This is a great announcement for those that consider Starbucks the only "real" cafe in their vicinity, i.e. suburban areas. Before I started branching out for different places to work at, I thought the same way: Starbucks has huge sit-downs with tons of outlets and decent coffee, so why should I have to look anywhere else?
This year, however, I've learned how far from the truth that notion really is. While I still stop at some Starbucks places sometimes when I'm on the move, I always prefer to do my work at a smaller, more personal cafe. They are usually much smaller than Starbucks and are definitely not as widespread., but the key is that they usually serve REAL food (in fact, some coffee shop owners grow their own fruits/vegetables in the cafe's backyard) and REALLY good coffee at cheaper prices. Additionally, the handful of people that run these cafes actually like their jobs, which I'd wager is probably because the patrons of such coffee houses are not the type that only care about getting their morning fix, regardless of their attitude. (They are almost universally Mac users, though.) It also helps that these places almost always have free Wi-Fi and MUCH better music selections.
I know I'm already way off-base (go ahead and mod me down if you think so, though if you've read this far, why would you?), but it also saddens me how Starbucks managed to turn the cafe into a McDonald's like franchise, drive-thrus, working conditions and all. From the many baristas that I've shot the shit with, their jobs really suck and are akin to working at McDonald's (minus the low pay and usually inept managers), which is exactly OPPOSITE to the way working at cafes should be. They're experimenting with starting a new tea house branch; I wonder how that'll work for them in the long run.
You and your client need web servers to launch the site. It's as simple as that. Tell them that if they can't afford cloud-based hosting, the alternative is a local solution that YOU (or whoever you hire) will be fully responsible for, from software maintenance all the way down to help desk support. Make sure they know that this is MUCH more expensive (because you WILL charge them accordingly for this, right?) and is not recommended (because I hope you value your time).
If I'm reading the problem right, I find it very irresponsible that the client went ahead with a website redesign project without thinking this far ahead. I hope they didn't rely on you to provide everything, because that definitely tells me they were looking for someone to abuse.
Either way, you need to be confident and ask for what you want. At this point and with this predicament, it would be more expensive and less wise for them to find some cheaper, so you have the leeway to do this.
I speak for the rest of us freelancers when I wish you good luck in getting it done!
I must be one of the few that LOVED the background images on Bing. They were especially pleasing to look at during the Winter Olympics; some of the shots they had were gold.
Thus, it goes without saying that I was pleased when I saw that Google went the same direction. Then again, lots of people just want to search, just like lots of people just want their morning coffee without the small talk.
Just get an Android phone. From a hardware perspective, the newest Android phones like the Droid Incredible are pretty close to this (or even exceed it in a few areas still), and they don't have the draconian policies. My bet is that HTC will soon leapfrog Apple once again (afterall, this thing just barely bests the Incredible, which has been out for a month or two) pretty soon. My next upgrade isn't due until this December and I'm guessing there will be some REALLY nice stuff out by then (I know HTC will have jumped one iteration by then, but I'm crossing my fingers on them being two iterations forward by then).
Hardware-wise, yes. The only problem is that Android is FAR from providing the same smoothness and "suave" that iPhone OS does. I own a G1. Maybe that's an old device according to today's standards, but considering that I had v2.1 loaded on it and have used it long enough to give it an honest try, I think I'm at a position to solidify this opinion.
For me, when a new Android phone comes out, my senses get kind of riled up, but simmer soon after. On the other hand, every single iPhone release, especially this one, has generated enough hype to power a first-world country for days and overload at least a good number of servers on announcement day. Yes, a large reason for that is solid marketing and excellent suspense tactics. However, unmatched (yes, unmatched) quality is a significant driver for that as well.
Call me an iShill, a RDF victim or whatever you want. Excepting Maemo and SymbianOS, I've tried and owned every offering there is, from the low-end basics to the supposed high-end "game changers." The last few years of trying, and returning, to my iPhone have proven to me that it is the best smartphone offering out there for most people of all kinds and that dropping probably $700(1) on the announced redesign is a worthwhile investment I will probably not regret.
At least I can get what I paid back if I'm wrong.
(1) I know that someone will gladly remind me that it's $199/$299, but let me preempt that: That is the price for AT&T customers looking to upgrade their iDevices or new AT&T customers signed up to the iPhone plan. $700 is the average price I've seen new iPhones selling for on Craigslist, which is where I've gotten all of my iPhones to date.
(2) Quad-band HSDPA is the business.
It goes both ways. With TV, you have the option of using it to educate yourself (PBS, news channels, Discovery, History, etc) or to turn your brain off (soap dramas, American Idol, sitcoms, etc). The only difference with the Internet is that it's (generally) quicker to access and is much more on-demand. If I wanted to learn about my hometown during World War II or something, I could use a search engine and find it. On the other hand, if I wanted to see dancing cats, I could find it on YouTube.
Actually, I'd argue that the Internet has the potential to make one smarter because developing content for the Internet has a barrier to entry that's much lower than developing content for nationwide television and/or radio.
Or simply go to http://help.benm.at/ and create a profile. Not sure if this works without jailbreaking, but it's super simple and only takes 2 minutes.
Tethering on the iPhone has been natively supported since version 3.0 and has been available practically since it's release in 2007 via jailbroken-only app stores. PdaNet, for one, has had an application for their seminary tethering solution for a long time now. Tethering works "officially" now because AT&T enabled tethering on their phone profiles for iPhone users who are provisioned correctly for it.
like others said, using a digital map is somewhat substantial evidence that the crime was premeditated. However, how is this any different from buying a map at the gas station and using that as a reference? If this statute includes other Internet-based applications like Facebook or Foursquare (possibly popular in New Orleans or Baton Rouge), how is targeting a person through those channels any worse than doing extensive, off-line research like criminals did in the "good old days?" I guess it makes amateur robberies a little easier/rewarding, but 10 years?!
Getting similar multitasking on iPhoneOS is only possible through jailbreaking, which is a concern for a LOT of people, considering they either aren't technical enough to do it (yes, I know it's super easy) or are afraid of potentially long-term consequences associated with it.
I never said it WASN'T capable of multi-tasking; I said that in order for iPhone users to enjoy similar multi-tasking privileges Android users currently have, they need to jailbreak their phone and install Backgrounder. Want proof? Get an iPhone and try listening to Pandora while browsing email in its stock form. HINT: it's not possible.
Additionally, the next version of iPhoneOS will allow more FLEXIBLE multi-tasking in that it will allow certain types of apps to run in the background (link). However, it's still not TRUE multitasking; by that, I mean that ANY app can run in the background when needed.
Again, that's fine for a mobile phone, but not fine for a more powerful tablet device. Considering that it was one of the more vocal complaints iPhone users had, I'd say that it's more than a minority issue at this point...
The one thing I hate about purchasing textbooks is that the most expensive ones tend to be for the "basic" subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Calculus, etc. These are the ones that would benefit most from being open-sourced, as the information they contain is highly generic in comparison to, say, microprocessor fabrication, and would save a LOT of departments money and time. Of course, this won't happen anytime soon; how else will the authors make decent royalties?
Nonetheless, for practically all really popular textbooks in any subject, there's a PDF for that. I haven't paid for a textbook in at least two years.
I disagree. Android is a multi-touch OS through and through, and its stock form is simple enough to be used by most people (or at least those who would purchase an iPad otherwise), but is flexible enough under the hood to allow curious types to modify to their heart's content. While it's true that Apple provides all of the apps most users will want to use the tablet for, Android does the same thing AND allows alternatives. Don't like the stock browser? Download another from the Market. Want a better eBook reader or camera app? Download them from the Market. iPad/iPhone users don't have that option.
Additionally, Android has another huge advantage in the tablet arena: it's capable of TRUE multitasking for all applications. This is somewhat detrimental for a phone since battery life and memory is already limited, but is not as much of an issue for tablets, which are expected to be way more powerful and don't have to dedicate resources to the cell phone component. Getting similar multitasking on iPhoneOS is only possible through jailbreaking, which is a concern for a LOT of people, considering they either aren't technical enough to do it (yes, I know it's super easy) or are afraid of potentially long-term consequences associated with it. Basically, it makes the tablet that much closer to a computer, without the extra overhead.
I was wrong about the source of most outages that happened to me, but the fact that I was completely dependent on a middleman server to deliver all of my data is hard to go back to after using an Android device or an iPhone for some time. The UI on the Blackberry stinks too, but that's just me. Some people could care less about that (especially for the business applications they're widely used for).
If BlackberryIM was made portable, I could see tons of people switching. That's the single most desirable feature most Blackberry owners cherish, and the only considerable alternative to that at the moment is Google Talk.
That's completely wrong. Blackberry devices are fantastic for email, calendaring, tasks and notes, but are horrific for anything outside of that. Android seems to have potential to supplant them in productivity, especially with suites like TouchDown that bring a rather fantastic Exchange experience to any Android device. They also have great browsers, too, something that Blackberrys may never get...
Then there are RIM outages, which happened somewhat frequently when I was on T-Mobile and had a Blackberry 8700 years ago...
BTW, the iPhone is pretty okay for corporate stuff; several top companies have been considering deploying them for the last year or so.
Dude, it's been possible to install carrier profiles since at least 3.1. I distinctly remember downloading them from http://www.benm.at/ when I had the original iPhone (I now have a iPhone 3GS and had a 3G before then).
Android apps actually cost more money for functionality that I've found comparable to the iPhone. Examples: SnapPhoto (to replace the crappy crap crap camera app that comes with 2.1 stock for the G1) and Touchdown ($19.99 to provide functionality that is similar to that in the iPhone plus Tasks)
Android is pretty good, but it's nowhere near as smooth as the iPhone, just as I predicted. I miss that smoothness; it even crashes more elegantly than Android does (Force closing?!)
Kind of sucks Usenet's going the way of the dodo, but evolution isn't always a forgiving process. I found lots of useful and hard to find information on newsgroups, but I've found the same level of information on forums as well. In my opinion, forums are way better: moderation, software-agnostic, etc.
A lot of folks are concluding that the guy is totally off the mark because of his black eggs theory, but aren't many security researchers really paranoid about this kind of stuff? If that's the case, then I think his assumption would be justified, as unrealistic as it might be. (His assumption is even more valid considering the location of the restaurant...)
That might be too obvious. Lots of Chinese restaurants, including the quick take-out ones, have shady back-room business going on. Chinese gift shops in Chinatown most definitely do; several women have told me of how simple it is to get legitimate luxury handbags at a fraction of the price from these places.
Some people spend so much time concentrating on the technical brilliance involved in computer hacking, they tend to forget that most of the pertinent and crippling attacks are byproducts of simple social engineering and breaches in trust.
If you work in, say, any financial institution, pay attention to the way your co-workers talk and behave.
I said that I had that impression before I started using it. After a few days, the resemblances between them mostly faded away except in a few small areas. For one, a bone-stock Windows Mobile ROM is far from attractive. The most attractive thing about it is its honeycomb Start menu, which looks incredibly dated amidst all of its alternatives, which lay its applications right in front of its user. Another big difference is that WinMo has barely any support for multi-touch out of the box; hell, it's not even all that finger-friendly (a lot of apps are designed to be used with a stylus, which, again, is terribly ancient nowadays).
Prior to having been given a G1 over the weekend, I didn't think very highly of Android OS. It strongly reminded me of the Windows Mobile scene I was involved in when I had my WinMo devices (Treo 750, HTC Excalibur/Raphael), which was anything but pleasant. However, as I spend more time with the device, I am constantly growing fonder of it. It's very versatile, extremely expansive and, in my opinion, is a mobile OS that actually has the potential to double as a useful and appropriate OS for tablet computing.
With that said, how does WebOS stack up against Android? On the whole, is it a stronger or weaker OS, and how much more difficult is it to develop for? I haven't yet tried making apps for the Android, but I've heard that it's very straightforward.
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This is a great announcement for those that consider Starbucks the only "real" cafe in their vicinity, i.e. suburban areas. Before I started branching out for different places to work at, I thought the same way: Starbucks has huge sit-downs with tons of outlets and decent coffee, so why should I have to look anywhere else?
This year, however, I've learned how far from the truth that notion really is. While I still stop at some Starbucks places sometimes when I'm on the move, I always prefer to do my work at a smaller, more personal cafe. They are usually much smaller than Starbucks and are definitely not as widespread., but the key is that they usually serve REAL food (in fact, some coffee shop owners grow their own fruits/vegetables in the cafe's backyard) and REALLY good coffee at cheaper prices. Additionally, the handful of people that run these cafes actually like their jobs, which I'd wager is probably because the patrons of such coffee houses are not the type that only care about getting their morning fix, regardless of their attitude. (They are almost universally Mac users, though.) It also helps that these places almost always have free Wi-Fi and MUCH better music selections.
I know I'm already way off-base (go ahead and mod me down if you think so, though if you've read this far, why would you?), but it also saddens me how Starbucks managed to turn the cafe into a McDonald's like franchise, drive-thrus, working conditions and all. From the many baristas that I've shot the shit with, their jobs really suck and are akin to working at McDonald's (minus the low pay and usually inept managers), which is exactly OPPOSITE to the way working at cafes should be. They're experimenting with starting a new tea house branch; I wonder how that'll work for them in the long run.
Nonetheless, free Wi-Fi is always good Wi-Fi.
Forgot to add: ask with respect, but don't be shy about it.
You and your client need web servers to launch the site. It's as simple as that. Tell them that if they can't afford cloud-based hosting, the alternative is a local solution that YOU (or whoever you hire) will be fully responsible for, from software maintenance all the way down to help desk support. Make sure they know that this is MUCH more expensive (because you WILL charge them accordingly for this, right?) and is not recommended (because I hope you value your time).
If I'm reading the problem right, I find it very irresponsible that the client went ahead with a website redesign project without thinking this far ahead. I hope they didn't rely on you to provide everything, because that definitely tells me they were looking for someone to abuse.
Either way, you need to be confident and ask for what you want. At this point and with this predicament, it would be more expensive and less wise for them to find some cheaper, so you have the leeway to do this.
I speak for the rest of us freelancers when I wish you good luck in getting it done!
I must be one of the few that LOVED the background images on Bing. They were especially pleasing to look at during the Winter Olympics; some of the shots they had were gold.
Thus, it goes without saying that I was pleased when I saw that Google went the same direction. Then again, lots of people just want to search, just like lots of people just want their morning coffee without the small talk.
Just get an Android phone. From a hardware perspective, the newest Android phones like the Droid Incredible are pretty close to this (or even exceed it in a few areas still), and they don't have the draconian policies. My bet is that HTC will soon leapfrog Apple once again (afterall, this thing just barely bests the Incredible, which has been out for a month or two) pretty soon. My next upgrade isn't due until this December and I'm guessing there will be some REALLY nice stuff out by then (I know HTC will have jumped one iteration by then, but I'm crossing my fingers on them being two iterations forward by then).
Hardware-wise, yes. The only problem is that Android is FAR from providing the same smoothness and "suave" that iPhone OS does. I own a G1. Maybe that's an old device according to today's standards, but considering that I had v2.1 loaded on it and have used it long enough to give it an honest try, I think I'm at a position to solidify this opinion.
For me, when a new Android phone comes out, my senses get kind of riled up, but simmer soon after. On the other hand, every single iPhone release, especially this one, has generated enough hype to power a first-world country for days and overload at least a good number of servers on announcement day. Yes, a large reason for that is solid marketing and excellent suspense tactics. However, unmatched (yes, unmatched) quality is a significant driver for that as well.
Call me an iShill, a RDF victim or whatever you want. Excepting Maemo and SymbianOS, I've tried and owned every offering there is, from the low-end basics to the supposed high-end "game changers." The last few years of trying, and returning, to my iPhone have proven to me that it is the best smartphone offering out there for most people of all kinds and that dropping probably $700(1) on the announced redesign is a worthwhile investment I will probably not regret.
At least I can get what I paid back if I'm wrong.
(1) I know that someone will gladly remind me that it's $199/$299, but let me preempt that: That is the price for AT&T customers looking to upgrade their iDevices or new AT&T customers signed up to the iPhone plan. $700 is the average price I've seen new iPhones selling for on Craigslist, which is where I've gotten all of my iPhones to date.
(2) Quad-band HSDPA is the business.
It goes both ways. With TV, you have the option of using it to educate yourself (PBS, news channels, Discovery, History, etc) or to turn your brain off (soap dramas, American Idol, sitcoms, etc). The only difference with the Internet is that it's (generally) quicker to access and is much more on-demand. If I wanted to learn about my hometown during World War II or something, I could use a search engine and find it. On the other hand, if I wanted to see dancing cats, I could find it on YouTube.
Actually, I'd argue that the Internet has the potential to make one smarter because developing content for the Internet has a barrier to entry that's much lower than developing content for nationwide television and/or radio.
Or simply go to http://help.benm.at/ and create a profile. Not sure if this works without jailbreaking, but it's super simple and only takes 2 minutes.
Tethering on the iPhone has been natively supported since version 3.0 and has been available practically since it's release in 2007 via jailbroken-only app stores. PdaNet, for one, has had an application for their seminary tethering solution for a long time now. Tethering works "officially" now because AT&T enabled tethering on their phone profiles for iPhone users who are provisioned correctly for it.
like others said, using a digital map is somewhat substantial evidence that the crime was premeditated. However, how is this any different from buying a map at the gas station and using that as a reference? If this statute includes other Internet-based applications like Facebook or Foursquare (possibly popular in New Orleans or Baton Rouge), how is targeting a person through those channels any worse than doing extensive, off-line research like criminals did in the "good old days?" I guess it makes amateur robberies a little easier/rewarding, but 10 years?!
This is what I said:
Getting similar multitasking on iPhoneOS is only possible through jailbreaking, which is a concern for a LOT of people, considering they either aren't technical enough to do it (yes, I know it's super easy) or are afraid of potentially long-term consequences associated with it.
I never said it WASN'T capable of multi-tasking; I said that in order for iPhone users to enjoy similar multi-tasking privileges Android users currently have, they need to jailbreak their phone and install Backgrounder. Want proof? Get an iPhone and try listening to Pandora while browsing email in its stock form. HINT: it's not possible.
Additionally, the next version of iPhoneOS will allow more FLEXIBLE multi-tasking in that it will allow certain types of apps to run in the background (link). However, it's still not TRUE multitasking; by that, I mean that ANY app can run in the background when needed.
Again, that's fine for a mobile phone, but not fine for a more powerful tablet device. Considering that it was one of the more vocal complaints iPhone users had, I'd say that it's more than a minority issue at this point...
The one thing I hate about purchasing textbooks is that the most expensive ones tend to be for the "basic" subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Calculus, etc. These are the ones that would benefit most from being open-sourced, as the information they contain is highly generic in comparison to, say, microprocessor fabrication, and would save a LOT of departments money and time. Of course, this won't happen anytime soon; how else will the authors make decent royalties?
Nonetheless, for practically all really popular textbooks in any subject, there's a PDF for that. I haven't paid for a textbook in at least two years.
I disagree. Android is a multi-touch OS through and through, and its stock form is simple enough to be used by most people (or at least those who would purchase an iPad otherwise), but is flexible enough under the hood to allow curious types to modify to their heart's content. While it's true that Apple provides all of the apps most users will want to use the tablet for, Android does the same thing AND allows alternatives. Don't like the stock browser? Download another from the Market. Want a better eBook reader or camera app? Download them from the Market. iPad/iPhone users don't have that option.
Additionally, Android has another huge advantage in the tablet arena: it's capable of TRUE multitasking for all applications. This is somewhat detrimental for a phone since battery life and memory is already limited, but is not as much of an issue for tablets, which are expected to be way more powerful and don't have to dedicate resources to the cell phone component. Getting similar multitasking on iPhoneOS is only possible through jailbreaking, which is a concern for a LOT of people, considering they either aren't technical enough to do it (yes, I know it's super easy) or are afraid of potentially long-term consequences associated with it. Basically, it makes the tablet that much closer to a computer, without the extra overhead.
I was wrong about the source of most outages that happened to me, but the fact that I was completely dependent on a middleman server to deliver all of my data is hard to go back to after using an Android device or an iPhone for some time. The UI on the Blackberry stinks too, but that's just me. Some people could care less about that (especially for the business applications they're widely used for).
If BlackberryIM was made portable, I could see tons of people switching. That's the single most desirable feature most Blackberry owners cherish, and the only considerable alternative to that at the moment is Google Talk.
Eclair works on the G1 with Cyanogen's CM5 ROM, but it's pretty slow unless you have SD swap. Even then, you need a Class 6 SD for it to be effective.
That's completely wrong. Blackberry devices are fantastic for email, calendaring, tasks and notes, but are horrific for anything outside of that. Android seems to have potential to supplant them in productivity, especially with suites like TouchDown that bring a rather fantastic Exchange experience to any Android device. They also have great browsers, too, something that Blackberrys may never get...
Then there are RIM outages, which happened somewhat frequently when I was on T-Mobile and had a Blackberry 8700 years ago...
BTW, the iPhone is pretty okay for corporate stuff; several top companies have been considering deploying them for the last year or so.
Dude, it's been possible to install carrier profiles since at least 3.1. I distinctly remember downloading them from http://www.benm.at/ when I had the original iPhone (I now have a iPhone 3GS and had a 3G before then).
Tethering on Android is quite nice, though.
Android apps actually cost more money for functionality that I've found comparable to the iPhone. Examples: SnapPhoto (to replace the crappy crap crap camera app that comes with 2.1 stock for the G1) and Touchdown ($19.99 to provide functionality that is similar to that in the iPhone plus Tasks)
Android is pretty good, but it's nowhere near as smooth as the iPhone, just as I predicted. I miss that smoothness; it even crashes more elegantly than Android does (Force closing?!)
Kind of sucks Usenet's going the way of the dodo, but evolution isn't always a forgiving process. I found lots of useful and hard to find information on newsgroups, but I've found the same level of information on forums as well. In my opinion, forums are way better: moderation, software-agnostic, etc.
A lot of folks are concluding that the guy is totally off the mark because of his black eggs theory, but aren't many security researchers really paranoid about this kind of stuff? If that's the case, then I think his assumption would be justified, as unrealistic as it might be. (His assumption is even more valid considering the location of the restaurant...)
That might be too obvious. Lots of Chinese restaurants, including the quick take-out ones, have shady back-room business going on. Chinese gift shops in Chinatown most definitely do; several women have told me of how simple it is to get legitimate luxury handbags at a fraction of the price from these places.
Some people spend so much time concentrating on the technical brilliance involved in computer hacking, they tend to forget that most of the pertinent and crippling attacks are byproducts of simple social engineering and breaches in trust.
If you work in, say, any financial institution, pay attention to the way your co-workers talk and behave.
That's a good point; I use T-Mobile on my iPhone, so I don't take that waiting into account.
Why do you need a SSH client when you can just download OpenSSH and use command line via Saurik's MobileTerminal?
I said that I had that impression before I started using it. After a few days, the resemblances between them mostly faded away except in a few small areas. For one, a bone-stock Windows Mobile ROM is far from attractive. The most attractive thing about it is its honeycomb Start menu, which looks incredibly dated amidst all of its alternatives, which lay its applications right in front of its user. Another big difference is that WinMo has barely any support for multi-touch out of the box; hell, it's not even all that finger-friendly (a lot of apps are designed to be used with a stylus, which, again, is terribly ancient nowadays).
Prior to having been given a G1 over the weekend, I didn't think very highly of Android OS. It strongly reminded me of the Windows Mobile scene I was involved in when I had my WinMo devices (Treo 750, HTC Excalibur/Raphael), which was anything but pleasant. However, as I spend more time with the device, I am constantly growing fonder of it. It's very versatile, extremely expansive and, in my opinion, is a mobile OS that actually has the potential to double as a useful and appropriate OS for tablet computing.
With that said, how does WebOS stack up against Android? On the whole, is it a stronger or weaker OS, and how much more difficult is it to develop for? I haven't yet tried making apps for the Android, but I've heard that it's very straightforward.