Posts by JEDIDIAH 2525 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2009
> One of the major problems faced by data centers is
> power requirements and cooling. ARMs are low
> power and run cooler. It's not just about the GHz.
No. It's about "getting stuff done". ARM kit is lousy for doing that. It's great for things like heat dissipation and power management. That's what makes a great mobile platform when married to speciality silicon that helps alleviate it's deficiencies.
> If Java was real open source, patent free then there
> would be about 10 different versions all incompatible
> and with their own extensions. Some
Not necessarily.
It all depends on how you do it.
This is one of the great advantages of copyleft licenses. Such forks CAN'T be put under anyone's thumb. If you create a fork then anyone else can take your changes and re-integrate them with the original project.
This is why Oracle making noises about it's own version of Linux are so absurd. Anything it improves, it has to give back to the users.
> Awful UI?
>
> What open source UI would you recommend then?
> Most at just a rip off of what Apple or Microsoft have done.
"most are just a rip off" pretty much describes all of them.
This goes for Apple OpenStep too.
Linux desktops were mocking NeXT long before Apple decided to get in on the action.
Some highlights:
a) a pager that doesn't require you to interrupt your workflow
b) no stupid global menu
c) useful dock/panel/meu that can actually embed useful information.
d) global package management
e) useful context menus
My tablet of choice already has a 500GB harddrive in it and it already seems cramped. Sure, it's a whole lot roomier than a 16G phone or a 16G tablet.. However, once you start to have use for a device with more than 120G, thinks quickly escalate. Individual HD recordings can be 20G a pop. So space can be eaten up fast.
A tablet that has enough room for all of my music, all of my photos, all my home videos and a nice selection of movies and TV?
Got that already. I don't have to wait until 2015. '-p
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibibyte
>
>vs.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte
SI units are meant to be more practical and convenient than their traditional counterparts. They aren't meant to be just some other random fiat handed down from on high. If that's all that they really are, then there's no point in using them versus traditional units.
If you think that a base 10 definition of a computing quantity makes sense then you suffer from the same very superficial level of understanding that the article was complaining about.
Anything that increases the number of significant figures I must use is loaded with fail.
> As said above, you'll still have the choice to install what
> you want anyway - so what's the issue?
Well, it's right here.
> There will be a simple, centralised repository where you
> can get a no doubt huge number of apps - easily.
If you want to be a first class citizen on the Mac platform you
have to basically put up with Apple's HOA and all of their
bogus CCNRs. This is in start contrast to a more open platform
like Linux where you can take advantage of all of the benefits
of an "app store" interface without having to make any compromises,
give up your liberties or sell your soul.
Of course Apple seeks to influence the nature of the platform. There
would be no other reason for subjecting developers to these sorts of
restrictions. Of course it is their hope that their desktop platform
becomes more like their phone platform.
Otherwise they would not bother with the BS and restrictions.
Without the sort of apps that Apple would not approve of, Macintosh simply isn't a truely n00b friendly platform.
> Can you only add iTunes purchases to an iPod..........er, no.
Actually, you can only add iTunes approved content to an iPod. It sits as the gatekeeper telling you what you can or can't put on the device. Also, the devices themselves can only handle the most basic QuickTime supported content.
If you try to "adapt" anything else, the Fanboys will instantly try to brand you a pirate.
> Isn't this basically the same as a package manager on Linux?
No. A Linux package manager is offered to everyone in a non-discriminatory manner.
There is nothing non-discriminatory about how Apple provides package install services.
People jailbreak their phones over this nonsense.
People jailbreak their phones to get access to a proper package manager that doesn't try to play favorites. Cydia is more the model of a Linux package manager. The Apple store is not.
It's not the tech, it's the policies.
> After all if MS is a big bad wolf because of "patent waving"
> what does one say about Apple?
Where have you been? Some of us have been calling Apple the new Microsoft for quite some time now. All that remains now is to see if Microsoft has become completely toothless and will Apple become the new monopoly?
I am much more interested in tablets that do things that Apple has decided it won't do. I don't care quite so much if the tablet is a "proper knockoff of PhoneOS" or whatever other nonsense that the Jobs worshipping ninnies think. I am more interested in something that actually replaces a netbook and other devices like an Archos. These are things the iPad has failed to completely displace.
There has NEVER been the need for a special tag to play video in a browser. You simply need to be willing to present the content as a simple hyperlink. Even the 1.1N version of Netscape could handle managing the mime types for video and calling an appropriate external application.
Flash is all about keeping things away from the user. Having a simple "video tag" addresses none of the real requirements here.
That said, I still have not forgotten about all of the Sorenson codec nonsense with Apple and QuickTime.
I have already dumped msoffice on Windows. Why would I want to bother with it on Linux? There is this bogus notion that msoffice is the least bit necessary even in a corporate setting. It's the obscure vertical apps that keep people on Windows and will tend to do so.
Although cloud and web based applications threaten to undermine even that part of Microsoft's edge.
> the reality is that the Ribbon in Office 2007 / 2010
> is a NON-issue. Any I.T. person that indicates that's
> their "hold-up" obviously hasn't used Office 2007
> / 2010 extensively.
IT people?
I think the whole point here is that these "grand redesigns" negatively impact all of the end users that DO NOT have some sort of computer science degree.
Any IT person that doesn't think that a change of this magnitude is highly disruptive needs to hand back in their CS degree.
No. The entire development community made Linux usable on the desktop.
Canonical just rode the wave.
From the looks of things, it looks like this is the way IT SHOULD STAY. Let Canonical do the packaging and the final touches but keep them far away from any of the important stuff.
People like to whine about GNOME but don't really say much.
This is an Apple netbook. It's even got the weak CPU and strong GPU of a higher end netbook.
If you can stand the Apple keyboard and the pricetag, I suppose you could find this thing suitable. The same goes for the competition really. If you're not married to one OS or another, how the thing feels under fingers is bound to be the final arbiter here.
SSD won't replace spinning disk simply because of cost and capacity. There will always be demand for larger devices. There will demand for larger devices than are available in SSD and demand for lower cost solutions. That demand might be mainly driven by corporations but it will remain.
> After all, people don't go around upgrading their
> washing machines, or adding new options to
> their vacuum cleaner.
Your vacuum cleaner doesn't have an "app store" where the owner likes to crow about how many after market modifications are available for your vacuum cleaner.
The whole point of computers is that they can be many tools.
> It's about time there was a central place to go to browse and download software.
You mean like Debian apt-get that was available 10 years ago?
Until Quicktime can do what Totem does on Ubuntu I will remain unimpressed. That is the real potential of a centralized package manager. Replacing well mannered Internet download sites is not terribly interesting.
Yes, as others have intimated: I might not personally agree with everything that Apple does these days but the Mac still seems like a much better commercial consumer platform than Windows. It avoids all of the pitfalls of Windows without being a "garden of pure ideology". This can be useful for those of us that are not totally clueless.
Don't destroy the Mac. I want an other option I can suggest to people I know that insist on running Windows for whatever reason.
> They are implemented in a so much more user
> friendly way than most Linux repositories.
You must be joking.
Even with the much overhyped Apple iStore I still have to wade through a bunch of dreck to get to something useful. I will likely not find what I am looking for or something worth having without going to an outside source for recommendations.
H*ll, I get more useful information HERE about what's in the App Store.
Both provide a simple means to install something once you realize it's what you want. If you can't call it by name, then the "store" interface probably won't help you.
> What on earth is Silverlight anyway?
It's supposed to be a better Flash than Flash.
It's supposed to be better than Adobe's version at certain things like support for GPU video playback. Although it clearly doesn't do this on my NV based Mac. The main thing you would be missing out on is Netflix.
Dunno if anything else uses it.
> How is the Mac App Store any different to the new Ubuntu Software Centre, other than the QA?
The Ubuntu Software Center is not restricted. At worst, it is an alternate view
of a very open system that allows for even YOU PERSONALLY to participate
with a very low bar in terms of permission or consent or anual fees.
It's like trying to compare proprietary iApps to the World Wide Web.
I wonder how Adobe Air apps would fare here. I just bought one of those at an Apple B&M store yesterday.
...just put some heat sensors in the microwave that can keep track of
the internal state of the food so that the microwave can regulate itself
without any need for outside instructions.
That and some stuff you have to "play by ear" even when you have
a special purpose button for that item already on the microwave.
...just the very idea that you can leave the microwave alone to do it's
own thing is perhaps a bad idea.
> It's called "product differentiation"
I don't want my Living Room content consumption devices to be "different". I want them to be INVISIBLE. This includes working as expected with minimal problems or need to fuss.
A melted cube that doesn't play nice with the rest of the AV components does not fit the bill.
Otherwise it's a good concept.
> When confronted in the flesh by OOo evangelists I often
> ask "Can you do a mail merge from a source database
> that contains the information in stored queries or views?"
> and typically get back a blank look.
>
> OOo is still an office suite for geeks
I think you have that exactly backwards.
OO is an office suite for normal people that don't want anything terribly "geeky".
I would be surprised if you've ever done a mail merge either.
Macs tend to be pretty anemic when it comes to memory and 2G really doesn't cut it for this sort of thing despite your declarations to the contrary. People taking you at your word are bound for a pretty rude experience.
Saying that there is some "associated cost" really glosses over the magnitude of the situation rather horribly.
> They ship with Apple's GUI and an X server. You can then install Parallels or VMWare
> or whatever and run Windows apps alongside your OS X and X11 apps
No, not really. These things are power hungry and memory hungry. You're either going to be creating a big fat VM with enough room for the AltOS to run properly or skimping so much that it's crippled. If you have a proper VM, that's going to impact the performance of your under-build Mac. This is assuming that your machine even supports running a VM with the proper requirements for the guest OS.
> Due to the specs required for win7, the individual machines
> are actually more expensive than an equivalent iMac.
What specs? A Quad Core with 4G and a very respectable GPU will set you back less than a Mini.
The idea that anyone would need to spend more than an iMac for a secretary's PC is simply absurd.
If you are not trying to cram components into a laptop sized chassis, PC parts are dirt cheap.
> No, seriously, buy one. It's clear you've never used one.
Quit swimming in the cool-aid. To know it is not necessarily to love it.
> With Macs it just bloody works.
Only if you have very simple needs.
If you stray the slightest bit off the garden path then things quickly get nasty. It no longer "just works". This could be slightly interesting devices or use cases that the people in Cupertino didn't account for.
This is why VLC is such a popular MacOS download. It makes up for the self imposed limitations of Quicktime. It's a lot easier than sorting out Quicktime plugins manually and dealing with variations that the pundit community might shout you down for wanting.
What do you intend on replacing the Harrier with exactly?
This isn't the sort of thing that you buy from other countries. It's the sort of thing that you sell to other countries.
Never mind you guys. What happens when our own USMC needs to replace it's Harriers. Build a new Harrier so we have some place to buy ours.
Expectations of total dependence or indepence are both equally absurd.
You know, I have a SHELL SCRIPT. Yes, that's right a SHELL SCRIPT on my iPhone because the guys at Cupertino don't seem to have a mind for business. I created it for quick cleanup of my SMS messages as I might get 300 pages in a day. Apple didn't seem to acknowledge this possibiilty as most phone makers like Nokia do (with a delete all button).
I would have thrown my phone against a wall by now if not for that hack.
There's no good reason for Android or any other Unix to be tied to one particular hardware platform. The whole point of Unix is so that such tight coupling is entirely unnecessary. Google TV should already be running on HTPCs and desktops of anyone that's interested (just like Hulu).
...and Atom is not such a bad platform once you rip away the special purpose video decoders.
Sure it's not a fast CPU. Neither is ARM. Anyone whining about the performance of Atom as it relates to ARM is just a dwarf calling a midget shorty. They are both abominable and require outside help to be usable.
TV is mired with proprietary nonsense that interferes with everyone including Apple. Apple gear is cheap but it is also limited. Google is also similarly limited for the same reasons. The gatekeepers of TV content don't want to play nice. This makes integration harder so Apple doesn't even try. Apple marginalizes itself with this. Google at least tries.
Ultimately the only thing you can really do is to avoid these companies entirely so you can have the freedom to create a solution that won't be at the mercy of media moguls.
The fact that my iThing can talk to my AirVideo server is much more relevant than whether or not it can talk to an AppleTV. It's routing around Big Content DRM nonsense that ultimately provides the most value.
Not everyone fancies themselves the next Coppola. Many of us don't have any pretense and just have stuff that we want to get done. We don't need to pretend that we're an auteur regardless of what platform we happen to be using.
All of the people whining about the approach of Linux users need to stand in front of a mirror and repeat all of their misplaced criticisms.
> The title really sums it up - this is software for people who are Linux fans,
> not people who primarily want to edit video. Where is the discussion about
> workflow, comparing the pros and cons of open source vs commercial
...because most people simply don't care. This includes even people that use Macs.
With the exception of a few oddball apps like iMovie or Blender, the "workflow" is pretty much the same across the board.
Can you pick it up and start being useful with it? Will the tool get in your way? Is it incomplete, buggy or just plain unwilling to meet you half way (like iMovie).
What "ethos" do you think is better exactly? The "you will service us" approach?
> You must have missed the solution that was reached
> in the scientific and engineering (inc IT) community...
...which does nothing to alter the fact that you are dealing with devices that have limitations that have nothing to do with powers of ten.
When I was a kid, the propaganda about the metric system was that it was somehow more sensible. It wasn't just some randomly assigned bit of nonsense. It was actually supposed to be more useful and more practical.
The idea of forcing a square peg into a binary hole flies in the face of all of that.
A proper Terabyte is a number that can be expressed with ONE signficant digit in it's native format.
Some outside of IT continue to ignore the fact that computing is a base 2 enterprise.
> What possible system would you want that is touch screen, yet has to have a whirring HDD and AV all the time just to fit the bloated win7
Anything that has enough room for my MP3 collection can accomodate any real OS. Add video into the mix and you quickly dwarf any operating system regardless of the size. My favorite PMP has a 500G hard drive not for the OS but for it's ability to hold all of my music, all of my pictures, and a respectable number of videos.
> Apple's philosophy is perfect for the 99% of people
> who just want to browse the web, read emails and
> write documents.
...except proper Macs still retain the ability to blow your foot off. It's functionality that is very easy to get too. The system isn't restricted at all.
Yet despite of all of this, Macs were allegedly perfectly suitable for the n00b consumer (at least until before the iPad came along).
This is because the Unix foundation that MacOS is built on is not prone on doing stupid things and neither is the shiny happy user facing part. Don't be an idiot is a sufficient guiding principle. You don't have to lock things down and treat people like babies.
This new Apple fanboy idea that 99% of people are too stupid to use a Mac or similar systems like it should deeply offend just about everyone.
> In fact it's actually a (vocal) minority of the geek minority,
> grown up sensible people just care if shit works the way
> it is supposed to, and don't mind paying for things.
Yes. This includes simple nonsense like saving things, printing things, moving them around, decoding whatever I happen to have, viewing any website or putting a single album on a PMP.
The Apple fanboys are desperately trying to redefine the term "geek".
Not getting in my way when I want to do something is a very key element of "shit working the way it's supposed to".
Installing VLC on a Mac does not make you a geek.
If the age of DOS taught us anything it's that consumers are not free to pick up the next fad without openness. Closed systems trap customers and prevent them from using the next fad.
This is why MacOS was such a smashing success all these decades. [/sarcasm]
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