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Comment Re:Has Rackspace had any outages in 10 years or so (Score 5, Informative) 182

It depends which data center you're in. PortableApps.com has been hosted at Rackspace for years and we had multiple major outtages due to ongoing power issues in the Dallas data center in 2009. The switch from grid to ups was failing and would take the whole wing of the data center out with every server crashing hard. It would take quite a while to come back up. Then we'd have to wait hours for the Rackspace folks to rebuild our corrupted database (fully managed account on a dedicated server). It happened two weekends in a row in June and one other time if I recall correctly, basically costing us a full day of downtime each time.

Comment $575- 16GB, mid-range CPU, AT&T-only 32GB/colo (Score 5, Informative) 120

It's $575 for the 16GB ($630 for the 32GB which is AT&T only at present) and no microSD so you're locked to that size. The customizations options are similarly on the worst-rated carrier in the US, AT&T. T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon get a black or white 16GB version. That's it. It's $199 for the 16GB one on a 2 year contract, which is the same as you'd pay for a top-tier phone like the HTC One 32GB or the Samsung Galaxy S4 16GB (with microSD so you can add up to 64GB more space on the cheap).

Comment about:config, NoScript, etc, etc, etc (Score 1) 326

As always, you can disable it yourself within about:config. Or use an extension like NoScript, etc to disable it per-site. You likely knew this and were trolling as most folks who are whining about this setting change are. Mozilla is removing the disable JavaScript box from Options as a browser without JS turned on is pretty useless today. A ton of sites won't work right. Most web developers don't even bother to check for JS being disabled anymore, nor should they as JS exists everywhere and in every modern phone browser, too. And the 2m people running NoScript no enough to enable JS when a website doesn't work.

Comment Re:Firefox only? (Score 1) 77

If you'd read the links, you'd know that this is new technology being created by the Mozilla folks and being debuted in Firefox first. It's open source (as would be expected from Mozilla) and available to every other browser maker. It uses a subset of JavaScript that's specially compiled to run very fast in the optimized Firefox engine. It's still valid JavaScript, though, so it will run in other browsers, just slower. Some browsers like Chrome can't handle it and crash at the moment. There's already a feature request to add this into Chrome/Chromium. And, since it is in Firefox, it'll be in Firefox OS as well, making gaming on Firefox OS cell phones more of a possibility than it was before.

Comment Same Bugs as Firefox 64-bit (Score 3, Informative) 209

Waterfox is just Firefox built as 64-bit with some compiler switches and a name change (required by trademark guidelines). It's not a fork and there are no additional bug fixes. It has all the bugs that Firefox does when compiled as a 64-bit binary. You're far better off sticking with Firefox 32-bit which works just fine under 64-bit Windows.

Comment Re:Apple HAS browser competition! (Score 1) 251

Why would Mozilla invest the time and resources into a platform owned by a company that's completely hostile to competition and openness? Not to mention the small number of jailbroken iOS devices makes it a losing proposition. They could do it to prove a point, but that would be a very expensive point considering the effort to port Firefox to Objective C.

Comment Re:Apple HAS browser competition! (Score 3, Interesting) 251

Sorry, that's not Chrome. It's Safari with a Chrome skin, just like all the other "browsers" in the app store. And, like all Safari skinned browsers, it uses the purposely slower Safari rendering mode so that mobile Safari looks better. There is one exception in the app store, and that's Opera Mini. To get around this rule, Opera has a server farm in the cloud rendering pages and JavaScript and sending the results down to the Opera Mini clients. It's inefficient and doesn't work as well as a native browser, but it's the only way to "compete" with Apple. Oh yeah, and the whole Opera Mini client is designed for dumb phones that lack the power to run a real browser.

Comment Re:Hey, Apple has browser competition! (Score 4, Informative) 251

Not sure if trolling or clueless. On the off chance you are clueless, Apple doesn't permit competing browsers in their app store. They sneakily did this by banning all interpreted code (for 'security reasons'). That means no JavaScript. And a browser is mostly useless on the modern internet without JavaScript. So, the only thing you can do with a browser on iOS is to wrap Safari in a skin. But, surprise, Apple screws you there, too, because they give you a slower engine in that mode. So, every single browser on iOS is just a Safari skin and they all run slower than Safari. Hurray for Apple's walled garden. There is one exception in the app store, and that's Opera Mini. To get around this rule, Opera has a server farm in the cloud rendering pages and JavaScript and sending the results down to the Opera Mini clients. It's inefficient and doesn't work as well as a native browser, but it's the only way to "compete" with Apple. Oh yeah, and the whole Opera Mini client is designed for dumb phones that lack the power to run a real browser.

Comment Professionals Don't Matter (Score 5, Insightful) 225

Apple is making record profits ($35 billion last quarter) and only 14.2% of those profits ($1.287 billion) came from sales of Mac hardware last quarter (all desktops and laptops). (source) The percentage of money Apple makes from desktops and laptops is getting progressively smaller each quarter. And the number of 'professionals' in those numbers is smaller still. The bottom line is that there is FAR more money to be made from consumers. To the point that professionals really don't matter to Apple's bottom line at all. Consumers, consumers, consumers. Consumers consuming music/video ($1.571 billion, up 29 percent from $1.571 billion a year earlier.) and apps ($891 million, up 28 percent from $696 million a year earlier.) on their iPads ($9.17 billion, up 52 percent from $6.046 billion a year earlier.), iPod Touches ($1.06 billion, down 20 percent from $1.325 billion a year earlier.) and iPhones ($16.425 billion, up 22 percent from $13.31 billion a year earlier.). That's where the money is. That's where nearly ALL the money is. Microsoft is seeing the same light. That's why Windows 8 is what it is. It is a 100% consumer operating system, corporations be damned. It's about setting up an ecosystem of apps, music and video across your desktop, laptop, tablet and phone. So, no, it doesn't matter if you can't install Eclipse, Mac Ports or various command-line tools on your Mac. The Mac App Store is about consumers, just like the iOS App Store. Not creators or 'professionals'. Even if you estimate that 10% of Mac's desktop/laptop hardware sales were 'professionals' (an extremely high estimate) and every single one of them abandoned Mac as a result of these changes (unlikely), that's still only $493 million. 1.4% of Apple's revenue. And that will be more than offset by another platform where Apple for all intents and purposes controls the keys to the kingdom (Mac App Store will be 95%+ of all Mac software sales in the next couple years) and makes a 30% cut of all software sales. They can ditch professionals and make a killing on consumers.

Comment Re:Unfortunate license choice (Score 1) 193

He can if he so chooses. And when he accepts contributions from others, he can ask that they sign a joint copyright assignment (ala OpenOffice.org pre-Oracle/Apache) so that he can include those in the app store version. Or he may choose to go GPL only and not pay the Apple tax, meaning no iOS version at all, and an Apple version that users will have to tick the box allowing non-Apple signed apps to run.

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