One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com
Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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First off, I suppose I'll mention the Macbook's out. When you can grab a 1.83 GHz Dual Core, 1280x800 screen resolution (and no firmware hack for monitor spanning needed), 512 meg RAM with a 2 gig max, and an iSight, no less, for $1100, well, that's not too shabby. Dell has [for a while now] had quite a few low priced options out now that squarely price the MacBook out of the entry-level market the iBook once dominanted [in my biased mind], but this is a great-looking machine. Oh yeah, and it runs Windows.
Most interesting change for me? No more modem; you have to buy an optional, external USB modem ($49!) instead. Doesn't seem like a big deal, but when I've needed a modem, it's been nice not to have to search for, much less have remembered, my old Hayes Accura 28.8. Hardly a reason not to buy, but an interesting move, like when the ADB port disappeared on the iMac. Apple does lead the way in discarding what usually does soon become obsolete (ADB or PS/2 for USB, floppy for CD-R, IR port for, um, nothing, and now modem for wireless). The modem elimination also seems to have allowed Apple to move the power cord with the other ports on the left side of the keyboard, so you don't have wires sticking out on both sides. That's a smart move, indeed.
Also somewhat interesting that the MacBook is using the Intel GMA 950 video setup with shared memory that the Mac Mini uses -- and that's been routinely panned by the gaming community as a real step down from the dedicated "cards" in previous Minis and iBooks. Heck, even my old iBooks have dedicated VRAM, 32 megs in the one I'm using now.
Regardless, I'm covetous of that screen resolution and extra processing power. Very very nice. If the keyboard has a nice feel, I'd trade my current model for one. But I suspect they'd want me to pay as well.
Second point today: We owe Microsoft for today's Internet. Look, I'm no MS fan as a rule. I just gushed about a Mac that costs nearly twice the entry Dell, extra features or no. But because of Vista's slippage and IE 6's corresponding long life, 95%-plus of the people browsing the web have done so with the same platform for years. This has allowed the web to standardize cleanly.
I'm not talking about w3c standards here; I'm talking about practical standards. Any coder worth their salt has figured out how to get their dhtml working on IE, and then had years to get a version that would work on IE and Mozilla/Firefox with a minimum of browser-specific code. Windows users have not been moving targets for years, as in about seven years. This is about thirty-eight generations in 0 & 1 land.
The Pax IEiana has allowed for some real innovation in dhtml, middleware, and server-side data processing, and this is the place we see Microsoft continuing the hard-core use of embrace & extend and revise & replace we saw with web standards in the IE 4-5 days. .NET is the obvious place where middleware and data processing changes have been happening, with VB.NET (ignoring the fact that VB6 is still as popular and usually more important in descriptions on the job wire), C#, and the awfully well-made ADO.NET model, but we've also seen the growth, maturity, and increased feature sets (better or worse) of php, JSP & friends, MySQL, etc.
So thanks, MS, for delaying Vista and allowing client-side web platforms to stay unchanged for thirty-eight generations. It also means my old-school html skillz are still just about as useful today as they were last time I did them for anything approaching market rate. That's also very very nice.
posted by ruffin
at 5/16/2006 10:52:00 AM
If you're doing Java work in a Windows work environment, I'm not sure you can do much better (okay, admittedly after about 10 minutes of testing), the VSS Plugin version 1.6.1 for Eclipse 3.1 over at SourceForge. Very smooth, incredibly intuitive integration with Visual SourceSafe.
I've tried a few times to teach myself to use CVS, but each time it's been less than, well, immediately intuitive. I realize that's not saying much, but VSS is and I've used it for years. So I recently eBayed a new copy (with reg number, of course) and started working. Thinking the VSS client would be easy enough to use with non-VB projects, I didn't bother checking for an Eclipse plugin first. Glad I did afterwards.
posted by ruffin
at 5/12/2006 10:37:00 PM
That's right, folks, it's a VCR for your radio that even claims to remove commercials. One truly neat function is that it takes an existing medium -- in this case, the 110 minute cassette tape -- and manages to use it in a different way -- here, use less tape per minute when capturing voice, which doesn't need the resources, say, your mix tape from 1988 does. There's also the added benefit that they've taken that ubiquitous medium and locked in your content with their player; you're not listening to something taped with their 1/4 speed setup if you're not using their recorder. Wonder how "encrypted" the content is, or if it would sound like Alvin on a normal recorder? I'm betting something fancier than the latter.
ESPN radio has been running some self-pimps recently billing its radio broadcast as somehow being especially high tech and that you should be listening so that you can get the news now! Of course the technology challenger is a newspaper, so the radio does make out pretty well. Along the tired line of code rusting, I'd just point out that even when a technology is "obviously surpassed", there are still some things that are easier to do through ingenious use of The Old Way. [I suppose the natural next step is a conversation about digital broadcast radio, but between that and HDTV (and, well, heck, DRM in general) I think we're looking at a pretty nasty scamming of US consumers.]
posted by ruffin
at 5/02/2006 03:28:00 PM
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