Posts Tagged ‘apple’
The iPad is an enemy to openness
Posted in Technicalon Jan 28, 2010
A friend of mine who is an Apple employee, Quinn Taylor, tweeted, on the day of the iPad launch, about the use of Flash by Hulu and other online video providers. Presumably, he is responding to criticisms that the new iPad, as well as older iPhones, do not support flash and won’t play videos from Hulu. This is what he said:
When is Hulu going to get with the times and support H.264 and HTML 5 like YouTube & HD content? Flash is an enemy to openness & innovation.
So apparently, a system which requires a proprietary SDK to create videos, which then need a proprietary (free) player in order to view videos, is an “enemy to openness.”
Of course, the iPad isn’t exactly the perfect friend to openness. I mean, to develop anything for the iPad, you have to download the proprietary SDK, use it only on a newer Mac, pay to join Apple’s iPhone developer program, submit any developed application to Apple, hope that Apple approves your app, wait for people to find your app in Apple’s App Store, and then if it gets that far, users can download and use the app on the proprietary iPad device.
I just want to point out that on the conversation of enemies to openness, we could use the new iPad as a perfect example, as everything is locked down and closed from beginning to end.
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- Tags: apple, iPod
The Mac Book Error
Posted in Technicalon Jan 15, 2008
Today Apple announced the Mac Book Air and new ultra-slim laptop computer. Weighing only 3 pounds, this notebook is like someone flattened a Mac Book. Here are a couple of deal breakers for me with the Mac Book Air:
- No user replaceable battery
- No Firewire
- No DVD player (or optical drive
- No built in Ethernet connector
- $1800 starting price
- Only one usb port
- Only 1.6GHz processor speed (the slowest Mac Book is 2 GHz)
- Only a 4200 RPM hardrive (pretty slow)
On the other hand, it is a cute little computer that would be quite a bit more comfortable hauling around all day in my backpack. I am still. however, exceptionally worried about the built in battery. I’ve had two batteries on my iBook be recalled because of their poof-potential. I would hate to have to go through the trouble of servicing my laptop or watching it explode if ever the battery were to explode.
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- Tags: apple
Using GPG For Signing Messages on a Mac
Posted in Technicalon May 11, 2005
GPG is a way to digitally sign email messages so that other people can know that they came from you. It can also be used to encrypt messages. Getting GPG to work is easy if you know the right way to do it, or difficult if you don’t. Here are some steps for the Mac user to get started with GPG: Read the rest of this entry »
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- Tags: apple, Email, os x, Security
Get a Mac Buddy!
Posted in Funnyon Mar 25, 2005
Some people just need a mac. What are they doing with that big old windows laptop?
I go into one of my classes a few minutes late. Someone had brought a power strip with a long cord and plugged it in to one of the only avaiable outlets in the room, and then the cord went up the isle a couple of rows. At first I thought it might be for something important, but as I looked closer, I found that someone was using it simply to plug in their laptop.
Please, people. If your laptop doesn’t have enough battery power to allow you to get by without hauling your power supply (and a power strip!) around with you, then you really don’t have a laptop, just a portable computer. Buy a mac! 5 hours of battery life. No power strip needed!
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- Tags: apple
Configuring and Running X11 Applications on Mac OS X
Posted in Technicalon Jan 21, 2005
Running X11 on my apple
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- Tags: apple, Links, os x
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