Posts by Chris_Maresca

Re: IT Pros?

Hmm, I'm in Silicon Valley where we have a lot of experience devs, to say the least.

Macs are by FAR the most common computer in use, probably 80-90% of devs use them, particularly laptops. Going to a conference, you are surrounded by a see of Macs, other machines stick out like a sore thumb. No only that, but a small but significant portion of devs is switching to iPads (with external keyboards).

Here, basically 'IT pros' are anti anything NOT Apple (at least for desktops & laptops). It's the PHBs who argue for MSFT, mostly due to cost and accounting systems running only on Windows. Like someone else said, Google runs on Macs, so do most startups. MacBook + Amazon + coffee = Silicon Valley startup.

Resale value

One thing that drives new adoption is resale value. Apple products have huge resale value. Amazon is currently offering $350 for used iPhone 4s. If you have a subsidized phone that you pay $300 for, you can actually make a little money by upgrading...

And it's not just phones, I sold two 4 year old MacBook Air for 60% of what a new one costs, and an iPad 1 for 90% of what an iPad 2 costs...

I suspect that a lot of the Apple marketplace is driven by these dynamics, which are unique in the computer world. Most other brands loose all their value after 12-18 months.

Re: Smartphone/touch screen history

I had a P800 - you had to use a stylus and it was slow. It was all plastic, the screen was terrible. Battery life was good and voice quality was better than an iPhone, but it was probably the worst smartphone of it's time.

Re: phones moving to touchscreen - yeah, but Apple moved the goal posts for everyone - it was not an incremental rev, it was a huge leap & mindset change. Capacitive, fast reaction, universal connectivity (e.g. cell data & wifi), high build quality (how's the front keyboard working on your P800?), etc. It's the accumulation of technology AND the slick integration that delivered a far better device than anything before it. And it benefited hugely from being an iPod successor, which already had huge adoption.

Never mind that Apple's been trying to create the ultimate portable computer since 1987 (see Newton), this is not just a one off effort but the result of a lot of R&D and failed products.

Re: Boo

That's just plain stupid. All their content has already leaked out, it's widely available on the interwebs. All they are doing is making it harder for legitimate viewers to view the content legally, thus pushing them to get it illegally.....

By doing so, they are reducing future monetization potential and possibly loosing a whole generation of viewers.

Foot, meet gun. But, hey, the lawyers get paid regardless.

Re: It's interesting ..

How do you know? It turns out that Sweden's pre-trial process is secret - http://www.fairtrials.net/publications/article/julian-assange-and-detention-before-trial-in-sweden

Even the US condemned it at some point - http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/eur/154453.htm

The fact it is no one actually knows why there is such pressure to extradite him, but it could very well be because of an extradition agreement reached in secret with Sweden - involving a criminal offense, aka the Espionage Act, with a side guarantee not to seek the death penalty.

But of course, you apparently are much smarter than all the parties involved and there is no way they could have thought all this through...

Re: what are tablets good for?

I know one major manufacturer that's put ALL their maintenance manuals on iPads, using iBook. Saves their maintenance guys carrying around 40lbs of paper and it's more up to date. They're busy rolling out 5k units....

Pretty much every executive I know uses them, they're much easier to drag from meeting to meeting and the battery life is far better. Since most of what they do is read email with the occasional presentation, it's much better all around.

And because they are so locked down, IT has very little 'remote management' to do. What ever is missing can easily be handled by tools like MobileIron. Only people who are short sighted or scared of new things would argue that iPads don't belong in the enterprise... Maybe it's just old skool job security at work.

Re: I am not, to say the least of it, any fan of Intel but the following statement............

One of the reasons that Intel has such a hard time in mobile is that Google has refused all the x86 ports submitted by Intel, so Intel has had to fork Android to make it work on x86.

It's also why Intel has stuck with Meego/Tezin/whatever it's called today, as an alternative to Android...

Repeaters

It's not really a technology challenge, they put repeaters in every 10 miles or so.

http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/bu/communication/transmission/submarine/products/wetplant.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Optical_telephone_cables

The big cost is actually the ships, which cost something like a $100k/day to lease...

Re: The old physical mirror

You should check out the new Olympus OM-D. It's got an EVF and uses micro 4/3rds lenses. Plus it's environmentally sealed and there are adapters for almost any lens mount.

There are also specialized shrouds for LCD screens that look like viewfinders. They are typically used for video but no reason you couldn't use them for photos...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/749569-REG/Cavision_MHE3Q_P_LCD_Viewfinder_Set_for.html

Re: Apple employee alert

You say that, but I have had a bunch of tablets of all kinds, from very expensive to dirt cheap, running Android, various flavors of Windows, Meego, WebOS & whatever-RIM-calls-its-OS-today.

Of those, the only one that came close to the iPad was the TouchPad. Everything else, I just wound up setting aside. I even tried using an Asus Transformer (with keyboard) as my main portable computing device, but gave up after a few weeks.

Apple set the benchmark very, very high and no one has come close yet. For most people, their hardware & software feels like a pair of comfortable shoes, where as Android is just --- badly finished.

Don't get me wrong, the iPad is basically a device for consuming content, a modern version of a TV. Most other tablets are aiming for at least some productivity, maybe trying to do many things is why they don't work as well.

Metal detectors

Need I say more?

Re: director of customer experience - really?

Compare to what? No underground? Beijing? New York? Paris?

What is your point of reference? Because, compared to other public transport systems, it works OK.

Re: On Pocketability

With a pancake lens the E-PL1 is almost pocketable in a jeans pocket. Large, yes, but dimensionally it's about the same footprint as an iPhone (and smaller than my wife's Android), about 5x thicker, however. The Sony's are somewhat smaller, but the lenses are larger.

As for a case, I use a Lowe Pro Impulse 110 when I need it, although if I'm doing a shoot that requires lots of lenses, I use a Crumpler photo backpack. Just because the body is small doesn't mean that all the lenses are as well. But like I said, I usually put in my laptop back without any protection, although I do have two old school leather covers.

If I'm actually carrying it around to take pictures, I usually use a Black Rapid quick-draw strap (http://www.blackrapid.com/product/camera-strap/rs-7/). If you're wearing a coat, you can actually wear it under the coat and make the camera just about invisible, even with large lens. The body size really helps as it doesn't stick out six inches like a DSLR.

Anyway, for me one of the driving factors was the number of adapters available allowing the use of old glass. It's also why I have a Pen as opposed to another 4/3rds body. You can get some adapters for full-size DSLRs, but nowhere near the numbers available for 4/3rds.

You've got it all wrong...

The management did come up with this plan. They only hire consultants to 'confirm' their ideas and take the blame for failure....

Border area 'not US soil'

The courts have ruled (oddly, I might add) that border areas are not US soil and constitutional rights don't apply. Even if it's in the middle of the airport in the middle of the US..... This is true for both citizens and non-citizens, it's why they can search your laptop and you have no rights.

I would point out that this has always been the case in most countries, but it has only recently been actually clarified by US courts. Previous to those rulings, it was sorta a gray area...

Besides, it's also the case that border control in the US is a Faraday cage, so you have no way to contact outside help - you're pretty much at the mercy of whoever is detaining you.... constitutional rights or not.

Let's see - from right under the article...

Twitter Bomber Joker Found Guilty

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/10/twitter_bomb_joker_guilty/

At least we don't send people to jail and given them a criminal record for making a joke. We just deport them...

Dear UK - call us back when people actually have rights.

No

... it's enabled by default. Also, no user has root-level privileges, everything runs in userspace.

Even when installing apps, you do so as 'admin', which is not the same as 'root'. It's a lot harder to fully compromise a Mac since, unlike Windows, no user has root level privileges unless they are explicitly (and difficultly) granted.

That's not to say you couldn't have serious security problems while running in userspace, but it's not nearly has bad as every user having full control over the machine's core...