanner. I'm always skeptical about getting stuff for free, but I imagine that Secunia uses the data to improve the accuracy of their business software.
To return to the story topic... when possible, use Adobe alternatives (e.x. Sumatra instead of Adobe Reader) and check your flash player and shockwave player versions at least once a week.
Firefox Users can use Mozilla's plugin check.
One more thing in my diatribe...recent versions of the Shockwave Player don't update correctly. I installed the latest version to fix a couple critical vulnerabilities only to find out that it wouldn't reomve the vulnerable files from my system directory. I had to download the Shockwave uninstaller, reboot my PC, reinstall shockwave, and reboot again. I felt like I was back on Windows 9x again.
I wasn't aware it's over a year since the 64-bit alpha was released.
On Fedora & Ubuntu I had a lot of issues with the 32-bit plugin, especially run using the wrapper for x64 Firefox.
Adobe Reader is fine for me, but it's a security nightmare compared to other PDF readers.
That's why I've told anyone who jailbroke to use a separate account for apps on jailbroken devices.
Kind of silly, IMO. You're going to ban people from possibly paying for apps? Not every app is jailbroken, some are cracked incorrectly (some of the antipiracy mechanisms in apps I've seen are nothing short of hilarious trolling), and some are out of date. Additionally, if an app is really good, a user may buy the app to support the dev.
So you ban people and what happens? People jailbreak all the free apps too.
Seems like a bad move on Apple's part.
Prealpha- development releases/nightly, when it is not only extremely unstable, but is not yet feature complete.
Man, Flash Player locks up the CPU and crashes more often with gold releases than most alpha software. I think you'd have to be sadist to run software in alpha for Linux from Adobe.
Seriously, I hope it leads to an improvement for the Flash Player for the platform- it's sorely needed.
On another note, I was surprised to hear that H.264 GPU video acceleration in Flash Player 10.1, in addition to being limited to very new cards, only works on Windows, the platform with the most stable Flash Player (stable is relative).
It's not the war of privacy- it's the war of privacy vs. convenience.
Facebook lets me keep in touch and aware of what my friends are doing. On the other hand, photos of me doing something that may reflect poorly on myself to an employer or other friends. I have pretty strict privacy settings on Facebook, but the reality is that something bad could easily be associated with my profile and seen by many before I could get it pulled.
On the other hand, if I didn't share quite a bit of personal info on Facebook, I wouldn't even be aware when I was tagged in a photo.
Today, people are accepting convenience at the sacrifice of some privacy. It's nice when I can call up the cable company and have them able to see what services I have, that I'm paying the bill, and the modem has the wrong DOCSIS file. On the other hand, I'm in a database that is easier to access than ever. I accept the sacrifice for convenience when I have to work with the cable company.
Or credit cards. The majority of my purchases are now associated with my SSN in a database. The ability to track my spending and have some degree of purchase security is worth the sacrifice for me, so I choose to use electronic payment.
So did we lose, giving up so much? On one hand, there are plenty of alternatives- I can buy online with a Visa Gift Card, registered to whatever name and address and purchased in cash. I can buy in cash in person. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible NOT to be in a database- even if you were to forego electricity, television, cable, etc., you'd still be in a government tax database. Someone I know got a letter last year saying "an IRS employee with your and a couple million other taxpayer documents, including your taxpayer ID number, full name, and address, lost their laptop. We'll try not to let it happen again. Here's a year of credit monitoring from one of the three bureaus, then you're on your own. Seeya!"
So, yes, to some degree we lost. It's hard to avoid changes that the rest of society is fine with. Living like a hermit in a powerless shack in the woods is still possible, but for the average person, it definitely has been eroded.
It's extremely common... I've bought 4 Kingston MicroSD cards, all but 1 are dead in a year. A-DATA and other brands work fine, so I'm sure it's a problem with Kingston's quality control.
Putting one badge on the top and having memory from another manufacturer is extremely common, but it's more surprising for a big brand.
Kingston's warranty departmen was meh. I sent in a couple of the cards that were defective and got 2 more cards that died quickly a month after sending them in.
On a side note, Kingston's rebate house sucks and Kingston refused to resolve a properly filled rebate rejection. With Corsair and OCZ using reputable rebate houses, working memory, and good, quick repair, I now ignore Kingston when purchasing.
Not in my experience.
I corrected a number of files in iTunes. When I move to Foobar, none of the changes I made to the tags were present.
I tried Amarok to make sure it wasn't a weird Foobar bug- sure enough, ID3 tags were untouched.
I mentioned Foobar2k, which is what use for my library & iPod sync. Songbird, MediaMonkey, and Amarok also work well.
An understatement, to say the least. iTunes feature creep has made it a massive piece of bloatware- Bonjour, QuickTime, Mobile Device Service, iPodhelper, etc... not to mention the main applicaiton.
The number of ways in which iTunes can break, just giving a cryptic error code is pretty pathetic.
Good UI shouldn't be awkward. Granted, for the amount shoved into iTunes, very few functions are completely broken interface-wise.
There are much better alternatives, trust me.
I know you were talking to the OP, but I can't give you the latter. Foobar2k and numerous other players have full iPod support, are much less bloated, and actually write tags back to music instead of a database (so you can switch audio applications easily). I would have to give you the latter since Apple's move to lossless DRM free music.
Are you kidding? They've been controlling the leaks for months.
/. from a marketing director admitting that, off the record, senior executives purposely "let it slip" and suggested reporting it to build up hype.
There was an article her on
The textbook CEO yesterday knew damn well what he was doing- that was completely intentional to sustain the hype.
So why not make the "classic" Nielsen rating and one for "online" or "alternate presentation"?
After resting on the success of the iPhones and what they had, AT&T now has to spend the money to catch up.
Expect the majority of shareholders, who are ridiculously short sighted, to hate AT&T for it and decry it as a waste of money, just like how all the Verizon stockholders were whining about the investment per household for FiOS.
I'm running the latest firmware on my A-110 and it runs like a dream. Sorry to hear about your C200 issues, but my unit is not buggy in my experience, and I highly recommend it.
In NY, IIRC, when lenders deny you a credit report, they are required to tell you the specific reason why (lack of history, if you are paying another lender late, etc.)
In some states (I also believe NY is one of them), they are required to give you a copy of the report they used upon request if they deny you.
That's the question of the day. His post is all over the place.
Actually, according to the story, his consoles are banned, one of which he claims is never played online.
Microsoft does not ban gamertags on modded consoles. If he violated the Xbox Live ToS in some other way, they might, in which case they would email him separately. Most modders can recover their gamertag on another console fine, however.
Why not?
;) )
The IE team was basically cannibalized after IE6 came out, firings, moving to other divisions, etc.
Then, FF comes and they get their jobs back again.
Why do you think the IE team sends a cake to the FF developers for each major release (and why said cakes have lacked poision
As I said above (not in my original post, but as a part of this comment thread), I don't debate that the Vista Capable debacle is Microsoft's fault. I'm just finding it funny that the Mojave experiment worked the second time.
Memory & performance pig: 7 is a bit trimmed, but the difference really isn't that big.
Oh, MS totally shot themselves in the foot by putting out minimum requirements for OEMs to stamp on PCs that the computer was "Vista Capable", and for disabling driver signing in x86 versions of Windows. Not debating that.
Vista wasn't inherently bad. MS just put out minimum specs that were way too low and didn't enforce driver quality.
It's just Microsoft's version of gksudo.
For security, and for forcing developers to have GOOD coding practices, I thought UAC was a good idea. So many Windows devs coded lazily, writing apps that shouldn't have required admin access, but did.
All Microsoft did in 7 is reduce the security, since many users will blindly click through whatever is shown anyways, and power users turn it off.
The Core 2 Duo, no. The 1GB of RAM, yes.
Vista needs 2GB to run comfortably, and with 3GB/4GB, it runs quite fast.
Given how much memory cost (forgetting today, when Vista came out DDR2 was cheap), I do think that it's underpowered.
As far as "bloat", yes, I do recognize that many Linux distros will run on much less. Ubuntu is usually happy with 512MB- anything more is gravy.