Was there any mention of a new version of iWork? All that I heard was that iWork would gain the ability to work with iCloud documents. Also, was there any mention of OpenGL or OpenCL or Core Animation or Xcode? It seemed that most of the software development announcements were related to connectivity plumbing.
Seriously folks, how is Google competitively threatening Microsoft?
How many people here have written checks to Google that they would have otherwise written to Microsoft?
Put another way, in what product categories could you purchase a Google offering instead of a Microsoft offering? Google doesn't offer an operating system product and doesn't offer an office productivity suite.
Recently, I purchased an Apple PowerBook instead of a Wintel laptop. And recently I purchased an Apple iPod instead of a Microsoft-backed MP3 player. Then and now, Google did not offer any competitive products in either of those categories. In other words, Apple was a competitor to Microsoft for my money, but Google was not.
While it may be true that Google is the most sophisticated billboard company on the planet, selling advertising has never been one of Microsoft's core lines of business. So, even if Google had 100% of the Internet billboard revenues and Microsoft had 0%, how would Google be threatening Microsoft?
There are those who believe that Google will someday undermine Microsoft's operating system and office productivity suite lines of business by offering subscription-based versions of each or even free versions of each. Well, how many people here want to pay subscription fees for software that is currently available in product form? Not many, I'd bet. Especially if using that subscription software also required storing your sensitive data on Google's servers. And as far as free software goes, Linux and OpenOffice are available for free now, yet at least within the U.S. neither is threatening Windows and MS Office today.
And regarding all of this talk about AJAX-based offerings, let's get real folks. Who here would really like to trade in their desktop apps for AJAX-based apps?
In my opinion, Microsoft has a locked in customer base and currently has Google trapped in a browser. As things stand now, Google is not a genuine competitive threat to Microsoft. The only way that Google will be able to become a genuine competitive threat is if Microsoft makes a serious mistake by heading down its proposed path of competing with Google on Google's browser-based terms.
I agree with you about the significance of Automator. For me, after Spotlight, Automator is the most appealing feature of Tiger. What I like most about Automator is not just that it is a friendlier command line for authoring complex commands, but that "reading" somebody else's Automator "scripts" will be much easier than reading somebody else's batch files.
Do you know if will be possible to author Automator actions in C? C++? Will Automator support conditionals and branching?
Apple claims on its website that some of its software (e.g. Motion) is designed for the G5. Given that stuff like Motion is what I intend to run on a Powerbook, and given that I don't want to run afoul of any of Apple's support policy silliness, I'm waiting for a Powerbook G5.
Critics of anti-ballistic missile defense systems have often pointed out the futility of trying to build a missile defense system. As the critics have explained, it will always be easier to build an effective missile offense than it will be to build an effective defense.
So, it seemed tragically humorous when the press spokesman for the missile defense effort inadvertantly agreed with the critics when the press spokesman proclaimed that although the interceptor had failed, the target missile had functioned properly.
With all of the money being spent on this program, it seems to me that it ought to be possible to hire a more savvy spokesman.
1. Jay Patel subjects himself to all of the types of background checks that Abika currently offers.
2. Then, Jay publishes all of the results of all of the above checks on http://www.abika.com.
However, doing that would still provide Jay an advantage that most background check targets wouldn't have: the opportunity to verify the accuracy of all reported information. So, to make things even more fair, it should be possible to go to http://www.abika.com and perform any background check on Jay Patel at any time and receive the results of the check without Jay getting an opportunity to review the results.
However, even that wouldn't address all of the problems with Abika. Are the results of Abika's background checks re-publishable without Abika's permission or the target's permission? In other words, could I copy and paste the results from an Abika background check into a blog for others to read? If the answer is "no", then clearly Abika isn't believing its own philosophy that public information is good. If the answer is "yes" then what will happen if I alter the background check results when pasting them into the blog, especially if I cite the source of the results as http://www.abika.com?
Speaking of sources, does Abika permit its customers to know the sources of Abika's information? I doubt it, as that would greatly reduce Abika's value proposition. So, that means that Abika is trying to establish itself as a trusted source of factual information. And that is the *scariest* aspect of all!
My feelings are the same as yours actually. I would really rather find a way to convince Jay Patel of his "moronity" that doesn't require punishing his family. However, given the extreme stupidity of Jay Patel's stance, I doubt that he would be convinced to change his stance by anything other than an extreme example of the implications of his stance.
...that was aired recently, the founder of Abika claimed that privacy is stupid and that he doesn't believe in it. In short, he declared his hostility to the very notion of privacy.
Perhaps it would be possible to publish some of his family's private information on the web to test his conviction that privacy is stupid. Perhaps this could be done in the same way that folks published some facts from Poindexter's private life as a response to the Total Information Awareness initiative.
Also, Abika's business model depends upon privacy. In other words, in the upper right hand side of http://www.abika.com, there is a "private, confidential, guaranteed" logo, which makes sense as Abika's services would be far less attractive to customers without such a guarantee. If Jay Patel really believes that privacy is stupid, then I challenge him to publish on his website the results of all background checks. More importantly, I challenge Jay Patel to inform the targets of background checks when checks are being performed and also of the identity of the requesters of the checks. After all, the major credit reporting agencies such as TRW are now being forced to report such information to the targets of credit checks, so why should Abika be permitted to operate any differently?
Potential customers don't have to justify their opinions. Potential sellers do. Sellers have the burden of proof -- not customers. That is an engineering and business attitude that Microsoft and the Linux community gets and that Apple and the Mac crowd don't seem to get.
In other words, as a potential customer, all that I have to say is that in my opinion OS X has a poor UI and is primitive. It's not my problem to justify my comments. I can post on Slashdot all day about how I don't like the Mac UI without justification. And I can spend my time and dollars on Windows and Linux stuff instead of Mac stuff simply because I think that the Mac UI is poor and primitive. It's Apple's problem to change OS X so that I don't hold those opinions and so that I spend my time and money on their products.. At least that is the attitude that Apple should have if they want to improve the sales of their product.
Think of it this way: do you provide a detailed justification of your vote when you fill in a Slashdot poll? How about when you vote for President? It's not a voter's job to justify to a candidate why the voter did not vote for the candidate. It's the candidate's job to convince the voter to vote for the candidate.
By the way, Steve Jobs is fond of characterizing Microsoft and Microsoft's products in broad terms, without providing detailed justification. For example, I once heard Steve summarize Microsoft and Microsoft's products as lacking "style." Steve never bothered to explain exactly what he meant by that. And certainly I've heard more than a few people of the Apple crowd proclaim the "coolness" and "beauty" of OS X without ever justifying either claim in a detailed fashion. In short, the Apple crowd shouldn't condemn unsupported general statements while at the same time making them.
Too often I find that the Apple crowd seems to believe that the superiority of Apple products is self-evident, and that those of us who don't believe in that superiority are just blind or something. Well, once again, I say to the Apple crowd "prove it." Make a case for how the OS X UI is better than the Windows UI or KDE or Gnome.
The Apple crowd never ceases to amaze me. I can always count on Apple people to assume that their OS is superior until proven otherwise. And I can always count on them to assume that a Slashdot comment about being glad for some criticism of Macs is a troll. And I can always count on them to level personal attacks on any person who dares to criticize an Apple product.
First of all, my initial post was not a troll. I sincerely meant what I said: it's nice to hear somebody criticizing the Mac. The Mac seems to get a free pass in the media and among the Slashdot crowd. The folks in the Slashdot crowd seem to be quick to criticize Windows and seem to be equally quick to praise OS X. Why?
As I write this I'm sitting in a laboratory where there are Windows boxes and Macs. Each is equipped with similar software, most significantly Mathematica, web browsers and MS Office. All of the users (engineers) are sitting (by choice) at the Windows boxes. Nobody is sitting at the Mac boxes. Occasionally I poll the users to find out why basically nobody *ever* uses the Macs, and the reply is pretty much always the same: Macs suck. The users strongly prefer to use Windows boxes.
When I claim that I don't like the Mac UI I have said enough. I don't have a burden to provide specific criticisms. I'm a customer, not a person being paid to give product feedback. If I don't like something, then all that I have to say is that I don't like it. Period. Likewise for all of the other engineers in this lab who choose on a daily basis to not like the Macs and to instead prefer the Windows boxes.
The Mac is the market weakling, not the market giant. The burden to prove that customers should use the market weakling product is clearly on the defenders of the Mac *faith*. The burden is not on those who are using the market giant. If you Mac folks truly believe that the Mac UI is better, than you have the burden to prove it.
Rather than reply to anybody's charge's of "flailing about" (a charge made without evidence by a person criticizing me for not producing evidence), I'd suggest that the Mac fans instead take a harder look at the way that they form opinions about the Mac and the way that they respond to criticisms of the Mac. Believe it or not, folks who criticize the Mac can do so sincerely and with validity.
Perhaps the defenders of the Mac *faith* should take a look at UI design documents that discussion such ideas as task-driven, inductive UI. The Mac UI does not employ such modern conventions, at least not to a significant degree or in a consistent manner.
The Mac UI Emperor simply has no clothes, and I'm glad that Raskin and others are willing to say so.
It's nice to hear some criticism of the Mac
on
Jef Raskin On The Mac
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· Score: -1, Troll
It's nice to hear some criticism of the Mac, especially of the Mac's user interface.
Too often all that we hear in the press is how beautiful and superior the Mac's UI is compared to the UI of Windows. I've never been able to understand such claims. In my opinion, the Mac UI is way worse than the UI of Windows and of KDE and of Gnome.
I mostly use Windows, and occasionally use Linux with KDE or Gnome. I'd like to switch to Macs so that I could have the benefit of using a *nix-based OS on a tightly-integrated OS/hardware combination. However, despite spending hours in front of Macs in Apple stores and in university labs, I just can't find a way to get along with the Mac UI. It seems to be primitive, poorly-designed and of relatively poor quality. I almost always conclude my Mac sessions by scratching my head and wondering why anybody would want to use a computer that has such a poor UI. In short, I try to like the Mac, but I just can't. The poor UI gets in the way.
I'd switch to Macs right now if the Macs had a UI more like the Windows UI. But given that such a change will probably never happen, I'll guess that I'll stick with Windows and Linux.
On Thursday afternoon I bought one of these PMCs from Best Buy. On Friday morning I returned it.
I returned it because, plain and simple, it sucks.
Before I explain some of the ways that it sucks, let me first say that I bought the PMC on Thursday in exchange for a misbehaving 40GB 4th generation iPod. I loved the iPod, but was concerned that the iPod had stability problems. Having gone through two unstable iPods, I thought, "What the Hell, maybe a Microsoft/Creative device could work" and so decided to give the PMC a try. Within a few hours of trying I concluded that I would rather have an unstable iPod than a sucky and almost unusable PMC. So, when I returned the PMC I exchanged it for another iPod.
Anyway, here are some of the problems that I found with the PMC:
1. The PMC is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off switch within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used. In gneral, I'd predict that because many of the unit's buttons protrude from the unit and are so cheap that they would not survive normal everday wear and tear.
4. The unit's size and buttons make it impossible to operate the unit with just one hand. This is unacceptable for common everyday usage where one of your hands might be holding a cup of coffee, a newspaper or a cigarette.
5. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new and instead looks kind of gross.
6. The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box. The unit looks like one of those things designed by someone who has no sense of style.
7. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
8. Although the unit's UI seems to be easy to figure out, mostly this seems to be because the feature set of the unit has been dummed down to the point that the unit doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less. In fact, I had expected to be able to write.NET Compact Framework apps for the unit, but there doesn't seem to be any provision in the unit's UI (i.e. no "Start" menu) for running custom apps.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Than
I just bought one of these things a few hours ago, in part because of your favorable review.
I am thoroughly disappointed with the PMC and am already hoping that I can get my money back from Best Buy. I wrote a few comments about my initial impressions here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=120403&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=3&tid=100&tid=186&tid=1&mode=thr ead&cid=10146279
I'm glad that you are enjoying your PMC. But to me, the PMC is inferior in just about every way to the iPod. The PMC and WMP 10 combination is beginning to remind me of that car that Homer Simpson designed.
A couple of hours ago I exchanged my new fourth generation 40GB iPod for one of these units.
I loved my iPod, but it was unstable and locked up repeatedly. It was my second such iPod to do so. My first such iPod was one that I had bought only two weeks ago. I exchanged the first iPod for the second iPod because after only one day of use the first iPod had begun locking up. Many thanks to Best Buy for living up to their 30 day return policy.
Anyway, with regard to the Zen PMC, my initial impressions are mixed:
1. The unit is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used.
4. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new.
5. (Completly subjective) The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box.
6. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
7. The unit's UI is very easy to figure out. Mostly that's because...
8....the unit seems to be dummed down to the point that it doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. Without getting very far at all I got so annoyed with WMP 10 that I decided to post these comments. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Thanks Microsoft. And this is not just any beta software. This is software that installs a bunch of DRM stuff onto your computer. In fact, there are several steps in the installation procedure where you encounter DRM-related dialog boxes. These dialog boxes explain things such as the fact that the installer connects to Microsoft's servers to register your computer with Microsoft so Microsoft can assign your machine some sort DRM ticket. Depending upon how you feel about DRM, you might not be too happy about any of this.
10. Using WMP 10 to synchronize with the PMC seems to be broken. I keep telling it to synchronize and it keeps pretending that it is, but it isn't. I have about 16GB of songs to synchronize. With my iPod, I had the process of synchronization completed in less than an hour. I just plugged in my iPod to the cradle and everything just worked. With the PMC
Could Microsoft's new Information Rights Management (IRM) scheme help to solve this problem?
As I understand the medical transcription business, the transcribers are given paper records and are tasked with transcribing those paper records into electronic form. So it seems that IRM would not help to solve this problem.
Does the medical transcription business work differently than I understand?
Possibly a very good idea
on
Gentoo Games
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Recently, I gained a first-hand understanding of the frustration of having to explain to a child that the game that was just bought for the child won't run on the child's computer due to some software incompatibility.
Before now, I had always assumed that by paying attention to logos on boxes, etc. it would be possible to avoid such problems. However, a child doesn't care about things like logos when shopping for games. Instead, a child cares about things like pictures on boxes. Once a child makes up his/her mind in a store that he/she wants a particular game, as a parent it's difficult to argue against a chosen game on the basis of lack of logos. Instead, it is sometimes easiest to just take a chance and buy the game (even if un-logoed) and hope that it will work.
Of course, a parent quickly learns that taking a chance often ends in the game-won't-work frustration that I mentioned earlier. What's a parent to do?
Enter consoles.
Consoles are great at solving this problem. During the shopping trip, a parent can simply say to his child "you can have any game as long as it's from the PlayStation section." When the child picks a game from the PlayStation section, the parent can be assured that the game will run and that there won't be any frustration.
Does this relate to Gentoo Games? Yes.
Bundling pre-integrated, no-install-required Linux in with a bootable game cd basically changes the experience of using a general purpose computer into the experience of using a gaming console. Just pop in the game cd and run, the same as when using a PlayStation. In both cases, the OS is invisible and irrelevant. Perfect.
Granted, there could still be considerable hardware incompatibility issues. However, at least the software incompability issues would be gone as they would have been resolved beforehand by the game developer. Given the pain that average computer users have when installing software on Linux, this could be a big advantage.
Perhaps Gentoo's compile-upon-install model could be leveraged to eliminate many of the hardware incompatibility issues by compiling some stuff to the needs of the hardware upon startup. On a network-enabled computer, the startup routine could even include a fetch of necessary drivers, etc.
Anyway, as a new buy-games-for-children parent, I appreciate anything that would make the experience of gaming on general purpose computers be more like the experience of gaming on consoles.
1. There's way too much prior art and the application's scope is way too broad for the application to be approved. Even the mighty Microsoft will not be able to persuade the USPO to accept this Al Gore-like claim of invention of most/all things Internet-like.
2. Although the patent application will not get approved, some existing and potential Mono developers will probably still reconsider the idea of contributing to the Mono effort. In other words, it seems that the mere filing of this patent application will weaken the Mono effort. Although Microsoft probably did not file this patent just for the sake of damaging the Mono effort, maybe Microsoft did conclude that the most effective means of preventing loss of.NET control to open source implementations would be to create uncertainty around such implementations by filing patent applications, etc.
3. The sales teams of the J2EE vendors ought to have a lot of fun with this. Basically, Microsoft just handed the J2EE sales teams a great big FUD opportunity. This patent application creates uncertainty around.NET, and Microsoft's silence on the application will only compound the uncertainty. IT buyers are already reluctant to build on.NET, and will be even more reluctant when the J2EE sales teams starting pointing to this patent application and making claims that.NET is not an open platform, that Microsoft will never permit.NET to run on Linux, etc.
4. You don't have to get anybody's permission to create apis or frameworks with C++.
Libraries shouldn't ignore majority interests. Therefore, libraries should include classic Windows titles such as Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows", Jeffrey Richter's "Programming Applications for Windows" and Don Box's "Essential COM".
Slashdot Mirror
Where did you get your statistics from?
Was there any mention of a new version of iWork? All that I heard was that iWork would gain the ability to work with iCloud documents. Also, was there any mention of OpenGL or OpenCL or Core Animation or Xcode? It seemed that most of the software development announcements were related to connectivity plumbing.
...then newspapers sure don't have to worry about competition from Slashdot.
Seriously folks, how is Google competitively threatening Microsoft?
How many people here have written checks to Google that they would have otherwise written to Microsoft?
Put another way, in what product categories could you purchase a Google offering instead of a Microsoft offering? Google doesn't offer an operating system product and doesn't offer an office productivity suite.
Recently, I purchased an Apple PowerBook instead of a Wintel laptop. And recently I purchased an Apple iPod instead of a Microsoft-backed MP3 player. Then and now, Google did not offer any competitive products in either of those categories. In other words, Apple was a competitor to Microsoft for my money, but Google was not.
While it may be true that Google is the most sophisticated billboard company on the planet, selling advertising has never been one of Microsoft's core lines of business. So, even if Google had 100% of the Internet billboard revenues and Microsoft had 0%, how would Google be threatening Microsoft?
There are those who believe that Google will someday undermine Microsoft's operating system and office productivity suite lines of business by offering subscription-based versions of each or even free versions of each. Well, how many people here want to pay subscription fees for software that is currently available in product form? Not many, I'd bet. Especially if using that subscription software also required storing your sensitive data on Google's servers. And as far as free software goes, Linux and OpenOffice are available for free now, yet at least within the U.S. neither is threatening Windows and MS Office today.
And regarding all of this talk about AJAX-based offerings, let's get real folks. Who here would really like to trade in their desktop apps for AJAX-based apps?
In my opinion, Microsoft has a locked in customer base and currently has Google trapped in a browser. As things stand now, Google is not a genuine competitive threat to Microsoft. The only way that Google will be able to become a genuine competitive threat is if Microsoft makes a serious mistake by heading down its proposed path of competing with Google on Google's browser-based terms.
I agree with you about the significance of Automator. For me, after Spotlight, Automator is the most appealing feature of Tiger. What I like most about Automator is not just that it is a friendlier command line for authoring complex commands, but that "reading" somebody else's Automator "scripts" will be much easier than reading somebody else's batch files.
Do you know if will be possible to author Automator actions in C? C++? Will Automator support conditionals and branching?
I care.
Apple claims on its website that some of its software (e.g. Motion) is designed for the G5. Given that stuff like Motion is what I intend to run on a Powerbook, and given that I don't want to run afoul of any of Apple's support policy silliness, I'm waiting for a Powerbook G5.
Doug
Critics of anti-ballistic missile defense systems have often pointed out the futility of trying to build a missile defense system. As the critics have explained, it will always be easier to build an effective missile offense than it will be to build an effective defense.
So, it seemed tragically humorous when the press spokesman for the missile defense effort inadvertantly agreed with the critics when the press spokesman proclaimed that although the interceptor had failed, the target missile had functioned properly.
With all of the money being spent on this program, it seems to me that it ought to be possible to hire a more savvy spokesman.
Let's go even further:
1. Jay Patel subjects himself to all of the types of background checks that Abika currently offers.
2. Then, Jay publishes all of the results of all of the above checks on http://www.abika.com.
However, doing that would still provide Jay an advantage that most background check targets wouldn't have: the opportunity to verify the accuracy of all reported information. So, to make things even more fair, it should be possible to go to http://www.abika.com and perform any background check on Jay Patel at any time and receive the results of the check without Jay getting an opportunity to review the results.
However, even that wouldn't address all of the problems with Abika. Are the results of Abika's background checks re-publishable without Abika's permission or the target's permission? In other words, could I copy and paste the results from an Abika background check into a blog for others to read? If the answer is "no", then clearly Abika isn't believing its own philosophy that public information is good. If the answer is "yes" then what will happen if I alter the background check results when pasting them into the blog, especially if I cite the source of the results as http://www.abika.com?
Speaking of sources, does Abika permit its customers to know the sources of Abika's information? I doubt it, as that would greatly reduce Abika's value proposition. So, that means that Abika is trying to establish itself as a trusted source of factual information. And that is the *scariest* aspect of all!
My feelings are the same as yours actually. I would really rather find a way to convince Jay Patel of his "moronity" that doesn't require punishing his family. However, given the extreme stupidity of Jay Patel's stance, I doubt that he would be convinced to change his stance by anything other than an extreme example of the implications of his stance.
...that was aired recently, the founder of Abika claimed that privacy is stupid and that he doesn't believe in it. In short, he declared his hostility to the very notion of privacy.
Perhaps it would be possible to publish some of his family's private information on the web to test his conviction that privacy is stupid. Perhaps this could be done in the same way that folks published some facts from Poindexter's private life as a response to the Total Information Awareness initiative.
Also, Abika's business model depends upon privacy. In other words, in the upper right hand side of http://www.abika.com, there is a "private, confidential, guaranteed" logo, which makes sense as Abika's services would be far less attractive to customers without such a guarantee. If Jay Patel really believes that privacy is stupid, then I challenge him to publish on his website the results of all background checks. More importantly, I challenge Jay Patel to inform the targets of background checks when checks are being performed and also of the identity of the requesters of the checks. After all, the major credit reporting agencies such as TRW are now being forced to report such information to the targets of credit checks, so why should Abika be permitted to operate any differently?
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_7
You don't seem to understand what I'm saying.
Potential customers don't have to justify their opinions. Potential sellers do. Sellers have the burden of proof -- not customers. That is an engineering and business attitude that Microsoft and the Linux community gets and that Apple and the Mac crowd don't seem to get.
In other words, as a potential customer, all that I have to say is that in my opinion OS X has a poor UI and is primitive. It's not my problem to justify my comments. I can post on Slashdot all day about how I don't like the Mac UI without justification. And I can spend my time and dollars on Windows and Linux stuff instead of Mac stuff simply because I think that the Mac UI is poor and primitive. It's Apple's problem to change OS X so that I don't hold those opinions and so that I spend my time and money on their products.. At least that is the attitude that Apple should have if they want to improve the sales of their product.
Think of it this way: do you provide a detailed justification of your vote when you fill in a Slashdot poll? How about when you vote for President? It's not a voter's job to justify to a candidate why the voter did not vote for the candidate. It's the candidate's job to convince the voter to vote for the candidate.
By the way, Steve Jobs is fond of characterizing Microsoft and Microsoft's products in broad terms, without providing detailed justification. For example, I once heard Steve summarize Microsoft and Microsoft's products as lacking "style." Steve never bothered to explain exactly what he meant by that. And certainly I've heard more than a few people of the Apple crowd proclaim the "coolness" and "beauty" of OS X without ever justifying either claim in a detailed fashion. In short, the Apple crowd shouldn't condemn unsupported general statements while at the same time making them.
Too often I find that the Apple crowd seems to believe that the superiority of Apple products is self-evident, and that those of us who don't believe in that superiority are just blind or something. Well, once again, I say to the Apple crowd "prove it." Make a case for how the OS X UI is better than the Windows UI or KDE or Gnome.
The Apple crowd never ceases to amaze me. I can always count on Apple people to assume that their OS is superior until proven otherwise. And I can always count on them to assume that a Slashdot comment about being glad for some criticism of Macs is a troll. And I can always count on them to level personal attacks on any person who dares to criticize an Apple product.
First of all, my initial post was not a troll. I sincerely meant what I said: it's nice to hear somebody criticizing the Mac. The Mac seems to get a free pass in the media and among the Slashdot crowd. The folks in the Slashdot crowd seem to be quick to criticize Windows and seem to be equally quick to praise OS X. Why?
As I write this I'm sitting in a laboratory where there are Windows boxes and Macs. Each is equipped with similar software, most significantly Mathematica, web browsers and MS Office. All of the users (engineers) are sitting (by choice) at the Windows boxes. Nobody is sitting at the Mac boxes. Occasionally I poll the users to find out why basically nobody *ever* uses the Macs, and the reply is pretty much always the same: Macs suck. The users strongly prefer to use Windows boxes.
When I claim that I don't like the Mac UI I have said enough. I don't have a burden to provide specific criticisms. I'm a customer, not a person being paid to give product feedback. If I don't like something, then all that I have to say is that I don't like it. Period. Likewise for all of the other engineers in this lab who choose on a daily basis to not like the Macs and to instead prefer the Windows boxes.
The Mac is the market weakling, not the market giant. The burden to prove that customers should use the market weakling product is clearly on the defenders of the Mac *faith*. The burden is not on those who are using the market giant. If you Mac folks truly believe that the Mac UI is better, than you have the burden to prove it.
Rather than reply to anybody's charge's of "flailing about" (a charge made without evidence by a person criticizing me for not producing evidence), I'd suggest that the Mac fans instead take a harder look at the way that they form opinions about the Mac and the way that they respond to criticisms of the Mac. Believe it or not, folks who criticize the Mac can do so sincerely and with validity.
Perhaps the defenders of the Mac *faith* should take a look at UI design documents that discussion such ideas as task-driven, inductive UI. The Mac UI does not employ such modern conventions, at least not to a significant degree or in a consistent manner.
The Mac UI Emperor simply has no clothes, and I'm glad that Raskin and others are willing to say so.
It's nice to hear some criticism of the Mac, especially of the Mac's user interface.
Too often all that we hear in the press is how beautiful and superior the Mac's UI is compared to the UI of Windows. I've never been able to understand such claims. In my opinion, the Mac UI is way worse than the UI of Windows and of KDE and of Gnome.
I mostly use Windows, and occasionally use Linux with KDE or Gnome. I'd like to switch to Macs so that I could have the benefit of using a *nix-based OS on a tightly-integrated OS/hardware combination. However, despite spending hours in front of Macs in Apple stores and in university labs, I just can't find a way to get along with the Mac UI. It seems to be primitive, poorly-designed and of relatively poor quality. I almost always conclude my Mac sessions by scratching my head and wondering why anybody would want to use a computer that has such a poor UI. In short, I try to like the Mac, but I just can't. The poor UI gets in the way.
I'd switch to Macs right now if the Macs had a UI more like the Windows UI. But given that such a change will probably never happen, I'll guess that I'll stick with Windows and Linux.
On Thursday afternoon I bought one of these PMCs from Best Buy. On Friday morning I returned it.
.NET Compact Framework apps for the unit, but there doesn't seem to be any provision in the unit's UI (i.e. no "Start" menu) for running custom apps.
I returned it because, plain and simple, it sucks.
Before I explain some of the ways that it sucks, let me first say that I bought the PMC on Thursday in exchange for a misbehaving 40GB 4th generation iPod. I loved the iPod, but was concerned that the iPod had stability problems. Having gone through two unstable iPods, I thought, "What the Hell, maybe a Microsoft/Creative device could work" and so decided to give the PMC a try. Within a few hours of trying I concluded that I would rather have an unstable iPod than a sucky and almost unusable PMC. So, when I returned the PMC I exchanged it for another iPod.
Anyway, here are some of the problems that I found with the PMC:
1. The PMC is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off switch within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used. In gneral, I'd predict that because many of the unit's buttons protrude from the unit and are so cheap that they would not survive normal everday wear and tear.
4. The unit's size and buttons make it impossible to operate the unit with just one hand. This is unacceptable for common everyday usage where one of your hands might be holding a cup of coffee, a newspaper or a cigarette.
5. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new and instead looks kind of gross.
6. The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box. The unit looks like one of those things designed by someone who has no sense of style.
7. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
8. Although the unit's UI seems to be easy to figure out, mostly this seems to be because the feature set of the unit has been dummed down to the point that the unit doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less. In fact, I had expected to be able to write
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Than
I just bought one of these things a few hours ago, in part because of your favorable review.
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I am thoroughly disappointed with the PMC and am already hoping that I can get my money back from Best Buy. I wrote a few comments about my initial impressions here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=120403&thresh
I'm glad that you are enjoying your PMC. But to me, the PMC is inferior in just about every way to the iPod. The PMC and WMP 10 combination is beginning to remind me of that car that Homer Simpson designed.
A couple of hours ago I exchanged my new fourth generation 40GB iPod for one of these units.
...the unit seems to be dummed down to the point that it doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less.
I loved my iPod, but it was unstable and locked up repeatedly. It was my second such iPod to do so. My first such iPod was one that I had bought only two weeks ago. I exchanged the first iPod for the second iPod because after only one day of use the first iPod had begun locking up. Many thanks to Best Buy for living up to their 30 day return policy.
Anyway, with regard to the Zen PMC, my initial impressions are mixed:
1. The unit is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used.
4. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new.
5. (Completly subjective) The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box.
6. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
7. The unit's UI is very easy to figure out. Mostly that's because...
8.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. Without getting very far at all I got so annoyed with WMP 10 that I decided to post these comments. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Thanks Microsoft. And this is not just any beta software. This is software that installs a bunch of DRM stuff onto your computer. In fact, there are several steps in the installation procedure where you encounter DRM-related dialog boxes. These dialog boxes explain things such as the fact that the installer connects to Microsoft's servers to register your computer with Microsoft so Microsoft can assign your machine some sort DRM ticket. Depending upon how you feel about DRM, you might not be too happy about any of this.
10. Using WMP 10 to synchronize with the PMC seems to be broken. I keep telling it to synchronize and it keeps pretending that it is, but it isn't. I have about 16GB of songs to synchronize. With my iPod, I had the process of synchronization completed in less than an hour. I just plugged in my iPod to the cradle and everything just worked. With the PMC
Could Microsoft's new Information Rights Management (IRM) scheme help to solve this problem?
As I understand the medical transcription business, the transcribers are given paper records and are tasked with transcribing those paper records into electronic form. So it seems that IRM would not help to solve this problem.
Does the medical transcription business work differently than I understand?
Recently, I gained a first-hand understanding of the frustration of having to explain to a child that the game that was just bought for the child won't run on the child's computer due to some software incompatibility.
Before now, I had always assumed that by paying attention to logos on boxes, etc. it would be possible to avoid such problems. However, a child doesn't care about things like logos when shopping for games. Instead, a child cares about things like pictures on boxes. Once a child makes up his/her mind in a store that he/she wants a particular game, as a parent it's difficult to argue against a chosen game on the basis of lack of logos. Instead, it is sometimes easiest to just take a chance and buy the game (even if un-logoed) and hope that it will work.
Of course, a parent quickly learns that taking a chance often ends in the game-won't-work frustration that I mentioned earlier. What's a parent to do?
Enter consoles.
Consoles are great at solving this problem. During the shopping trip, a parent can simply say to his child "you can have any game as long as it's from the PlayStation section." When the child picks a game from the PlayStation section, the parent can be assured that the game will run and that there won't be any frustration.
Does this relate to Gentoo Games? Yes.
Bundling pre-integrated, no-install-required Linux in with a bootable game cd basically changes the experience of using a general purpose computer into the experience of using a gaming console. Just pop in the game cd and run, the same as when using a PlayStation. In both cases, the OS is invisible and irrelevant. Perfect.
Granted, there could still be considerable hardware incompatibility issues. However, at least the software incompability issues would be gone as they would have been resolved beforehand by the game developer. Given the pain that average computer users have when installing software on Linux, this could be a big advantage.
Perhaps Gentoo's compile-upon-install model could be leveraged to eliminate many of the hardware incompatibility issues by compiling some stuff to the needs of the hardware upon startup. On a network-enabled computer, the startup routine could even include a fetch of necessary drivers, etc.
Anyway, as a new buy-games-for-children parent, I appreciate anything that would make the experience of gaming on general purpose computers be more like the experience of gaming on consoles.
1. There's way too much prior art and the application's scope is way too broad for the application to be approved. Even the mighty Microsoft will not be able to persuade the USPO to accept this Al Gore-like claim of invention of most/all things Internet-like.
.NET control to open source implementations would be to create uncertainty around such implementations by filing patent applications, etc.
.NET, and Microsoft's silence on the application will only compound the uncertainty. IT buyers are already reluctant to build on .NET, and will be even more reluctant when the J2EE sales teams starting pointing to this patent application and making claims that .NET is not an open platform, that Microsoft will never permit .NET to run on Linux, etc.
2. Although the patent application will not get approved, some existing and potential Mono developers will probably still reconsider the idea of contributing to the Mono effort. In other words, it seems that the mere filing of this patent application will weaken the Mono effort. Although Microsoft probably did not file this patent just for the sake of damaging the Mono effort, maybe Microsoft did conclude that the most effective means of preventing loss of
3. The sales teams of the J2EE vendors ought to have a lot of fun with this. Basically, Microsoft just handed the J2EE sales teams a great big FUD opportunity. This patent application creates uncertainty around
4. You don't have to get anybody's permission to create apis or frameworks with C++.
Libraries shouldn't ignore majority interests. Therefore, libraries should include classic Windows titles such as Charles Petzold's "Programming Windows", Jeffrey Richter's "Programming Applications for Windows" and Don Box's "Essential COM".