Yup. Their interface doesn't even support the ability to add licenses to an existing certificate since their software update. Thanks but no thanks, I can save my company a bomb by going elsewhere
Some viable arguments lost in a tirade of hysteria. I've never written an app for the iPhone/iPad, so I have no first hand experience with the approval/rejection nonsense. I do however own an iPhone, and I love the fact that I can expect a certain level of quality in the applications I buy. One thing that makes me snicker about the article in question is the purpose of the app. Why the hell would you want to waste an iPad on using it as a picture frame? With Twitter overlays? Anyway, each to their own. My main point is that so long as the people bitching publicly are gibbering loons like the idiot-in-charge at the linked blog, very few folk will pay attention.
Diaspora will be a geek resource at best, possibly backed by a nice network in academia. For the vast majority of people who post photos of their weekend (mis)adventures to share with family and friends, it just isn't going to work. No-one in my family in the UK is going to host their own seed. Thus, I will use Facebook, where my non-technical friends and family are. If I want to share ideas with the nerd set, I hammer out a blog post, link in some Gists and have Posterous fire off a notification via Twitter.
The iPhone has been out for years and encompasses a single device from a single manufacturer. Sales to date prove the success. Android is shiny and new, any handset manufacturer can slap it onto their collection of plastic and glass. I'd be more worried if Android as a phone OS wasn't outselling iPhone.
I realise that PHP gets slated as often as not, but considering it's a language I am familiar with, and that time constraints in many instances mean I must simply sit down and code, I find myself dipping into PHP frequently while Python/Ruby projects sit half-baked on the shelf. Has anyone used this? Comments?
This bill strikes me as being a little odd in light of the drive toward the small and agile versus the monolithic and too big to fail. I think this paragraph sums up the potential for disaster:
"Obviously, I’m deeply concerned about Senator Dodd’s proposal to place these restrictions on angel investing. I think angel investing is undeniably one of the largest engines for job creation as well as innovation and competitiveness on the global scale for the United States. There’s no doubt about it that the restrictions that he’s proposing would absolutely chill investing."
Chilling investment is the last thing that bootstrapping start ups need.
"There’s a report from the early 1950s (in this PDF) of a one-ton spill of the stuff. It burned its way through a foot of concrete floor and chewed up another meter of sand and gravel beneath, completing a day that I'm sure no one involved ever forgot. That process, I should add, would necessarily have been accompanied by copious amounts of horribly toxic and corrosive by-products: it’s bad enough when your reagent ignites wet sand, but the clouds of hot hydrofluoric acid are your special door prize if you’re foolhardy enough to hang around and watch the fireworks."
Great slideshow. I voted with my wallet for DropBox after buying my iPhone and finding them in the AppStore. I don't really need 50GB worth of storage, but it's an awesome app that I'll make daily use of, so it seemed a shame to stick to the free account and not say thanks by subscribing.
So what's a viable strategy for complaint? People are used to ignoring EULA's and TOS by now. They just want to use Facebook, comment on photos, join groups, play games and keep in touch with friends and family. They don't see this kind of thing as a violation. As long as they're accessing their information on www.facebook.com (accessed by a Google search), why would this worry Joe Average User? Some will see it as a good thing, as it would be effectively illegal for anyone to aggregate their information outside of Facebook. Most of the people I quiz about Facebook don't know who Mark Zuckerburg is, much less care what he does with their data. What worries me is that the route to the escape hatch is buried ever deeper with each reincarnation of the interface and the privacy settings are more complex and time consuming than configuring a robust PF firewall. I'm also considering switching my marital status from single to married just so that I can see ads that don't have anything to do with hook up sites. I would consider an insider protest, where I splash privacy concerns on my wall in my friend's news feed, but they all know where the hide button is. A more interesting approach would be targeting friend's data from outside the site, building a profile and using it nefariously as an object lesson. I fear though that the net result would be a response along the lines of: "This is why Facebook are making this kind of thing illegal". Ultimately, I think you're forced to vote with the delete button. 400-million people who consider E! Entertainment an educational documentary channel really don't give a hoot. Given the vast amount of government and corporate meddling that they already ignore, this is simply one more thing to add to the pile. I do care about it, I support the EFF with a monthly debit order and I talk to people about the concerns. Many just don't see Facebook's actions as an issue.
Thank you. Yet more sound advice from the HN community. The C Puzzle Book is good fun, and based on comments in the C threads, I cannot wait to get my hands on CII. I think I'll get my hands on this Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition) by Stephen G. Kochan and Erica Sadun's iPhone Developers Cookbook in due course.
This is the kind of use I've envisioned having an iPad for, sort of a digital newspaper with the possibility to extend the information base with apps. Looking forward to the iPad landing in SA. Better take a bib to the iStore so I don't mess up the demo unit...
"Next up is probably Ruby but it looks like perl to me so I'm in no rush."
Oh dear. Expect a early morning visit from the Ruby Re-education Police, who will no doubt politely beat you witless with a cricket bat they've called Clean Syntax. No worries however, they'll $/ you up off of the floor afterwards and send you on your merry with a Pragmatic Programmer's Guide To Ruby ;-)
Why carry around the weight of a framework if you're happier doing things this way? Insofar as an idea on putting together a sane PHP project built from the ground up, I think it's a good article.
The industry sells image analysers hard. I've run ones by M86 Security and IronPort, and couldn't implement them based on the suggested approach, i.e. an automatic email wagging a finger at a suspected infringement. Not only do your employees now feel that they're working for the Ministry of Truth, but I imagine that you may have some problems if you consistently get it wrong and falsely accuse people based on a piece of software.
Bit of a head scratcher for content owners as you point out. It would however make a nice bullet point for considering a web site: if you're considering HeyZap, you have a problem.
I'd be interested to see a study of people, like my folks, who were in their teens in the 60's and 70's. Up north where my family is from, you generally left school at 16, got an apprenticeship with a company like Caterpillar, or hit the coal mines or shipyards. There was no coddling, no indeterminate hiatus from responsibility, and it seems to have produced a generally successful group of people who rank amongst the top contributors to a variety of industries the world over, some of the largest and most successful companies ever brought to light having come from people within this generation. Something else I find interesting, and something I see in my own age group (30-40), is that a lot of the South Africans who were forced to undergo conscription into the armed forces seem to have a deeper level of self-discipline, which you'd expect from a military experience of the kind that they were subjected to. I'm not saying that you require a drill instructor to develop self-discipline, but it did have the advantage of forcing you to take responsibility for your assigned tasks, even if only to avoid a run and indeterminate PT to sooth the ruffled feathers of your shouty DI.
I agree with you on the spotter/partner. I started lifting about six months ago, and specifically built a program that didn't require a spotter, ramping up as I get stronger. Lifting is my time to zone out and relax, and I'm not dependent on other people's scheduling problems or requirements. I also find that at a certain time of day, I just grab my bag and go to the gym. Fortunate to have one on the campus where I work, which helps.
I thought I knew FreeBSD until I joined a couple of the lists and realised that I've hardly scratched the surface. It used to bother me that I didn't know. These days, I can accept it, and enjoy my occasional dip into the unknown when I need to change something.
There have been a number of predictive clangers from people considered luminaries in the field of technology. Stuff like "we'll never need more that 640K of RAM". Humans have been doing this for centuries, and we'll continue to do it. While we're more advanced now than we've ever been, we're yet to think of our best ideas. I like the fact that we'll able to look back in another fifteen years and go "...didn't see THAT one coming".
I quite like the look of MacRuby, my favourite on the list. Wondering if it's a plausible way to kill two birds with one stone, learn Ruby and a little bit about the frameworks available to me on my Mac. Only one way to find out I guess.
Indeed they are. Very astute of you to notice. My point being that TC deem what is good or bad based on the direction the wind is blowing. Buzz was downright nasty, now you can follow them on it.
TechCrunch. Apple = new bad. Google = new bad. Unless it's Android, in which case, Google = new good. Except for Buzz, which is Google = new bad, although we use it now, so Buzz = new good. Why do I go back? I like reading semi-literate comments.
Competition is great in any market, but the declaration that this consortium of followers is creating another app store indicates that everyone is playing catchup. The other mobile manufacturers have seen the dollar signs and all want a piece of the pie. Fair game, but Apple will always be Apple, and with some tweaks to the store, their adherence to a solid framework, gorgeous hardware and a lovely OS will see them retain their fanbase regardless of what anyone else comes up.