Well, the first system I worked on (1985) was a legacy system that used 2 digit years, and I couldn't get approval to spend the time/money to convert it in the 80's, however, the first system I developed from scratch (starting in 1989), supported 4 digit years and handled all dates using a library routine. The only y2k issue it had was that one Gregorian to Julian date conversion routine failed to handle 2000 as a leap year. That was a 5 minute fix, plus 5 mins to recompile all the modules that used that routine, then turn it over to QA.
Starting in 1999, all my comments are dated in YYYY-MM-DD format, and I set that as the date format on my computers and use 24hr time. It's so much easier to sort, search, etc. The only alternative format I use is DD-Mon-YY (or YYYY) which works well in international usage. The only time I use the US standard MM-DD-YY(yy) is on forms that require that format.
So a proprietary, but open SDK to run native binaries on one vendors browser. What could possibly go wrong?
Good questions. I'm not saying that I think it's a good idea, but there are significant differences from ActiveX. First off, it's sandboxed, it doesn't have native access to the OS, only native access to the CPU and only in ring 3. Second, it's single browser, but cross platform (Runs on Chrome on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS).
Of course, the fact that 32-bit code won't run on a 64-bit system and vise-verse is a (possibly minor) disaster waiting to happen. Add ARM on Android smartphones and you've definitely created a monster. Unless it becomes available in other browsers, it just further segments the market for minimal benefit.
Thanks for the clarification. I find the biggest issue to be duplicated info from different sites, I don't usually find it to be a problem. Occasionally, it makes a search a little more difficult, but even when it does, a slightly more specific search usually gets results. Overall, I can't say that I find it significantly worse than 5-10 years ago.
Those two sentences don't actually say anything about how it's less useful today than it was 5 years ago. While data in forums may be harder to find than some other types of data, that was no better 5 years ago. Personally, I don't have any trouble finding information in forums using Google.
So, I ask again, how is Google less useful than it was 5 years ago?
Well, given that the description says the keystroke sequence to lock the terminal is stored in the keyboard, unplugging the keyboard seems like it's a likely way to bypass it.
Agreed, but lately, many times they don't have a search warrant. Also, how do you control the distribution and installation of viral malware as proposed in the article? There is no search warrant that can legitimately cover that.
Many year ago, I used to bookmark various search engines. Everyone knew Yahoo, Google was only for the "in the know" crowd. If you didn't find it there, you went to Alta Vista, or Excite, or lycos, or some other engine that I bookmarked because I never used it enough to remember the name. I don't bookmark search engines anymore, I just Google it. Even even if I need a Babelfish translation, I Google "babelfish".
Gmail beats yahoo mail. While yahoo seems to do a pretty good job of filtering spam from my yahoo mail acct, some makes it through, and some legit messages go into it's spam folder. I never get spam on my gmail acct, and the web interface is about 2x as fast.
Google Maps beats Mapquest and Bing maps. Fast, reliable, flexible, and easy to read. Not to mention funny (try getting directions from Japan to China or Japan to Los Angeles).
Gee, I guess Google's best days are in the past. How could I have missed that?
Oh wait, Chrome is new, and fast. It's faster than Safari, even on Mac OS. It includes Adobe Flash built-in, so I don't have the Flash Player plug-in installed on my machine for any other browser. If I want/need to use a site that requires Flash, I use Chrome for that site. If it doesn't work in Chrome...actually, I haven't encountered that yet, so I can't say for certain what I would do.
According to the last link you provided, they have fewer than 39,000 registered users, and only 392 were active in the last 90 days. Not exactly the kinds of numbers that suggest they're actually influencing anyone.
In fact, I would assert that if it's being done by/for a government, that makes it suspect. Doesn't mean it's automatically black hat or white hat, but any government hacking of citizens should be viewed with great skepticism. There are legitimate reasons, but it's up to the people/agency performing the hacking that it's actually in the public interest and for legitimate law enforcement purposes.
Well, start with the fact that Apple doesn't immediately bill for each song. Buy 4 songs in one day, and you'll see a single charge for all 4 songs, even if you bought each one a different times throughout the day. Then, understand that many people use iTunes cards or PayPal rather than a credit card. My guess is that cc transactions for a single song is a very low percentage.
There are several flaws with Apple's new subscription model. According to Apple's =press release:
“Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,”
In theory, I agree, and so would most publishers. However, Apple's model doesn't operate that way:
Not all purchases made through an application are new subscribers, it may be an existing subscriber who is renewing. As the policy is written, Apple would still take 30%
Apple handles renewals, including automatic renewals for all subscriptions purchased via Apple. This means that Apple actually making the subscriber a customer of Apple, not a subscriber of the content provider. That's true even if it's an existing subscriber who renews via Apple. That is not how existing subscription models work, if you sell a new subscription, you get an one time commission, and all the renewals are handled by the publisher with no additional commission paid.
The publisher is prohibited from providing a link to their own online subscription signup/renewal from within an application they wrote, and the MUST provide a link with all the same subscription options within the app. All those must go through Apple, even if it's for an existing subscriber.
Even though the customer owns the iOS device, the publisher wrote the application, creates the subscriptions, and delivers the content, they are prohibited from making it convenient for customers to deal (or continue to deal) directly with the publisher from within the publisher's own application. In most cases, Apple isn't even hosting the content or providing the bandwidth for delivery. In short, the only way Apple might be involved is that they made (and sold) the iOS device, and is in accepting a payment (and only because of a policy that prohibits the publisher from making it easy for the customer and publisher to do business directly with the publisher). That's not worth 30% by any measure.
The policy as written is completely inconsistent with nearly all existing subscription business models, makes it easy for Apple to "steal" existing subscribers and take 30% of the subscription fees, and makes it more difficult for existing subscribers to subscribe or renew with directly with the publisher. It's completely inconsistent with the stated intent and philosophy. If not corrected, it will dramatically reduce the available of non-iOS specific content services such as Netflix, Pandora, Last.FM, and Rhapsody on the iOS platform. Fix it now Apple.
4GB is far more than you realize for this purpose. The primary advantage of an SSD is the low latency access, the high transfer rates is a secondary factor for most applications. If the drive firmware can reliably determine which blocks are most commonly accessed in short, random patterns and puts those in the Flash, it will produce a significant performance increase. For instance, presume that the volume allocation tables, directories, and commonly accessed small files end up on the Flash, that will produce a measurable performance improvement, and an even bigger perceived increase (it will "feel" more responsive). 4GB is 0.8% of the 500GB Momentus XT, so there is room to cache a sizable portion of those key structures and many small files. More would surely help, but how much is unknown outside of Seagate, and Seagate says it doesn't help much.
The sustained write performance on the Momentus XT is essentially the same as on the Intel SSD, so hibernation file write time should be nearly the same. Resume from hibernation should be faster on the SSD. Paging file access is similar, writes should be about the same, reads will be faster on the SSD. SSDs faster than Intel SSDs would show a bigger difference.
The real strengths of a hybrid such as the XT are no user configuration or optimization is necessary, and the cost. For mass market, those are big advantages. For those who understand how to manage and optimize storage across multiple devices, a separate SSD and HD can deliver better performance, at a higher cost in $ and setup/configuration effort. Better yet, have an SSD for boot & applications, and a hybrid for mass storage. If they made a hybrid with enough Flash, and you could access part of it as a separate SSD with the rest of the Flash used as a cache for the HD, you could have all of that in one device, but it would currently be expensive.
ATIs GPU performance and drivers have both improved significantly since AMD purchased them. Like it or not, AMD and ATI has been a good combination for both companies.
That's a terrible idea. If AMD were still delivering performance and power usage comparable to Intel, maybe. But Apple buying AMD, or even using AMD's slower & less power efficient CPUs than the majority of the industry, would be one more thing Apple would have to battle to gain marketshare. Apple making a strategic investment in AMD to help put pressure on Intel might not be a bad idea, but Dell, HP, and/or MS could do the same.
We are talking about a chip design company that is at best second-place in most business concerns (GPU sometimes in an exception).
Most business applications aren't CPU bound. The difference between a current AMD or Intel CPU is irrelevant for 90% of business users, and 70+% of consumers. If you're into HPC, scientific work, simulations (including intense gaming), video encoding/transcoding, or a few other specialized areas Intel may have the advantage, but even in those areas, a GPU may be more important than the CPU.
Servers are different, but AMD is pretty competitive with Intel on server CPUs
I'm not saying the Dell buying AMD would be good for Dell, AMD, or the overall market, but your assertion that AMD "is at best second-place in most business concerns" is simply not accurate.
What would be far more interesting is if Intel bought Nvidia. Bring Nvidia's GPU performance and driver compatibility to IGP, and Intel's power management and process technology to Nvidia's GPUs. That would really put the squeeze on AMD.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Without alcohol, exploration and colonization won't get far. Now that we can have beer, wine, and liquor in space, let the exploration begin.
Well, the first system I worked on (1985) was a legacy system that used 2 digit years, and I couldn't get approval to spend the time/money to convert it in the 80's, however, the first system I developed from scratch (starting in 1989), supported 4 digit years and handled all dates using a library routine. The only y2k issue it had was that one Gregorian to Julian date conversion routine failed to handle 2000 as a leap year. That was a 5 minute fix, plus 5 mins to recompile all the modules that used that routine, then turn it over to QA.
Starting in 1999, all my comments are dated in YYYY-MM-DD format, and I set that as the date format on my computers and use 24hr time. It's so much easier to sort, search, etc. The only alternative format I use is DD-Mon-YY (or YYYY) which works well in international usage. The only time I use the US standard MM-DD-YY(yy) is on forms that require that format.
So a proprietary, but open SDK to run native binaries on one vendors browser. What could possibly go wrong?
Good questions. I'm not saying that I think it's a good idea, but there are significant differences from ActiveX. First off, it's sandboxed, it doesn't have native access to the OS, only native access to the CPU and only in ring 3. Second, it's single browser, but cross platform (Runs on Chrome on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS).
Of course, the fact that 32-bit code won't run on a 64-bit system and vise-verse is a (possibly minor) disaster waiting to happen. Add ARM on Android smartphones and you've definitely created a monster. Unless it becomes available in other browsers, it just further segments the market for minimal benefit.
Thanks for the clarification. I find the biggest issue to be duplicated info from different sites, I don't usually find it to be a problem. Occasionally, it makes a search a little more difficult, but even when it does, a slightly more specific search usually gets results. Overall, I can't say that I find it significantly worse than 5-10 years ago.
Those two sentences don't actually say anything about how it's less useful today than it was 5 years ago. While data in forums may be harder to find than some other types of data, that was no better 5 years ago. Personally, I don't have any trouble finding information in forums using Google.
So, I ask again, how is Google less useful than it was 5 years ago?
Don't you just love security products designed by people who don't ever think about how they can be bypassed? Or test them in real user environments?
Well, given that the description says the keystroke sequence to lock the terminal is stored in the keyboard, unplugging the keyboard seems like it's a likely way to bypass it.
How is Google less useful today than it was 5 years ago?
interesting that none of those things by themselves would generate much money
Google's bottom line suggests otherwise.
Oops, I left out Android. From 0% to ~33% market share in 2 years. Yep, Google is definitely on the way down.
Oh my, it looks like they've been slashdotted.
Agreed, but lately, many times they don't have a search warrant. Also, how do you control the distribution and installation of viral malware as proposed in the article? There is no search warrant that can legitimately cover that.
Many year ago, I used to bookmark various search engines. Everyone knew Yahoo, Google was only for the "in the know" crowd. If you didn't find it there, you went to Alta Vista, or Excite, or lycos, or some other engine that I bookmarked because I never used it enough to remember the name. I don't bookmark search engines anymore, I just Google it. Even even if I need a Babelfish translation, I Google "babelfish".
Gmail beats yahoo mail. While yahoo seems to do a pretty good job of filtering spam from my yahoo mail acct, some makes it through, and some legit messages go into it's spam folder. I never get spam on my gmail acct, and the web interface is about 2x as fast.
Google Maps beats Mapquest and Bing maps. Fast, reliable, flexible, and easy to read. Not to mention funny (try getting directions from Japan to China or Japan to Los Angeles).
Gee, I guess Google's best days are in the past. How could I have missed that?
Oh wait, Chrome is new, and fast. It's faster than Safari, even on Mac OS. It includes Adobe Flash built-in, so I don't have the Flash Player plug-in installed on my machine for any other browser. If I want/need to use a site that requires Flash, I use Chrome for that site. If it doesn't work in Chrome...actually, I haven't encountered that yet, so I can't say for certain what I would do.
Google Razor, the fast shave available.
Try new Google Instant Razor (beta), it starts shaving as soon as you pick it up.
According to the last link you provided, they have fewer than 39,000 registered users, and only 392 were active in the last 90 days. Not exactly the kinds of numbers that suggest they're actually influencing anyone.
In fact, I would assert that if it's being done by/for a government, that makes it suspect. Doesn't mean it's automatically black hat or white hat, but any government hacking of citizens should be viewed with great skepticism. There are legitimate reasons, but it's up to the people/agency performing the hacking that it's actually in the public interest and for legitimate law enforcement purposes.
Well, start with the fact that Apple doesn't immediately bill for each song. Buy 4 songs in one day, and you'll see a single charge for all 4 songs, even if you bought each one a different times throughout the day. Then, understand that many people use iTunes cards or PayPal rather than a credit card. My guess is that cc transactions for a single song is a very low percentage.
Somehow the link to Apple's press release didn't make it into my post.
“Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,”
In theory, I agree, and so would most publishers. However, Apple's model doesn't operate that way:
The policy as written is completely inconsistent with nearly all existing subscription business models, makes it easy for Apple to "steal" existing subscribers and take 30% of the subscription fees, and makes it more difficult for existing subscribers to subscribe or renew with directly with the publisher. It's completely inconsistent with the stated intent and philosophy. If not corrected, it will dramatically reduce the available of non-iOS specific content services such as Netflix, Pandora, Last.FM, and Rhapsody on the iOS platform. Fix it now Apple.
4GB is far more than you realize for this purpose. The primary advantage of an SSD is the low latency access, the high transfer rates is a secondary factor for most applications. If the drive firmware can reliably determine which blocks are most commonly accessed in short, random patterns and puts those in the Flash, it will produce a significant performance increase. For instance, presume that the volume allocation tables, directories, and commonly accessed small files end up on the Flash, that will produce a measurable performance improvement, and an even bigger perceived increase (it will "feel" more responsive). 4GB is 0.8% of the 500GB Momentus XT, so there is room to cache a sizable portion of those key structures and many small files. More would surely help, but how much is unknown outside of Seagate, and Seagate says it doesn't help much.
The sustained write performance on the Momentus XT is essentially the same as on the Intel SSD, so hibernation file write time should be nearly the same. Resume from hibernation should be faster on the SSD. Paging file access is similar, writes should be about the same, reads will be faster on the SSD. SSDs faster than Intel SSDs would show a bigger difference.
The real strengths of a hybrid such as the XT are no user configuration or optimization is necessary, and the cost. For mass market, those are big advantages. For those who understand how to manage and optimize storage across multiple devices, a separate SSD and HD can deliver better performance, at a higher cost in $ and setup/configuration effort. Better yet, have an SSD for boot & applications, and a hybrid for mass storage. If they made a hybrid with enough Flash, and you could access part of it as a separate SSD with the rest of the Flash used as a cache for the HD, you could have all of that in one device, but it would currently be expensive.
Considering that their target market for these is OEMs, not end-users, I would say very few.
ATIs GPU performance and drivers have both improved significantly since AMD purchased them. Like it or not, AMD and ATI has been a good combination for both companies.
That's a terrible idea. If AMD were still delivering performance and power usage comparable to Intel, maybe. But Apple buying AMD, or even using AMD's slower & less power efficient CPUs than the majority of the industry, would be one more thing Apple would have to battle to gain marketshare. Apple making a strategic investment in AMD to help put pressure on Intel might not be a bad idea, but Dell, HP, and/or MS could do the same.
We are talking about a chip design company that is at best second-place in most business concerns (GPU sometimes in an exception).
Most business applications aren't CPU bound. The difference between a current AMD or Intel CPU is irrelevant for 90% of business users, and 70+% of consumers. If you're into HPC, scientific work, simulations (including intense gaming), video encoding/transcoding, or a few other specialized areas Intel may have the advantage, but even in those areas, a GPU may be more important than the CPU.
Servers are different, but AMD is pretty competitive with Intel on server CPUs
I'm not saying the Dell buying AMD would be good for Dell, AMD, or the overall market, but your assertion that AMD "is at best second-place in most business concerns" is simply not accurate.
What would be far more interesting is if Intel bought Nvidia. Bring Nvidia's GPU performance and driver compatibility to IGP, and Intel's power management and process technology to Nvidia's GPUs. That would really put the squeeze on AMD.