You know, this may sound stupid, but to me right now it sounds like college life...
this reminds me of something i used to argue about with my classmates at University. i went to the University of Waterloo for Electrical Engineering. for those who don't know, Waterloo is widely viewed as the best engineering and CS school in Canada, and certainly not an "easy" program. i graduated from there in 2000, and while many of my classmates worked like dogs as you have described i did (comparitively) jack all nothing and pulled 1 (one) "all nighter" the whole time. and i honestly think that this is part of the point of post-secondary education.
i got through University not by doing the work, but by simply "beating the system." i made friends with people who were a year or two ahead of me (perferably "off-stream"). when it came time to do assignments, i copied like crazy, or i worked together with others. sometimes i did a half-assed job of the assignments, other times i didn't bother doing them at all (based on their marks/effort). i attended around 2% or 3% of my classes, and i foudn out what needed to be done by having casual conversations with classmates or looking up information on the school network. when it came time for exams i crammed for 2 or 3 days but i only studied that information that i deemed important judging by comments from classmates or past exams and skipped the rest of it.
the result? i have the same physical degree as all of my classmates, but put in (conservatively) 5% of the effort. sure i got averages in the 60 and low 70s (60 is the minimum to pass) but i realized quickly that the actual grade didn't mean anything, only the degree itself (especially with the work experience i gained through the co-op that was more important to potential employers than grades).
my point is, you really don't have to work all that hard. i've carried the same "get the job done" over "work hard" methodology into my real job and it's working great. i'm getting phenomenal reviews while "working" at home 3/5 days a week. the really important part is that you have to learn to prioritise what's important and what's not and get the job done. i'm a really happy person with a great social life and no stress. i'll never work 40 hour weeks again.
no kidding, i'm sick of it too. epecially when it's the same people who use "troll" incorrectly (or moderate it incorrectly). but whatever, "cracker" sounds stupid.
all of the articles i've seen that dismiss claims of Dvorak keyboards are only dimissing the claimed speed benefits, and the legends of "puposeful inefficiencies" of the QWERTY. they say nothing of the benefits of Dvorak with regards to RSI, which is the topic of this article. the bottomline is that Dvorak is no faster than QWERTY, but it sure seems a lot better on the wrists.
Try telling that to your average x86 lamer. Apple paid $400 mil for Next that quarter... somehow i don't think that they were in dire need of funds...
not to mention the fact that Apple had five billion dollars in cash and short-term investments at this time. that $150 Million from Microsoft was peanuts. Microsoft got off scott-free from that deal. the biggest thing they gave in that deal was the agreement to provide Office for the Mac, and they make loads of cash off of selling Office to Mac users these days! give me a break.
of course, things are different when you run an illegal monopoly. fuck Microsoft pisses me off.
this is really unfortunate. i followed SourceXchange (and collab.net) pretty closely when i lived in San Francisco as i was good friends with employee number six.;) it was a great idea, and it's a shame to see it go. i guess it just didn't generate the kind of noise it needed to, and didn't get the right people's attention.
the SourceXchange concept was a good one, and i honestly think a lot of companies (and the open source community) could have really benefited from the service. it also could have really helped legitimize open-source software. i know there were other services like it (like the Free Software Bazaar), but i think SourceXchange was the most appealing to big companies.
i wish Collab.net the best of luck with SourceCast, but while it looks like an interesting project, it really doesn't look like it will benefit open-source software nearly as much as SourceXchange could have. oh well, c'est la vie.
yes, it's quite obvious why WindRiver is doing this: it's because they've quickly seen their market share shrinking because of Embedded Linux. developers love that they have all the source code to their embedded OS right there if they need it, and this is a big plus.
Linux in the embedded market isn't taking off as quickly as it should however, and that's mostly because of the GPL. a lot of embedded hardware companies make hardware that's somewhat similar to the competition (especially networking markets outside of the network "core"), and software is their value-add. the problem, of course, is if they must provide the code to that value-add software, it doesn't give them an edge up on the competition for long. i have heard this concern from some companies, especially some of the larger ones (such as Cisco), and it's a very valid concern.
of course BSD doesn't have the same GPL restrictions, and i believe that's why WindRiver is so interested. they can offer the same source-code level support as Embedded Linux without that nasty GPL restriction being passed on to their customers. as a result, it's a pretty easy sell against Embedded Linux. of course it's probably not as good for the industry as a whole (i still have a sneaking suspicion that industry-wide code sharing is good in the long run), but it does keep the Ciscos of the world happy.
at any rate, VxWorks is an excellent operating system, and i think WindRiver will do a great job with BSDi. whether or not it will benefit the free software community remains to be seen, but it'll definitely help their bottom line.
- j
Re:It's definitely NOT MacOS.
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uh, yeah. Until you start doing things like moving stuff into and out of the Application folder, then suddenly permissions break for no explainable reason, and your average Mac user is out buying Unix for Dummies so they can figure out how to use terminal.app, man, su, sudo, chmod, hacking netinfo to enable the root account, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
ok then, drag a folder into the dock that just contains aliases to files in the/Applications folder. then it is 100% exactly like the Apple Menu (you can even call it "Apple Menu Items" if it turns your crank). shit, this isn't rocket science. no command line required.
- j
Re:It's definitely NOT MacOS.
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OS X
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I'm inclined to believe there's some NextStep interface baggage involved there. So be it. But make a working Apple Menu -- the old way -- as soon as possible. Put an Apple Menu Items folder in my home directory so it's as easy to manage as the original. That can't be so hard.
what is up you people begging for the Apple Menu back? the dock can already do what the Apple Menu does, but better. just drag the Applications folder (or any folder for that matter) into the dock and you can right-click it to get a list of applications. that's the functionality of the Apple menu right there, but considerably more configurable, as you can do different dock icons for different applications or documents. this is exactly what i'm doing now (see the lower-left corner), and i prefer it to the Apple Menu.
MacOS X has some missing UI features (we *need* pop-up folders back for navigating the Finder!) but the Apple Menu is one of those interface hacks that really needed to be done away with.
i've been using MacOS X since Developer Preview 3, and following the Ars write-ups as well: they're always very well done. this latest review of OS X final is excellent, but i think John goes overboard on bashing the interface. the issue with Aqua is that it borrows a lot of interface workings from the UNIX, NeXT and Windows world, and isn't 100% Mac. this is infuriating to Mac die hards, but to people like me who have only owned a Mac for a couple of years (with a primarily UNIX background before that) i'm right at home with Aqua.
the reports of MacOS X being "half-baked" are over the top. yes there are some things missing from OS X, and yes it's not as "polished" as MacOS 9, but it's hardly as "unfinished" as many of the reviews would suggest. first of all any of the "unfinished" bits are interface-only; the guts of MacOS X are excellent. of course to Mac people the interface is the computer, which is where all of these reports come from.
so why is it unfinished? well first of all the UI is quite slow for certain functions. mostly it's the transparencies and other Aqua-isms that can't be accelerated with a typical 2D graphics card, so the CPU is working overtime to render the screen under heavy loads. many of the slow downs can be directly seen in the Mac's most important application, the Finder, which is why you'll hear the Mac folk screaming bloody murder. many have suggested that as Quartz (the UI rendering engine) is optimized for 3D cards, the interface will speed up substantially.
admittedly there are some bugs in the interface, especially related to classic applications (as noted in the Ars Technica review). sometimes these can cause UI lockups and stalls that for Mac-users, looks like a complete OS hang. Apple of course needs to work these thigns out before OS X gets pre-installed on all Macs in July.
all in all i'd say that MacOS X is an excellent operating system with great potential. but at the same time this release was not highly trumpeted by Apple for good reason. it's not designed to instantly replace every Mac-users desktop tomorrow, but rather to bring in the early adopters and determine what the priorities are for everyday Mac users. it's still a fully-functional OS, and i use it every day outside of work for general net use and development, and to that end, it works phenomenally.
but the question is, should the current release of OS X be the "final" release? i'd say yes. again, i'm not a long-time Mac user (and really, i only got a Mac to use OS X), so i don't see the interface as lacking substantially. and while the MacOS 9 interface is nice, it's not the be-all and end all, and things needed to be changed. the UI as it stands is extremely useable (for instance, i prefer it in its current state to every single Linux interface i have ever tried), and any changes from here on in have to be made by getting it in the hands of as many people as possible to make it better. it's a painful process for Mac users religiously tied to their interface, but in the end i think it'll make for a better UI.
so the bottom line: i wouldn't suggest it to my not-so-computer-savvy Mac friends, but to anybody even reasonably familiar with UNIX, you'll feel right at home.
well the people who "get it" generally keep their mouths shut and grin, but a there are a lot of people who don't get it that feel the need to respond "sounds like a rave to me." then the ACs generally go nuts on the guy calling him a moron. that's worth having the sig in itself!
...and incidentally, i didn't write that quote, but if you ever find out who did, please tell me!
So now BeIA is the last best hope for BeOS. Which is highly dependent on a bunch of other companies wanting to buy it. Except that these other companies are also enthralled with Linux.
Linux isn't the reason why BeIA is a stupid idea, it's because BeIA is almost completely geared towards x86. i work for a company that makes embedded system controllers. let me tell you: nobody in the embedded market cares about x86. it's too bloated and too power-hungry for any reasonably-priced embedded device. a lot of people here assume that when "Internet Appliances" finally come to market they'll be x86 computers in a little box, but they won't be. they'll be small, cheap, cool-running boxes running on MIPS, PowerPC or SuperH chips.
BeIA was targeted towards those Internet Appliances that nobody wants. you know, the ones that are x86 PCs but are more expensive than just buying the parts yourself. the ones that people are keen on hacking up to run Linux when the company making them goes out of business:).
why did Be do this? because they had no no direction, and couldn't decide what they wanted. they made a nice operating system, i know (i owned a BeBox years ago), but they had no direction with it. they had a very loyal fan base with the PowerPC: people who were genuinely interested in using it and developing for it. when they ditched the PowerPC for bigger and better things they left a lot of people (like me) very bitter. and what's worse is that they called Apple's bluff (and moved to x86) and had the nerve to blame it on Apple for "not releasing the specs."
the problem is that in the x86 world, everything is a commodity. it's all about rock-bottom prices, getting the best deal, and using whatever crap hardware you can afford to scrounge up. there may be more x86 users, but they're not as closely tied together as PowerPC users, and Be found that this new userbase just wasn't as loyal as the PowerPC folks. in fact most of them would hop to linux in a second if the BeOS looked at them the wrong way.
i'm sad to see Be go, as i've been following their progress for years, but i'm hardly surprised. they had no direction, no valid business plan, and they completely burned the people that would have been willing to help them: namely Apple and the PowerPC community. they made some great technology though, so it would be a crying shame to not have their OS open-sourced. but to Be, Inc? good riddance.
yeah, right. you go try explaining to finance why you don't need a separate copy of Linux on every box you install it on. go ahead, try it. they've had commercial license agreements for so long that they think that the GPL is some kind of grey-area legal trick to get around software copyrights (and i suppose in a twisted sort of way, it is:).
trust me, it's a hell of a lot more difficult than you'd think.
seems like a pretty good workaround to me until AOL gets slapped on the wrists by the FCC.
oh God, i hope the FCC doesn't get involved in this one. AOL/Time Warner may be a monopoly in a lot of markets, by why do we want government agencies messing around with software, especially in relatively new markets like IM?
perhaps with any luck this kind of behaviour will force many AIM users to switch over other IM networks like Jabber. and for the Windows people who use the "official" client, perhaps the lure of a more stable client without ads might get them to switch. but however it's done, let's hope it's by fair competition, not FCC involvement. the IM market is too young to have government intervention.
this would be my concern. there are quite a few of my mixes and tracks up on Napster, and i love that they're being distributed. the problem is that people rename the MP3s all the time, perhaps to fit into their naming convention on their disk, or to a name that's more descriptive to them.
i see these variations all the time, and up until now it hasn't really been a problem (in fact, it usually means more people start finding the mixes under these slightly different file names). now i have to write to Napster every time somebody renames one of my tracks? give me a break! the RIAA are going to have to realize that they're not the only people out there distributing music, and they're certainly not the people distributing good music. but i always believed the whole Napster issue was more about music distribution than copyright infringement.
i live in Canada, and while i have no kids to worry about, i'm wondering: can you use an inverse V-Chip? that is, can you get a set that will only show you which programs are showing porn at that time? it would be great to limit my remote to only those six stations.
That's not true. Developers have had access to OS X for a couple of months now, this is so they can have enough time to build the much needed application base.
actually yes it is true. i'm a developer, and i never had a copy before now. why's that? because only some of the top-dollar ADC members got copies, and it wasn't even all of them! this release gets it in the hands of, as i said, as many developer's hands as possible, which includes people like me, who don't work at Adobe.
- j
Re:Bluetooth - necessary in 802.11 world?
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here we go again. a typical ignorant hardware-oriented question from a slashdot software geek. why don't you try reading about the differences between these two protocols before you go spouting off that one shouldn't exist? you're probably the same kind of guy who loves to put x86 in absolutely every device too.
Bluetooth and 802.11 solve two totally different problems. engineering is always about trade-offs, and bluetooth has had to make a variety of trade-offs to be cheap, extremely low-power and extremely small to fit in devices like cell phones. the delays in rolling out Bluetooth are because of the inherent difficulties in wireless hardware, and collaboration between companies, not because it's an inviable technology. try taking a few antenna design and wireless hardware courses sometime.
Apple of all people to ship brand-new, just-announced computers with the ability to run their own OS, but that isn't happening.
that's true, but this release of MacOS X (March 24th) is meant to get the OS in as many developer's hands as possible. Mac users like a complete system, with all the bells and whistles (why else would the major complaint be a lack of a DVD movie player?) the only way to do this is to ensure that all developers have enough time to use the final APIs and development environment before the "real" release at Macworld New York this summer. this is also why OS X comes with a separate "developer tools" CD.
when it comes down to it, this was the best way Apple could do it. it pleases the developers and gets a great OS into the hands of the early adopters without forcing the average Mac user to put up with a "just the OS" (and no fancy apps) on their new Mac. (of course almost all old apps can run through classic, but native apps are much nicer).
but don't worry, apple will get around to bundling OS X on all their new shiny boxes this summer!;)
have you actually tried OS X? first of all, it most definitely will install with less than 128MB of RAM: that's only the recommended amount. furthermore, OS X only requires 128MB of RAM when you're running classic, which basically loads OS 9.1 inside of OS X!
without classic you can get by with only 64MB of RAM easily, and 128 is plenty. classic is a memory hog though, but it's not really possible to do much about that as OS 9 is OS 9.
with any luck, most major apps will be carbonized by the end of the year, and classic will be something that MacOS X users only have to use on occasion.
this topic was already mentioned on slashdot a few weeks ago but this gives me an opportunity to get in before the topic gets too long;). has anybody set up anything like this in the Toronto area? maybe i'll get an Apple Airport card afterall:)
i know you're trolling, but for the benefit of the rest of the slashdot community who may not be following MacOS X too closely, let me correct you. sure you could look at it as Apple shipping an "incomplete" OS, but i look at it this way:
Apple has touted these features, all of which are still available on thier latest consumer operating system MacOS 9.1. meanwhile they're quietly (only a small press release!) releasing their next-generation operating system, that while free of any major bugs, doesn't have all the bells and whistles of 3rd party applications. the important part? they're bundling the a complete development environment (Project Builder, Interface Builder, GNU utilities + more) with every single copy of OS X!
the features you mention are nice, but they're also not core OS features, they're independant applications. the important part is that they're making it easy for anybody to start developing apps (especially 100% native "Cocoa" apps) for this new operating system!
Jobs has said many times that the OS X release will resemble a bell curve: a small number of applications ported and available at release time, a larger number in the summer, and then tailing off in the Fall while the straglers port their apps.
the major consumer release of OS X is obviously this summer, at Macworld New York. that's the time when many 3rd parties will be shipping their applications, and long after the Apple "killer apps" you've mentioned have been ported (DVD burning, DVD playing and CD-RW burning through iTunes are promised in the next two months). right now it's a chance for developers of all levels (even the casual developer) to start writting applications for OS X with the final and set-in-stone API. that's what this release of OS X is all about, and that's why Apple is doing the right thing by releasing on March 24th. if the "killer apps" you need aren't supported, wait 'til summer!
of course a lot of this "argument" that OS X isn't complete is moot as you can run almost all of your current apps through the "classic" layer anyhow. it's not like you're dead in the water with no way to run any of your existing software!
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You know, this may sound stupid, but to me right now it sounds like college life...
this reminds me of something i used to argue about with my classmates at University. i went to the University of Waterloo for Electrical Engineering. for those who don't know, Waterloo is widely viewed as the best engineering and CS school in Canada, and certainly not an "easy" program. i graduated from there in 2000, and while many of my classmates worked like dogs as you have described i did (comparitively) jack all nothing and pulled 1 (one) "all nighter" the whole time. and i honestly think that this is part of the point of post-secondary education.
i got through University not by doing the work, but by simply "beating the system." i made friends with people who were a year or two ahead of me (perferably "off-stream"). when it came time to do assignments, i copied like crazy, or i worked together with others. sometimes i did a half-assed job of the assignments, other times i didn't bother doing them at all (based on their marks/effort). i attended around 2% or 3% of my classes, and i foudn out what needed to be done by having casual conversations with classmates or looking up information on the school network. when it came time for exams i crammed for 2 or 3 days but i only studied that information that i deemed important judging by comments from classmates or past exams and skipped the rest of it.
the result? i have the same physical degree as all of my classmates, but put in (conservatively) 5% of the effort. sure i got averages in the 60 and low 70s (60 is the minimum to pass) but i realized quickly that the actual grade didn't mean anything, only the degree itself (especially with the work experience i gained through the co-op that was more important to potential employers than grades).
my point is, you really don't have to work all that hard. i've carried the same "get the job done" over "work hard" methodology into my real job and it's working great. i'm getting phenomenal reviews while "working" at home 3/5 days a week. the really important part is that you have to learn to prioritise what's important and what's not and get the job done. i'm a really happy person with a great social life and no stress. i'll never work 40 hour weeks again.
- j
no kidding, i'm sick of it too. epecially when it's the same people who use "troll" incorrectly (or moderate it incorrectly). but whatever, "cracker" sounds stupid.
- j
all of the articles i've seen that dismiss claims of Dvorak keyboards are only dimissing the claimed speed benefits, and the legends of "puposeful inefficiencies" of the QWERTY. they say nothing of the benefits of Dvorak with regards to RSI, which is the topic of this article. the bottomline is that Dvorak is no faster than QWERTY, but it sure seems a lot better on the wrists.
- j
My solution to wrist problems has been to get up and walk away every 15 minutes or so. I don't code at 10hrs at a stretch like I used to.
that's what i've started to do. now i take a 45 minute break every 15 minutes. my wrists feel great and i'm a lot more relaxed ;).
- j
Try telling that to your average x86 lamer. Apple paid $400 mil for Next that quarter... somehow i don't think that they were in dire need of funds...
not to mention the fact that Apple had five billion dollars in cash and short-term investments at this time. that $150 Million from Microsoft was peanuts. Microsoft got off scott-free from that deal. the biggest thing they gave in that deal was the agreement to provide Office for the Mac, and they make loads of cash off of selling Office to Mac users these days! give me a break.
of course, things are different when you run an illegal monopoly. fuck Microsoft pisses me off.
- j
this is really unfortunate. i followed SourceXchange (and collab.net) pretty closely when i lived in San Francisco as i was good friends with employee number six. ;) it was a great idea, and it's a shame to see it go. i guess it just didn't generate the kind of noise it needed to, and didn't get the right people's attention.
the SourceXchange concept was a good one, and i honestly think a lot of companies (and the open source community) could have really benefited from the service. it also could have really helped legitimize open-source software. i know there were other services like it (like the Free Software Bazaar), but i think SourceXchange was the most appealing to big companies.
i wish Collab.net the best of luck with SourceCast, but while it looks like an interesting project, it really doesn't look like it will benefit open-source software nearly as much as SourceXchange could have. oh well, c'est la vie.
- j
yes, it's quite obvious why WindRiver is doing this: it's because they've quickly seen their market share shrinking because of Embedded Linux. developers love that they have all the source code to their embedded OS right there if they need it, and this is a big plus.
Linux in the embedded market isn't taking off as quickly as it should however, and that's mostly because of the GPL. a lot of embedded hardware companies make hardware that's somewhat similar to the competition (especially networking markets outside of the network "core"), and software is their value-add. the problem, of course, is if they must provide the code to that value-add software, it doesn't give them an edge up on the competition for long. i have heard this concern from some companies, especially some of the larger ones (such as Cisco), and it's a very valid concern.
of course BSD doesn't have the same GPL restrictions, and i believe that's why WindRiver is so interested. they can offer the same source-code level support as Embedded Linux without that nasty GPL restriction being passed on to their customers. as a result, it's a pretty easy sell against Embedded Linux. of course it's probably not as good for the industry as a whole (i still have a sneaking suspicion that industry-wide code sharing is good in the long run), but it does keep the Ciscos of the world happy.
at any rate, VxWorks is an excellent operating system, and i think WindRiver will do a great job with BSDi. whether or not it will benefit the free software community remains to be seen, but it'll definitely help their bottom line.
- j
uh, yeah. Until you start doing things like moving stuff into and out of the Application folder, then suddenly permissions break for no explainable reason, and your average Mac user is out buying Unix for Dummies so they can figure out how to use terminal.app, man, su, sudo, chmod, hacking netinfo to enable the root account, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
ok then, drag a folder into the dock that just contains aliases to files in the /Applications folder. then it is 100% exactly like the Apple Menu (you can even call it "Apple Menu Items" if it turns your crank). shit, this isn't rocket science. no command line required.
- j
I'm inclined to believe there's some NextStep interface baggage involved there. So be it. But make a working Apple Menu -- the old way -- as soon as possible. Put an Apple Menu Items folder in my home directory so it's as easy to manage as the original. That can't be so hard.
what is up you people begging for the Apple Menu back? the dock can already do what the Apple Menu does, but better. just drag the Applications folder (or any folder for that matter) into the dock and you can right-click it to get a list of applications. that's the functionality of the Apple menu right there, but considerably more configurable, as you can do different dock icons for different applications or documents. this is exactly what i'm doing now (see the lower-left corner), and i prefer it to the Apple Menu.
MacOS X has some missing UI features (we *need* pop-up folders back for navigating the Finder!) but the Apple Menu is one of those interface hacks that really needed to be done away with.
- j
i've been using MacOS X since Developer Preview 3, and following the Ars write-ups as well: they're always very well done. this latest review of OS X final is excellent, but i think John goes overboard on bashing the interface. the issue with Aqua is that it borrows a lot of interface workings from the UNIX, NeXT and Windows world, and isn't 100% Mac. this is infuriating to Mac die hards, but to people like me who have only owned a Mac for a couple of years (with a primarily UNIX background before that) i'm right at home with Aqua.
the reports of MacOS X being "half-baked" are over the top. yes there are some things missing from OS X, and yes it's not as "polished" as MacOS 9, but it's hardly as "unfinished" as many of the reviews would suggest. first of all any of the "unfinished" bits are interface-only; the guts of MacOS X are excellent. of course to Mac people the interface is the computer, which is where all of these reports come from.
so why is it unfinished? well first of all the UI is quite slow for certain functions. mostly it's the transparencies and other Aqua-isms that can't be accelerated with a typical 2D graphics card, so the CPU is working overtime to render the screen under heavy loads. many of the slow downs can be directly seen in the Mac's most important application, the Finder, which is why you'll hear the Mac folk screaming bloody murder. many have suggested that as Quartz (the UI rendering engine) is optimized for 3D cards, the interface will speed up substantially.
admittedly there are some bugs in the interface, especially related to classic applications (as noted in the Ars Technica review). sometimes these can cause UI lockups and stalls that for Mac-users, looks like a complete OS hang. Apple of course needs to work these thigns out before OS X gets pre-installed on all Macs in July.
all in all i'd say that MacOS X is an excellent operating system with great potential. but at the same time this release was not highly trumpeted by Apple for good reason. it's not designed to instantly replace every Mac-users desktop tomorrow, but rather to bring in the early adopters and determine what the priorities are for everyday Mac users. it's still a fully-functional OS, and i use it every day outside of work for general net use and development, and to that end, it works phenomenally.
but the question is, should the current release of OS X be the "final" release? i'd say yes. again, i'm not a long-time Mac user (and really, i only got a Mac to use OS X), so i don't see the interface as lacking substantially. and while the MacOS 9 interface is nice, it's not the be-all and end all, and things needed to be changed. the UI as it stands is extremely useable (for instance, i prefer it in its current state to every single Linux interface i have ever tried), and any changes from here on in have to be made by getting it in the hands of as many people as possible to make it better. it's a painful process for Mac users religiously tied to their interface, but in the end i think it'll make for a better UI.
so the bottom line: i wouldn't suggest it to my not-so-computer-savvy Mac friends, but to anybody even reasonably familiar with UNIX, you'll feel right at home.
- j
well the people who "get it" generally keep their mouths shut and grin, but a there are a lot of people who don't get it that feel the need to respond "sounds like a rave to me." then the ACs generally go nuts on the guy calling him a moron. that's worth having the sig in itself!
...and incidentally, i didn't write that quote, but if you ever find out who did, please tell me!
- j
...or how about VxWorks from WindRiver?
- j
So now BeIA is the last best hope for BeOS. Which is highly dependent on a bunch of other companies wanting to buy it. Except that these other companies are also enthralled with Linux.
Linux isn't the reason why BeIA is a stupid idea, it's because BeIA is almost completely geared towards x86. i work for a company that makes embedded system controllers. let me tell you: nobody in the embedded market cares about x86. it's too bloated and too power-hungry for any reasonably-priced embedded device. a lot of people here assume that when "Internet Appliances" finally come to market they'll be x86 computers in a little box, but they won't be. they'll be small, cheap, cool-running boxes running on MIPS, PowerPC or SuperH chips.
BeIA was targeted towards those Internet Appliances that nobody wants. you know, the ones that are x86 PCs but are more expensive than just buying the parts yourself. the ones that people are keen on hacking up to run Linux when the company making them goes out of business :).
why did Be do this? because they had no no direction, and couldn't decide what they wanted. they made a nice operating system, i know (i owned a BeBox years ago), but they had no direction with it. they had a very loyal fan base with the PowerPC: people who were genuinely interested in using it and developing for it. when they ditched the PowerPC for bigger and better things they left a lot of people (like me) very bitter. and what's worse is that they called Apple's bluff (and moved to x86) and had the nerve to blame it on Apple for "not releasing the specs."
the problem is that in the x86 world, everything is a commodity. it's all about rock-bottom prices, getting the best deal, and using whatever crap hardware you can afford to scrounge up. there may be more x86 users, but they're not as closely tied together as PowerPC users, and Be found that this new userbase just wasn't as loyal as the PowerPC folks. in fact most of them would hop to linux in a second if the BeOS looked at them the wrong way.
i'm sad to see Be go, as i've been following their progress for years, but i'm hardly surprised. they had no direction, no valid business plan, and they completely burned the people that would have been willing to help them: namely Apple and the PowerPC community. they made some great technology though, so it would be a crying shame to not have their OS open-sourced. but to Be, Inc? good riddance.
- j
yeah, right. you go try explaining to finance why you don't need a separate copy of Linux on every box you install it on. go ahead, try it. they've had commercial license agreements for so long that they think that the GPL is some kind of grey-area legal trick to get around software copyrights (and i suppose in a twisted sort of way, it is :).
trust me, it's a hell of a lot more difficult than you'd think.
- j
seems like a pretty good workaround to me until AOL gets slapped on the wrists by the FCC.
oh God, i hope the FCC doesn't get involved in this one. AOL/Time Warner may be a monopoly in a lot of markets, by why do we want government agencies messing around with software, especially in relatively new markets like IM?
perhaps with any luck this kind of behaviour will force many AIM users to switch over other IM networks like Jabber. and for the Windows people who use the "official" client, perhaps the lure of a more stable client without ads might get them to switch. but however it's done, let's hope it's by fair competition, not FCC involvement. the IM market is too young to have government intervention.
- j
this would be my concern. there are quite a few of my mixes and tracks up on Napster, and i love that they're being distributed. the problem is that people rename the MP3s all the time, perhaps to fit into their naming convention on their disk, or to a name that's more descriptive to them.
i see these variations all the time, and up until now it hasn't really been a problem (in fact, it usually means more people start finding the mixes under these slightly different file names). now i have to write to Napster every time somebody renames one of my tracks? give me a break! the RIAA are going to have to realize that they're not the only people out there distributing music, and they're certainly not the people distributing good music. but i always believed the whole Napster issue was more about music distribution than copyright infringement.
- j
i live in Canada, and while i have no kids to worry about, i'm wondering: can you use an inverse V-Chip? that is, can you get a set that will only show you which programs are showing porn at that time? it would be great to limit my remote to only those six stations.
- j
what a co-incidence! Apple recently stated that they wouldn't ship any future version of Aqua until it compiles on Darwin! go BSD! ;)
- j
That's not true. Developers have had access to OS X for a couple of months now, this is so they can have enough time to build the much needed application base.
actually yes it is true. i'm a developer, and i never had a copy before now. why's that? because only some of the top-dollar ADC members got copies, and it wasn't even all of them! this release gets it in the hands of, as i said, as many developer's hands as possible, which includes people like me, who don't work at Adobe.
- j
here we go again. a typical ignorant hardware-oriented question from a slashdot software geek. why don't you try reading about the differences between these two protocols before you go spouting off that one shouldn't exist? you're probably the same kind of guy who loves to put x86 in absolutely every device too.
Bluetooth and 802.11 solve two totally different problems. engineering is always about trade-offs, and bluetooth has had to make a variety of trade-offs to be cheap, extremely low-power and extremely small to fit in devices like cell phones. the delays in rolling out Bluetooth are because of the inherent difficulties in wireless hardware, and collaboration between companies, not because it's an inviable technology. try taking a few antenna design and wireless hardware courses sometime.
- j
Apple of all people to ship brand-new, just-announced computers with the ability to run their own OS, but that isn't happening.
that's true, but this release of MacOS X (March 24th) is meant to get the OS in as many developer's hands as possible. Mac users like a complete system, with all the bells and whistles (why else would the major complaint be a lack of a DVD movie player?) the only way to do this is to ensure that all developers have enough time to use the final APIs and development environment before the "real" release at Macworld New York this summer. this is also why OS X comes with a separate "developer tools" CD.
when it comes down to it, this was the best way Apple could do it. it pleases the developers and gets a great OS into the hands of the early adopters without forcing the average Mac user to put up with a "just the OS" (and no fancy apps) on their new Mac. (of course almost all old apps can run through classic, but native apps are much nicer).
but don't worry, apple will get around to bundling OS X on all their new shiny boxes this summer! ;)
- j
have you actually tried OS X? first of all, it most definitely will install with less than 128MB of RAM: that's only the recommended amount. furthermore, OS X only requires 128MB of RAM when you're running classic, which basically loads OS 9.1 inside of OS X!
without classic you can get by with only 64MB of RAM easily, and 128 is plenty. classic is a memory hog though, but it's not really possible to do much about that as OS 9 is OS 9.
with any luck, most major apps will be carbonized by the end of the year, and classic will be something that MacOS X users only have to use on occasion.
- j
this topic was already mentioned on slashdot a few weeks ago but this gives me an opportunity to get in before the topic gets too long ;). has anybody set up anything like this in the Toronto area? maybe i'll get an Apple Airport card afterall :)
- j
i know you're trolling, but for the benefit of the rest of the slashdot community who may not be following MacOS X too closely, let me correct you. sure you could look at it as Apple shipping an "incomplete" OS, but i look at it this way:
Apple has touted these features, all of which are still available on thier latest consumer operating system MacOS 9.1. meanwhile they're quietly (only a small press release!) releasing their next-generation operating system, that while free of any major bugs, doesn't have all the bells and whistles of 3rd party applications. the important part? they're bundling the a complete development environment (Project Builder, Interface Builder, GNU utilities + more) with every single copy of OS X!
the features you mention are nice, but they're also not core OS features, they're independant applications. the important part is that they're making it easy for anybody to start developing apps (especially 100% native "Cocoa" apps) for this new operating system!
Jobs has said many times that the OS X release will resemble a bell curve: a small number of applications ported and available at release time, a larger number in the summer, and then tailing off in the Fall while the straglers port their apps.
the major consumer release of OS X is obviously this summer, at Macworld New York. that's the time when many 3rd parties will be shipping their applications, and long after the Apple "killer apps" you've mentioned have been ported (DVD burning, DVD playing and CD-RW burning through iTunes are promised in the next two months). right now it's a chance for developers of all levels (even the casual developer) to start writting applications for OS X with the final and set-in-stone API. that's what this release of OS X is all about, and that's why Apple is doing the right thing by releasing on March 24th. if the "killer apps" you need aren't supported, wait 'til summer!
of course a lot of this "argument" that OS X isn't complete is moot as you can run almost all of your current apps through the "classic" layer anyhow. it's not like you're dead in the water with no way to run any of your existing software!
- j
try posting it to plastic. they tend to cover stuff like that, and i'm sure they'd accept that story!
- j