OS X has a habit of introducing radically new APIs in newer versions of the OS, such as Core Animation in Leopard. There are usually lots of goodies that developers can't help but play with, which then make their apps non-backward compatible. This then cascades to the end-user purchasing OS upgrades from Apple. Now, I may be wrong, but I doubt that there is anything in Core Animation that requires Leopard. Apple could choose to create installable versions of the newer APIs for Tiger (and perhaps Panther). However, they have no financial incentive to do so.

Now, Microsoft also introduces new APIs. The difference is that Microsoft has historically back-ported APIs to previous versions of the OS. For example, WIndows XP shipped with DirectX 8.1. When DirectX 9 came out, Microsoft released it for both Windows 2000 and XP. The same can be said for .NET. (2.0 supports W2K, 3.0 does not - but it does support XP). Of course, now Microsoft is following Apple's lead, and DirectX 10 only installs on Vista.

To whomever modded this "Offtopic": What the Dickens is the matter with you?

Yet another illiterate modder who can't even be bothered to use google.

And to whomever modded this Offtopic: Whoosh!

Ok, Mr. AC, apparently you don't understand the meaning of the words "overly simplified". It was an analogy. Get a clue. Nor was I saying that every new use for an existing machine could not be patented.

But what is certain: If the process is not intrinsically tied to a specific machine, and if the process does not perform some sort of transformation of one thing into something else, it cannot be patented.

Trivialize it if you wish. Patent lawyers are freaking out. They at least don't think it's trivial.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081103134949355
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081105132651542
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081109185020183
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081112034806294
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081102011538422

Somebody better feed Grandpa his oatmeal.

I have not used Mootools. I was first exposed to jQuery when I was trying to integrate WYMEditor into my company's CMS. When we ran into an issue, where we needed to add a CSS class to some server-side-generated code that we could not touch, the answer from somebody on a forum was, "Just use jQuery," and I was shown a one-liner that did exactly what we needed. Not only that, it was instantly understandable. My initial reaction, having struggled with doing this manually in the past, was, "It can't be that easy." Of course, I have used it in countless ways since then. I personally find it quite self-documenting.

Your point is well taken. I was not aware of this distinction.

Now, the next step in the right direction would be a ruling to the effect that a method claim cannot be recast as an apparatus claim, just to avoid the machine requirement. i.e., that if there is no essential difference between a method claim and an apparatus claim when the apparatus incorporates a general-purpose machine, the apparatus claim, by the same standard, should be denied.

Apparatus claims are not sufficient to get around In re Biski. Simply adding the words "On a computer" or "On a handheld device" (or long drawn-out complicated descriptions which equate to the same), to a process that is, in itself, purely algorithmic or an abstract process that could equally apply to any number of pre-existing machines, does not rise to the level of the machine requirement in In re Biski.

I like to put it his way (though this is overly simplified, perhaps): If you come up with a novel way to use a screw driver, you cannot patent your method, because you didn't have to invent the screw driver to do it. The screw driver already existed.

In this patent, you could substitute the words, "web page displayed in a browser, running on a hand-held computer with a touch screen" for the bulk of the claim copy. Well, none of that qualifies a process as unique to a specific machine. The fact that there are many different devices that meet his description, devices that are in no way intrinsically linked to this patent, brings this into direct conflict with In re Bilski.

Actually, most of them will, if you install the Nightly Tester Tools add-on. You can then force compatibility on any or all of your add-ons.

YMMV, but in my case, the following work fine in 3.1 beta 1: iMacros, Adblock Plus, DownloadHelper, Firebug, Flashgot, Foxmarks, and Web Developer Toolbar.

Ah! Ok, then.

Uh, yeah, and?

http://tinyurl.com/cheapssd

Probably nothing like a Seagate, but, technically they are SSD drives. I imagine they are probably more like big thumbdrives with a run-of-the-mill SATA controller slapped on them.

Yes, my thought exactly.

I've been doing Photoshop work for years, played with a number of fractal algorithms, used such "miracle" filters as greycstoration, and I've never seen anything like this.

I don't believe that the "before" picture is accurate at all. I think it has already been degraded from the original, and the "after" more closely represents the quality of the source image.

That is what we call a "theological translation". You believe that only because somebody told you that. It could just as well mean that in the process of creating the earth, it was, at the particular point in time we are noting, formless and empty.

The verb is hayah. In Gen. 2:1, it's just your basic "be" verb, in the Qal 3rd person form. "At that point in time, it so was". If it was speaking of a future event, it would be "it will be".

The verb has no connotation of some process of becoming, nor does it imply some transitional state that proceeded it. It merely means that at this particular point in time, whatever may have been, it is this way now.

This is Hebrew 101. It's just a "be" verb. This is simple stuff, dude. And that is why any major translation you care to name: KJV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NIV, ESV, NASB, JPS, NJB, the Greek Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, Luther's 1545 German, translate it: "the earth was ...". But of course, they must all have been inept translators . . .

My company runs a fileserver on Linux, shared via CIFS/SMB and netatalk simultaneously, with accounts in LDAP. All the Macs use AFP.

It has been absolutely flawless. In fact, it is much faster than the OSX-based fileserver we used to use (and a fraction of the cost of an Apple XServe). AFP has just simply not been a problem.