Posts by vic 4

Google shocks world with unthreaded Gmail

threading killer

I'm not saying whether I hate threading or not there, but there is one killer. People often pick a random email and reply to that rather than creating a new one for a new topic. Going through emails randomly to pick out requirements/details/etc is time consuming.

The ability to order things in the way that helps me to do something (e.g. by date) is a fairly fundamental requirement of pretty much any UI. Anything that forces a one size fits all is pretty poor, give me something that I can choose that best meets my needs at the time anyday.

Oracle stamps authority on Java roadmap

even further head?

You are implying .net is at this point in time further ahead? In what respect, better integration of MS specific products, sure. As better solution of developing bespoke software that does exactly what you want it and how is a different kettle of fish.

FSFE calls on governments to stop pushing Adobe Reader

free != Free

There is more to being free than incurring cost

These people are the HM Revenue & Customs

So if you are legally required to do a tax return you have no choice (assuming getting a huge fine and possible jail sentence is not a choice)

Foxit Reader has the same problem as Adobe Reader

It's free as in zero cost, but not Free, and just like Adobe the remainder of the suite involves shelling out for.

Google dubs Oracle suit 'attack on Java community'

Pretty much off topic

Whatever you think of Google they have a sense of humour, any one else seeing the google ads on this article linking to scientology.org for "Scientology Today Why is Scientology the Fastest Growing Religion of 21st Century?"

Given the (rightly IMHO) negative press they (scientologists) receive on here, maybe google should add some logic to check for negative comments about what they are advertising rather than just(?) keyword matching.

Here, here

J2ME just awful, but it was/is a revenue stream for sun/oracle.

What we need is a more modular approach to packaging java, a few efforts tried to do something but nothing practical has come out of them. I'd love to see oracle (and android) embrace osgi as a way of managing fragmentation and providing extensions.

Write once, test everywhere

And why is this a problem with java? Surely this would be done when necessary with any software. If the software is windows based you any company releasing software is going to test the software on different OS versions and service packs? Devices with different features and resources obviously need separate testing.

buggy software is not limited to java

I hate these comments, based on nothing but legacy opinions from around 10 years ago and a few poorly written applications. Like any language java has had some poor application developed using it, not to mention a load of useless applets that web developers decided they could slap on their page to demonstrate how clever they were fortunately the world has moved on. It an application looks ugly and is obviously developed in java then you can be 95% shure it was slapped together with out any real skill, just as if you see an app that was obviously developed in say VB or visual c++.

I've used c++ a long time before an ISO standard was offical, java since 1.1 and c# for the past few years. Of those only Java comes close to providing a practical platform for enterprise level software, and that software runs on linux, mac, windows and more UNIXes than you could shake a stick at. The death of java would set back the operational running of many buisnesses, true .net is going to improve in the coming years, but until then it only makes sense when you are heavily invested in windows.

Report questions millions spent on NHS.crap

Poor but ...

the change would only take say 10-30 mins to do and test and the same when (hopefully) they se sense and want it correcting.

Zuckerberg: I'm 'quite sure' I own Facebook

reuse code

> I do freelance work, and I would expect to be able to re-use any code that I develop unless the company I am working for explicity forbid it.

I do to, but I would not even start developing before ownership was established. I certainly would not assume it would be ok to reuse the code, if you could what's to stop you taking the money for doing the development and then say selling the software yourself. I think you are leaving yourself wide open for legal action.

I've never had any problem persuading clients to allow me to share ownership of generic stuff, especially when you point out it would be cheaper as I could reuse my existing general purpose libraries.

Linux to eclipse Microsoft's 'all-in' tablet enthusiasm

Cost?

the main reason PC are more popular over macs is price. Why pay at least twice the price for something unless you like the kit had have the disposable income or need something specific. The only reason I have one mac is to build iphone software and test my java/web apps, if Apple allowed their OS to be run in a virtual machine I wouldn't even need that :-(

Android slurps market share from Apple, RIM, Microsoft

No but it is a smart phone platform

Which is the point being discussed, you did read the report the article was about befor e you posted?

Android spanks Apple’s iOS 4 in JavaScript race

RE: Javascript tests aren't important anymore

So what about all those ajax based applications that run JS code in the user's browser.

IT recruiters warn over migration caps

Another translation

IT recruiters get a much bigger fee for getting foreign workers and for sending our engineers overseas.

Colombian cops seize cocaine World Cup

Copyright Violation

They'll probably get a greater sentence place on them from Fifa suing them for making a copy of the cup.

Small biz grits teeth over Bloody George's budget

RE: EVERYONE is worse off thanks to Labour

I never claimed that was not the case. My point was in reaction to someone who claimed those with the lowest earnings had been treated leniently.

RE: IR35

The intention to review it is still there, just not got around to it

Off the tax system

> Letting 880k off the bottom of the tax system *entirely*

Yeah and then hitting them with extra VAT and cuts working out at a figure of more than the (up to ) 200 pound the tax break gives them. What about those already below the tax limit, they don't even get any more cash back from tax.

> A levy on UK banks to protect depositors.

Banks should shoulder lot of responsibility for the state of affairs AND paying the consequences. This is nowhere enough imposed on them.

RE: lenient to the lowest earners

Which planet do you live on? The lowest earners and a lot of people above that live week to week trying to manage on the little money they have, after this budget they are WORSE off, it's a simple arithmetic sum which I'm sure most people can manage.

If you already spend every penny you earn you are now going to have to manage with buying less, a lot more people are going to slip into poverty from this. Mean while big businesses get huge benefits which will go to shareholders/directors bonuses.

Apple iOS 4 update frustrates iPhone 3G owners

ipod users?

Anyone have any success with a first gen ipod touch 16Gb?

Killer piranha stalk Folkestone pond

skeletonise!

Quite right, everyone knows they would eat the skeleton too.

Lightning bolt smites 60ft Jesus statue

plural of foot = foot or feet

When talking about foot as a measurement of length either foot or feet is correct, see

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv312.shtml

Apple reels as Steve Jobs Flashturbates

40 secs!

40 secs, what else is running, it took less than 3 secs on my (single core) intel 2.13GHz 1Gb Dell inspiron which is around 7 years old. I'm also connected to a remote network via citrix, listening to music via SPotify and also doing a complete rebuild/unit test of a huge software base, so both my internet connection and machine is busy.

[troll]Of course I am running on linux[/troll]

Adobe could not target flash for the iphone

> Adobe didn't have a workable version of Flash to run on it.

And what would what would be the point of developing one, interpreted code has always been banned, and would have been money and effort completely wasted. Adobe, saw the demand for developers wanting to develop iphone apps in flash so invested time and effort to produce a development tool which would create native iphone apps without the need for a runtime/interpreter, at which point Apple changed the rules to prevent this.

BTW, i hate flash but that's my opinion.

Mac OS X cranked to 10.6.4

Yet another huge update

While I think it's great pushing out regular updates, why does everything have to be a huge/complete update. t seems everytime I use my mac (twice a week maybe) there is at least an 50Mb of updates to either the OS or safari (usually safari).

Can they not produce updates that give the actual updates or is the architecture of the software that bad it's not possible?

Ubuntu 'more secure' than Windows, says Dell

You sure about that?

> The default user on the default Ubuntu desktop install (as of 8.04 at least) IS the admin

I've lost track of the number of installs I've done and never seen this.

Open source webAndroidiPhoneiPad kit betas for BlackBerry

Can't see this being ok

Steve Job's main argument is that apps written in none native code are only going to be as good quality those that are hand-crafted and will be restricted to features common to all platfroms. It's obviously all rubbish, the mark of quality/usability is more dependant on the skill of the developer(s) rather than the language it was written in, and the use of platform specific features depends on the level of abstraction and quality of transformation.

And what is the difference in someone writing their app in flash rather than javascript and translating that into objective-c?

New wave of superphones poised to challenge iPhone 4

World is bigger than America

> Oh, and remind me, just when is Nokia going do well in America

It's pretty big elsewhere, you now, that small bit of the world outside the US. Sorry, I forgot consumers it the US have pretty low expectations of mobiles. Apparently sending an sms or mms is so revolutionary Apple even have a TV advert saying you can actually record a video and send it to someone, wow why didn't anyone else think of that.

Joking aside, I think consumers elsewhere, or at least Europe (based on experience) have greater demands and requirements, so our leading suppliers are not as skewed towards Apple as the US.

> There will be a load of so so phones that will sell for rock bottom prices and no one will be making any money.

I doubt there will be much of a larger selection as there currently is, choosing a new phone has always been a choice of a lot of companies/models, say anyway where between 10-30 models per company.

10 updates

And how many of those have broken something?

At least it looks like iOS4 is going to be a free upgrade for us ipod users for a change.

Java fragmentation threatens as Oracle-Apache talks stall

let j2me die

No doubt it would be useful for people migrating existing apps/code to the android platform, but for any new code where you have the choice j2me has to be the wrong way, it's pants, ok for it's day and the devices it ran on.

Nowadays, the devices coming out have ever so more fancy and varied hardware. They are also more powerful, so you can do greater abstraction, android pretty much lets you do say around 70-80% of your code in what could be ported to any java environment, the remainder being some veneer for UI and platform interfacing. (Of course the %s can vary significantly if you are doing something specialised).

Tories declare students a burden on us all

Fees related to courses?

Pretty much everyone seems agreed we need more people doing engineering, science and the odd other useful course. Why not simply scrap or reduce fees for these courses and increase those on other courses for subjects that are not going to have any noticeable benefit to the country.

Government opens public spending database

UTF16 -> UTF8

> Would UTF8 or ASCII reallllly have been that difficult?

The world is bigger than ASCII, but you can do a conversion easy enough:

iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 downloaded.txt > converted.txt

Google tries to patent tech that snoops Wi-Fi networks

Possile to Patent?

Prior art aside, I thought you could only patent something new, they've already done this and it's now public knowledge, surely you can't retrospectively patent something?

Drinking coffee offers no real benefit, say eggheads

@Jim - Blue Mountain

Blue Mountain coffee is coffee that is grown in the blue mountains in Jamaica. I don't doubt there is an instant coffee with that in the name but you can also buy beans anywhere. BTW, it is considered by many to be the bets coffee and is certainly one of the most expensive.

Apple picks death not compliance for open source iPhone game

Good for open software

> All rms did was get a nice enough game removed from public iPhone distribution - yeah, because that's REALLY good for open software...duh!

And thereby enforced the license the software was developed and released under and making sure open software remains open. True, _Most_ people will be able to get this onto their device but not everyone. Also, if they let this slip they are setting a precedent, the next infringement may be slightly more sever, the next more so, at what point do you think they should step in?

BTW, I have an old ipod for which the wifi networking is dead (but still used for checking my software works on old kit), connecting to itunes is the only way I can get stuff on it and as my 5 devices is accounted for I can only put things on that I build my self, true I could get the source and build it for myself, anyone else wanting to do that would have to pay Apple $90 for the privilege of the development tools and ability to added my built software to my device that I paid money for.

The development tools BTW are based on GPL'd software, i.e. gcc

Lost nothing

> you just lost a showcase

No, they got the infringement addressed, which is want they fundamentally wanted. I'm sure it wouldn't take much for Apple to allow some applications to be free from DRM but they don't so I'm sure the FSF knew exactly what was going to happen.

How is GPL bad for buisness

If your usage of the GPL software is not compatible with it don't use it, simple.

If you mean it's bad for business because the licence prevents you from using it, tough that's live, what would you go if a licence for a proprietary piece of software prevent you from doing want you wanted? You have two options, approach the developers and negotiate a new licence or use/develop something else, and you can do both of those with GPL software.

Own Goal?

> What exactly did the FSF think was going to happen here?

I'm sure they knew exactly what would happen.

> Seems a bit like an own goal.

How, the software was removed so the infringement is gone, this is what they wanted.

Facebook gives users' names to advertisers

Conset

Surely facebook users gave consent to this already. I've never been on facebook so can only go off articles on el reg, but I got the impression that when you join facebook you transfer ownership of anything you ever do and own.

.NET for iPad stretches to Google's Android

Or flash!

> why can't we run a java VM?

Google mocks Jobs with Flash on Android

They blew it

Part of Microsoft's success was not restricting what developers could do or how they did it, thus making it easier/possible to give users what they wanted. Apple are gradually pushing developers away, of course, to paraphrase an old popular beat combo "there's still time for apple to change the road they are on".

Android requires understanding Windows?

> However, that gives Android a better life span because the growing generation don't need the easy UI of Apple, they can understand Windows.

I've got my android phone and a windows desktop in front of me, I can not see one thing the have remotely in common from a UI perspective.

Google readies Chrome OS web app store

are people going to make websites any more

A lot of the apps in these stores are just front ends to web sites/web services.

Adobe CTO paints Steve Jobs as Big Brother

RE Changing goal posts

Running flash has always been prevented. What has changed is the ability to write something in say flash scrip and TRANSLATING into something that can be run on the iphone. The running application is NOT a flash application, it is not/would not be running in a flash interpreter.

What Adobe did was within the bounds of the rules Apple had in place, Apple is changing the rules to prevent this. The rules also cover any abstraction above the level of c/obj-c/c++ code or the few tools provided by xcode. Apple changed the rules after Adobe invested the effort to do it, what's to stop them making a change that affects mine or your software. True business is about taking risk, but targeting the iphone is a lot riskier than say android and the levels of expected return are tending towards equality.

This change can only be to tie developers to the iphone, there is no technical reason what so ever. True an app coded by hand in say objective-c can be more efficient than one that uses an abstraction library, but the same argument applies to writing an application in assembler or even machine code. And lets face it for the average developer a well written and tested abstraction library is probably going to lead to better quality software than having to do everything themselves.

1000s of happy iPhone/iPad

Sure up to now people (myself included) have done that as for the past couple of years as it was the only real option of earning some from my invested effort. Android is quickly catching up with iphone sales (for my apps anyway) and it is a safer option. I'm no longer bothering with iphone for my own software (I'm still quite happy to continue developing other peoples software for it as it's not my risk).

I can see Apples draconian rules driving innovation from the iphone.

Underlying Issue

Whether you are pro/against flash there is another underlying issue here. A company, in this case Adobe but it could be anyone, can invest considerable effort in developing for the iphone/ipod/ietc only for Apple to come along and on a whim, not just change the goalposts but change the game.

So far the iphone and co have done well as it was the main player in town, however if you come up with an innovative idea would you take the risk investing all that effort aiming for apples products or target another platform?

DRM Issue?

Is this the same remote helicopter? (I'm behind a proxy which is blocking the link in the article). Is the comms between the software and drone propriety, if so a third party be could open for legal attacks by violating IP/DRM?

Steve Jobs issues open letter on Flash

Decent developer tools

> If Apple didn't produce decent developer tools, or charged a fortune for developer access to iPhone OS, Adobe would have a stronger case.

Where can I download these decent developer tools, all I can find is XCode and interface builder, neither of which are particularly good. XCode has the functionality of something you'd have encountered about 10 years ago. Maybe this is Apple's problem and just can't see why anyone would want to use modern development tools.

Glad my wife doesn't forbid me using power tools, otherwise I'd never get all the DIY chores she has lined up for me over the bank holiday in time to get out for a pint.

C language inventor spurns Google's language exam

Contractors

> The biggest offenders by far seem to be contractors who ... generally aren't interested in writing decent code anyway since they're long gone by the time the next upgrade cycle is around.

Surely code inspections and unit tests would detect this while they are still there.