So how many of these (usually slightly cheaper) Linux netbooks are wiped the moment they get home and an illegal copy of XP put on?

Or after trying for a while the owner (who had the best intentions) decides they don't like Linux and put an illegal copy of XP on?

Just sayin'...

Absolutely, but in this case, from my experience it is true. I find it very easy and there are numerous stories of people new to programming making some very good and popular apps.

This is only try for the iPhone. ("historically" thus only going back 14 months!) There is not a single limation on the Mac platform; you can write anything you like and publish it any way you like. All without paying Apple anything, of course.

You should try mobile development! :) To support the majority of Java ME phones that are technically capable of running your app you should really make hundreds of builds! Windows Mobile isn't much better, with wildly varying hardware inside.

This is a gripe you have with iPhone, not the Mac platform. MS charges hundreds for Visual Studio where XCode is free, for example. They do have a paid developer program which gives early access as well as good discounts on hardware. But you don't need to pay them anything to develop or get their approval for anything on the Mac.

An ever growing number around me, actually! People buy computers very much on price and "what I already know". Luckily more and more people are realising there is something better than Windows and switching is easy.

Just because a platform has a greater number of frameworks doesn't mean it is more powerful. You could even turn it around and say that the number of 3rd party frameworks being developed indicates the language is missing some important stuff and everybody is trying to solve it in their own way, with lots of redundant, very similar frameworks.

You are probably comparing your desktop/server experience wth those languages to a mobile platform. I program Java and .Net for server apps every day and iPhone by night. The two are a completely different world. In my dayjob I am using all the frameworks and libraries that make me more productive. For the iPhone I don't even go looking for them because everything I need is right there. (The only exception to that I could see is 2D/3D animtaion and games, for which there are several great frameworks for iPhone. But that is not something I Do.)

Fifty thousand apps in just over a year on a niche mobile platform can't be argued with. The Objective-C/Cocoa Touch platform is inmensly powerful.

Ask any mobile developer that has done Windows Mobile in .Net, Java ME or Android and see which platform they create their best looking, best function, most reliable apps on and which one is the fastest to develop for. Yes, that would be iPhone.

Maybe Mono Touch will bring that kind of quality and productivity using C# to the iPhone platform, but I am sceptical.

There is a reason why there is so much quality software for iPhone - and for the Mac platform for that matter - and that reason are the Apple SDKs and Objective-C.

Great, thanks. I'll definitely make sure to have a fresh Time Machine backup in case it all goes pear-shaped!

Hmmm. Got my Mac pro with 10.4. Used retail disk to update to 10.5. Now I would like to use a new larger, faster disk as start-up disk.

Is there any way to convince 10.6 to install on that? Like having the old disk in there so the installer can see I am eligible but install on a new disk?

Or do I need to restore from th 10.4 disks, update to 10.5 and then "erase and install" 10.6!?

Why do so many folks expect the people we hire for our dirtiest jobs (like thermo-nuclear incineration of entire nations) to be do-no-harm nice guys?

At best you are going to get people who act like the majority of the society they represent.

How did we go from "three unencrypted hard drives that disappeared" to it being a "data breach"?

Yes, they should have been encrypted and yes, they should not have disappeared. For all we know some idiot stole them reformatted them and now hold their pr0n collection at home. Or the wrong ones were picked up for destruction and they have actually been securely destroyed.

Really, the media and everyone here is getting their panties all in a twist and coming up with fantastical hypothetical situation when the most likely scenario is nothing bad will come from this as it rarely does.

I am and they do! Texts are a cash-cow, why wouldn't they upgrade? They wouldn't do that if it were free; you get what you pay for.

I don't think Telcos guarantee anything, anyway...

The upgrades work for all services at the same time, yes. But it is a shared piece of equipment, so in accounting you need to pay for your share. The cost of equipment and its maintenance is much higher than the cost of bandwidth required, so just using the amount of data used as a guide for how cheap SMS should be makes no sense.

Big gatherings are a different story. The reason your phone worked at all is because they wheeled in mobile towers, which is the norm for events. It doesn't make them much money directly, but indirectly, they don't want to be known as the one network that didn't work - it's the kind of thing that makes people churn when their contract is up.

They still have to pay for the equipment somehow. People place a value on SMS, so they pay for it. If they made SMS free, they would lose that revenue stream and you'd pay more for the calls.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

That used to be the case when SMS first became available, already paid for in the basic equipment and hardly anyone used it. But with the volume it is being used in now, there most definitely is a cost that is involved in upgrading systems to deal with it.

Remember how at midnight, new year's eve your SMSs didn't used to arrive a few years ago and now they do? Why do you think that is? Exactly: investment in increased capacity.

The price they charge is too high for sure and it is a cash cow, but to say the cost is 0 is just dead wrong.

Well, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. We'll have to wait and see to find the truth.

I agree Java is very fast and efficient, any algorithm you implement in Java and Python, the Java will run rings around the Python one.

But that is not all there is to it. Modern Java apps tend to use memory and CPU cycle hogging frameworks like Spring and Hibernate.

Then there is the network layer. It is entirely possible to have a very fast server implementation in C running a slower dynamic language and have the sum of the parts outperform a J2EE server.

I am sure a lightweight JSP/Servlet/POJO only Java app on the App Engine can be just as a efficient as an equivalent Python one. But I fear many will use the heavy frameworks and will on average rack up higher utilization charges than those deciding to go with Python.

Let's wait and see...

Servlets are part of J2EE, not Java SE. So is JPA.

By definition, any servlet container is a J2EE implementation.

When does something become "J2EE"? Session Beans? They are nice for client server apps, but their use in a web stack is rather limited and adds tons of overhead. POJOs, JPA, Servlets and an MVC framework will suit me just fine.

You sure you are not confusing this with the dots 15 seconds and 1 second before a reel splice? Note the next scene change will be a hard cut of both audio and video, no wipes or fades.

Well, there is the counting thing: "44 people have taken the oath" - him and none of his aides must have realised number 22 and 24 were the same guy. So it has been taken 44 times, but only by 43 people.

Slightly embarrassing, but no nucular misunderestimation...

Don't mention the Indians! (or the slavory thing)

You seem to to get it, but I love the irony of Americans being so critical of "European colonisation" - dude: you are a European colony! The worst atrocities against the natives were comited after Mel Gibson won your independence.

If there is one nation that has no right to criticize other nations' colonisation policies, it's the US.