Posts by Aaron

JAVA

Who uses JAVA anymore?

/I keed... I keed...

Poorhouse?

Sounds like Tony is poor and cannot afford a Mac.

Goto statements...

...aren't inherently evil. What do you think a JMP statement in Assembler is?

Paris, because she keeps insisting I'm misspelling "jump".

Netbooks are for...

...those times when you need portability in a lappy that won't break your heart if it gets stolen or broken on a trip. Just because the computer is small in stature, it doesn't mean we expect any less of it.

Why can't Microsoft make ONE version of the operating system, a'la Apple? At last check, there are 8 versions of Windows 7. Please enlighten me on how this doesn't confuse punters.

Mini Me...

My new Dell Mini 9 LOVE the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). Even with the stock 512MB RAM (yes, I upgraded it), UNR took only about 240MB at boot time with NO swap usage. Performance is snappy, even with the relatively slow SSD. CPU utilization at idle is minimal, allowing for about 5 hours of "real" usability out of the battery. I love it!

Jail humour

@Anonymous Coward: Yes, he keeps the $7,000 but he pays for it in the end... hahaha!

Got my parents back...

It used to be that when my parents called, it was almost always a troubleshooting call for their PCs, never just a "how are you doing" call.

Now they both have Macs and love them, and when they call me, I know it's just to say "hello".

Thanks, Apple, for giving me my parents back.

Physical Access...

If you have physical access to ANY computer, you can hack it. Yes, even Macs.

When Mac OS X 10.5 came out, I installed it on my PowerBook G4 and played with it on an overseas flight. Unfortunately, 10.5 had a bug that caused privilege DEMOTION, and both previously administrator-level accounts were demoted to standard users, with no "sudo" capability.

Since I had physical access to the machine (duh), I was able to get into the system and manually promote my access. Yes, on an airplane and without the Mac OS X DVD disc. No, I won't tell you how I did it.

The HFS+ bug is stupid. Without physical access, it doesn't work. I hope Apple patches it, but I don't see this becoming a huge issue for Macs.

@Mike Richards

The required Microsoft and Intel stickers are under a magnetic cover over the laptop's hinge. It's truly, truly sad that being a minion of Microsoft requires these stickers to be plastered on your computer.

Devil Bill for obvious reasons.

Prior Art

Apple will have no problems establishing prior art and completely invalidating their patent. I was writing games back in 1982 that used a similar technology for scrolling the screen.

Modernize

I hope this includes finally embracing IPv6 for the masses.

Mac

Silverlight is a mixed bag on the Mac for me. The plugin crashes Safari on both of my Macs, though I can use Firefox with success.

@Lewis Wernham: Flash 10 (beta) for the Mac is fast!

@TeeCee

I haven't laughed that hard since I was a little girl.

Burn baby burn

Assuming (poorly) that we can burn these disks at 8x (as the latest BD burners are), that would take over 200 minutes or about 3 1/3rd hours.

Ear of tin

Neil Young may have a "heart of gold", but he obviously doesn't have a golden ear.

I downloaded Nine Inch Nail's latest from their site (legally, thank you) in 24-bit, 96kHz lossless audio quality. I converted it to Apple lossless format (still 24-bit, 96kHz audio) and it plays perfectly on my AppleTV through my Harmon-Kardon amplifier and sounds brilliant.

Are the earbuds that Apple supplies rubbish? Indeed. Get a Sony in-ear kit and be done with it.

Appearance

It is possible to have a window with no header, essentially enabling you to make your own UI. Kai's PowerGoo is one application that decided to make their own GUI... and I think they intentionally made it confusing.

Windows has a lot more flexibility when controlling aspects of the GUI. However, there are some really ugly-assed Windows applications out there (mostly freeware and shareware) with no sense of good, usable GUI design at all.

The Mac OS X restrictions help reduce bad design. It's pretty rare that you find a freeware or shareware OS X application that looks like shit.

Back to the future?

Their initiative is named OSII? Who else read that as "OS/2"...