flatulent1

When Apple has moved on to a new technology, support for the legacy technology has generally lasted about 5 years. If they wanted the more demanding apps off of it, it made sense to close the door to 64 bit. Apple has put considerable effort into optimizing the OS. It didn't make sense to do that for legacy support. Apple certainly does care about pro apps, and has done many things that can/do enhance apps developed for current technology.

Photoshop showcased the Mac as a performance platform for some time Previous to OS X. I think they played hardball with Apple, trying to bully them into using costly Display Postscript licensing for OS X, and lost.

At one point Adobe engineers would interviewed by MacWeek magazine and talked about development. Sometimes managers forced them to do Windows code first because they hated it so much. They described it as working in a sewer. The Mac was far more advanced below the surface of the OS. Color matching support evolved far earlier. Simple things like anti-aliasing an image when scaling it had to be reinvented in every Windows app, but it was an included service of the Mac OS. Clearly the engineers loved Apple even pre OS X. It's too bad that Adobe trying to strong-arm control of a key technology in OS X placed some distance between the companies. The Mac market and In retrospect Apple did the right thing avoiding the proprietary lock. Going with more open standards, and sharing some things they develop has been good for most of us. (except those wanting proprietary lock in)

Perhaps Madhu Yarlagadda would call this a "course correction"?

He wrote on the subject of course correction on his blog in a July 4th posting. His writing may give deeper insight into him than a list of accomplishments or complaints would.

http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/

About half an hour after the NYT story today, the position was added to his Crunchbase profile

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/madhu-yarlagadda-3

Back in 2009 he wrote Steps to Success

see his blog:

http://madhuyarlagadda.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-...

I agree that the mechanisms behind lower success aren't specific to digital, but they do often apply more. Much of it is about honesty and trust. Beyond relevancy, most of us have learned to distrust and ignore ads. Certainly even in traditional media, the U.S. has had lower standards as far as claims and truthfulness go. So the credibility value of ads has declined. Of course trust for vendors online with no physical address or phone number (not that a phone means much anymore) will be even lower.

It really hit me a while back when talking to someone dealing with selling hardware and landscape supplies. He went on and on about the great results he got advertising on Spanish speaking radio compared to other stations (rural area in California, not a major station). The audience, much of it illegal aliens, regards the station as a trusted friend compared to the rest of the world around them. Some of the trust rubs off on the advertisers. (This was a long time ago, I'm sure the trust has eroded some) Looking at Spanish radio was a bit like looking back in time at English speaking stations and earlier days in media.

We're in an era where the public sees through most online sites as being there solely to make money by nearly any means, not out of any love for a particular skill or interest and desire to make a living from it.

The shift from local owners to large corporations or VC groups has accelerated the shrinkage of trust in broadcast media. The anonymous or corporate behavior of most online sites is even worse. Unless you've acted in a way to make people love you, you're more apt to be ignored. (There's a major lesson to learn from Apple here!)

How many sites actually care if their advertisers are a good thing for their readers? How many sites don't support data-mining of their viewers?

If you treat your readers as hog bellies to sell to advertisers they'll grow to hate you. Look at how many people feel towards broadcast tv. (NBC stands out) (To whom it may apply) Your ethics are showing and you're paying the price.

Good for you. (opps, message got threaded away from parent, reply to user who avoided VC)

It seems best to avoid those that bring money but no skills/services to the table. While some could prove to be good allies, many others are more apt to be parasites than productive. If this country weren't so full of people trying to (or succeeding) in getting rich without actually producing anything useful, we wouldn't be in such a sorry state. Capitalism and competition can be a wonderful environment for innovation, but it can have a dark side when greed games the picture. I stumbled on an interesting piece a while back that I thought adds perspective

http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-09/news/17189250_1_islami...

That was a refreshing piece. It's good to see Ubuntu doing so well, and it is pleasing to hear that 11.04 will have some focus on more behind the scenes stuff like making more use of powerful GPUs. VLC is already doing some of that (an area where Mac users can envy their Linux brothers a bit). Hopefully many other projects will follow with those sorts of under the hood improvements. 10.04 was slick, Good work guys

It's surprising that Slashdot isn't in there, but it isn't a survey measuring traffic.

Well if people are going to worry about solar flares, they might as well figure on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) protection from high altitude nukes too. Energy levels can be very high, and the very short pulse risetime results in energy extending to at least the VHF range. That means relatively short conductors can function as efficient antennas, picking up considerable energy. Solar events are lower frequency, so energy from longer conductors such as power lines is the first thing to worry about there.

It is silly for those people to be worried about WiFi, but some just don't have a clue as to the differences between ionizing radiation and electromagnetic radiation (and the importance of power levels). But the same folks will gab with a cell phone against their heads...

Perhaps VirtualBox (open source, was SUN, now Oracle) will be part of the VMware of the future equation.

The comparison with Microsoft is not a very good one, as there is good FREE competition and we're unlikely to see domination through massive VMware shipping bundled on hardware by default.

from virtualbox.org "VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). "

The bottom of your daz home page and others says "all rights reserved", but text on the homepage says the database is GPL'd

"The data on this site was bootstrapped using the freedb.org data set (yes, our database will remain GPL'd, no strings attached)'

What version of the GPL are you using, where is the (database)download link and a copy of the GPL? It is an oversimplification to say no strings attached.

Unless the content is all already GPLed, I think there is a problem with you trying to assign a license to work you didn't create. You certainly can't say all rights reserved (restrict rights) if you're dealing with GPLed work of others. (what's free must remain free) I see some band photos. I seriously doubt the the rights holders released them under the GPL.

The banner "share your music" and taking MP3 uploads seems like a serious issue too. As does distributing 30 second clips. iTunes and music stores that do that have agreements allowing it. Do you?

And posting peoples geocities sites without their permission? It isn't your content. A notice saying you'll taking it down doesn't make it okay. Just because they haven't discovered your site and had a note survive that mail you check once a month... Right holders should not have to comb the net looking for abuses. Even the many that may like the idea may not know to update their content. (I'd expect you'd also have trouble authenticating them)

You really need to contact every former page owner and have their advance permission (and give them editing rights along with some sort of terms of service)

A bunch of thanks yous are great, but you'd get that for MP3s too. It doesn't mean there's not a problem.

Good luck sorting it all out in a proper way.

This isn't just "a" bacteria, but a gene making a number of existing bacteria types resistant.

The article cites "E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae" as already affected. It looks like cases in the U.K. link back to Pakistan and India. When resistant versions of those hit the gut some will be in for tough times. MRSA is serious, this is worse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/aug/11/antibiotics-ef...

The iPod was a good thing for Apple, but the real kick start out of the dismal Performa days in consumer space started earlier with the original iMac. Some may recall Steve getting the nickname of iCEO after that.

Is it "real" to predict Apple failure based on the margins seen by PC vendors, and to assume that the buyers are just a percentage of existing Mac owners upgrading?

Yes he had figures for both of those things, but they're the wrong numbers to look at!

"The author made a well-researched, well-formulated, convincing argument."

The author presented a number of fairly well known facts, but made the mistake made by many writers in treating Apple much like Gateway or another PC vendor. He threw out what sounded like facts when talking about PC Vendors having something like a 10% gross margin, but clearly was way off in assuming that figure could be used to predict Apple's sales requirements for profitability. Even most people vaguely familiar with Apple knew it as a premium brand (generally with higher prices and higher margins). When a writer doesn't know what he's talking about, he can make an argument that seems to have substance by throwing in facts that apply to something else.

Strangely, while the author was aware of problems with Macs sold as commodity items in places like Sears, and he opens quoting Steve Jobs talking about the bad experience of people shopping for computers, he seemed clueless to the notion of stores with good presentation in upscale locations reaching people besides the Mac faithful. So in addition to using PC-vendor margin numbers, he assumes the buyers are only those needing to upgrade from existing Macs.

Not taking into account the stores going after converts shows a serious lack of insight.

From the article:

"What's more, Apple's retail thrust could be one step forward, two steps back in terms of getting Macs in front of customers. Since most Mac fans already know where to buy, ..."

The funny thing is, most of his arguments against success do seem like they'd apply to the Microsoft stores.

"* The effect on "poor people" is probably salubrious: many of them don't own cars to begin with, and without parking lots vying for land, land prices will go down)."

Who was the politician that said "poor people don't need to drive"? You sound a bit like him.

You're half right in a twisted way though. Not having cars helps poor people into a new place to live - ON THE STREET!

There are cities that have trouble finding workers at the lower wage end of the spectrum because the cost of living for those people is just too high. A good example is Santa Barbara California. The poor are taxed enough already. If you think employers are somehow going to cover this cost, see how anxious they would be to pay for it directly.

Perhaps customers and employees should be treated as a form of pollution, just another toxic resource used by business. Wouldn't that justify business having to pay?? If given only enough wealth to survive, aren't we saying that employees have no function except to work and consume?

How far do we have to tax people before it becomes institutionalized slavery?

Cars have been a part of the American dream for a long time. Unless/until our cities are made where everyone can easily function without them, pricing some people out of them equates to a serious impairment and loss of freedom.

Taxing things that impact society isn't always the answer. Try taxing children and see how far that goes.

The wages of city employees keep going up more than that of the poor in the communities they "serve". What do some cities do to fuel that? Bring in more people, more box stores, tax it all.

Perhaps there is a fundamental conflict of interest in the way some city/county/state/national taxes and spending are handled?

Silence is valuable. People take for granted not paying for that audio-frequency near-field modulated air pressure bandwidth.

Why shouldn't that spectrum be sold? Shouldn't we be paid to have people talk to us or make noise? It's time to buy audio pollution credits. And if you're poor, don't even think about farting.

The tutorial certainly lacks any emphasis on security. It ought to be mentioned right up front. Does the choice of development environment matter? Say so!!! Trying to add security after the fact is painful and tends to be only marginally successful.

With increasing numbers of users disabling Flash and some going with platforms that don't support Flash, the writing is on the wall. It's time to look to other platforms than Flash. Between Android and the Apple there are other areas experiencing major growth, easy to reach customers, and simple options for sales or ad driven income.

Flash games are already a big gamble of time and resources, with the odds of a decent return getting worse. Our shop bailed out over a year ago and don't regret it.

VoIP is content. SMTP/POP/HTML email is content. Do you want your ISP to monitor those to decide which are okay?

Discriminating against torrent traffic can be like racial profiling. A protocol is not an intent.

If you do want profiling, perhaps consumers running Windows should pay a higher fees and be given less bandwidth since those customers have higher support costs and have the machines most used for DDOS attacks, sending spam/scam and other foul behavior.

Windows machines harm the network. If a customer wishes to configure his router to share the bandwidth he's paid for, that's not theft of service. (Also read the F.C.C. notices included with U.S. routers - they don't own spectrum)

You might configure your household router to favor VoIP traffic over your torrents and that's fine. The problem comes when ISPs, especially the large ones, do things that stifle competition. A good example would be having AT&T get away with degrading the quality of service for VoIP providers. It would be easy for them to stifle video providers. The case I picked is a very obvious one since AT&T sells telephone service and fancies itself as a net cable-tv operator. But the situation is just as bad if they or another ISP give unfair advantage to some other big player.

I agree that things are too complex for a one line law. At the end of the pipe, consumers should be given the bandwidth they pay for regardless of the data type/port. And traffic should be treated equally upstream.

The majority of people in the U.S. are getting a very poor deal on "broadband" compared to a number of other nations.

Much good came from the breakup of AT&T way back when. But through corrupt regulators the cancer has grown back.

We've got many problems. Some are the result of our rights being sold off. The U.S. public lost a huge chunk of the UHF t.v. spectrum with the digital change over. We could have had a bunch of bandwidth for free community based networking. But almost all of it has gone to the major players.

If you don't think the wprocess was corrupted, look at the lack of diversity in ownership (and lack of local ownership) of broadcast stations. Besides functioning as leeches to suck money out of local economies, the narrowing of diversity in the selecting/gathering of music and news is very unhealthy. It's gone past having large players like Clear Channel owning huge numbers of stations. Now it's venture capital groups. The role of broadcasters as trustees of the public interest (and each broadcaster has a LOCAL public to serve) is not filled well.

Consumers will probably like this, geeks probably won't.

The current model is x86 based (1 GHz or so, single core, something like a Celeron M) and runs a stripped down version of OS X. It's a bit underpowered, but with some work loading things it can run standard OS X apps. QuickTime can handle the same codecs used on OS X. With the current model, the more powerful but more costly Mac Mini is an alternative.

As described, the new model has a much less powerful and Mac-binary incompatible CPU, but it will use MUCH less energy and can handle h.264 playback with hardware decoding. That'll pretty much rule out adding codecs for those XViD .AVI videos many have laying around. Lack of an Intel CPU lowers cost significantly. It seems it could run app store stuff except for the input device hmmm.... maybe it should have a touch screen? Add video out somehow to an iPod touch?

Apple so far has stayed clear of directly supporting off-air or cable-tv PVR functionality. The USB tuners from Elgato Systems work well ("Eye-TV"), but with a Core 2 Duo it would take a dedicated hardware compressor to shrink archives down to h.264 etc at a decent quality level and in a reasonable amount of time.

Locked down like an iPad/iPod touch/iPhone, much of the geek appeal would be gone. The thought of a browser without ad-blocking alone is a big deal to some. (perhaps someone can fine a clear way to do some ad-blocking in a router with open-source firmware?)

Hopefully whatever Apple does will allow access to plenty of tv content that isn't costly. DRM issues (and poor support of video that people already have) could be a negative.

It'll probably have (DRMed) HDMI output but no VGA or DVI. Or maybe Apple will prove us all wrong and do something really surprising?

The two people that I know that upgraded (from G and GS) both say that overall reception is better than before and they love their phones. We're in a hilly area. The phones are still sold out in many places, I can't believe there is any significant financial hit over this.

Certainly any revisions to later production and next model antenna design would have no impact on the timetable of whatever OS X and iOS projects are in the works. If anything siphons talent within Apple, it'd probably be those continuing to improve iOS for iPad in particular. Although the iPad is doing extremely well, being so new they're no doubt working very hard to make things better yet. Apple is working hard on many fronts. Their projects are planned, so there's no reason to expect any significant unforeseen migration of engineers between projects.

Realistically, the biggest thing that drives some people away from the iPhone is AT&T. (on a personal level it is about general dislike of the company not any actual service problem, it's similar to how some have grown to feel about Microsoft. I had the feeling even before the iPhone came out) If Apple can expand to another U.S. carrier without a significant loss due to changed AT&T terms, we could see a real change in the financial picture... more growth.

The comment about "many of us are awaiting the latest OSX iteration" puzzles me a bit. While I'm sure Apple will add some cool new things in the future, without knowing what they are can you really be chomping at the bit? Apple certainly does work on development of many things at one time. Release timing is determined by many factors beyond engineering.

As far as hardware updates go, I think more people are interested in watching Mac hardware iterations as improved Intel chips come out. But for the bulk of consumers the existing chips are plenty powerful. I'd probably most like to see third parties (including open source projects) make more use of the excellent support for using multiple cores and GPUs in the OS. In particular I'm thinking of VLC and ffmpeg (which is the basis for many video utilities).

I suspect there's more of the early HP spirit at Agilent than at HP. Somehow when Compaq got the HP computer division, they got the name too, and the very cool test equipment part of HP got the new name Agilent. (This is my recollection, I'm sure the wikipedia has a much more detailed history)

I chuckle when I see the old tube-type HP gear as movie props. The HP 330 series distortion analyzer has had many appearances including on the wall in the presidents office in Battlestar Galactica. HP and Tektronix certainly have had many years as favorites for much of their test gear. Much older equipment is still in use. It's an eye opener to see the circuit boards with all the traces covered in gold. Not just an edge connector... the entire boards. Time to dust off my favorite early piece, the HP 300 Harmonic Wave Analyzer...

http://www.kennethkuhn.com/hpmuseum/

Actually, a 5% return looks BETTER not worse, when there's deflation - you're getting the return, plus the base value of the investment which later can buy MORE. In your example the investment would allow buying 10% more later, the mattress-money only 5%. Actually getting that 5% will likely be more difficult though. When there's inflation, you're return has to match the inflation rate for you to effectively break even in buying power terms and that's not counting being hit by taxes on the gain that wouldn't buy more.

The real danger of deflation comes when people stop spending thinking it is better to buy later because things will get cheaper. Along with problems getting funds, that's the killer with home buying. If people think there's continued deflation in housing, they'll try to hold off buying. Of course behavior has to be adjusted for other factors too.

Deflation from things like falling oil prices is good. Many consumers will buy more of other products if their energy costs fall. It would help others pay down debt. That's good, we don't want them to default. Of course those in the oil industry want things to fall just enough to kill/delay alternatives or improvements in efficiency. It's good if we reduce the percentage of our spending on imports if those prices fall, but bad if exchange rate shifts reduce demand for our exports. Deflation won't be flat across the board by wages, products, or region so analysis is very complex.

Income is another issue. Considering that most worked-for incomes haven't kept pace with inflation for some time now, our value to the workforce has deflated.

Deflation is bad in the sense of allowing those out of the country holding dollars to buy up more assets like real estate. We want people abroad buying our products and services, not our land. Not owning our land effectively makes us slaves.

"Well-managed firms"? Some would debate whether that term describes MS very well. The notion of directing resources towards what's profitable isn't new. The lesson should be to have smaller brilliant teams with clearly focused targets. If they're just entering a market and can't measure profit, it would seem strange to underinvest. They might have to invest for a while. As the Xbox has shown, it can take a while to become well established and profitable. Given that they're up against very strong players in phones and they're doing very poorly in that market, it seems like your book would suggest ditching them and focusing on something they're good at. It seems like they'd also have a hard time doing anything revolutionary (totally new GUI and apps) with tablets, but maybe a hacked version of Windows is so much cheaper to do they might as well even if its third-rate (maybe 4th, behind Apple, Android, WebOS/HP).

As for customers, some would argue that businesses cut back more than consumers in a tight economy. There tends to be little expansion, few new startups, and most stick with hardware that's already working. But consumers still have children going to school, and some have machines that become unworkable for them (less skill in avoiding and coping with malware than businesses have). In spite of naysayers predicting that consumers would stay away from premium products during the major downturn, Apple certainly has had healthy growth by any measure, and did well with its' OS upgrade sales as well as hardware. It seems buyers are out there if one has what they want. If Microsoft did focus excessively on corporate IT, it was through lack of insight. They've certainly had the financial and human resources to throw at any market they were after. reliability and profits took quite a while for the Xbox, but it does enjoy a significant loyal base now, probably more than for most of MS' other offerings where there's more lock-in than love. Some feel they've overstated Xbox profitability some by lumping it in with the Mac business (which includes Mac Office revenue).

The Zune doesn't seem to have either a huge following or contribute in a very important way to the overall profitability. In terms of an installed base that'll continue to stick with the company, the Xbox seems far more successful.

I find it hard to accept that any underachievement in timely delivering of innovative well-received products is the fault of lack of resources. If anything there seem to be too many people not working together with good focus. They've obviously got some very talented engineers and have shown some cool things from R&D. The failure to produce more fruit falls on management.

I think they're finally getting the idea that desktop Windows is not the answer for a phone, but they don't seem to have a clue for tablets. If they did we would be hearing from all sorts of developers about NEW apps. Trying to push desktop Windows as the solution is a bit too much like eating yogurt with a pitchfork. They may not yet be ready for a fresh start on the desktop, but they'd be foolish not to start anew on tablets.

Patch Tuesday coming up brings 14 patches addressing 34 vulnerabilities. (with the recent hacker convention, it's the season for finding bugs in every platform, even Apples')

If Microsoft has had anything that could be considered a disruption for development, it's the constant need to put out fires the vulnerabilities bring. I think it's fair to say that their past emphasis on upgrade sales through feature bloat while neglecting less visible security, performance, and stability, is/was a management failing that has cost them heavily. Besides taking resources, it's also made alternative platforms much more appealing by comparison.

"Consumers only buy Windows with new PCs" That seems to be true for the most part but why? Maybe if updates came out more often, most people would at least have hardware that would be suitable. Apple makes gets significant sales of OS upgrades, proving it is possible. Keeping more of the installed base up to date widens the base for app developers to cater to, and would help weed out legacy browsers.

Well Slashdot posts never get removed, just modded down (below the thresholds some users may read at, but they have a choice). The meta-moderation process should help catch abusive moderation and reduce the frequency of bad moderators getting mod points.

Since the moderation system isn't for down-rating posts that one disagrees with, the system get still get flooded with well-tempered deliberate misinformation.

Would MS pay people to post "I tried for days to get my Linux install to work right, but the buggy drivers made my screen flicker so much my dog had a seizure and died. I'm sticking with Windows forever!"? Fun for moderators...

The enforcement is primarily complaint driven. It does catch some legit cases of abandonment, but also sees abuse.

Although the state vehicle code section cited in their paperwork mentions the court, the actual process of dealing with SLOPD or the parking people DENIES access to the court. Appeals go to the same people that issued the towing order.

Except for a home, a car is the largest investment that great many Americans make. There's notice to ones' mailbox before towing. A person that's ill or otherwise not using a car for legitimate reasons may very well not see a notice on the car. The fine is more than that for parking in a handicapped zone or for any other parking violation. They're unwilling to work with the community to solve problems. For instance I once had someone park across my driveway which is less obvious than most (especially at night) and I called the PD asking if they could help me by contacting the neighbor (I didn't know which apartment he was in) so he could move his car. It wasn't an immediate problem. They said sure. But when an officer showed up, he refused to go to the neighbor and instead had the car towed. They didn't make me happy, and I'm sure they didn't make the owner of the car happy. The solution was worse than the problem.

If they had 72 hour parking signs up and simply issued tickets with the right to go to court, it'd all be fair. But to put someone through some very expensive grief without due process is just wrong. Also, as you noted, the enforcement is spotty. It's often selective enforcement. It may not be bias on the part of an officer, but the complaint process is open to bias too. Someone of lower income with an older car is more likely to be targeted simply because a neighbor doesn't like seeing an older car, or some assume an older car isn't operational.

San Luis has many people that are very environmentally conscious. Many ride bikes, walk, take a bus or car pool. Some students rarely drive except to see family or buy food. Being parked for a period is not abandonment, and the state code used here has no time limit. The city is misapplying the law selectively. It is being applied to some people that have no intention of abandoning their vehicles. There is no opportunity to appeal towing/impound fees at all and only improper means are available (not to a court) to appeal the citation that follows.

Additionally, towing is overkill when in a residential zone. Extended parking downtown (in an area typically metered) reduces availability of parking in a saturated area. But in a residential area, a car that's parked continuously for a couple of weeks versus one that's used a few times during the day has no difference in impact because it's overnight (when essentially everyone is sleeping) that parking is closest to saturation. Someone towed and subjected to that cost and the impound release fee when it is not an abandoned car will most likely bring it right back to the same area it was towed from. So what's the point of towing?

Beyond simply being parked, there should be some pretty good additional reason to believe a car is intentionally abandoned. Not currently registered, owner failed to give valid address, flat tires... Issue a ticket with right to appeal, send certified mail to registered address... if the car is by the registered address maybe even knock on a door. The city employees and PD get huge salaries. Perhaps in the things they do they need policies modified to solve problems with the least possible harm. The refusal to knock on a neighbors door when he parked across my driveway by accident makes it clear just how unwilling to help they can be.

You never got cited. If you'd done something (could be trivial - rude when a party gets a noise complaint) they could throw the book at you for other things. Just laws don't make ordinary citizens into criminals that can be harassed and emotionally / financially damaged with no appeal. (and I said, a neighbor upset with you could easily have caused the same grief, it is often arbitrary enforcement where there is no actual problem)

Most of these youngsters probably haven't heard of Hypercard either. Links before HTML... (but they were local)

Too bad there's no Hypercard app for the iPad. That could be fun if done right.

Looking around more, it looks like HREF really is/was a Macintosh resource type... but it is still a URL. Basically it's a text track in a Quicktime movie that contains a URL.

To make this interesting enough for you guys to read, here it is described in terms of being used as a Quicktime-based exploit!

http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/backdooring-quicktime-movies/