Re:Nice distro but they messed up the desktop
on
Ubuntu Turns 7
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· Score: 1
If you are a serious computer user, Unity is not for you.
Ubuntu's tagline, for years, has been "Linux for Human Beings". Unity is not meant for serious computer users, which is why things like Ubuntu Server and the various supplementary editions exist.
I'll admit that Unity is not fully baked, but least they're trying, as opposed to aping the taskbar/start-menu that's been a standard of Linux distros since we dumped twm and olvwm and started using fvwm hacks that looked like Windows95.
I'd like to see Unity's rough edges filed down: managing multiple desktops and windows still seems kludgy (next to GNOME3, so much so that I find myself slapping the Windows key in Windows and getting annoyed that it brings up the start menu) and there's some inelegancy and integration problems (Thunderbird doesn't seem to be well-integrated, the global menu bar and window controls are hard to hit, the supporting apps are glitchy), but I can see the destination.
None of this precludes "serious computer users" from installing KDE, LXDE, GNOME2 or whatever. Or, you know, switching to Arch, Mint FreeBSD, Debian or such. It's not like you're locked in.
Nothing, just being sarcastic. It's the same line that's used by erstwhile-communists who claim the reason communism failed is that it wasn't really tried.
Until such time as powerful, established participants in the market tip the scales in their favour and become a de facto government. Which would, you know, totally never happen, and you know that, like, real laissez faire would work, it just hasn't been tried.
I disagree. I manage BES and ActiveSync in an enterprise environment. Some may like BES, but I don't see any real advantage in scalability in my environment. It is much easier to provision an Activesync device since I don't have to provide full access to the user's mailbox to a third party (BES service) user account, not to mention the security implications associated with a privileged account that can access everything in every BB users' mailboxes
This is true. On the flipside, the device management with EAS isn't as comprehensive. There's far less that you can actually instruct the device to do, the policy is easier to remove and, on Android, easy to circumvent. The other issue, and a big win for us, is handling things like password rotation and credentials (via NTLM). It's really, really nice to not have to instruct hundreds of BlackBerry users to change their password or deal with VPNs.
But I do see your point about the interface/usability/development and I agree. RIM has a much harder row to hoe.
It's probably akin to what happened with EC2. They had a failure, they tried to cut over to backups but the cutover went awry and/or failed under load and/or behaved unexpectedly.
The real question will be RIM's response. So far, they've not done a good job at communication. It remains to be seen if and how they handle the fallout. Amazon did a very good job, but then they have a history of being fairly open. RIM PR, frankly, sucks on a good day.
I actually agree with you, but the problem is that people interpret the BlackBerry/Security issue the other way and assume that, since BIS can be compromised, and all they ever see is teenagers using BIS-provisioned devices, that BB security "ain't all that". Even here, where people really ought to know better.
For example, we have people on this threading talking about how IMAP IDLE is a viable alternative to BES.
This applies to messaging and data to/from your companry intranet and proxies through BES, but over the last few years they've also supported straight TCP/IP. This is less of an advantage than it used to be.
How is Blackberry more secure than IMAP/SMTPTLS or Jabber/TLS or AIM/OTR?
In theory, the phone can be locked down more tightly through BES policies, enforcing datastore and memory encryption, screenlock policies and strength, and number-of-failed-unlock-attempts-until-self-wipe. If your BES admins are dedicated enough, they can provide more assurance.
Though, honestly, the insecure part of the equation is the user. Again, all the encryption in the world won't stand up to a $5 wrench
He's actually partly right. What he describes accurately summarizes the situation with BIS and BBM, and what the to-do in India was about. This would be akin to, eg, using a mailservice hosted by an ISP in the country in question. The Indian government could raid the datacentre and read the mailboxes of an Indian ISP just as easily as it could RIM BIS servers located in India.
You're right that BES is a completely different animal and that people complaining about security and RIM caving to India and such don't understand the difference between the two.
Mind you, someone could confiscate the server attached to the BES box and get at the mailboxes that way, but then they could also smash your fingers with a mallet, too, so it's all relative.
BB server is a lot of overhead when you consider it requires an Exchange server that can just as easily deliver mail to smart phones directly
No, it doesn't require Exchange. You can get BES and have it work with Domino or Groupwise, and the Express version will run on the same server as Exchange so you don't need an extra box (if you care; you could virtualize all this). It'll also work with VMware's Zimbra, or with Google Apps. I suppose (I've never checked) that other collaboration systems have BES connectors as well.
And there are a zillion cloud collaboration providers who will happily host Exchange (or whatever) and BES for you.
One nice point about BBM is that it (usually) is more reliable than SMS. Usually. As in "not over the last three days".
Anecdotally, I have a lot more trouble with delayed on undelivered SMS messages than BBM.
As to the extent, well, it's not that they didn't have a redundant infrastructure, it's that the failover plans didn't work as expected. In that sense, it's similar to what happened to Amazon's EC2: something failed, they executed their DR plan, and unforeseen behaviour under production load saw the whole thing come down. This happens because many people don't do DR tests on production systems. I don't blame them, either.
Rim made a living off disabling IDL in IMAP and selling it as a middleware product
IMAP IDLE is to BES what masturbation is to sex.
If you mean IMAP IDLE versus BIS you'd have a point, except that BIS is free and does calendaring and address books for years, too, where IMAP IDLE is mail-only. Heck, even BES Express is free these days, and you can certainly strongarm RIM and your carrier into giving you BES CALs for nothing if you're large enough.
and gouging customers that use SMS
By this I assume you mean BBM, which is free. You do, of course, need a data plan, but data plans that support BBM cost less than most text plans do. There's a reason why BBM is terrifyingly popular with teenagers and it has everything to do with how much cheaper it is than SMS or MMS.
I'm saying that if I owned a large company no WAY would I want lots of potentially sensitive communication going through third party servers.
This is what RIM has BES for, and what large companies use. (well, I assume; if you're a large company and using BIS you must have a lot of time on your hands)
Intercepting BIS is easy: all the government has to do is tap into RIM's BIS infrastructure in the country in question, which they're within their right to do. In the case of BES, you own the encryption keys, not RIM. If you don't trust BES, well, at that point you're into paranoia territory.
Pay whatever Citrix and Salesforce.com want in order to get PlayBook clients for XenApp/XenDesktop, RDP and the force.com suite
Pay Rovio whatever it takes to port Angry Birds.
Ballmer was right: developers are everything, and if Messrs. Balsille and Laziridis don't want to look like chumps, they should be throwing every spare nickel they can scrounge into getting stuff ported. Take a look at the top 25 downloads for the iTunes App Store, contact the developers, and dump some of your supposedly-record-revenue into getting those apps ported.
Between VPN, active sync, and remote management support - Yes, yes it does. At least you got one right
VPN yes (though it's not really needed with BES), activesync doesn't matter. Management, though, is not even in the same ballpark on iOS. OTA profiles work, but they don't do a tenth of what BES can do, and they're a bitch to design and deploy compared to BES, and the third-party solutions that approach BES cost serious money. Android has nothing in this space, or at least nothing that doesn't cost a bunch of money to bolt on.
But yes, iOS adoption in the enterprise is on a roll. It's driven mostly by the iPad, not so much the iPhone, and for very good reasons: the iPad really is a very good tool for giving non-technical people apps and services without the compromise of a small screen phone or a complex, full-blown desktop/laptop.
iPhones and Android phones have both been able to *UNSECURELY* integrate into corporate networks for quite a while
This.
Yes, you can use EAS or IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV to get an iOS, Android or WM/WP device to work, but none of them are anywhere near as secure or manageable as BES. For the consumer or light business user, yes, EAS is fine, and geeks can suffer with IMAP+DAV and it's limitations, but as you increase either the number of users or the security and manageability requirements, they don't scale. Anyone who says otherwise has never actually used BES and has no idea what it does.
That said, as soon as someone duplicates what BES can do on iOS, Android and/or WP, BlackBerry is dead to the enterprise. It'll be Symbian all over again, and RIM will be left selling featurephones to teenagers, third-worlders, and third-world teenagers.
There's some question as to whether or not RIM can even port what BES can do to their next-generation devices. The absence of BES manageability hurt the PlayBook's chances in the enterprise more than anything else about it, and the PlayBook runs that same platform. I get the impression that the infrastructure is old, creaky and not all that well understood by RIM's own people.
How are they having "an incredible amount of difficulty". If you mean, say, the availability of a decent web browser and trying to use web apps designed for Mobile Safari (or a particular iOS-only app), then yes, ok.
But messaging? BES Express is not exactly hard to set up, costs nothing, and doesn't even require BES data plans. Heck, you can use BES with Google Apps, or with VMware Zimbra---you don't need Exchange/Notes/GroupWise.
If BlackBerry is "incredibly difficult" then you've either got a very bespoke infrastructure, or deep-seated problems that iOS/Android only gloss over.
BlackBerries have their problems (app scarcity, developer hostility, a subpar browser, unintuitive menu/interface choices, a terrible touchscreen keyboard), don't get me wrong, but integration typically isn't one of them.
And it'll probably be supported by RIM's next generation platform because they seem terminally unable to port classic BlackBerry messaging to the PlayBook.
Heck, weren't leaked screenshots of the PlayBook 2.0 update showing ActiveSync settings?
Just so's you know, the problem isn't taxes, it's demand. Pumping money into the coffers of the wealthy---who are already doing quite well and hoarding almost unprecedented levels of cash---won't help. We've tried tax cuts for the wealthy (what, you didn't know that the rounds of stimulus were, depending on the country, 30-60% tax cuts?) and they aren't working: all it does is cut the revenue to the very programs that would help us get out of recession.
The "job creators" are the disenfranchised middle and lower classes. They're the ones who buy stuff, keeping stores open and others gainfully employed. They're the ones who need TARP programs for underwater mortgages, stable employment and a sense of stability. Not the rentiers who are doing quite well, thank you very much.
I used Dolphin Tab Beta myself. It works well, but some of the limitations of Google's browser (which it's based on) are still there. And the UI is still kind of strange and inconsistent.
No, it isn't a superficial aspect. The system is polished throughout. It rarely glitches, behaves inconsistently and/or leaves you wondering what to do in a given context. Done right, it's an all-pervasive attribute of a product, and Apple, in iOS, is a master.
That Slashdot posters (and many tablet UI designers, and likely Google itself) think of polish as superficial is why mass-market adoption continues to elude them.
True, but Firefox on Android is generally worse, and Opera doesn't feel like a "real" Android app.
It's a shame. Chrome on desktop PCs and ChomeOS are very, very good, so why is Android's browser so poor? Even BlackBerry's PlayBook has what feels like a better browser.
Re:Where the Hell is panel decoupled from shell?
on
GNOME 3.2 Released
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· Score: 1
I could, but all the useful, well-tested stuff is found in yum repositories.
I don't mind the technology (yum/rpm), and yum itself isn't too bad once you get used to it, but it is a little slower, doesn't seem to handle dependencies quite as well. Mostly I dearly miss synaptic.
Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu's tagline, for years, has been "Linux for Human Beings". Unity is not meant for serious computer users, which is why things like Ubuntu Server and the various supplementary editions exist.
I'll admit that Unity is not fully baked, but least they're trying, as opposed to aping the taskbar/start-menu that's been a standard of Linux distros since we dumped twm and olvwm and started using fvwm hacks that looked like Windows95.
I'd like to see Unity's rough edges filed down: managing multiple desktops and windows still seems kludgy (next to GNOME3, so much so that I find myself slapping the Windows key in Windows and getting annoyed that it brings up the start menu) and there's some inelegancy and integration problems (Thunderbird doesn't seem to be well-integrated, the global menu bar and window controls are hard to hit, the supporting apps are glitchy), but I can see the destination.
None of this precludes "serious computer users" from installing KDE, LXDE, GNOME2 or whatever. Or, you know, switching to Arch, Mint FreeBSD, Debian or such. It's not like you're locked in.
Nothing, just being sarcastic. It's the same line that's used by erstwhile-communists who claim the reason communism failed is that it wasn't really tried.
Until such time as powerful, established participants in the market tip the scales in their favour and become a de facto government. Which would, you know, totally never happen, and you know that, like, real laissez faire would work, it just hasn't been tried.
This is true. On the flipside, the device management with EAS isn't as comprehensive. There's far less that you can actually instruct the device to do, the policy is easier to remove and, on Android, easy to circumvent. The other issue, and a big win for us, is handling things like password rotation and credentials (via NTLM). It's really, really nice to not have to instruct hundreds of BlackBerry users to change their password or deal with VPNs.
But I do see your point about the interface/usability/development and I agree. RIM has a much harder row to hoe.
It's probably akin to what happened with EC2. They had a failure, they tried to cut over to backups but the cutover went awry and/or failed under load and/or behaved unexpectedly.
The real question will be RIM's response. So far, they've not done a good job at communication. It remains to be seen if and how they handle the fallout. Amazon did a very good job, but then they have a history of being fairly open. RIM PR, frankly, sucks on a good day.
I actually agree with you, but the problem is that people interpret the BlackBerry/Security issue the other way and assume that, since BIS can be compromised, and all they ever see is teenagers using BIS-provisioned devices, that BB security "ain't all that". Even here, where people really ought to know better.
For example, we have people on this threading talking about how IMAP IDLE is a viable alternative to BES.
This applies to messaging and data to/from your companry intranet and proxies through BES, but over the last few years they've also supported straight TCP/IP. This is less of an advantage than it used to be.
In theory, the phone can be locked down more tightly through BES policies, enforcing datastore and memory encryption, screenlock policies and strength, and number-of-failed-unlock-attempts-until-self-wipe. If your BES admins are dedicated enough, they can provide more assurance.
Though, honestly, the insecure part of the equation is the user. Again, all the encryption in the world won't stand up to a $5 wrench
He's actually partly right. What he describes accurately summarizes the situation with BIS and BBM, and what the to-do in India was about. This would be akin to, eg, using a mailservice hosted by an ISP in the country in question. The Indian government could raid the datacentre and read the mailboxes of an Indian ISP just as easily as it could RIM BIS servers located in India.
You're right that BES is a completely different animal and that people complaining about security and RIM caving to India and such don't understand the difference between the two.
Mind you, someone could confiscate the server attached to the BES box and get at the mailboxes that way, but then they could also smash your fingers with a mallet, too, so it's all relative.
No, it doesn't require Exchange. You can get BES and have it work with Domino or Groupwise, and the Express version will run on the same server as Exchange so you don't need an extra box (if you care; you could virtualize all this). It'll also work with VMware's Zimbra, or with Google Apps. I suppose (I've never checked) that other collaboration systems have BES connectors as well.
And there are a zillion cloud collaboration providers who will happily host Exchange (or whatever) and BES for you.
One nice point about BBM is that it (usually) is more reliable than SMS. Usually. As in "not over the last three days".
Anecdotally, I have a lot more trouble with delayed on undelivered SMS messages than BBM.
As to the extent, well, it's not that they didn't have a redundant infrastructure, it's that the failover plans didn't work as expected. In that sense, it's similar to what happened to Amazon's EC2: something failed, they executed their DR plan, and unforeseen behaviour under production load saw the whole thing come down. This happens because many people don't do DR tests on production systems. I don't blame them, either.
IMAP IDLE is to BES what masturbation is to sex.
If you mean IMAP IDLE versus BIS you'd have a point, except that BIS is free and does calendaring and address books for years, too, where IMAP IDLE is mail-only. Heck, even BES Express is free these days, and you can certainly strongarm RIM and your carrier into giving you BES CALs for nothing if you're large enough.
By this I assume you mean BBM, which is free. You do, of course, need a data plan, but data plans that support BBM cost less than most text plans do. There's a reason why BBM is terrifyingly popular with teenagers and it has everything to do with how much cheaper it is than SMS or MMS.
This is what RIM has BES for, and what large companies use. (well, I assume; if you're a large company and using BIS you must have a lot of time on your hands)
Intercepting BIS is easy: all the government has to do is tap into RIM's BIS infrastructure in the country in question, which they're within their right to do. In the case of BES, you own the encryption keys, not RIM. If you don't trust BES, well, at that point you're into paranoia territory.
If RIM's executives had any brains, they'd:
Ballmer was right: developers are everything, and if Messrs. Balsille and Laziridis don't want to look like chumps, they should be throwing every spare nickel they can scrounge into getting stuff ported. Take a look at the top 25 downloads for the iTunes App Store, contact the developers, and dump some of your supposedly-record-revenue into getting those apps ported.
You didn't specify what services. "Services" is a pretty generic term: it could mean email and collab, intranet, specific apps, documents, etc.
VPN yes (though it's not really needed with BES), activesync doesn't matter. Management, though, is not even in the same ballpark on iOS. OTA profiles work, but they don't do a tenth of what BES can do, and they're a bitch to design and deploy compared to BES, and the third-party solutions that approach BES cost serious money. Android has nothing in this space, or at least nothing that doesn't cost a bunch of money to bolt on.
But yes, iOS adoption in the enterprise is on a roll. It's driven mostly by the iPad, not so much the iPhone, and for very good reasons: the iPad really is a very good tool for giving non-technical people apps and services without the compromise of a small screen phone or a complex, full-blown desktop/laptop.
This.
Yes, you can use EAS or IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV to get an iOS, Android or WM/WP device to work, but none of them are anywhere near as secure or manageable as BES. For the consumer or light business user, yes, EAS is fine, and geeks can suffer with IMAP+DAV and it's limitations, but as you increase either the number of users or the security and manageability requirements, they don't scale. Anyone who says otherwise has never actually used BES and has no idea what it does.
That said, as soon as someone duplicates what BES can do on iOS, Android and/or WP, BlackBerry is dead to the enterprise. It'll be Symbian all over again, and RIM will be left selling featurephones to teenagers, third-worlders, and third-world teenagers.
There's some question as to whether or not RIM can even port what BES can do to their next-generation devices. The absence of BES manageability hurt the PlayBook's chances in the enterprise more than anything else about it, and the PlayBook runs that same platform. I get the impression that the infrastructure is old, creaky and not all that well understood by RIM's own people.
How are they having "an incredible amount of difficulty". If you mean, say, the availability of a decent web browser and trying to use web apps designed for Mobile Safari (or a particular iOS-only app), then yes, ok.
But messaging? BES Express is not exactly hard to set up, costs nothing, and doesn't even require BES data plans. Heck, you can use BES with Google Apps, or with VMware Zimbra---you don't need Exchange/Notes/GroupWise.
If BlackBerry is "incredibly difficult" then you've either got a very bespoke infrastructure, or deep-seated problems that iOS/Android only gloss over.
BlackBerries have their problems (app scarcity, developer hostility, a subpar browser, unintuitive menu/interface choices, a terrible touchscreen keyboard), don't get me wrong, but integration typically isn't one of them.
And it'll probably be supported by RIM's next generation platform because they seem terminally unable to port classic BlackBerry messaging to the PlayBook.
Heck, weren't leaked screenshots of the PlayBook 2.0 update showing ActiveSync settings?
I see what you did there.
Just so's you know, the problem isn't taxes, it's demand. Pumping money into the coffers of the wealthy---who are already doing quite well and hoarding almost unprecedented levels of cash---won't help. We've tried tax cuts for the wealthy (what, you didn't know that the rounds of stimulus were, depending on the country, 30-60% tax cuts?) and they aren't working: all it does is cut the revenue to the very programs that would help us get out of recession.
The "job creators" are the disenfranchised middle and lower classes. They're the ones who buy stuff, keeping stores open and others gainfully employed. They're the ones who need TARP programs for underwater mortgages, stable employment and a sense of stability. Not the rentiers who are doing quite well, thank you very much.
I used Dolphin Tab Beta myself. It works well, but some of the limitations of Google's browser (which it's based on) are still there. And the UI is still kind of strange and inconsistent.
No, it isn't a superficial aspect. The system is polished throughout. It rarely glitches, behaves inconsistently and/or leaves you wondering what to do in a given context. Done right, it's an all-pervasive attribute of a product, and Apple, in iOS, is a master.
That Slashdot posters (and many tablet UI designers, and likely Google itself) think of polish as superficial is why mass-market adoption continues to elude them.
True, but Firefox on Android is generally worse, and Opera doesn't feel like a "real" Android app.
It's a shame. Chrome on desktop PCs and ChomeOS are very, very good, so why is Android's browser so poor? Even BlackBerry's PlayBook has what feels like a better browser.
I could, but all the useful, well-tested stuff is found in yum repositories.
I don't mind the technology (yum/rpm), and yum itself isn't too bad once you get used to it, but it is a little slower, doesn't seem to handle dependencies quite as well. Mostly I dearly miss synaptic.