I completely agree! At MathZee, we develop educational software for preschool and kindergarten kids, and in our focus-group tests, kids find the iPad and iPod Touch many times more intuitive than a computer. So much so that we now first develop the iPad and iPod Touch version of our educational games.
I love Dropbox. It does it's job well and quietly. However, you are correct that this is not a very secure solution. Although Dropbox claims encryption for transfer and storage, the keys used for transfer and storage are Dropbox's. So, Dropbox employees can still see your docs. And considering that this discussion is about the "Home Directories," I wouldn't be very happy with that level of security.
I know that one can use TrueCrypt to work around this problem.. but then you need to remember to mount / dismount the TrueCrypt drive anytime you make changes to your documents. Not a very good solution either.
Well, it should be pretty obvious to everyone that all such stories have "Marketing" as a goal. However that doesn't make this story any less interesting. Kudos, Marcus! And all the best for this app.
In theory, with support for Canvas, Audio/Video tags etc, HTML 5 does seem like a better option than Silverlight (and even Flash, for most purposes). But when you consider that not even IE 8 will support these elements from HTML 5, and that a huge part of the userbase still uses (and will continue to use) IE7 / IE6, it doesn't take much to realize that we won't be seeing developers leaving Flash for HTML 5 anytime soon.
Seriously though, if you manage to stop these top spammers, then before you say, "Good riddance," new players will take up their space. If there's opportunity in this space, people will keep coming. There's no way you can get rid of spammers by stopping a handful of people.. however big they are in the spamming world.
But why is it that there were so many posts responding to this kid's question, but none of them went anywhere near the topic: "Scholarships that support FOSS" ? I wish I could post a more valuable comment, kid. I am impressed that you decided to not use your family's financial limitations as an excuse to skip applying to MIT / Caltech. Ambition is good -- as long as you know how to cope with failures.
If I were in your place, I would look at some very highly regarded public schools too. And as someone else said, if you are getting 30K from the family, then you are almost there. Can't you work part time and make up the difference? And why focus on scholarships that support FOSS? Look at all types of scholarships. I think that your family is already contributing a significant amount on your education. You can easily find sources to make up the difference. First focus on getting the best admit possible. Then you'll find out ways to pay for it. All the best.
Isn't HTC the world's largest smartphone maker? At a very high level, there are not many REVOLUTIONARY features in the android platform. The growing interest that this platform is getting is because of:
1. Software on the mobile devices / smartphones is usually terrible. Use any Symbian / Windows Mobile device for a few weeks and you will see how slow, counterintuitive, buggy and unintelligent the platform / user-interface is.
2. Android platform has the potential to become THE Linux platform for smartphones. Although Linux didn't get as successful on the desktop as I was hoping, it did get tremendous support from the development community. Looking at the limited market-share that Linux has on the desktop, it is heart-warming to see how many developers are working to provide all kinds of amazing applications to the Linux user. You do not have that kind of community in the smartphone market yet (Although there are some people developing Symbian and WinMo applications). If Android turns out to be a genuine platform, then we can be rest assured that a huge community will develop applications for it. Having Java as the language of choice helps as well.
3. One problem that Linux has on the desktop is that there are no big brand-names associated to it. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about Microsoft. And at least Tom and Dick know about Apple too. But none of them would be comfortable using Ubuntu or Fedora.. because of their unawareness. A Google platform called Android has a big brand-name. People trust Google.. in fact, more so than Microsoft. So, they won't worry about buying a Google Phone.
4. The openness of the Android platform makes it a real possibility that the smartphones of the future will NO LONGER be crippled by the Telecom Service Providers. Even if they do, it will hopefully be easy enough to install a fresh Android platform on the phone. This is tremendous in itself.
5. Google is an internet based company.. not desktop based. What does that mean to the smartphones? That means that we will no longer have the unnecessary tie-ups of the smartphones to the desktop. Those of you who have used smartphones enough know what I am talking about.
6. Never before have so many manufacturers and telecom service providers been brought together. And thanks to the potential of Android and the companies supporting it, and thanks to the iPhone, there's a good chance that the smartphone will finally become a commodity.
As much as I like Google and want them to win the 700MHz auction and open a new platform for us to develop mobile applications that are 'really' useful, I won't call them a player in the telecom scene just because they are bidding in the auction. When they win the auction and provide the infrastructure (Alone or with partners), only then will they really be a player in the telecom field. We just have to wait and watch.
It is always good if someone bothers to post about an application that (s)he is not impressed with (Like you did). But it will help more if users like you give specific examples of what's missing or what's slightly difficult to use etc.
In my case, I got so frustrated by the slow loading of documents in MS Office, the ever-so-frustrating virus-scanning of every document, and the lack of flexibility and anti-virus/anti-spyware mess of Windows (I know that the topic is not OSes), that I decided to move to Linux completely (After 5-6 years of dual-booting - Linux for work and Windows for gaming and office documents etc). Surprisingly I haven't had a single format problem in any MS document that I have imported, and I am very happy with my odt documents that I just save as Word doc before sending and nobody has complained.
Although I know that I am no power user. So maybe you are saying that OpenOffice is not ready for the power user. But in that case, I would like to know where and why.
For RealPlayer in particular, they do seem to pay attention when people hate something that the current version is doing. Only after people start hating something. Maybe they should pay attention to people before they add/modify something
No, my dear friend, I am an Indian. And I want people to get to know more about the Indian program before they claim that the money could have been better spent on "sanitation" instead:-)
No government spends all it's money on sanitation first before looking into something more progressive like Space research. I appreciate it when a country looks towards the future, and not just the immediate short-term solutions.
The somewhat betterment of the conditions (And I do not turn a blind eye to the fact that these betterments are still only on the surface) in India is largely because of it's new-found IT power, opening of market to the west and getting more exposure to the outside world. Not because India was employing more people in the Sanitation department. Continuing in the same direction will have a good enough trickle-down effect to eventually help sanitation too (I know that you used sanitation only as an example. I am also using it only as an example).
Moreover, unlike most other space agencies, the Indian program still focuses a lot on educational broadcasting and remote sensing. Better than launching those "Spy" satellite, IMHO.
I didn't see xvid or h.264 mentioned anywhere in the link, but even if they did support xvid and h.264 playback, that doesn't mean supporting these formats in streaming. Note that Xbox 360 supports only WMV and Mpeg2 streaming (The later, only through Media Center).
Without the support for streaming, the only other option for someone trying to turn an Xbox 360 into a media center will be to use an external hard drive via USB. That's not an ideal solution because (a) the hard drive will need to be Fat32 - What do you do about your high-def files that are 4GB+? (b) The front-end for an external hard-drive based videos is no where as good as that of a Media Center or Myth TV.
Among other things, Microsoft created the additional designation of Windows Vista "Premium Ready" to indicate that a machine was capable of running the operating system's advanced features, meeting premium hardware requirements including a full gigabyte of system memory.
That "premium" designation was made available for PC makers and retailers to use in places such as computer boxes and in-store marketing materials, said Mike Burk, a Windows product manager. Microsoft also detailed the hardware requirements for the various Windows Vista versions in places including its own Web site.
However, the distinction wasn't made in the general "Windows Vista Capable" stickers.
The suit alleges that it was deceptive to include that logo on machines not capable of running all the features Microsoft was touting as capabilities of Windows Vista in general. If the PC can run Vista (Aero is not Vista), then it can say it's Vista capable. What's wrong with that? I am also a Linux user and MS basher (Like much of Slashdot), but this is just stupid.
Hmm.. Since reading about GWT the first time (And creating an asynchronous CLI module from it within an hour), I have been on and off about GWT. I wasn't sure I wanted to rely on one more framework that I may have difficulty debugging later. Since then I've come to appreciate GWT more and more.
For a Java developer like me (Who never feels comfortable with Javascripts), GWT is valuable. A swing like UI library like GWT gives you easy RPC and Serialization support. That's all that you need as an application developer. The client side becomes an extension of your back-end application instead of being a complex and difficult to understand layer. Experienced developers of Java server applications can very easily develop client side with this toolkit, something that they could never do (Without major change in focus) with the traditional frameworks.
One strong point of GWT is that it re-enforces the point that the client side should ONLY deal with the presentation of data. Nothing else.
I am not sure how capable it is at implementing very rich interfaces (Since I've only targetted small sub-modules with it so far). My feeling, though, is that you should be able to create some really rich applications with it. Perhaps, if your application has a long-term future, modifying or building your own widgets based on the toolkit shouldn't be far-fetched either.
It isn't 1984 anymore. There is nothing new in video games to warrent actually having a computer science degree.. I can't stress enough on how nonsensical this statement is. I find statements like, "There's nothing left here to research" very silly.
Please note that the questions is about "Game coders", not about music developers or graphics developers. The reason it's better to educate yourself in Computer Science and Software Engineering is because you want to be a scientist / engineer, not a mechanic. Game programming is still programming and has all the requirements (In fact, at times more challenging requirements) as any other sort of programming. And don't we all keep telling college kids to focus on the "Science" aspect of "Computer Science" for the long run benefits?
A Compsci degree will train the student to think in an analytical way to solve problems and understand the mathematical background of games. While a game design specific degree will train the student to follow an already defined path (Which will get obsolete in a couple of years anyway). A computer science student will be able to handle all problems technical or otherwise reasonably well. Game programming is a complex field. Not having thorough understanding of maths and computer science can only produce average-at-best programmers. In fact, in some cases, even maths and physics graduates will be more valuable to a game programming task than a game design degree holder.
For now, knowing game programming doesn't mean that you understand computer science. But the other way round is true (To some extent).
Tivo is not necessarily the right product to compare it against. I think comparison between AppleTV and XBox 360 based IP TV will be a better apples to apples comparison (Saw what I did there? Saw what I did there?)
IP based TV is one area where I don't see Apple making a dent on Microsoft's solution. There are many things going Microsoft's way here: (a) Microsoft's 10 million or so install-base (b) The fact that unlike most other Microsoft products, 360 has decent reputation and following in it's field (c) Xbox Live is also very much "alive" already (d) There will be a huge intersection of gamers and early adopters of IP based TV (e) Xbox 360 is already connected to your TV and your home-theatre
I will take notice of this technology (or wrapping of technologies) when Adobe gets their own cash-cows (Read Photoshop et al) run on this platform. That is perhaps the only way Linux is going to get these Adobe applications running natively. Going by the number of people who use "Photoshop" as a reason not to switch to Linux, I think this will be huge.
I agree that OpenNMS is more of a data-collection / events application than a true Network Management System. But support for CORBA (Isn't CORBA dead already?:-), various databases, remote upgrades and core NMS features (Like your specific Configuration Management requirements, Accounting and specific protocol management) can be added to OpenNMS more easily (Since it is open source - although I hate the fact that they chose to use GPL for licensing).
Having worked on proprietary tools for building NMS for around 7 years, I can tell you that we don't need an NMS tool / framework can cover all the features that we would want. Thanks to the unique and weird requirements that different deployments / customers have, it's silly to expect a "Universal NMS" solution from an Open Source group or even a company like IBM or HP that just works. What we need is a solution / framework that lets us build our true NMS solution on top of it. And being open source, being less restrictive / less bloated than OpenView or Tivoli, and being more focussed on only the core aspects of NMS, I think OpenNMS deserves the attention that it got / gets.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree! At MathZee, we develop educational software for preschool and kindergarten kids, and in our focus-group tests, kids find the iPad and iPod Touch many times more intuitive than a computer. So much so that we now first develop the iPad and iPod Touch version of our educational games.
I love Dropbox. It does it's job well and quietly. However, you are correct that this is not a very secure solution. Although Dropbox claims encryption for transfer and storage, the keys used for transfer and storage are Dropbox's. So, Dropbox employees can still see your docs. And considering that this discussion is about the "Home Directories," I wouldn't be very happy with that level of security. I know that one can use TrueCrypt to work around this problem .. but then you need to remember to mount / dismount the TrueCrypt drive anytime you make changes to your documents. Not a very good solution either.
Well, it should be pretty obvious to everyone that all such stories have "Marketing" as a goal. However that doesn't make this story any less interesting. Kudos, Marcus! And all the best for this app.
In theory, with support for Canvas, Audio/Video tags etc, HTML 5 does seem like a better option than Silverlight (and even Flash, for most purposes). But when you consider that not even IE 8 will support these elements from HTML 5, and that a huge part of the userbase still uses (and will continue to use) IE7 / IE6, it doesn't take much to realize that we won't be seeing developers leaving Flash for HTML 5 anytime soon.
Hate the Sin, But Not the Sinner
.. however big they are in the spamming world.
Seriously though, if you manage to stop these top spammers, then before you say, "Good riddance," new players will take up their space. If there's opportunity in this space, people will keep coming. There's no way you can get rid of spammers by stopping a handful of people
This was funny!
But why is it that there were so many posts responding to this kid's question, but none of them went anywhere near the topic: "Scholarships that support FOSS" ? I wish I could post a more valuable comment, kid. I am impressed that you decided to not use your family's financial limitations as an excuse to skip applying to MIT / Caltech. Ambition is good -- as long as you know how to cope with failures.
If I were in your place, I would look at some very highly regarded public schools too. And as someone else said, if you are getting 30K from the family, then you are almost there. Can't you work part time and make up the difference? And why focus on scholarships that support FOSS? Look at all types of scholarships. I think that your family is already contributing a significant amount on your education. You can easily find sources to make up the difference. First focus on getting the best admit possible. Then you'll find out ways to pay for it. All the best.
Isn't HTC the world's largest smartphone maker? At a very high level, there are not many REVOLUTIONARY features in the android platform. The growing interest that this platform is getting is because of:
.. because of their unawareness. A Google platform called Android has a big brand-name. People trust Google .. in fact, more so than Microsoft. So, they won't worry about buying a Google Phone.
.. not desktop based. What does that mean to the smartphones? That means that we will no longer have the unnecessary tie-ups of the smartphones to the desktop. Those of you who have used smartphones enough know what I am talking about.
1. Software on the mobile devices / smartphones is usually terrible. Use any Symbian / Windows Mobile device for a few weeks and you will see how slow, counterintuitive, buggy and unintelligent the platform / user-interface is.
2. Android platform has the potential to become THE Linux platform for smartphones. Although Linux didn't get as successful on the desktop as I was hoping, it did get tremendous support from the development community. Looking at the limited market-share that Linux has on the desktop, it is heart-warming to see how many developers are working to provide all kinds of amazing applications to the Linux user. You do not have that kind of community in the smartphone market yet (Although there are some people developing Symbian and WinMo applications). If Android turns out to be a genuine platform, then we can be rest assured that a huge community will develop applications for it. Having Java as the language of choice helps as well.
3. One problem that Linux has on the desktop is that there are no big brand-names associated to it. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows about Microsoft. And at least Tom and Dick know about Apple too. But none of them would be comfortable using Ubuntu or Fedora
4. The openness of the Android platform makes it a real possibility that the smartphones of the future will NO LONGER be crippled by the Telecom Service Providers. Even if they do, it will hopefully be easy enough to install a fresh Android platform on the phone. This is tremendous in itself.
5. Google is an internet based company
6. Never before have so many manufacturers and telecom service providers been brought together. And thanks to the potential of Android and the companies supporting it, and thanks to the iPhone, there's a good chance that the smartphone will finally become a commodity.
As much as I like Google and want them to win the 700MHz auction and open a new platform for us to develop mobile applications that are 'really' useful, I won't call them a player in the telecom scene just because they are bidding in the auction. When they win the auction and provide the infrastructure (Alone or with partners), only then will they really be a player in the telecom field. We just have to wait and watch.
It is always good if someone bothers to post about an application that (s)he is not impressed with (Like you did). But it will help more if users like you give specific examples of what's missing or what's slightly difficult to use etc. In my case, I got so frustrated by the slow loading of documents in MS Office, the ever-so-frustrating virus-scanning of every document, and the lack of flexibility and anti-virus/anti-spyware mess of Windows (I know that the topic is not OSes), that I decided to move to Linux completely (After 5-6 years of dual-booting - Linux for work and Windows for gaming and office documents etc). Surprisingly I haven't had a single format problem in any MS document that I have imported, and I am very happy with my odt documents that I just save as Word doc before sending and nobody has complained. Although I know that I am no power user. So maybe you are saying that OpenOffice is not ready for the power user. But in that case, I would like to know where and why.
Never, it seems
No, my dear friend, I am an Indian. And I want people to get to know more about the Indian program before they claim that the money could have been better spent on "sanitation" instead :-)
No government spends all it's money on sanitation first before looking into something more progressive like Space research. I appreciate it when a country looks towards the future, and not just the immediate short-term solutions.
The somewhat betterment of the conditions (And I do not turn a blind eye to the fact that these betterments are still only on the surface) in India is largely because of it's new-found IT power, opening of market to the west and getting more exposure to the outside world. Not because India was employing more people in the Sanitation department. Continuing in the same direction will have a good enough trickle-down effect to eventually help sanitation too (I know that you used sanitation only as an example. I am also using it only as an example).
Moreover, unlike most other space agencies, the Indian program still focuses a lot on educational broadcasting and remote sensing. Better than launching those "Spy" satellite, IMHO.
I think that this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research _Organisation article has some good details about the Indian Space program, for those interested.
Ahem .. never-mind !
I didn't see xvid or h.264 mentioned anywhere in the link, but even if they did support xvid and h.264 playback, that doesn't mean supporting these formats in streaming. Note that Xbox 360 supports only WMV and Mpeg2 streaming (The later, only through Media Center).
Without the support for streaming, the only other option for someone trying to turn an Xbox 360 into a media center will be to use an external hard drive via USB. That's not an ideal solution because (a) the hard drive will need to be Fat32 - What do you do about your high-def files that are 4GB+? (b) The front-end for an external hard-drive based videos is no where as good as that of a Media Center or Myth TV.
By gaining some experience in IT ! :-)
s/suite/suit
Hmm .. Since reading about GWT the first time (And creating an asynchronous CLI module from it within an hour), I have been on and off about GWT. I wasn't sure I wanted to rely on one more framework that I may have difficulty debugging later. Since then I've come to appreciate GWT more and more.
For a Java developer like me (Who never feels comfortable with Javascripts), GWT is valuable. A swing like UI library like GWT gives you easy RPC and Serialization support. That's all that you need as an application developer. The client side becomes an extension of your back-end application instead of being a complex and difficult to understand layer. Experienced developers of Java server applications can very easily develop client side with this toolkit, something that they could never do (Without major change in focus) with the traditional frameworks.
One strong point of GWT is that it re-enforces the point that the client side should ONLY deal with the presentation of data. Nothing else.
I am not sure how capable it is at implementing very rich interfaces (Since I've only targetted small sub-modules with it so far). My feeling, though, is that you should be able to create some really rich applications with it. Perhaps, if your application has a long-term future, modifying or building your own widgets based on the toolkit shouldn't be far-fetched either.
Please note that the questions is about "Game coders", not about music developers or graphics developers. The reason it's better to educate yourself in Computer Science and Software Engineering is because you want to be a scientist / engineer, not a mechanic. Game programming is still programming and has all the requirements (In fact, at times more challenging requirements) as any other sort of programming. And don't we all keep telling college kids to focus on the "Science" aspect of "Computer Science" for the long run benefits?
A Compsci degree will train the student to think in an analytical way to solve problems and understand the mathematical background of games. While a game design specific degree will train the student to follow an already defined path (Which will get obsolete in a couple of years anyway). A computer science student will be able to handle all problems technical or otherwise reasonably well. Game programming is a complex field. Not having thorough understanding of maths and computer science can only produce average-at-best programmers. In fact, in some cases, even maths and physics graduates will be more valuable to a game programming task than a game design degree holder.
For now, knowing game programming doesn't mean that you understand computer science. But the other way round is true (To some extent).
Tivo is not necessarily the right product to compare it against. I think comparison between AppleTV and XBox 360 based IP TV will be a better apples to apples comparison (Saw what I did there? Saw what I did there?)
IP based TV is one area where I don't see Apple making a dent on Microsoft's solution. There are many things going Microsoft's way here:
(a) Microsoft's 10 million or so install-base
(b) The fact that unlike most other Microsoft products, 360 has decent reputation and following in it's field
(c) Xbox Live is also very much "alive" already
(d) There will be a huge intersection of gamers and early adopters of IP based TV
(e) Xbox 360 is already connected to your TV and your home-theatre
I will take notice of this technology (or wrapping of technologies) when Adobe gets their own cash-cows (Read Photoshop et al) run on this platform. That is perhaps the only way Linux is going to get these Adobe applications running natively. Going by the number of people who use "Photoshop" as a reason not to switch to Linux, I think this will be huge.
"To detect this on radar you use two radars in two different positions and look for discrepancies in areas that don't return a signal."
.. so there will be no discrepancy, right?
In theory, the two radars will not return any signal (From the empty space, and from the aircraft)
I agree that OpenNMS is more of a data-collection / events application than a true Network Management System. But support for CORBA (Isn't CORBA dead already? :-), various databases, remote upgrades and core NMS features (Like your specific Configuration Management requirements, Accounting and specific protocol management) can be added to OpenNMS more easily (Since it is open source - although I hate the fact that they chose to use GPL for licensing).
Having worked on proprietary tools for building NMS for around 7 years, I can tell you that we don't need an NMS tool / framework can cover all the features that we would want. Thanks to the unique and weird requirements that different deployments / customers have, it's silly to expect a "Universal NMS" solution from an Open Source group or even a company like IBM or HP that just works. What we need is a solution / framework that lets us build our true NMS solution on top of it. And being open source, being less restrictive / less bloated than OpenView or Tivoli, and being more focussed on only the core aspects of NMS, I think OpenNMS deserves the attention that it got / gets.