Posts by JonHendry

Apple threatens Java with death on the Mac

Linux in a VM

Developers could do their Java development on a Mac by using Linux in a VM.

Mozilla man accuses Jobs of 'bypass the web' scheme

Why is he all butthurt?

Mozilla doesn't *need* to be in the app store. They have infrastructure to handle downloads. They don't need payment handling. They don't particularly need a marketing boost.

What, is he looking for Apple to subsidize Mozilla development by taking over the bandwidth load?

What a whiner.

Google Android chief smacks Steve Jobs with Linux speak

Why RMS got upset

"You have only to remember why RMS got so upset about closed software in the first place to see why genuine openness is important."

Um, he got upset in order to make use of all the time he saved by ignoring personal hygiene?

Side talkin'

"Who the hell ever asked Samsung for a phone with a 7" screen?"

I'm reminded of all the pictures on the web a few years back, making fun of that phone from, was it Nokia? People holding ludicrously large objects to their ear like a cell phone.

Jobs' Lion to marry Mac OS X and iOS

Something like that...

It's something like that. You're supposed to stay in ~/Library/... except when the user does a Save As to save a file somewhere else.

They probably have some way to check your app.

API support outside Objective-C?

What, Python, Ruby, and Objective-C++ aren't good enough?

Not the only place

" "The App Store will be a great place – but not the only place – to buy apps", or something along those lines, "

Yes, I heard this too.

And many big, important apps wouldn't meet the App Store requirements. The App Store is for relatively little apps. The Adobe CS5s, the Matlabs, the Mathematicas, the Microsoft Offices and loads of other software are going to continue to be distributed the same way as ever.

Anything with loadable code plugins, custom licensing or security systems, etc, isn't going to go through the App Store. Drivers, kernel extensions, VMWare, things that you need to install as root, aren't going to go through the App Store.

Very user-focused demo

This was all user/consumer level. Normally, the technical stuff, if any, would have been discussed at WWDC. Some might have been mentioned among the iOS material at WWDC.

Plummeting app prices

While I'm psyched about being able to distribute apps via the app store, I think we can assume prices are going to plummet to iPhone app levels, for the most part.

iPad to lead netbook and Kindle market munch

Not so much the kindle, more the also-rans

I doubt the iPad will hurt the Kindle much. Maybe the DX, but not the smaller size.

I could definitely see the iPad and other general-purpose tablets hurting the also-ran ebook readers and kindle clones.

Kensington revamps laptop lock

More about protecting against thefts of opportunity

"If someone is bright enough to break into an office, a 3mm thick steel cable will take all of 1 second to get through with a pair of snips."

I would think it's not so much the determined nighttime break-in artist that the locks are meant to deter, but the guy who either has access already, or has managed to socially engineer his way in. The night cleaner, maybe, or a 'friend' of someone on staff.

They probably don't have a bolt cutter handy, and might not have much time. If they're walking along down the hall, and the spot an unlocked, unattended laptop, and nobody's around, they can easily swipe it. They aren't as likely to bother with a locked laptop, especially if there's lots of gear around that's not locked down.

It's like when my house was broken into in 1996: they didn't bother taking the stereo, the 100-disc CD changer, the two NeXT computers, the PC. They took the CDs out of the CD rack, because that was easiest. (Unfortunately for the dumb bastard, half of the CDs were just empty cases because the discs were in the CD changer. So he only got my least-favorite discs. )

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

Trillions of dollars?

This guy is just butt-hurt because he can't get any funding for whatever lame-ass outdated stuff he wants to work on.

If there were trillions of dollars being spent on climate science, universities would be limited by manpower. They'd need to boost recruiting in order to have enough people to staff lots of labs so that they could get lots of grants funded. If it were trillions of dollars, you'd see universities throwing money at students to recruit climate science undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. There'd be postdocs driving Porsches they received as a hiring bonus.

But from what I can see, that simply doesn't match the reality. Academic climate science research is not seen as a field to go into if you want the big bucks. I don't think it's considered even above-average for academic science fields. I think people would expect climate science postdocs to earn the same low wages as postdocs in other fields.

This is just another case of 'bitter old-timer sees the world moving away from where he wants to be".

I suppose there were physicists in the early 1900s who were upset that they couldn't get anyone to fund their "luminiferous aether" research, and ranted similarly, though without getting as much attention.

Amazon Kindle 3 e-book reader

Amazon's device-agnostic

"Can you transfer purchases? Get a refund? Are there any assurances that you won't be buying your way in to a digital dark age with every book?"

Amazon's kindle apps for other hardware have shown that they're platform-agnostic. If they can put their books on another platform that comes available, they likely will. Not so much competing ebook readers, but general-purpose devices for which they can write their own reader app.

They have their iPad app, which supports the device that some expected to kill the kindle. They have apps for Mac OS X, Windows, Android, Blackberry, and iPhone. Their attitude seems to be that they don't really care what device you use, and are happy to help you use other devices by writing the software, so long as you buy some of your books from Amazon. (The software will also read .mobi files from sources other than Amazon, so you're not locked in.)

If Amazon stops making hardware, I'm sure there'll be software support on a variety of other devices.

And if Amazon were to kill their whole ebook business and end-of-life the kindle reader software I'm sure the then-current DRM will be cracked before long, and at that point Amazon won't be putting up any obstacles or changing formats to keep the DRM viable.

selection

"Buy them from charity shops or second hand bookshops for pence. Or better yet get them from your local library for nothing."

I'm not sure the books I read would be the kind I'd find in second hand shops, or charity shops. Or even libraries.

Ride a bus?

"I'd like to try one before buying - but that's just not possible with Amazon."

They're sold in some retail stores in the US (Target, Staples, Best Buy). I guess they aren't doing that in the UK?

I've been seeing more of them in use on the subway in Boston (US) lately. And someone in my apartment building got his in the mail today. (I could tell from the box).

Find some commuters, and you might find someone with a kindle who'd let you take a look at it.

You're not locked into Amazon

O'Reilly books are available in kindle-friendly formats, as are books from pragprog.com. Each site provides their books in multiple formats, with the ability to redownload or download a book in more than one format. Pragprog.com also lets you know when an updated/corrected file is available for download.

Neither uses DRM.

I have books from both on my kindle.

case

"Cost of the dedicated case: a joke. Buy a 3rd party one. Or use a sock."

I use a $1 bubble-wrap mailing envelope. It's a little big, so I folded one edge and stapled it to provide a snug fit. Then I put it inside a slightly more rigid cardboard mailing envelope. Total price: $2.

It's open at the top, so it just stays in my backpack and I slide the kindle in or out when needed.

Web browser is best only in an emergency

"With a querty keyboard, and a web browser providing access to the internet for webmail (Gmail, MSN, Yahoo! etc) as well as the ubiquitous Twitter - for an extra (once off) £50 fee, and supporting roaming in 100 countries - the 3G option looks like an absolute bargain."

I have the kindle 2, DX, and a new 3rd generation with wifi only. With wifi, the 3rd generation brower is much faster than the earlier models, but I still wouldn't want to use it intensively. Maybe to look up an occasional item on wikipedia.

I haven't seen the performance of the webkit browser on 3G, but on earlier kindles it was frankly a bit painful to use the browser. It's convenient to have it when you have no other way to get online. Say, if your cellphone doesn't have web access, and your car breaks down on the highway and you want to find a tow truck.

I used the 3G pretty much only to download things I'd bought from Amazon via my Mac.

HHGTTG

I had a sad when I bought the kindle version of the HHGTTG.

When I reached a page with some Guide text, I had the brilliant idea of having the kindle read the text.

But the publisher had told Amazon to disable text-to-speech.

BTW: Not only can you access wikipedia from a kindle, when you use the built-in search function, you're able to choose what to search: your items on the device, the store, the dictionary, google, or wikipedia.

Yes, occasionally

They do post updates periodically. Maybe not as often as users would like.

They also post source code for the linux portion of the device software. They don't post the source of the proprietary, Java-based kindle software.

It has

http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2010/09/amazon_kindle_3_gets_hacked_jailbroken.html

It runs linux, and if you search you'll find video of Xclock running on a kindle 2.

There's a number of people doing kindle hacks. They've figured out how to hook up a usb network connection, etc.

But the "kindle" functionality is a proprietary, closed-source, Java app.

Kindle 3 Screen

I have a new Kindle 3 as well as a Kindle 2 and DX. The new model's screen definitely shows blacker blacks and the background color is a bit lighter as well.

That's all nice but

That's all nice, but having a lot of books really loses its appeal when you have to move house.

Or when you have a thousand-page hardcover that weighs several pounds, and would like to read it on the train to and from work.

Microsoft caps Ballmer bonus over mobile phone, tablet failures

Dividends

Ballmer also gets about $250 million every year from dividends on his MSFT stock.

Apple TV: Third time unlucky, Mr Jobs

Buy 'IceAge' on another device

"Are you going to pay £/$1.99 every time your kids want to watch IceAge3 again. And again. And again?"

Just buy it on iTunes, and stream it from there, instead of renting again and again and again.

Intel chief: Obama (still) driving US off cliff

Bush administration gave business everything it wanted

Business had 8 years of fellatio from the Bush administration.

There wasn't much job growth outside of government, defense, and the real estate bubble. The stock market is about where it was 10 years ago.

Frankly, I think you could give Otellini everything he wants (dumping chemicals in rivers, etc, like in China) and he'd still bitch, and the US would see no benefit.

Energy-saving LEDs 'will not save energy', say boffins

They say the same thing about automobile efficiency

It's likely true, but only up to a point.

In the case of car efficiency, a car that gets higher MPG might well lead to more driving, but there's an inherent limit to that. There are only so many hours in the day, and people have better things to do than simply drive their cars 24x7.

Likewise, there are only so many things to illuminate, and limits to how much we'll illuminate them.

In either case (cars or bulbs) if the efficiency rises enough, it'll outpace the ability of the average person to match the savings with added use.

People are unlikely to add many additional low-energy bulbs, because each bulb also requires a lamp, socket, or fixture, and a power source, and a place to put the thing.

iTunes disses doctorates

What a pretentious prat

There are circumstances where it could be important to have "Dr." or "PhD" stuck on your name. On a professional conference nametag, for instance. Or on your ID if you work at a university or medical school, especially if every other PhD's ID says 'PhD'. Or perhaps on your subscription to a journal in your field. Or perhaps even when you order something work-related, like a box of ketamine vials for the lab, since having a medical license is important information in such orders.

But I fail to see why it should matter that a faceless credit card billing database for a consumer retailer of music, TV shows, and movies fails to respect your autoritah. Your advanced degree means nothing in that context, so who cares.

It's not like the gnomes at Apple are chortling in their cubicles over forcing you to give up your title and join the plebes.

Beatles on iTunes? 'Don't hold your breath' says Yoko

Damned with faint praise

"The Beatles are arguably the most important pop-band of all time."

So they tower above their peers Girls Aloud and Right Said Fred.

That's like being the tallest dwarf or the smartest moron.

Apple iPhone app patent claim 'doesn't feel right'

Probably not

The iPhone developer agreement probably lets Apple use screenshots of 3rd party apps or derivatives of them. Otherwise they couldn't use them in marketing materials, commercials, etc.

Tempest in a teapot

Clearly Apple's patent applies to stuff that will be in a framework that 3rd part apps can use, like GameKit or UIKit.

Where To is used as an example of that. The fact that the diagram uses the app's name is a pretty good clue that Apple isn't trying to steal the UI, but rather is depicting the third-party app in use. (Presumably a future version of Where To that takes advantage of the API that implements the tech being patented.)

A GameKit-related patent might show a screen shot of Pong. That doesn't mean Apple is patenting Pong.

The iPod for bicycles patent is another case: there's a drawing of a bicycle, which probably strongly resembles some particular model of a bicycle that exists. That doesn't mean Apple is trying to patent that bicycle design, or bicycles in general.

Ballmer's 'lost generation' note finds resonance

Citrix

"Most of these companies will be heavily reliant on ancient legacy apps tied into Activex or some other crappy ms standard from a few years back."

Yeah, but they might now run them on Citrix or something, so that they don't have to deal with distributing software to desktop machines. In which case a Mac user just needs a Citrix client and a network connection.

Worst-case scenario, they can use VMWare or Parallels on the Mac. That's what I did when I worked for Accenture in 06-07, and had to run their time and expenses Windows app. (I was in their 'Technology Solutions' branch, not consulting, so I didn't have a company laptop. I just used my MacBook Pro.)

Conn. lawman grills Apple and Amazon over e-book pricing

And he's running for Senate this year

He might want to think again about pissing off Apple and Amazon's customers.

Emmerdale shoves jam rags in innocent kiddies' faces

Nah

Just tell the sensitive kiddies that it said "Lad Mags".

Same thing, really.

Parliament misled over Climategate report, says MP

Climate prediction is easy

"Yes, OK, but substitute "climate prediction" for "weather prediction" and you have exactly the same point being made in terms that presumably don't offend your sense of pedantry."

Climate prediction is easy. We can predict the average temperature of January 2015 in Moscow with pretty good accuracy, if we assume no persistent temperature rise in the meantime. Seasons are very predictable. There might be an unusually warm or cold day here or there, but a freak warm day in January in Moscow doesn't mean you start saying that's representative of January.

Likewise, we can predict that climate generally gets warmer as you approach the equator and cooler as you get farther away.

Weather is hard because it's noisy, changing day by day and hour by hour. Climate is more of a running average, which smooths out the variation and thus becomes more predictable.

Microsoft's KIN is dead, long live Windows Phone 7

Back to their core competency

Making digital watches that nobody wants.

Google vanishes Android apps from citizen phones

Seriously?

"Using which API?"

Um, the OS that launches the app. In the part of the OS that launches the app, it'd check the app against a list of naughty apps. Before the app itself even actually starts.

You know, like OS X warns you if you try to run a program you downloaded which hasn't been run before.

No "greater intrusiveness" involved, no "ability to get into every app's code" needed.

Inevitable Mac OS X 10.6.4 update problems surface

No problems here

CS5 is fine. iTunes is fine. Fonts are fine.

Apple reels as Steve Jobs Flashturbates

Web apps don't go through the store either.

"Am I the only one to see this, or is it so obvious that nobody else needs to say it?"

The flaw in your argument is that Apple is perfectly happy to have you use web-based applications that aren't based on Flash. Those also are not distributed through Apple's store.

Hell, the original application development model Apple supported for the iPhone was web apps. That was before the App Store. And Apple still supports that model. Apple's Dashcode development tool started as a tool for developing OS X widgets, but now can be used for building web apps.

So, bzzt, you're mistaken.

I'm sorry Gavin, but you're a moron

1. Apple wasn't blocking Flash from the iPhone for 3 years. Adobe's incompetence was.

2. You seem to have misunderstood the point of the HTML 5 showcase. You're acting like the point was to promote Safari or something. Wrong. That's entirely beside the point. The point was to demonstrate what can be done without Flash, and get across that you don't need Flash to do video, or interactive graphics, etc.

Why did they block other browsers? I don't know, maybe because they couldn't guarantee that other browsers would render the content correctly. They're anal like that.

But it was FUCKING BRILLIANT because now people like you are wetting their pants and making the case, for Apple, that hey, other browsers can render the content just fine, thus demonstrating that the showcase wasn't a bunch of proprietary Apple technology, but can be displayed by any compliant browser, and didn't require some closed-source proprietary plug-in like Flash.

So you're helping make Jobs' argument in favor of HTML5/CSS/JavaScript and against Flash for him. Ha!

Nice own-goal there. The only person flashturbating is you.

iBooks

iBooks isn't the only way to read books on the iPad. If the Kindle app isn't available in the UK, Apple could just point out the the iPad web browser can access all the books on Gutenberg.

Thanks for playing, but you lose.