What? The bing toolbar does no such thing. They probably don't even know what search engine the user is using.
Bing toolbar allows its users to populate bing's database based on what they search. When you search Joe's forum and then click on a link it tells bing "hey you can use this combination of (word) -> (result) in your bing database as one of the things that people search for"
Google instructed their employees to download and install the bing toolbar and then waste hours feeding it bogus clicks to trick the bing database into thinking that legitimate users were searching for some weird terms and then clicking a particular webpage. Most of their attempts to trick big were failures, but they did get through on a couple of search terms that they used to run some anti-ms press.
Its mostly a kind of click-fraud that SEO type scammers partake in so that when you search for "iphone skins" you get their webpage first.
But hey, I don't care either way since I don't use bing, not because its made by microsoft, but because it sucks.
I was only describing a possible future scenario where consoles are unnecessary. Your objection in the first post about controls is what I was addressing.
Well.. most video game consoles do not come with screens. You're comparing different things. We can have a controller accessory which can dock with a smartphone/pda/random handheld and wirelessly transmit to any display device.
It depends on the size of your hands. I have fairly large hands and I can extremely fast using swype on my samsung galaxy s2. Much faster than I can on my ipod touch 4g anyway..
I'm curious what DRM are you talking about? SecuROM just does a simple CD check to make sure the CD is legit. Ofcource it also tries to secure itself and prevent other programs from poking around its code by installing some kernel mode components. AFAIK it does not install any audio components. I've seen DPC latency being affected more by buggy audio/video/wifi drivers than anything else. Just because a DRM solution installs a driver doesn't mean its going to bump up the latency of ALL your audio programs.
Um, so you're upset that people who volunteer their time on OSS projects want to attract the mainstream audience? Why exactly is this a problem?
Also, AFAIK, there is no single "OSS crowd". If you haven't noticed the entire software world is consolidating towards things that do not require any tweaking to reduce the ways in which an user could possibly break the system. Software should be accessible and usable to as many people as possible. I don't see anything wrong in that. Why shouldn't grandma-users not be able to easily upload and share pictures on flickr without any help (or whatever it is)? Creating appliance-computers is not entirely bad.
How exactly did Apple standing up to Adobe have any effect? On the Desktop side Apple choosing to not ship with flash (I reckon many OSX users would install it anyway) only affects about 5% of web users. My guess is that most websites ignored that fact. Do you have any data on that?
OK so in the mobile/tablet space Safari is at roughly 60% market share. But then again, sites which had mobile versions of their pages were already non-flash anyway. You could present a reverse argument to your position that since Adobe tried to sue Apple into shipping flash on iOS (or w/e).. it means they were "scared" and hence it means Flash was threatened. It won't be much of an argument - more like opinion. Unless you're some kind of mindreader;-)
And yeah.. flash sucks:-) I hope they eradicate that malware installer/CPU hogger piece of crap as soon as possible.
I did not mean to imply that such a device exists. Merely that its possible using existing tech to trivially lock iOS/OSX down such that its really hard to screw up the device. Such a feature would be in great demand in the corporate world.
Also my personal preference is immaterial here. I was only talking about how 'grandma' users can best be accommodated. At a basic level I can imagine a PC/Laptop/iPad like device that has a slot like a SD card or something that holds your apps/data/preferences/settings etc. The OS will be part of the firmware of the device which you can update over the air.
Do you even know what a CLI is? A GUI can have fields to enter numerical values and it would STILL be a GUI.
Also HTML/CSS is probably the single worst content layout technology that I've ever used. Even a windows 3.1era magazine publishing tool is superior in every single way.
For a sales site it is required that both types of users be able to use the site. No OS is *required* to be friendly to a certain type of user. In fact it would be beneficial to the non-tech end user if the computer was an appliance that just ran a fixed set of apps. OSX/iOS with a locked App Store is quite close to bringing this kind of device to the market soon.
They have almost universally based it on UI studies, expectations of UI study participants, and other UI guidelines. Maybe you don't agree with the data, but for the most part there is data. If you have ever seen non techsavvy people struggle with using the computer you'd realize that what we have now *does not work*. The goal always is to create a UI that helps the largest chunk of the usually tech-illiterate population. Ofcource unless the software itself is intended for highly technical users.
Well I use both 7 and Vista and at this moment there is very little difference between Win7 and Vista. You just think 7 is better because drivers have improved since and people are writing their applications to not spray random crap in system directories/requiring administrator privileges.
Skype, Google Voice, Remote File Viewer/Player (to play media from SMB shares), di.fm radio, soundcloud are some of the apps that are important for me.
If you design a new UI that's simpler (according to them) then by definition other smartphone UIs could be termed as "complicated" in their marketing materials.
I like the WP7 UI but the lack of apps makes the platform a non-starter with me. Android while nice, I fear that I would be left out of eventual OS upgrades depending on the whim of the handset maker. iOS is nice but now that they have made it almost impossible to downgrade the OS Apple will push updates to the OS that make it run like shit on earlier gen hardware and eventually making me buy a new iphone. None of the platforms have what I want.:(
Well to be fair, offloading rendering work on the (usually idle) GPU would reduce the load on the CPU making it available for other applications. Also there is no dependency at all. The OS will expose an interface that apps (or gui libraries ) will call and it can internally switch to rendering on the CPU or GPU on the fly (i.e. modular components), much like what Windows Vista and above do.
In XP there was no official right-click 'Run as admin' command provided my MS. You could add it though a third party plugin. There was a 'Run as user' option which allowed you to specify the credentials under which target executable ran.
Vista & 7 added some checks where if you're executable contains the words 'setup' , 'install' , etc or if you use certain APIs or if you explicitly request root-elevation they popup a password (or a yes/no) dialog. One thing that's good about it is that the dialog code executes in its own session so its impossible to fake (unless you change the defaults to make it run in the same user session).
I've always wondered if non-technical Linux users would be able differentiate between the system asking for the root password and a simple program showing a fake dialog and tricking the user into revealing the password. I suppose since most users install white-listed s/w from repositories, its not a pressing concern.
and they finally caught up to Unix with users being able to run unprivileged by default and boost to root only when necessary
This is untrue. This was possible in NT since the start. The problem is Win95 and below. 90% of Win95 apps would not run on XP because they do stupid shit like writing to system directories. The alternative to default-root was "Don't upgrade to Windows XP because none of your apps will run on it without fiddling around with folder permissions". Microsoft as usual made a good business decision to keep their short-term revenue intact by selling copies of XP but screwed over the users in the long run w.r.t security. I generally dislike Apple but there is no way in hell that Jobs would ever choose making money over screwing users big time like this. Apple will screw over their partners, their developers and maybe even their internal divisions, but generally they make it a priority that users get a product that won't turn their machine into a botnet.
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What? The bing toolbar does no such thing. They probably don't even know what search engine the user is using.
Bing toolbar allows its users to populate bing's database based on what they search. When you search Joe's forum and then click on a link it tells bing "hey you can use this combination of (word) -> (result) in your bing database as one of the things that people search for"
Google instructed their employees to download and install the bing toolbar and then waste hours feeding it bogus clicks to trick the bing database into thinking that legitimate users were searching for some weird terms and then clicking a particular webpage. Most of their attempts to trick big were failures, but they did get through on a couple of search terms that they used to run some anti-ms press.
Its mostly a kind of click-fraud that SEO type scammers partake in so that when you search for "iphone skins" you get their webpage first.
But hey, I don't care either way since I don't use bing, not because its made by microsoft, but because it sucks.
I was only describing a possible future scenario where consoles are unnecessary. Your objection in the first post about controls is what I was addressing.
Well.. most video game consoles do not come with screens. You're comparing different things. We can have a controller accessory which can dock with a smartphone/pda/random handheld and wirelessly transmit to any display device.
http://gadgetlike.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/game-grip.jpg
http://www.geek.com/gearlog/images/GPod_iPhoneController.jpg
http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/frontsquare/eb2b_icontrol_pad.jpg
It depends on the size of your hands. I have fairly large hands and I can extremely fast using swype on my samsung galaxy s2. Much faster than I can on my ipod touch 4g anyway..
I'm curious what DRM are you talking about? SecuROM just does a simple CD check to make sure the CD is legit. Ofcource it also tries to secure itself and prevent other programs from poking around its code by installing some kernel mode components. AFAIK it does not install any audio components. I've seen DPC latency being affected more by buggy audio/video/wifi drivers than anything else. Just because a DRM solution installs a driver doesn't mean its going to bump up the latency of ALL your audio programs.
Jesus... talk about apples and oranges. He was talking about the JVM not the Java language. It helps to be correct before insulting people.
Um, so you're upset that people who volunteer their time on OSS projects want to attract the mainstream audience? Why exactly is this a problem?
Also, AFAIK, there is no single "OSS crowd". If you haven't noticed the entire software world is consolidating towards things that do not require any tweaking to reduce the ways in which an user could possibly break the system. Software should be accessible and usable to as many people as possible. I don't see anything wrong in that. Why shouldn't grandma-users not be able to easily upload and share pictures on flickr without any help (or whatever it is)? Creating appliance-computers is not entirely bad.
How exactly did Apple standing up to Adobe have any effect? On the Desktop side Apple choosing to not ship with flash (I reckon many OSX users would install it anyway) only affects about 5% of web users. My guess is that most websites ignored that fact. Do you have any data on that?
OK so in the mobile/tablet space Safari is at roughly 60% market share. But then again, sites which had mobile versions of their pages were already non-flash anyway. You could present a reverse argument to your position that since Adobe tried to sue Apple into shipping flash on iOS (or w/e) .. it means they were "scared" and hence it means Flash was threatened. It won't be much of an argument - more like opinion. Unless you're some kind of mindreader ;-)
And yeah.. flash sucks :-) I hope they eradicate that malware installer/CPU hogger piece of crap as soon as possible.
I did not mean to imply that such a device exists. Merely that its possible using existing tech to trivially lock iOS/OSX down such that its really hard to screw up the device. Such a feature would be in great demand in the corporate world.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1717416/apple-patent-reveals-restricted-enterprise-app-store-plans-rim-beware
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/01/apple-creates-customizable-access-to-the-app-store-for-enterprise.html
Also my personal preference is immaterial here. I was only talking about how 'grandma' users can best be accommodated. At a basic level I can imagine a PC/Laptop/iPad like device that has a slot like a SD card or something that holds your apps/data/preferences/settings etc. The OS will be part of the firmware of the device which you can update over the air.
Do you even know what a CLI is? A GUI can have fields to enter numerical values and it would STILL be a GUI.
Also HTML/CSS is probably the single worst content layout technology that I've ever used. Even a windows 3.1era magazine publishing tool is superior in every single way.
You haven't told us why your use-case is more important than the others who want such a simple UI
False equivalency.
For a sales site it is required that both types of users be able to use the site. No OS is *required* to be friendly to a certain type of user. In fact it would be beneficial to the non-tech end user if the computer was an appliance that just ran a fixed set of apps. OSX/iOS with a locked App Store is quite close to bringing this kind of device to the market soon.
They have almost universally based it on UI studies, expectations of UI study participants, and other UI guidelines. Maybe you don't agree with the data, but for the most part there is data. If you have ever seen non techsavvy people struggle with using the computer you'd realize that what we have now *does not work*. The goal always is to create a UI that helps the largest chunk of the usually tech-illiterate population. Ofcource unless the software itself is intended for highly technical users.
Well I use both 7 and Vista and at this moment there is very little difference between Win7 and Vista. You just think 7 is better because drivers have improved since and people are writing their applications to not spray random crap in system directories/requiring administrator privileges.
Why stop there? You're going to have a heck of a time doing anything without CPU microcode, reliable transistors and signal processing.
Cue the non-JS programmers bashing web developers as "not real programmers". :-)
Skype, Google Voice, Remote File Viewer/Player (to play media from SMB shares), di.fm radio, soundcloud are some of the apps that are important for me.
If you design a new UI that's simpler (according to them) then by definition other smartphone UIs could be termed as "complicated" in their marketing materials.
I like the WP7 UI but the lack of apps makes the platform a non-starter with me. Android while nice, I fear that I would be left out of eventual OS upgrades depending on the whim of the handset maker. iOS is nice but now that they have made it almost impossible to downgrade the OS Apple will push updates to the OS that make it run like shit on earlier gen hardware and eventually making me buy a new iphone. None of the platforms have what I want. :(
Well to be fair, offloading rendering work on the (usually idle) GPU would reduce the load on the CPU making it available for other applications. Also there is no dependency at all. The OS will expose an interface that apps (or gui libraries ) will call and it can internally switch to rendering on the CPU or GPU on the fly (i.e. modular components), much like what Windows Vista and above do.
In XP there was no official right-click 'Run as admin' command provided my MS. You could add it though a third party plugin. There was a 'Run as user' option which allowed you to specify the credentials under which target executable ran.
Vista & 7 added some checks where if you're executable contains the words 'setup' , 'install' , etc or if you use certain APIs or if you explicitly request root-elevation they popup a password (or a yes/no) dialog. One thing that's good about it is that the dialog code executes in its own session so its impossible to fake (unless you change the defaults to make it run in the same user session).
I've always wondered if non-technical Linux users would be able differentiate between the system asking for the root password and a simple program showing a fake dialog and tricking the user into revealing the password. I suppose since most users install white-listed s/w from repositories, its not a pressing concern.
Interesting.. does the OS work properly once you remove Safari? I think the OSX App Store might be using safari libraries...
and they finally caught up to Unix with users being able to run unprivileged by default and boost to root only when necessary
This is untrue. This was possible in NT since the start. The problem is Win95 and below. 90% of Win95 apps would not run on XP because they do stupid shit like writing to system directories. The alternative to default-root was "Don't upgrade to Windows XP because none of your apps will run on it without fiddling around with folder permissions". Microsoft as usual made a good business decision to keep their short-term revenue intact by selling copies of XP but screwed over the users in the long run w.r.t security. I generally dislike Apple but there is no way in hell that Jobs would ever choose making money over screwing users big time like this. Apple will screw over their partners, their developers and maybe even their internal divisions, but generally they make it a priority that users get a product that won't turn their machine into a botnet.
I can now do stuff I'd never dream of on Windows, due to that.
Such as?
Well on OSX I think you should be able to create a folder with subfolders & shortcuts to apps and then just stick that as a stack on the dock.
You are using a free product. There is no need to be rude about it. Why do you think you are entitled to anything?