The original iPhone shipped without an SDK and used webapps. The pre is shipping sort-of without an SDK, with webapps, but there's an API, perhaps finalized, perhaps not, to interact with the OS through javascript calls.
I think tnce between the two. The iPhone -needed- native applications because there was no link to the OS from a what's why they were brought up. To note the differebapp. The web apps couldn't do the many things a native app could do. The Pre solves it by exposing their OS level API through javascript.
So what you're really saying is you're an Apple fanboy defending a product that was shipped incomplete.
I own an iPhone, I'll probably get it's sequel, I'll pay close mind to tomorrow's WWDC...
But let's call a spade a spade and admit Apple shipped a product incomplete and added features later. Regardless of the reason, be it the jailbreakers and how immensely popular the free apps were, or the highly motivated community of hackers putting their own software on the phones, or corporate pressure for their phone to become a first-class citizen in the Exchange-based business world.
It's tough to say, all of the reasons I said and probably others played a part in Apple's shift away from "No no, all you need are WEB APPS!" But to deny that Apple clearly had that policy is very revisionist. I remember having an early iPhone, I remember browsing Apple's web app PAGE. They had a page that looked like the iTunes store listing web app after web app with galleries. It was ridiculous.
The iPhone SDK was actually announced in March of 2008, not even the same year of the iPhone's release. And it wasn't until July of 2008, a year after the iPhone was released, that Apple gave people the App Store.
At the risk of causing yet more ire between you and I, Jane Q. Public, I have to say that you are completely wrong.
The original iPhone applications were web apps, and the App Store and third party application development was implemented after the release of the first generation iPhone. They originally said, "Hey look, you can use WEB APPLICATIONS!" But then came the jailbreaks, installer, cydia, and their many repositories of apps. And Apple responded to that and made web applications.
And that's what _merlin was referring to. The Palm Pre supports real application features through a special Javascript API that accesses built-in webkit and OS level features that wouldn't otherwise be available. The original iPhone was released and lacked even that.
Or you could do the exact same thing with Windows if you don't run programs willy nilly and use a more secure (or at least, minority market share) browser.
And you could use filesystem encryption and run the Client Security Agent under a low-privilege account, which you could make not capable of seeing certain folders on your hard drive. Just make it able to scan a couple token Program Files folders, its own folder in %appdata%, and %windir% and you'll probably be fine.
Dealing with idiotic, forced software is a pain no matter what your OS is.
It sounds to me like if the theory produces correct experimental, and hopefully theoretical, predicted results, then the problem lies with naysayers who say it's the wrong shape or model of reality. If the model works, it doesn't matter what you believe, it's better than theories that don't work and don't explain the results or make predictions.
So if it turns out reality is somewhat lopsided at certain scales, so be it, but frankly I can't see why you see this to be a problem.
The holographic principle and related theories of string theory and other GUTs have all been far over my head mathematically. And, as I said, likely yours. You've yet to post your accolades.
So I'm making a reasonable assumption./. is a geek crowd that appeals primarily to computer geeks.
As for the flaw, the language appears plain, but so does "holographic principle theories describe a universe of less than the number of observed dimensions." DING DING DING! That doesn't sound like the reality I know and love.
That's my problem. We don't know. We especially don't know if all you're going off of is TFS. And don't lie to me, I know you didn't read TFA.
Dimensions are pretty arbitrary when you're talking about mathematics. There are so many clever ways to store information in a value with fewer "apparent" dimensions that you aren't even scratching the surface in the subjects most computer scientists and slashdotters know about.
It's truly mind-boggling to believe that the surface of a sphere is adequate, given the appropriate mathematical modeling, to describe a virtual space with volume, say, the inside of the sphere.
Neither you nor I have the mathematical basis to question these theories and must instead rely on peer reviewed journals and theoretical results to be released before we can comment on the validity of these theories. Your "obvious flaw" is not a flaw at all according to what I've read on the subject. I'm sure someone in your place said something about Einstein's theory being obviously wrong because spacetime obviously does not curve. And it seems that we may have yet another way to test certain string theory predictions, and we may learn that not only is spacetime curved, but it's also got more or less dimensions than we observe.
Simple, disclaim any liability. Microsoft and a lot of other vendors do. If you tell them "I can't guarantee the accuracy of any of this data and you should do a full review," and they say "Do it anyway," make sure you get that in writing and you'll be fine.
I'd believe the first half, but Apple obviously doesn't make sure the apps don't crahs, leak memory or access things they shouldn't. Several apps break the API and use hidden API calls (Google's apps) and I haven't yet met an iPhone app that won't crash if you look at it funny.
Tell them that you don't have a full copy of all their data. Tell them to tell their lawyers that a hard drive failing is equivalent to a small fire occurring in the secretary's desk and while you, the fireman or handy guy with the fire extinguisher can recover a lot of data, there's no way to be certain that it's all the data.
People like you are a lot of what's wrong with the world. You cover your ass so much that you don't accomplish what your clients really want or need.
A lot of people disagree with you. Fascism is not "primarily" an economic descriptor. Fascism has in fact, little to do with socialism or capitalism. It's a political ideology that the government is best and that they can cure our ills. This can take the form of extreme pressure or crimes against political dissidents, or it can take the form of state-owned monopolies, or other things. Fascism starts with a single kernel of an ideology: our way is best, you aren't part of us, so get the fuck out of our way or join us.
That's it. It's patriotism taken to its most extreme. In Italy, it meant if Benito Mussolini contradicted himself, he was right both times. It means that whatever the government does is right, and if you aren't for it, you're against it and you're hurting (pick at least one): progress, the future, the children, democracy, the nation, the system... Etc.
The extreme nationalism encourages people to accept things like government ownership of things, because after all, if you're not with them, you're against them. And the troops. And the flag. And whatever else.
And let's be honest, Bush's supporters (note I did not say Bush himself) were the closest to fascists this nation has ever had. They were those hyper-nationalistic people you refer to.
Fascism is supreme belief in the power of the state and/or the party and that if you're "against them" you're "against."
If you're not with us, you're AGAINST US!
If you don't like Bush, GET THE FUCK OUT OF AMERICA!
If you don't like the Patriot Act, MOVE TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY!
If you're against the war, YOU'RE AGAINST THE TROOPS!
That's fascism, and those are all quotes I've heard from Republicans, either personally or have seen at demonstrations on YouTube. None of those quotes is made up.
That's fascism, FishWithAHammer. Obama asked GM's CEO to step down and be replaced. It wasn't forced, just like we weren't forcing them to take billions of dollars of funds that would protect America's stake in the international automotive industry. But hey, if they wanted it, they had to make some concessions.
Unlike Bush, who was totally in favor of just giving away ten times as much money with no accountability whatsoever.
All the Windows limited features are Windows-specific software and the like. There's nothing stopping you from using full disk encryption on non-Ultimate versions of Windows. Nothing prevents you from using a DVD decoder on Starter other than the default. Every version of Windows 7 has the same API, the same.NET 3.5, and can run the same applications, with one small exception I encountered. Data access drivers are not, I believe, installed by default in home versions. This caused a bit of difficulty dealing with some "business" software that was too dumb to come packaged with its own ODBC/OLEDB/ADO.NET/whatever they used driver.
So even if you buy the cheapie Windows, you still get the same API for other people's applications. The two largest distinctions I believe are between Home and Professional now, which adds AD support, and Professional and Ultimate, which adds a number of niche enterprise features.
Everyone on Slashdot acts like every edition of Windows cost the same amount. It's true, every edition has a physical merchandise cost that is essentially a few dollars, but you're paying for other things as well. As in, it might cost Microsoft the same amount to sell each version, but it costs Microsoft vastly more to produce the advanced features novice users do not and should not have. Frankly, Bitlocker is an advanced feature nobody at/. should want everyone to have. Bitlocker has the potential ability to totally, irreversibly lock someone out of their account. It's great that Truecrypt offers a free alternative, but developing and supporting such features is a hassle. The people that rarely, if ever, even reply to support requests on their own forum.
The only reason they sell different versions is because it means they can sell editions that match product segments and purchasing power. Enterprise customers are going to be buying more licenses and they want all the features under the sun, and they'll pay for it handsomely. Selling them a different, more featured version that has features that are only truly taken advantage of in an Active Directory environment is logical and profitable. Selling the average consumer a version that doesn't do everything the enterprise version does, and selling it for less, is logical and profitable.
Don't tell me Windows costs and arm and a leg, you're a savvy user. You know how much business apps run. Windows is one of the cheapest "business" applications you can buy. It's cheaper than Photoshop, it's a tenth the price of Maya, it probably has more lines of code than the entire Adobe CS suite, and costs close to one twentieth as much.
My solution requires, literally, them to merely plug in a hard drive with a batch file already on it, and then make a single click.
And no, it was for a very small business that doesn't need or want an IT department to manage its computers. Performance hit? The new computers were six years newer than the ones stolen. If they noticed a performance hit, they only told me about how much faster their computers were.
You laugh, but for a small business, backups are tough. Some "enterprise" software that is vital to their business for example, will depend on registry keys, services, processes set up to run as a particular user with particular rights, etc. I've dealt with these situations, and setting up a "reasonable" backup solution on a budget is extraordinarily more complex when you're talking about software that is vital to their business.
And in this case, excel is great because it's one file. If they copy it, burn it, put it somewhere, they KNOW it's backed up. It's there. Same goes for TXT. They can test it by taking their one file and opening it up on another machine. Does it work? Yes. It's there.
But for more complicated software, holy crap. One solution I came up for an anonymous small business whose computers were stolen was to replace all their desktops with Virtualbox VMs, set every client and the server to save state, copy all the Virtualbox files to a second folder, and then resume state at 3:00AM. For a backup, I have a batch file on the autorun list for a couple eSATA/USB2 hard drives that they can plug in, click "copy back up" and then it's done in a few minutes to half an hour. They can take the hard drive home. They can do it any time during the day on at least one client and the server.
But frankly, everything else I've seen is that "enterprise" and "business" software is so mind-bogglingly poorly written that unless backing up is an option of the program, and sometimes (in my case) even if it's an option, you'll be regretting not coming up with a sane, easy, fast, painless backup solution right off the bat.
And that's why excel files, txt files, anything that minimizes the filesystem footprint, is awesome. In my case, I had to wrap their business software in a VM.
Linux will be treated equally by vendors when targetting Linux isn't:
(1.) A moving target. Ubuntu has two large releases with completely different packages a year. That's good for keeping the pace of development high, but compare that with Mac OS X: a major release every 18 months or so, and Windows: a major release every 3 years or so. (2.) A deeply fractured target. Sure, let's say Linux actually does have 5% desktop marketshare. What is that, 60% Ubuntu, 30% Fedora, 10% everyone else? That's optimistic. Ubuntu is a gateway drug, heh, and it tends to get users to be willing to try other distros. I probably wouldn't put Ubuntu at more than 33%. Targetting "Linux" is close to meaningless.
Until someone, hopefully Linus or someone influential and benignly dictatorial, steps up and makes -the- Linux distribution, with a standard feature set, updated every 12 months or on a slightly longer timeframe, and a highly backward compatible API... Vendors will not treat Linux the same. It won't happen.
Slashdot Mirror
UNIX compatibility and being UNIX are two different things.
The original iPhone shipped without an SDK and used webapps. The pre is shipping sort-of without an SDK, with webapps, but there's an API, perhaps finalized, perhaps not, to interact with the OS through javascript calls.
I think tnce between the two. The iPhone -needed- native applications because there was no link to the OS from a what's why they were brought up. To note the differebapp. The web apps couldn't do the many things a native app could do. The Pre solves it by exposing their OS level API through javascript.
So what you're really saying is you're an Apple fanboy defending a product that was shipped incomplete.
I own an iPhone, I'll probably get it's sequel, I'll pay close mind to tomorrow's WWDC...
But let's call a spade a spade and admit Apple shipped a product incomplete and added features later. Regardless of the reason, be it the jailbreakers and how immensely popular the free apps were, or the highly motivated community of hackers putting their own software on the phones, or corporate pressure for their phone to become a first-class citizen in the Exchange-based business world.
It's tough to say, all of the reasons I said and probably others played a part in Apple's shift away from "No no, all you need are WEB APPS!" But to deny that Apple clearly had that policy is very revisionist. I remember having an early iPhone, I remember browsing Apple's web app PAGE. They had a page that looked like the iTunes store listing web app after web app with galleries. It was ridiculous.
http://www.apple.com/webapps/
Oh look, it's still there. How quaint. I wonder if anyone even goes there anymore.
The iPhone SDK was actually announced in March of 2008, not even the same year of the iPhone's release. And it wasn't until July of 2008, a year after the iPhone was released, that Apple gave people the App Store.
At the risk of causing yet more ire between you and I, Jane Q. Public, I have to say that you are completely wrong.
The original iPhone applications were web apps, and the App Store and third party application development was implemented after the release of the first generation iPhone. They originally said, "Hey look, you can use WEB APPLICATIONS!" But then came the jailbreaks, installer, cydia, and their many repositories of apps. And Apple responded to that and made web applications.
And that's what _merlin was referring to. The Palm Pre supports real application features through a special Javascript API that accesses built-in webkit and OS level features that wouldn't otherwise be available. The original iPhone was released and lacked even that.
Or you could do the exact same thing with Windows if you don't run programs willy nilly and use a more secure (or at least, minority market share) browser.
And you could use filesystem encryption and run the Client Security Agent under a low-privilege account, which you could make not capable of seeing certain folders on your hard drive. Just make it able to scan a couple token Program Files folders, its own folder in %appdata%, and %windir% and you'll probably be fine.
Dealing with idiotic, forced software is a pain no matter what your OS is.
It sounds to me like if the theory produces correct experimental, and hopefully theoretical, predicted results, then the problem lies with naysayers who say it's the wrong shape or model of reality. If the model works, it doesn't matter what you believe, it's better than theories that don't work and don't explain the results or make predictions.
So if it turns out reality is somewhat lopsided at certain scales, so be it, but frankly I can't see why you see this to be a problem.
Whoosh?
The holographic principle and related theories of string theory and other GUTs have all been far over my head mathematically. And, as I said, likely yours. You've yet to post your accolades.
So I'm making a reasonable assumption. /. is a geek crowd that appeals primarily to computer geeks.
As for the flaw, the language appears plain, but so does "holographic principle theories describe a universe of less than the number of observed dimensions." DING DING DING! That doesn't sound like the reality I know and love.
That's my problem. We don't know. We especially don't know if all you're going off of is TFS. And don't lie to me, I know you didn't read TFA.
No, like this:
developers
developers
developers
developers
deverlopee
elsdeverlpr
opesdeveos
Or something like that. Threading is hard! :)
Dimensions are pretty arbitrary when you're talking about mathematics. There are so many clever ways to store information in a value with fewer "apparent" dimensions that you aren't even scratching the surface in the subjects most computer scientists and slashdotters know about.
It's truly mind-boggling to believe that the surface of a sphere is adequate, given the appropriate mathematical modeling, to describe a virtual space with volume, say, the inside of the sphere.
Neither you nor I have the mathematical basis to question these theories and must instead rely on peer reviewed journals and theoretical results to be released before we can comment on the validity of these theories. Your "obvious flaw" is not a flaw at all according to what I've read on the subject. I'm sure someone in your place said something about Einstein's theory being obviously wrong because spacetime obviously does not curve. And it seems that we may have yet another way to test certain string theory predictions, and we may learn that not only is spacetime curved, but it's also got more or less dimensions than we observe.
I skip to the comments without reading the summary, then go back to the summary to laugh at how woefully poor a job the editors are doing.
Simple, disclaim any liability. Microsoft and a lot of other vendors do. If you tell them "I can't guarantee the accuracy of any of this data and you should do a full review," and they say "Do it anyway," make sure you get that in writing and you'll be fine.
You obviously don't use an iPhone. I'm on my third and stability has been pretty meh so far.
I'd believe the first half, but Apple obviously doesn't make sure the apps don't crahs, leak memory or access things they shouldn't. Several apps break the API and use hidden API calls (Google's apps) and I haven't yet met an iPhone app that won't crash if you look at it funny.
Tell them that you don't have a full copy of all their data. Tell them to tell their lawyers that a hard drive failing is equivalent to a small fire occurring in the secretary's desk and while you, the fireman or handy guy with the fire extinguisher can recover a lot of data, there's no way to be certain that it's all the data.
People like you are a lot of what's wrong with the world. You cover your ass so much that you don't accomplish what your clients really want or need.
It's just the line that connects the swamp gas sensor to the weather balloon feedback loop.
Nothing to see here.
I heard you just have to think about digging up top secret fiber and they get the black SUVs ready.
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS327US327&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=define:fascism
A lot of people disagree with you. Fascism is not "primarily" an economic descriptor. Fascism has in fact, little to do with socialism or capitalism. It's a political ideology that the government is best and that they can cure our ills. This can take the form of extreme pressure or crimes against political dissidents, or it can take the form of state-owned monopolies, or other things. Fascism starts with a single kernel of an ideology: our way is best, you aren't part of us, so get the fuck out of our way or join us.
That's it. It's patriotism taken to its most extreme. In Italy, it meant if Benito Mussolini contradicted himself, he was right both times. It means that whatever the government does is right, and if you aren't for it, you're against it and you're hurting (pick at least one): progress, the future, the children, democracy, the nation, the system... Etc.
The extreme nationalism encourages people to accept things like government ownership of things, because after all, if you're not with them, you're against them. And the troops. And the flag. And whatever else.
And let's be honest, Bush's supporters (note I did not say Bush himself) were the closest to fascists this nation has ever had. They were those hyper-nationalistic people you refer to.
Fascism is supreme belief in the power of the state and/or the party and that if you're "against them" you're "against ."
If you're not with us, you're AGAINST US!
If you don't like Bush, GET THE FUCK OUT OF AMERICA!
If you don't like the Patriot Act, MOVE TO A DIFFERENT COUNTRY!
If you're against the war, YOU'RE AGAINST THE TROOPS!
That's fascism, and those are all quotes I've heard from Republicans, either personally or have seen at demonstrations on YouTube. None of those quotes is made up.
That's fascism, FishWithAHammer. Obama asked GM's CEO to step down and be replaced. It wasn't forced, just like we weren't forcing them to take billions of dollars of funds that would protect America's stake in the international automotive industry. But hey, if they wanted it, they had to make some concessions.
Unlike Bush, who was totally in favor of just giving away ten times as much money with no accountability whatsoever.
All the Windows limited features are Windows-specific software and the like. There's nothing stopping you from using full disk encryption on non-Ultimate versions of Windows. Nothing prevents you from using a DVD decoder on Starter other than the default. Every version of Windows 7 has the same API, the same .NET 3.5, and can run the same applications, with one small exception I encountered. Data access drivers are not, I believe, installed by default in home versions. This caused a bit of difficulty dealing with some "business" software that was too dumb to come packaged with its own ODBC/OLEDB/ADO.NET/whatever they used driver.
So even if you buy the cheapie Windows, you still get the same API for other people's applications. The two largest distinctions I believe are between Home and Professional now, which adds AD support, and Professional and Ultimate, which adds a number of niche enterprise features.
Everyone on Slashdot acts like every edition of Windows cost the same amount. It's true, every edition has a physical merchandise cost that is essentially a few dollars, but you're paying for other things as well. As in, it might cost Microsoft the same amount to sell each version, but it costs Microsoft vastly more to produce the advanced features novice users do not and should not have. Frankly, Bitlocker is an advanced feature nobody at /. should want everyone to have. Bitlocker has the potential ability to totally, irreversibly lock someone out of their account. It's great that Truecrypt offers a free alternative, but developing and supporting such features is a hassle. The people that rarely, if ever, even reply to support requests on their own forum.
The only reason they sell different versions is because it means they can sell editions that match product segments and purchasing power. Enterprise customers are going to be buying more licenses and they want all the features under the sun, and they'll pay for it handsomely. Selling them a different, more featured version that has features that are only truly taken advantage of in an Active Directory environment is logical and profitable. Selling the average consumer a version that doesn't do everything the enterprise version does, and selling it for less, is logical and profitable.
Don't tell me Windows costs and arm and a leg, you're a savvy user. You know how much business apps run. Windows is one of the cheapest "business" applications you can buy. It's cheaper than Photoshop, it's a tenth the price of Maya, it probably has more lines of code than the entire Adobe CS suite, and costs close to one twentieth as much.
My solution requires, literally, them to merely plug in a hard drive with a batch file already on it, and then make a single click.
And no, it was for a very small business that doesn't need or want an IT department to manage its computers. Performance hit? The new computers were six years newer than the ones stolen. If they noticed a performance hit, they only told me about how much faster their computers were.
You laugh, but for a small business, backups are tough. Some "enterprise" software that is vital to their business for example, will depend on registry keys, services, processes set up to run as a particular user with particular rights, etc. I've dealt with these situations, and setting up a "reasonable" backup solution on a budget is extraordinarily more complex when you're talking about software that is vital to their business.
And in this case, excel is great because it's one file. If they copy it, burn it, put it somewhere, they KNOW it's backed up. It's there. Same goes for TXT. They can test it by taking their one file and opening it up on another machine. Does it work? Yes. It's there.
But for more complicated software, holy crap. One solution I came up for an anonymous small business whose computers were stolen was to replace all their desktops with Virtualbox VMs, set every client and the server to save state, copy all the Virtualbox files to a second folder, and then resume state at 3:00AM. For a backup, I have a batch file on the autorun list for a couple eSATA/USB2 hard drives that they can plug in, click "copy back up" and then it's done in a few minutes to half an hour. They can take the hard drive home. They can do it any time during the day on at least one client and the server.
But frankly, everything else I've seen is that "enterprise" and "business" software is so mind-bogglingly poorly written that unless backing up is an option of the program, and sometimes (in my case) even if it's an option, you'll be regretting not coming up with a sane, easy, fast, painless backup solution right off the bat.
And that's why excel files, txt files, anything that minimizes the filesystem footprint, is awesome. In my case, I had to wrap their business software in a VM.
Linux will be treated equally by vendors when targetting Linux isn't:
(1.) A moving target. Ubuntu has two large releases with completely different packages a year. That's good for keeping the pace of development high, but compare that with Mac OS X: a major release every 18 months or so, and Windows: a major release every 3 years or so.
(2.) A deeply fractured target. Sure, let's say Linux actually does have 5% desktop marketshare. What is that, 60% Ubuntu, 30% Fedora, 10% everyone else? That's optimistic. Ubuntu is a gateway drug, heh, and it tends to get users to be willing to try other distros. I probably wouldn't put Ubuntu at more than 33%. Targetting "Linux" is close to meaningless.
Until someone, hopefully Linus or someone influential and benignly dictatorial, steps up and makes -the- Linux distribution, with a standard feature set, updated every 12 months or on a slightly longer timeframe, and a highly backward compatible API... Vendors will not treat Linux the same. It won't happen.