FileVault does have problems. To add to what others have said, apparently some applications (such as iListen) run into problems with FileVault. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm guessing it's because of the performance penalty (and I noticed a pretty heavy performance penalty even on a Mac Pro!). It's actually a bit strange, because I've used dm-crypt on Linux and didn't have any noticeable performance penalty (even on slower hardware).
Personally, I keep all sensitive information on an external hard disk, which has an encrypted disk image on it. And I ALWAYS wipe hard disks before getting rid of them, regardless of whether I'm getting them replaced under warranty (if there's important data on one, I copy it BEFORE I let anyone else near it). The only times I make an exception is when a disk has failed so completely that it's totally unreadable (and at that point it's impervious to casual snooping anyway). No problems so far.
The difference is that human civilization wouldn't be crippled by catastrophic climate change within the next 50 years. If the environmentalists are successful, human civilization will have thousands (possibly millions) of years before climate change becomes catastrophic naturally.
Of course, in the case of success, it's likely (judging from history) that human civilization will still be crippled by some other man-made catastrophe long before natural climate change has any noticeable effect. Y2K was a resounding success for humanity's ability to avert a potential disaster that arose from its own actions. But on average, humanity's record is pretty dismal.
This actually sounds kind of like how stinging nettle works. I recently touched some by accident, and I can assure you, the needles on the surface of that leaf are so small that I couldn't feel them at all.
The cocktail of formic acid and histamines contained within the needles, on the other hand, were quite noticeable (ouch!). Of course, I'm assuming that HP is not planning to use this invention to deliver anything that's painful by design.
I work at a nature preserve. I know a lot of people who would LOVE to have a laptop that is rugged enough for outdoor use and has a screen that's readable in daylight. Not to mention the fact that, if it were used on a prolonged trip, it has a 6-hour battery life and can be recharged by a simple hand crank if needed.
I don't think that my MacBook Pro or the Asus Eee could survive the rigors of what we do for long, and our environment is comparatively mild (Sonoma Mountain, about 40 miles north of San Francisco). Not to mention that you'd have to sit in a shady spot under a tree just to be able to read the display.
The fact that BluRay is outselling HDDVD 2-1, and has outsold HDDVD in total units apparently means that they've 'lost', and are well on their way to becoming a niche product.
How are Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs selling compared to standard DVD's?
When the 7300 came out, it cost around $1200. I bought it used for $500. The card cost me $300, memory was $50-$100, plus a $150 upgraded video card when it became available. I got about 7 years use out of that machine for the money invested.
How many people in Apple's target market are going to crack open the computer so they can install new hardware? Apple is selling solutions that are supposed to provide a high-quality user experience to the end user: computer systems that let the user get things done with a minimum of hassle. That audience is not going to be particularly interested in opening up a computer to perform upgrades--not only is it a hassle, it's easy to damage the computer if you make a mistake. If Apple doesn't think that an old machine can handle the latest and greatest thing, it is their right as a solution provider to make that decision. Likewise, it is the right of the consumer to decide whether or not the Apple solution is right for them.
That being said, I don't think Apple should be putting up these kinds of roadblocks when people try to put new software on old hardware. I think a simple warning that it might not work would be adequate.
You spouted a lot of speculation that IIS6 has tons of undisclosed flaws, but you've provided zero evidence. If there are so many flaws, why have they not manifested themselves?
I don't claim to be an expert, but Microsoft does have a history of hiding and/or denying the existence of bugs, and/or patching them secretly (i.e. patching them in a patch that is advertised as fixing a less serious bug). As long as there is no evidence that they have improved in this regard, I think it is fair to assume that they are still as dishonest as they have been in the past.
Or is there new evidence I don't know about that Microsoft is being more forthcoming about security flaws?
A am not a lawyer, either, but my understanding is that Telcos are common carriers (a.k.a. neutral carriers) as long as they treat all content equally. If they start to block content at the request of the MPAA (or anyone else), they are no longer a common carrier. Which would make them liable if they fail to stop traffic the MPAA doesn't like.
Regardless, the point is moot, since porn *is* being released on BD with the first release being Debbie Does Dallas.
I don't think any porn video that are more than maybe 10 years old are going to have any impact on the HD format wars; older videos were designed for standard definition, and just can't take advantage of the new format in any significant way.
That being said, I think that if/when a porn video comes out that uses HD to the same sort of stunning visual effect as Planet Earth, one MIGHT argue it would have some role in the format wars. Of course, that's all contingent on such a video coming out BEFORE bandwidth gets cheap enough that it becomes more economical to transfer HD video over the Internet.
(I can't believe I just referred to both "Planet Earth" AND a porno movie in the same context!)
as far as I understand, Tor has been picked among tons of other software that could be infected and supplied to users because it helps the spammers in covering their tracks, since their email is routed through Tor now.
I had always heard that Tor was not useful for sending spam, since it imposes so much overhead (ever notice how much slower everything is on Tor?). Besides, if a botnet is being used to send spam, what would Tor be useful for, except maybe anonymizing traffic between the bots and the master?
Apple has only sold approximately 146,000 iPhones, which is much lower than the 400,000-500,000 that were predicted. Where did you get the number 700,000?
No, the reason Apple doesn't want Java on the iPhone is because they want to keep the platform different from other platforms; they don't want it to be just another smartphone.
More likely it's because AT&T doesn't want anyone to port VOIP applications (e.g. Skype, Vonage) to the iPhone.
Even their plain white bread had a rich, slightly-yeasty flavour, never sweet, and it was SOOOOOOOOOO good and SOOOOOO satisfying even all by itself... there's nothing like it in California, not even in the "local" bakeries. The nearest I've come across in 25 years here are the plain hoagies at Sam's Club.
Which part of California do you live in? I live near San Francisco, and I can taste a huge difference between local breads and the national brands.
Sure, you could, but why would Apple want to do that?
Given the enormous price tag on the iPhone, I think that third-party software is pretty much the only way Apple is going to be able to sell iPhones. This would make it a lot easier for third-party developers to write software for the iPhone.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is an ideal solution; I'm just saying it would be "good enough". And I think having a less-than-ideal solution when it ships is preferable to waiting eight more months for a full-blown iPhone SDK (which should have been ready to ship at the same time as the iPhone itself). But some might disagree with me on that point.
Apple already announced that there will be no Java support in iPhone Safari.
Oh, I think it will. First of all, the point-and-click paradigm used by virtually all GUI's today is a SUBSET of the multitouch paradigm. You can just set it to ignore simultaneous input to two different parts of the screen and the vast majority of Java apps should work just fine. Second, UI guidelines (insofar as they're not imposed by hardware limitations such as screen size) are merely recommendations--Apple cannot and does not enforce them with third-party developers.
Besides, if the iPhone's web browser is going to work as well as Safari on the full version of Mac OS X, it needs to have Java support. Java may not be as popular as it once was, but it IS still used on the web.
You're missing my point. If there is already a build of the JRE for Mac OS X on PowerPC, and a build for Mac OS X on Intel, would it really be so hard to make a build for Mac OS X on ARM? Maybe it would be hard, but it shouldn't be.
An easy start for Apple would be to put a Java runtime environment on the iPhone. Then people could start developing third-party apps for the iPhone right now.
As a result, there are only two plugins you can (mostly) count on: Flash and Java. And that's only because they're usually installed by default.
Java is not installed by default with Windows XP or Vista. So unless an OEM installs it (which I wouldn't count on, although I haven't bought an off-the-shelf Windows PC in several years), you can't count on Java being available as a browser plugin.
A while ago, I wrote a program that used several computers in parallel to generate a Mandelbrot set. Because of how it divided up the work, it could easily scale to any number of computers (although I never tried it with more than four). In theory, the same algorithm could also scale to any number of processors on a single computer.
Now, I don't know if the Mandelbrot set is the best example, but it seems to me that it shouldn't be that hard in general to write graphics applications that would scale to an arbitrary number of processors.
The point I was trying to make is that multi-processor computers are being used today on a scale far greater than in the past. There may have been multi-processor computers around 10 years ago, but they were rare and expensive. Today, multi-processor systems are everywhere and affordable.
What consumer-level apps out there really need more processing power than a single core of a modern CPU can provide?
The iLife suite. Especially iMovie. And let's not forget the various consumer and professional incarnations of Photoshop--none of them support more than two cores.
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Let's see...that would be $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000?
FileVault does have problems. To add to what others have said, apparently some applications (such as iListen) run into problems with FileVault. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm guessing it's because of the performance penalty (and I noticed a pretty heavy performance penalty even on a Mac Pro!). It's actually a bit strange, because I've used dm-crypt on Linux and didn't have any noticeable performance penalty (even on slower hardware).
Personally, I keep all sensitive information on an external hard disk, which has an encrypted disk image on it. And I ALWAYS wipe hard disks before getting rid of them, regardless of whether I'm getting them replaced under warranty (if there's important data on one, I copy it BEFORE I let anyone else near it). The only times I make an exception is when a disk has failed so completely that it's totally unreadable (and at that point it's impervious to casual snooping anyway). No problems so far.
The difference is that human civilization wouldn't be crippled by catastrophic climate change within the next 50 years. If the environmentalists are successful, human civilization will have thousands (possibly millions) of years before climate change becomes catastrophic naturally.
Of course, in the case of success, it's likely (judging from history) that human civilization will still be crippled by some other man-made catastrophe long before natural climate change has any noticeable effect. Y2K was a resounding success for humanity's ability to avert a potential disaster that arose from its own actions. But on average, humanity's record is pretty dismal.
I think that the GP is referring to the "Top Friends" application, which isn't part of your profile by default, but is a very popular add-on.
This actually sounds kind of like how stinging nettle works. I recently touched some by accident, and I can assure you, the needles on the surface of that leaf are so small that I couldn't feel them at all.
The cocktail of formic acid and histamines contained within the needles, on the other hand, were quite noticeable (ouch!). Of course, I'm assuming that HP is not planning to use this invention to deliver anything that's painful by design.
I work at a nature preserve. I know a lot of people who would LOVE to have a laptop that is rugged enough for outdoor use and has a screen that's readable in daylight. Not to mention the fact that, if it were used on a prolonged trip, it has a 6-hour battery life and can be recharged by a simple hand crank if needed.
I don't think that my MacBook Pro or the Asus Eee could survive the rigors of what we do for long, and our environment is comparatively mild (Sonoma Mountain, about 40 miles north of San Francisco). Not to mention that you'd have to sit in a shady spot under a tree just to be able to read the display.
The iPhone DOES have Bluetooth. Unfortunately, it currently only works with headsets. Hopefully the SDK will change that.
How are Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs selling compared to standard DVD's?
How many people in Apple's target market are going to crack open the computer so they can install new hardware? Apple is selling solutions that are supposed to provide a high-quality user experience to the end user: computer systems that let the user get things done with a minimum of hassle. That audience is not going to be particularly interested in opening up a computer to perform upgrades--not only is it a hassle, it's easy to damage the computer if you make a mistake. If Apple doesn't think that an old machine can handle the latest and greatest thing, it is their right as a solution provider to make that decision. Likewise, it is the right of the consumer to decide whether or not the Apple solution is right for them.
That being said, I don't think Apple should be putting up these kinds of roadblocks when people try to put new software on old hardware. I think a simple warning that it might not work would be adequate.
I don't claim to be an expert, but Microsoft does have a history of hiding and/or denying the existence of bugs, and/or patching them secretly (i.e. patching them in a patch that is advertised as fixing a less serious bug). As long as there is no evidence that they have improved in this regard, I think it is fair to assume that they are still as dishonest as they have been in the past.
Or is there new evidence I don't know about that Microsoft is being more forthcoming about security flaws?
A am not a lawyer, either, but my understanding is that Telcos are common carriers (a.k.a. neutral carriers) as long as they treat all content equally. If they start to block content at the request of the MPAA (or anyone else), they are no longer a common carrier. Which would make them liable if they fail to stop traffic the MPAA doesn't like.
I don't think any porn video that are more than maybe 10 years old are going to have any impact on the HD format wars; older videos were designed for standard definition, and just can't take advantage of the new format in any significant way.
That being said, I think that if/when a porn video comes out that uses HD to the same sort of stunning visual effect as Planet Earth, one MIGHT argue it would have some role in the format wars. Of course, that's all contingent on such a video coming out BEFORE bandwidth gets cheap enough that it becomes more economical to transfer HD video over the Internet.
(I can't believe I just referred to both "Planet Earth" AND a porno movie in the same context!)
I had always heard that Tor was not useful for sending spam, since it imposes so much overhead (ever notice how much slower everything is on Tor?). Besides, if a botnet is being used to send spam, what would Tor be useful for, except maybe anonymizing traffic between the bots and the master?
Apple has only sold approximately 146,000 iPhones, which is much lower than the 400,000-500,000 that were predicted. Where did you get the number 700,000?
More likely it's because AT&T doesn't want anyone to port VOIP applications (e.g. Skype, Vonage) to the iPhone.
Zurg: Surrender, Buzz Lightyear!
Buzz: Never! You killed my father!
Zurg: No! I am your father!
Buzz: NOOOOO!!!!!!!!
It's not a spoiler. It's a cliche.
Which part of California do you live in? I live near San Francisco, and I can taste a huge difference between local breads and the national brands.
Given the enormous price tag on the iPhone, I think that third-party software is pretty much the only way Apple is going to be able to sell iPhones. This would make it a lot easier for third-party developers to write software for the iPhone.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is an ideal solution; I'm just saying it would be "good enough". And I think having a less-than-ideal solution when it ships is preferable to waiting eight more months for a full-blown iPhone SDK (which should have been ready to ship at the same time as the iPhone itself). But some might disagree with me on that point.
That's lame.
Oh, I think it will. First of all, the point-and-click paradigm used by virtually all GUI's today is a SUBSET of the multitouch paradigm. You can just set it to ignore simultaneous input to two different parts of the screen and the vast majority of Java apps should work just fine. Second, UI guidelines (insofar as they're not imposed by hardware limitations such as screen size) are merely recommendations--Apple cannot and does not enforce them with third-party developers.
Besides, if the iPhone's web browser is going to work as well as Safari on the full version of Mac OS X, it needs to have Java support. Java may not be as popular as it once was, but it IS still used on the web.
You're missing my point. If there is already a build of the JRE for Mac OS X on PowerPC, and a build for Mac OS X on Intel, would it really be so hard to make a build for Mac OS X on ARM? Maybe it would be hard, but it shouldn't be.
An easy start for Apple would be to put a Java runtime environment on the iPhone. Then people could start developing third-party apps for the iPhone right now.
Java is not installed by default with Windows XP or Vista. So unless an OEM installs it (which I wouldn't count on, although I haven't bought an off-the-shelf Windows PC in several years), you can't count on Java being available as a browser plugin.
A while ago, I wrote a program that used several computers in parallel to generate a Mandelbrot set. Because of how it divided up the work, it could easily scale to any number of computers (although I never tried it with more than four). In theory, the same algorithm could also scale to any number of processors on a single computer.
Now, I don't know if the Mandelbrot set is the best example, but it seems to me that it shouldn't be that hard in general to write graphics applications that would scale to an arbitrary number of processors.
The point I was trying to make is that multi-processor computers are being used today on a scale far greater than in the past. There may have been multi-processor computers around 10 years ago, but they were rare and expensive. Today, multi-processor systems are everywhere and affordable.
The iLife suite. Especially iMovie. And let's not forget the various consumer and professional incarnations of Photoshop--none of them support more than two cores.