Messages

9301

Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe

« on: April 15, 2010, 07:24 AM »

(I'm no fan of Adobe either, but you get what you deserve when playing with proprietary software and hardware.)

-zridling (April 15, 2010, 05:19 AM)

Get what you deserve?  That's sort of harsh language... like blaming the victim for being mugged just because they were walking through a bad neighborhood.  Some people prefer working with closed systems that just work... do they deserve to be gimped by the product maker whims?  It might be legal, but I wouldn't say it's ethical...

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Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe

« on: April 14, 2010, 10:54 AM »

Has anyone been paying any attention to the Apple iPhone developer license 3.3.1 issue?

-Renegade (April 13, 2010, 07:53 PM)

I hadn't before now... thanks for the heads up.

For those not familiar with it already, Apple has restricted all iPhone development to Objective-C, C, and C++ (written/compiled in Xcode) (with some other allowances for HTML5 and JavaScript that have strict limitations). They are torpedoing a whole whack of technologies that people use for iPhone development:

• MonoTouch

The general reaction so far is pretty vicious against Apple.

Novell (makers of MonoTouch) have been very diplomatic saying that they are asking for "clarifications", or in other words, they're looking to see if Apple wants to screw everyone, or just Adobe.

Thoughts?

-Renegade (April 13, 2010, 07:53 PM)

The thing is... I'm a windows developer.  But in my house, I have 2 iPhones, and soon an iPod touch... and maybe... horrors... an iPad soon.  (Some friends bought it, I played with it, and it's not just BAIT... It's a really good experience!)

One of the big reasons for my buy-in is MonoTouch- I've even been looking at getting a Mac because I was going to dual boot windows 7 and mac's os so I could work on my iPhone.  But this... wow.  MonoTouch would let me use my C# skills on my apps... but this would take that away.

As Eoin said,

Of course if Apple were a monopoly like MS then the EU would probably already be stepping in to prevent this nonsense.

Which has always been my argument against doing the things to MS that have been done... you don't just kick the big guy, because the little guys are doing the same thing too... and right is right and wrong is wrong.  Apple has been a mini MS in their marketing for a while now, and IMO they should be policed in the same manner as MS.   In fact, their Market Cap is about to pass MS.. so who is the little guy now?

9303

Living Room / Re: UK amateur photographers: if you're good, don't use Boots!

« on: April 14, 2010, 09:07 AM »

And I disagree with your disagreement. How do the store employees distinguish between "child pornography" and a parent taking pics of their kids having fun swimming, which just happens to be naked (as kids often are), or in the bath, or whatever? Not to mention, do you really think a child pornographer would be stupid enough to go and print something at a shop like that? How many people doing malicious things are really going to use a public service like that and risk getting caught? Do you think more criminals would be caught than innocents? Do you want the FBI knocking on your door one morning with a warrant after you drop off photos of your kids at the local printer? Sure it's an "innocent mistake" and you would eventually be cleared of any wrongdoing, but is it reasonable to go through that kind of ordeal just on the outside chance that it might possibly catch someone who could be doing something illegal? Surely there are better ways of finding and incriminating these people that will have less "collateral damage".

-JavaJones (April 13, 2010, 04:37 PM)

I totally agree with this view, and have a specific personal example that illustrates the result of the same sort of thinking.  My mom was a 4th grade teacher for a long time until she retired - 30 years or so.  During her last years there, her principal didn't like her- it seems that it was a problem of insecurity, as it seems that she (being young and female in a position that old men usually held) didn't get along with any teacher older than she, or any male teachers.  But back to the subject, my mom saw physical evidence on a child on one occasion- the kid had a welt on the side of his face.  He had never had any evidence of abuse before then- this was not a systematic thing, and she talked to him, and he said he'd smarted off to his mom, and she'd smacked him.  This incident got back to the principal, and she called child services... and in addition, the police so that my mom got carted away from the classroom in cuffs in front of her kids.  It turned out with investigation it was just that... he'd called his mom quite the bad word, and she'd smacked him across the mouth on the way to school.  Child services found no fault in my mom's actions, nor the actions of the mom.  It wasn't a regular occurrence at all.  They tried to cover up their actions by saying it was better to err on the side of caution, but it's very telling that they tried to settle monetarily with my mom out of court for the whole police thing.  My mom just got them to pay the attorney's fees and dropped it at that, even though the attorney had advised her that she could get a lot more, and indeed they were offering a lot more.

While it's true that we have civic responsibility, to prosecute someone because they don't police some other person's life seems very wrong.

9304

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker

« on: April 13, 2010, 06:40 PM »

^ Well, yes.  I'd hope that most supporters of this site would fall into the same category as you.  But in the world wide interwebs, there are more that don't share this point of view than do, unfortunately.

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Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« on: April 13, 2010, 01:36 PM »

And a good one. :thumbs:

I think that different people have varying opinions on the subject, and there has to be a middle ground.  It seems that not using google helps, though the viable alternatives that exist are few.  And it matters in those as to whether they are more or less likely to do anything untoward with the information (as some see even the profit off of such services an untoward situation).  Personally, on matters like that, it doesn't truly matter to me, either personally or collectively.  If they provide the service and I get to use it free of charge, then do what you will to stay in business, as long as it doesn't involve inconvenience or irritation to me.  And the same thing collectively as far as I'm concerned- everyone's got to make a dollar, and I have nothing against someone making it in this manner.

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Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« on: April 12, 2010, 02:05 PM »

And perhaps it's the entire issue of conflating privacy with liberty (not the same thing, though related) that is at the root of some of this disagreement.

-JavaJones (April 12, 2010, 01:26 PM)

Agreed whole heartedly, along with the personal understanding of the context of certain words, I think.  Someone said something earlier that I think really rings true- how much privacy one has in this world is really a function of one's belief that their actions/words are private.  Because really, privacy is not a tangible thing anymore in this world of technology IMO.

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Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« on: April 11, 2010, 09:26 PM »

You said that "That's wrong and tinfoil hat thinking IMO.", and we pretty much know that "tinfoil hat thinking" is used for undermining people, lightly mentioning that they are crazy enough to believe some crap that is normally by standard unacceptably stupid to believe by normal people. If that is not how you meant it please correct me.

-kartal (April 11, 2010, 07:46 PM)

Well, not to poke my nose into an altercation, but what I think when I see 'tinfoil hat thinking' is conspiracy theory... not that someone is crazy.  And that's the way I've always seen it used... not to undermine someone's position.   

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Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« on: April 11, 2010, 01:49 PM »

Not necessarily. You have freedom to not to use those check cards, not use google or bing or any other. But again these solutions are not real solution really. On the other hand accepting that loss of privacy is a reality of life is exactly what has been wanted by the corporations, goverments etc.

-kartal (April 11, 2010, 01:29 PM)

Unless you have your own trunk into the internet, you can't get around the fact that your ISP has all of the information about you that anyone could ever want.  You might argue that the information won't be used/used in a negative manner... but aren't we arguing what if's against Google?

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: April 09, 2010, 04:26 PM »

I'm not suggesting that you do anything... I just thought it rather strange to condemn something to the title of 'Adware' forever based upon a bad decision.  But that's just me... I mean to say that your experience was negative is one thing, but Adware places a distinct negative connotation in the eyes of most users far beyond what the experience seems to warrant IMO.

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: April 09, 2010, 01:15 PM »

But I guess the question is... does it do that now?  And if it doesn't, was that a mistake?  Or do you call something adware even after it doesn't do it?  That's my point... perhaps they made a mistake, honest or not... does that classify things as adware even after it's rectified?

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: April 09, 2010, 12:36 PM »

I wasn't saying that fences itself explicitly warned the users, but they've IME been quite up front about the fact that it was required.  Perhaps the location of the warning was not at the appropriate place, but even before fences was released, I saw several times that Brad stated that impulse was their distribution engine and that everything would require it to be installed in order to install their software.  I just, again, see it as just a company with people who sometimes make bad decisions, just like any other.  Not being an apologist, but truthfully I don't want to water down the meaning of adware or any of the other negative members of the internet community by applying it to those who don't have such practices... a pet peeve of mine, I suppose.

9312

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: April 09, 2010, 08:41 AM »

Also I believe that Stardock now states that Impulse will be installed when you install any other Stardock app. They got a ton of heat of the stealth downloads/installs.

-J-Mac (April 08, 2010, 11:02 PM)

They've *always* said that you need impulse to install their software since it came out.  It used to be that you had to install it for yourself then install whatever, then uninstall it.  But people complained, so I guess that was their response to the complaints.  I have it installed, and never use it unless I'm updating something, and it never bothers me with ads.  I think by default it installs something they experimented with at Christmas last year to get deals to their users.  I disabled it then, which is I guess why I don't get those. 

In absence of DRM, it will take a lot more than that for me to lump them in with negative companies though... just a company with people who sometimes make bad decisions, just like any other.

9313

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 09, 2010, 08:36 AM »

The big thing about this 'closed ecosystem' mentality is that for most people for most devices, this has always been the case.  Cell phone?  Unless you get a smartphone, it's pretty much closed in any case.  And people want their phones to work first and foremost as a phone.  That's why I defected from WinMo... as much as I wanted to be on a platform I could actually program for using my existing skillset, the fact that my phone crashed so often was a disconcerting thing.  And it didn't get better at a speed that made me comfortable.  My last WinMo phone was only a little over a year ago.  And my wife had to use it after me for a bit until I could get her iPhone.. she's not a techie by any means, though she does have a bit of technical know how.  She longed for her LG Shine over the WinMo phone that I gave her, and was ready to throw it out of the window.  Closed ecosystem or not, the iPhone just works, and she's not in any way frustrated with it.  Before the phone it was the MP3 player for Apple.  Again, how many people *really* did anything out of the ecosystem of MP3 players?  What difference does it being closed matter to most people?  Not much, I hazard to say.  And the iPod, again, just works.  I loved my Rio Karma, but in the end, the experience between the Karma and the iPod were night and day.

So now they find themselves getting into a different market.  I think that's the reason that books are so important on the iPad.  The eBook readers are, again, a closed system.  Sure you can do some thing with them outside of the manufacturer's thinking- but for most people, they are just book readers.  But where I think Apple is going to have to adjust is at the same place they had to adjust on the iPhone... price.  No matter what they say, the price point puts it at the same place as devices with a lot more functionality.  And no matter the additional functionality, perception puts it not much above an eReader or iPhone.  Maybe they can get past this without lowering the price... but I tend to doubt it.

9314

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: April 08, 2010, 03:57 PM »

Impulse isn't all that bad to me.  It's not something I keep running all the time, but I'd not go the route of saying it's adware...

9315

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 08, 2010, 03:55 PM »

<snip />
Looking back at history, it may have appeared that way with the iPhone 1st gen too. Things that have already been mentioned in this thread like the atrocious handling if iWork documents sync, or the necessity of connecting to a primary computer system to even use the thing (forget about it being a great system for "grandma" or "average user" unless they already have a different PC, so let's drop that argument!). Not to mention the apparent issues with weight and ergonomics.

-JavaJones (April 08, 2010, 02:48 PM)

I think that their 1st gen products are historically usable, but not as polished as their mystique has made it out to be.  Look at the 1st gen iPod... it was an interesting idea, but nothing that I wanted.  But since it was usable in it's niche, they made enough money to stick around for a 2nd gen.  I think that they depend upon that, truthfully.  They have been unable to compete with Microsoft in the short game, so they've focused on the long game, and done a pretty good job of it also.

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Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 07, 2010, 08:33 PM »

What I've noticed about my app purchases is that most of them aren't on my iPhone anymore...

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Living Room / Re: File Size vs. Size on Disk: Why such a difference?

« on: April 07, 2010, 08:32 PM »

FAT and NTFS uses the term "cluster size", and multiple files cannot share clusters. NTFS has a size-optimization feature, though, where really-really small files can be stored along with the filesystem metadata about the file.

I guess you have a lot of really small files on that USB stick? Or a ridiculously large cluster size

-f0dder (April 07, 2010, 05:55 PM)

But does that work on flash drives?  I know that fixed drives use that, but I thought that flash drives didn't allow that for speed considerations?

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Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 07, 2010, 02:19 PM »

I've still been on the fence- one of the reasons that I delayed my purchase of my nook.  But I read a couple of other reviews- and a couple by enthusiasts.  The downsides, even when watered down, mean that I'm not going to get it.  It's a little bit bigger than a nook.  But that little bit is enough.  And the weight... and the cost.  I can't see getting an iPad without 3G, and that price tag is a bit steep!  I really like the idea of extra apps- but the biggest thing that's a turn off to me is the one part that Apple really doesn't have too much of a say in... pricing of apps.  If I have an iPhone app, I want to be able to use an iPad specific version of the app if it's available for free... not buy a new version!  And the pricing of apps make it so that you can't purchase without consideration- with apps on the iPhone, I'll drop a dollar or two without going through the trouble of downloading a trial, then getting the final version.  But 10-15 bucks is getting to the point where I question the purchase.

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Living Room / Re: File Size vs. Size on Disk: Why such a difference?

« on: April 07, 2010, 01:30 PM »

I think it has to do with block size- at least that's what I always attributed it to.

Update: I thought more about it, and that maybe I needed to expand on my explanation.  The block size is the minimum size of data on a drive.  If there is a file that is smaller than the block size, that's the minimum size that can be taken up even if it's smaller, i.e. if you store a 200 byte file, but the minimum size is 1024 bytes, you lose the other 824 bytes because it has to take a whole 1024 bytes.  Also, since they are allocated in blocks, if something is not exactly a multiple of the block size, there is some waste in space.  That's what I've always attributed the difference to- and looking on wikipedia at least, it seems to be borne up by how they write to NAND drives.

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Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 07, 2010, 09:13 AM »

Heh, heh - I do read voraciously. Still, I don't think that $300+ is reasonable.

-Darwin (April 07, 2010, 09:02 AM)

Well, I wouldn't pay $300+ for one... but am getting ready to get a nook.  The smaller kindle is the same price range too- both a little over $250.  I don't know why $50 is that big of a difference in price to me... but I think if they were over $300, I wouldn't be looking at getting one.  But I purchased a netbook thinking that it would be a better investment, and hardly use it.  The form factor kills it for me, I think.  On the road, at the end of the day, the netbook has too small a keyboard to be productive, and that same keyboard really sucks when you're reading. (as well as the perspective).  A slate is best for that, IMO.

On that note... would anyone be interested in buying a barely used netbook?  (only partly kidding...)

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Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 07, 2010, 08:43 AM »

IMNHO, the Sony eBook Readers and the Kindles et al. are already overpriced. Buying the iPad as a book reader would be ridiculous. Of course, I don't think that is what you were suggesting, and the review certainly isn't either, but I've heard/seen it suggested enough to feel compelled to comment.

-Darwin (April 06, 2010, 10:28 PM)

I think that people are pointing to buying it as a book reader in addition to other functionality.  I don't think that anyone would suggest buying it if your only function is to read books.  Sort of like netbooks; they are not only for keeping connected to the internet on the road, instead their selling point is they let you do that plus you have a full-fledged operating system.

And for people that read voraciously and consume written material at the rate that some do, the price of the kindle/nook (especially considering they include 3G- note that I don't say 'free' as I consider it part of the premium) is reasonable.

9322

Coding Snacks / Re: What language is the best for a new programmer to start with?

« on: April 02, 2010, 08:40 PM »

About cross-platform... maybe I'm biased, but really, I think the fact is that writing cross-platform software or OS-independent software just increases your consumer base.  I realize things like games can't be done easily in an OS-independent way, (Nor should they need to be... Windows and OS X can take the games, leave the other OS's for developers!) but for things like word-processors, it's definitely beneficial.

Bloated Eclipse may be.  Again, I'm probably biased, but I just don't think I could ever do my development in VS.  Eclipse is bloated because it supports so much.  I just happen to be one of the people who need all the plug-ins it supports.

As for the file thing... Have you ever tried to delete a file off the filesystem from within VS?  I could never do it, though they may have changed it since 2003, which was the last version I used.  I'd delete it out of the solution only to realize later that it was still on my system.  Either that or my memories fuzzy (it was 2005 when I last really used it!)

-SingingBoyo (April 01, 2010, 11:18 PM)

As far as the rest of it... you're coming across now as a person with an opinion and who realizes its his opinion rather than the fanboish way that f0dder called you out for in the beginning- and I can respect that.  Different approaches suit different developers, and there's nothing wrong with that.

And yes, you can delete from the file system from within VS.  There are two separate things- remove from solution, and delete.  Remove from solution does just that... and if you don't have VS set to show all files, it can look like you deleted it.  But you can delete also.

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Coding Snacks / Re: What language is the best for a new programmer to start with?

« on: April 01, 2010, 09:15 PM »

As much as you possibly can, look for cross-platform languages.

-SingingBoyo (April 01, 2010, 04:13 PM)

Even if you aren't doing (or thinking of doing) anything cross platform?  And even if such things adds to the complexity of your learning needlessly?  Cross platform is this big mantra... but sometimes, it's just added *stuff* that you don't need...

Eclipse beats Visual Studio every time...

-SingingBoyo (April 01, 2010, 07:56 PM)

Ummm... what?  Eclipse is bloated (which is saying something compared to a Microsoft product), and visual studio only supports Windows and .NET languages because it's Microsoft?  Just because something has a focus doesn't make it worse- in fact, at times, it makes it better.  And having used both, I can say that I like VS a lot better.

...dammit, I can actually delete my files completely from Eclipse!...

-SingingBoyo (April 01, 2010, 07:56 PM)

   What does that mean?

9324

Living Room / Re: How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords

« on: April 01, 2010, 11:12 AM »

And an (over?) zealous fraud department that calls me all the time 

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Living Room / Re: How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords

« on: April 01, 2010, 10:49 AM »

Paypal actually does have checks and balances (which I've run afoul of several times), but point taken, even though I never activate online access to most of those other services...