Some people never meditate or pray, either, and it's safe to say that the do's will never know or share what the don'ts see/feel/experience, and vice-versa
There's enough room for everyone, and it's never going to get smaller.
As long as the source remains available, you'll never be shut out from your favorite curmudgeonly environment.
It's more than an argument:
on
iMac Turns 10
·
· Score: 1
The massive reorg of Apple is symbolized with the birth of the iMac.
Disposable, shiny, pseudo-innovative...
1. Kill Newton 2. Kill (disguise?) Performa 3. Port NeXTStep 4. ??? 5. Profit!
Apple takes number one music retailer position, and turns around and sues a "feel-good", not-for-profit organization for the use of the image of an Apple.
Apple Computer gave Apple Records the finger of this thing for years. What gives? This is an uncharacteristic (read "Microsoft-style") go-for-the-throat business maneuver.
The Apple II Reference Manual provided not only a handy schematic to all the electronic components (that folded out into a poster-sized thing of beauty), but there are ROM dumps and direct address locations provided throughout.
Excuse the philosophical rant, but there have been three "Apples" so far. The first, with both Steves (The "Accessible" Apple), with one Steve (The "Progressive" Apple), and this one, with "King Steve", attempting to "screen-in" his kingdom.
I believe we can expect an Apple down the road with led by a "Knight on a White Horse" to the resuce, so to speak.. Woz?
jmorris42: "Adn if Sun actually had a pair of dangling between their legs they would port Java and double dog dare Steve to sue."
Jonathan Schwartz owes his success (as CEO of Sun) to Steve Jobs. Without Openstep, there would have been no Lighthouse suite.. Without Lighthouse suite, there would be no OpenOffice, and no Schwartz as head of Sun.
Sun is working on their strategy. Soon, the only thing the iPhone will have over competitors is Design cache' and that "safe, locked-in, tucked-in feeling". Meanwhile, you will be running whatever/where-ever/ as in the original promise of Java. Apple will need Java, not the other way around. There's no way that Apple's SDK alone will meet the demands of Enterprise as it goes headlong into Blackberry territory, especially as more consolidation and competition occurs in the "Smartphone Space".
What you are describing sounds simple enough to handle with an OO Database. You can connect to a database server, or use the internal DB.
Key off the barcode, and any 'wedge scanner' you connect to the PC will pass data as if entered on the keyboard. Define your tables as necessary, and you can export/generate reports as a spreadsheet, etc..
Linux POS is not quite there yet. It seems like a no-brainer, but in my experience, there is little available outside of Big Name Software Products (360 Commerce, SAP/Triversity, etc..)
You should check out Openlpos.org, FreeMercator, and other Linux POS resources...
What does management mean? It means more 'Project-centric' things. You are going to answer and research information that is very "close to the bone", or markedly central to the core of the business. Financials, strategies, project minutiae, and other arcane subjects and their underlying details.
I asked myself some questions, as I prepared a career jump checklist; PMP Cert, additional industry certs - one rung up, and emphasis on my project, people, and lab management skills..
- Do I want to put myself in their shoes because I feel I can do a better job, having been in the trenches? - Do I want to sit in even more meetings? Do I want to be so involved that I'm effectively "raw"? - Do I want to answer questions based on the Board's directives, or do I want to be the one advising the Board? - Do I want to take another seat in the noisy, nameless, faceless Corporate Cafeteria, or do I want to eat my brown-bag lunch in Study Hall?
Managers don't 'manage' nearly as much as they are managed, themselves.
I realized that I could accomplish much of the same, with higher pay, and a under a wider variety of circumstances if I focus on heavy-hitting, specialist analysis work, and that a typical Management role is not compatible with my personality type.
It's more appealing to me to work toward a position as Dept. VP or Director. I'd spend a few years working on presentations, write (and publish) detailed papers on projects and ideals, make a name for myself. Move in as a truly experienced professional, perhaps with a Masters or Doctorate in a related field.
I would think it HAS to. They could have pushed away from Carbon two or three years ago if not for Adobe and Quark, to a (much) lesser extent.
They need to "shit or get off the pot", to use a Texas colloquialism, and either EOL Carbon now, or their software maintenance timeline will take on a curvature similar to Microsoft's Win16 > Win32..
Not to mention, the resource drain maintaining that codebase, and the sheer "uncleanliness" of it all.
The Mac is dead, long live the Mac! (Cocoa/Widgets vs. Classic Apps)
Apple is symbolically "removing the tire from the wheel" with the X in OS X.
Sure, they still number it 10.5 after the X. The "X" is there to psychologically step between you, the OS, the version number, and the sense of "product".
They are "separating the wheel and tube from the rim", if you will.
Once they liberate the tube and tire, they'll start mounting them in different configurations. On the iPhone, on the iTablet, in the BMW and the Smart..
Steve is secretive and shrewd, but not without reason.
Why not just put a giant trackpad on the back side of the unit?
Have it divided into 'key-like' segments that conduct uniformly, but have a unique 'keyboard' mode?
HP put out a PDA for a short time that had a super high-res, mini trackpad on it. There were little nubs to define "buttons" for Home, Calendar, etc. Move these nubs to the back of the device, define a home row, and implement a 'soft keyboard' button?
You'd effectively be holding a mini-Optimus keyboard with one giant LCD vs. lots of mini OLEDs, and with a re-configurable layout?
Why? Why?
Toshiba even had a Synaptics trackpad in some of their high-end laptop models that had a mini monochrome LCD under the translucent surface of the trackpad.
Make the back out of ePaper with a synaptics-type conductive layer behind it.. Put a color LCD on the front, and do it now!
Also, why mess with a camera? Because of Apple's patent on a video/display device? Hooey. That idea died when Engelbart still had brown hair.
When Steve came back, he effectively emasculated the Newton, put a Uni-nipple on it, shrunk it's screen, and called 'her' iPod.
It's primal, to be sure, but it's instinctive for a mammalian male (Alpha) to slaughter the offspring of a lower ranking animal when returning to or joining a pack.
It's still there in business, it just plays out differently.. This is the deal:
The Newton had to die for the iPod to be born, but the original utility is too timeless to go away forever. I always said that if my Newton were only as large as its screen, half as thick, and in color, it would be about perfect. It already had wireless access, fantastic document capabilities (Newton Books are kewl), and stupendous battery life. This is the big 'but' - last I checked, the iPhone is COMPLETELY LACKING the #1 Killer Feature (TM) of the Newton - handwriting.
Handwriting needs to come back, because that stupid thumb keyboard is a nightmare. You've already got Inkwell - use it, Steve.
Innovate.. Innovate.. How about a new dialing mechanism? Do for phone numbers what Grafiti did for letters?
Plus, handwritten text messages would absolutely kill. My Grandmother, if I had any, would be able to deal with that. With *joy*.
Scribbling shell commands to machines would earn deep-seated loyalties..
Since the Mac began, Apple have taken the approach that if they provide a very tightly controlled 'string' for users to begin to pull and massage, they will wind up with a robust, tested feature they can then buy/squelch and implement for themselves.
The hot feature of today started out as the 'bricking' of yesterday. Themes in OSX? Impossible - then... Not so much. Third party apps on iPhone? Impossible - then... Not so much. Non-Apple Widgets on an Apple device? Impossible - until the rabid fan base who is not deterred by the firehose in the face treatment get busy and produce extremely clever hacks.
Mac OS X on Non-Apple Hardware? Impossible - until the rabid fan base dissected their OS to the point where they found the hooks.
In all these cases, the 'key' was the bare paperclip Apple left behind for the purpose.
Tarps will also come in handy when you decide to do anything drastic with your ceiling tiles. Granted, this may take several years in your new datacenter, but in the old one, when the boss decides that a cheap and easy way to impress the bigwigs on Monday is to replace all the ceiling tiles with nice shiny ones. On Saturday.
Cover all the racks and equipment before you begin, or you'll be sorry. Fiberglass and/or gypsum dust circulating forever, grime and dust and rat droppings hurdling toward every fan, vent hole, and orifice..
Well, if we expect this burst/bubble/burst cycle all over again, ad infinitum, I move to begin the dismantlement process now. We should be able to return to Dark Age mentality in no time, with so few people performing skilled or artisanal labor any more.
Yes sir, if you've ever looked for an excuse to prop a fresh 5-Gallon jug of Ozarka in the top-most exhaust port of an enclosed rack, then pop the cap for a magnificent cascade of sparking, sizzling ruckus -/now is the time/.
Unlearn the "double-click", forget about "http://", and go out and buy this week's volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It's going to be a long, arduous decent into manual processes, pens, pencils, and paper forms.
They need to start releasing some point releases to these things.. Let's see Web 2.1. Maybe it will be better!
The problem is that these Windows users enforce the notion on the rest of the computing world that there needs to be One Product, and One Product, only.
So there are 500 separate "Distributions". There's still "One Kernel". There are thousands of potential variations from one kernel build to the next, but in this regard, Linux is still Linux.
Not everybody wants or needs desktop computing. Come to grips with this, Windows users, and your collective panic will vaporize.
Even among the companies that will allow just any ol' user to install applications, there are some who have policies against applications that don't come from above.
This could just as easily work in favor of Open Source applications. If typical scans reveal popular apps, and those popular apps are the ones people use with great success, and there are eyes that open to the fact that they too, use Open Source applications, that they are among their favorites, and exactly what Open Source applications are.
In the event that a corporate IT manager looks at some such report, and says to a CTO, "Look, CTO - I told you our Open Source software initiative would work". "Our users are spending 75% of their sanctioned computer time in such applications as Open Office, Thunderbird, and GAIM." "The supplemental reports I have generated show the remaining 25% divided between other Non-Open applications; iTunes, Spybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, ClickMeFun2000.exe, Solitaire.exe, and these commercial products to allow Windows users to our UNIX services."
That's a conversation I'm looking forward to having, because I'm anxious to deliver the punchline!
Persistant home folders on a SAN, with an imaged Linux Desktop! Yes, we can even have anti-virus..
New Amiga hardware coming soon!!! Screaming fast PPC chips! Just as fast (or faster) than anything from Apple!!
Coming soon! Lookit - here's a prototype board (photo)..
Be ready for Amiga OS 4 - NOW!!
There are some things that you can rely on in this world. One of them is the protracted development period for specialized hardware/software.
Sometimes vapor does condense..
It's putting effort behind what the F/OSS community has available in an attempt to "ball it up together" so that the serious usability hacking and driver development can happen.
It's also providing a low-latency environment for any purpose that can benefit from Ubuntu packaging and package popularity..
Slashdot Mirror
...and some people never masturbate.
some people never *need* to, but many *want* to.
Some people never meditate or pray, either, and it's safe to say that the do's will never know or share what the don'ts see/feel/experience, and vice-versa
There's enough room for everyone, and it's never going to get smaller.
As long as the source remains available, you'll never be shut out from your favorite curmudgeonly environment.
The massive reorg of Apple is symbolized with the birth of the iMac.
Disposable, shiny, pseudo-innovative...
1. Kill Newton
2. Kill (disguise?) Performa
3. Port NeXTStep
4. ???
5. Profit!
Cheap?
233MHz, 4GB hard drive, 2MB VRAM, 32MB RAM, and no floppy?
Sure, it had a built-in modem (33.6), sound, and 15" monitor, but a Packard Bell of similar vintage far outclassed it. >shudder
Don't get me wrong, my handle is directly attributed to Apple's new direction, but "Whoa", indeed..
Trouble is, the investigators are also flying the 'L' on their foreheads, geniuine or not, and the would-be 'heroes' aren't fighting for this cause.
I can see a generation or two of blade-type applications returning to a CRAY-style apparatus:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Cray-1-p1010221.jpg
You might not have an entire DC relying on a common non-air cooling implementation, but doing it for a complete rack-sized unit is feasible.
I'd personally like to see an entire rack siliconed up and flooded with mineral oil.
This is an extremely good point!
Apple takes number one music retailer position, and turns around and sues a "feel-good", not-for-profit organization for the use of the image of an Apple.
Apple Computer gave Apple Records the finger of this thing for years. What gives? This is an uncharacteristic (read "Microsoft-style") go-for-the-throat business maneuver.
http://apple2history.org/dl/download.pl?file=a2refmanorig.pdf
The Apple II Reference Manual provided not only a handy schematic to all the electronic components (that folded out into a poster-sized thing of beauty), but there are ROM dumps and direct address locations provided throughout.
Excuse the philosophical rant, but there have been three "Apples" so far. The first, with both Steves (The "Accessible" Apple), with one Steve (The "Progressive" Apple), and this one, with "King Steve", attempting to "screen-in" his kingdom.
I believe we can expect an Apple down the road with led by a "Knight on a White Horse" to the resuce, so to speak.. Woz?
jmorris42: "Adn if Sun actually had a pair of dangling between their legs they would port Java and double dog dare Steve to sue."
/where-ever/ as in the original promise of Java. Apple will need Java, not the other way around. There's no way that Apple's SDK alone will meet the demands of Enterprise as it goes headlong into Blackberry territory, especially as more consolidation and competition occurs in the "Smartphone Space".
Jonathan Schwartz owes his success (as CEO of Sun) to Steve Jobs. Without Openstep, there would have been no Lighthouse suite.. Without Lighthouse suite, there would be no OpenOffice, and no Schwartz as head of Sun.
Sun is working on their strategy. Soon, the only thing the iPhone will have over competitors is Design cache' and that "safe, locked-in, tucked-in feeling". Meanwhile, you will be running whatever
Just my $0.02 (.006 THB)
Checked for Novell Enterprise Linux jobs vs. Redhat enterprise jobs lately?
There are fewer now than there were before the agreement.
Openstreetmap has come a LOOOONGGG way in the short time since its inception..
One of the best things about the project is the user control of the data. Upload a GPS tracklog of the area you deem deficient.
They recently gained access to a main source of GPS data (can't remember exactly who/where - maybe it's in the KDE4/Marble video? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6642148224800885420&hl=en-GB @ 1:11:00)
This thing is poised to take off.
What you are describing sounds simple enough to handle with an OO Database. You can connect to a database server, or use the internal DB.
Key off the barcode, and any 'wedge scanner' you connect to the PC will pass data as if entered on the keyboard. Define your tables as necessary, and you can export/generate reports as a spreadsheet, etc..
Linux POS is not quite there yet. It seems like a no-brainer, but in my experience, there is little available outside of Big Name Software Products (360 Commerce, SAP/Triversity, etc..)
You should check out Openlpos.org, FreeMercator, and other Linux POS resources...
What does management mean? It means more 'Project-centric' things. You are going to answer and research information that is very "close to the bone", or markedly central to the core of the business. Financials, strategies, project minutiae, and other arcane subjects and their underlying details.
I asked myself some questions, as I prepared a career jump checklist; PMP Cert, additional industry certs - one rung up, and emphasis on my project, people, and lab management skills..
- Do I want to put myself in their shoes because I feel I can do a better job, having been in the trenches?
- Do I want to sit in even more meetings? Do I want to be so involved that I'm effectively "raw"?
- Do I want to answer questions based on the Board's directives, or do I want to be the one advising the Board?
- Do I want to take another seat in the noisy, nameless, faceless Corporate Cafeteria, or do I want to eat my brown-bag lunch in Study Hall?
Managers don't 'manage' nearly as much as they are managed, themselves.
I realized that I could accomplish much of the same, with higher pay, and a under a wider variety of circumstances if I focus on heavy-hitting, specialist analysis work, and that a typical Management role is not compatible with my personality type.
It's more appealing to me to work toward a position as Dept. VP or Director. I'd spend a few years working on presentations, write (and publish) detailed papers on projects and ideals, make a name for myself. Move in as a truly experienced professional, perhaps with a Masters or Doctorate in a related field.
I would think it HAS to. They could have pushed away from Carbon two or three years ago if not for Adobe and Quark, to a (much) lesser extent.
They need to "shit or get off the pot", to use a Texas colloquialism, and either EOL Carbon now, or their software maintenance timeline will take on a curvature similar to Microsoft's Win16 > Win32..
Not to mention, the resource drain maintaining that codebase, and the sheer "uncleanliness" of it all.
The Mac is dead, long live the Mac! (Cocoa/Widgets vs. Classic Apps)
Apple is symbolically "removing the tire from the wheel" with the X in OS X.
Sure, they still number it 10.5 after the X. The "X" is there to psychologically step between you, the OS, the version number, and the sense of "product".
They are "separating the wheel and tube from the rim", if you will.
Once they liberate the tube and tire, they'll start mounting them in different configurations. On the iPhone, on the iTablet, in the BMW and the Smart..
Steve is secretive and shrewd, but not without reason.
Why not just put a giant trackpad on the back side of the unit?
Have it divided into 'key-like' segments that conduct uniformly, but have a unique 'keyboard' mode?
HP put out a PDA for a short time that had a super high-res, mini trackpad on it. There were little nubs to define "buttons" for Home, Calendar, etc. Move these nubs to the back of the device, define a home row, and implement a 'soft keyboard' button?
You'd effectively be holding a mini-Optimus keyboard with one giant LCD vs. lots of mini OLEDs, and with a re-configurable layout?
Why? Why?
Toshiba even had a Synaptics trackpad in some of their high-end laptop models that had a mini monochrome LCD under the translucent surface of the trackpad.
Make the back out of ePaper with a synaptics-type conductive layer behind it.. Put a color LCD on the front, and do it now!
Also, why mess with a camera? Because of Apple's patent on a video/display device? Hooey. That idea died when Engelbart still had brown hair.
When Steve came back, he effectively emasculated the Newton, put a Uni-nipple on it, shrunk it's screen, and called 'her' iPod.
It's primal, to be sure, but it's instinctive for a mammalian male (Alpha) to slaughter the offspring of a lower ranking animal when returning to or joining a pack.
It's still there in business, it just plays out differently.. This is the deal:
The Newton had to die for the iPod to be born, but the original utility is too timeless to go away forever.
I always said that if my Newton were only as large as its screen, half as thick, and in color, it would be about perfect. It already had wireless access, fantastic document capabilities (Newton Books are kewl), and stupendous battery life. This is the big 'but' - last I checked, the iPhone is COMPLETELY LACKING the #1 Killer Feature (TM) of the Newton - handwriting.
Handwriting needs to come back, because that stupid thumb keyboard is a nightmare. You've already got Inkwell - use it, Steve.
Innovate.. Innovate.. How about a new dialing mechanism? Do for phone numbers what Grafiti did for letters?
Plus, handwritten text messages would absolutely kill. My Grandmother, if I had any, would be able to deal with that. With *joy*.
Scribbling shell commands to machines would earn deep-seated loyalties..
Since the Mac began, Apple have taken the approach that if they provide a very tightly controlled 'string' for users to begin to pull and massage, they will wind up with a robust, tested feature they can then buy/squelch and implement for themselves.
The hot feature of today started out as the 'bricking' of yesterday.
Themes in OSX? Impossible - then... Not so much.
Third party apps on iPhone? Impossible - then... Not so much.
Non-Apple Widgets on an Apple device? Impossible - until the rabid fan base who is not deterred by the firehose in the face treatment get busy and produce extremely clever hacks.
Mac OS X on Non-Apple Hardware? Impossible - until the rabid fan base dissected their OS to the point where they found the hooks.
In all these cases, the 'key' was the bare paperclip Apple left behind for the purpose.
Tarps will also come in handy when you decide to do anything drastic with your ceiling tiles. Granted, this may take several years in your new datacenter, but in the old one, when the boss decides that a cheap and easy way to impress the bigwigs on Monday is to replace all the ceiling tiles with nice shiny ones. On Saturday.
Cover all the racks and equipment before you begin, or you'll be sorry. Fiberglass and/or gypsum dust circulating forever, grime and dust and rat droppings hurdling toward every fan, vent hole, and orifice..
It no is pretty, my friend.
Well, if we expect this burst/bubble/burst cycle all over again, ad infinitum, I move to begin the dismantlement process now. We should be able to return to Dark Age mentality in no time, with so few people performing skilled or artisanal labor any more.
/now is the time/.
Yes sir, if you've ever looked for an excuse to prop a fresh 5-Gallon jug of Ozarka in the top-most exhaust port of an enclosed rack, then pop the cap for a magnificent cascade of sparking, sizzling ruckus -
Unlearn the "double-click", forget about "http://", and go out and buy this week's volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It's going to be a long, arduous decent into manual processes, pens, pencils, and paper forms.
They need to start releasing some point releases to these things.. Let's see Web 2.1. Maybe it will be better!
The problem is that these Windows users enforce the notion on the rest of the computing world that there needs to be One Product, and One Product, only.
So there are 500 separate "Distributions". There's still "One Kernel". There are thousands of potential variations from one kernel build to the next, but in this regard, Linux is still Linux.
Not everybody wants or needs desktop computing. Come to grips with this, Windows users, and your collective panic will vaporize.
Even among the companies that will allow just any ol' user to install applications, there are some who have policies against applications that don't come from above.
This could just as easily work in favor of Open Source applications. If typical scans reveal popular apps, and those popular apps are the ones people use with great success, and there are eyes that open to the fact that they too, use Open Source applications, that they are among their favorites, and exactly what Open Source applications are.
In the event that a corporate IT manager looks at some such report, and says to a CTO, "Look, CTO - I told you our Open Source software initiative would work". "Our users are spending 75% of their sanctioned computer time in such applications as Open Office, Thunderbird, and GAIM." "The supplemental reports I have generated show the remaining 25% divided between other Non-Open applications; iTunes, Spybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, ClickMeFun2000.exe, Solitaire.exe, and these commercial products to allow Windows users to our UNIX services."
That's a conversation I'm looking forward to having, because I'm anxious to deliver the punchline!
Persistant home folders on a SAN, with an imaged Linux Desktop! Yes, we can even have anti-virus..
Yes, and this is the only interesting story out of the 10% that haven't been on digg first.
I doubt Plan9 is digg material. (I take that back - 2 diggs..)
They'd like Glenda well enough, but who doesn't?
New Amiga hardware coming soon!!! Screaming fast PPC chips! Just as fast (or faster) than anything from Apple!!
Coming soon! Lookit - here's a prototype board (photo)..
Be ready for Amiga OS 4 - NOW!!
There are some things that you can rely on in this world. One of them is the protracted development period for specialized hardware/software.
Sometimes vapor does condense..
See you all in Foo City!
BYOFB! (Free Beer/Foo Beverage)
2010/01/01
It's more than that...
It's putting effort behind what the F/OSS community has available in an attempt to "ball it up together" so that the serious usability hacking and driver development can happen.
It's also providing a low-latency environment for any purpose that can benefit from Ubuntu packaging and package popularity..