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Comment Give me the recipe for the iPhone cake or else.. (Score 1) 419

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/apple-countersues-nokia-for-infringing-13-patents/

Apple says Nokia's patents aren't actually essential to GSM / UMTS, denies infringing them, and says they're invalid and / or unenforceable anyway. Apple also says Nokia wanted unreasonable license terms for the patents, including a cross-license for Apple's various iPhone device patents as part of any deal, which Apple clearly wasn't willing to do.

Comment Re:Java too complex (Score 1) 558

  • The set of technologies surrounding .NET is much narrower than what you see with Java. That is to say if you want to learn .NET you can stick to one IDE, one OS, one application server, etc. With Java you have Tomcat, Jetty, JBoss, Websphere, Glassfish, etc. Then you've got NetBeans, Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc. Then maybe you have to pick an ORM framework. Or a Web Services framework Axis, Xfire or JAX-WS RI? The .NET environment removes all those decisions. So, as a student, you can say to yourself, "IF I learn X and Y and Z, then I'll have covered everything I need to know."

I call that a healthy ecosystem that prevents vendor lock-in. That's how you grow free software like Spring and Hibernate that is mostly what you need to know these days. But saying that having more than one IDE is a problem speaks a lot of your attitude.

  • One of Java's big selling points, "Write once, run anywhere," never really worked in practice.

Ha! bullshit. Any J2EE standard application runs on any J2EE compliant server, prove me wrong if you can. There are a few exceptions, corner cases, and weakness of the jvm spec that you probably don't know, but they don't amount, by far, to say that WORA doesn't work.

Comment Re:Two way street (Score 1) 367

Apple advocates may not want to play the popularity card. By that standard, MacOS must suck, cuz Windows derivatives are 18 times more popular.

Apple products target the high end market which is smaller in itself. Still, when the iPhone collects a third of handset industry profits and tops the consumer satisfaction surveys, it means it is one of the greatest products of all time.

Comment Craig Hockenberry: Year 2 (Score 2, Informative) 149

Craig Hockenberry: Year 2 is possibly the most thoughtful piece about what Apple needs to improve, why, and how. You may want to pay him a visit.
  • The root of the problem: software is not music. Songs sell without iTunes, songs don't harm the device, songs don't bug. But songs are also not essential to sell the device...
  • Approvals: Emergencies..., Maintenance releases aren't viable...
  • Upgrades: currently there is no upgrade revenue...
  • Better rules: clear rules will make the process easier for everyone...
  • Better experience for customers: Product evaluations..., Respond to reviews..., Finding apps..., Charge us more money..., Pricing...

Comment Re:Supreme Court? (Score 1) 323

I assume that Spain has a supreme court of some kind, and that there are avenues to appeal. I have a hard time believing that higher judges would accept that mass internet copyright infringement is a right.

Copyright infringement in Spain is only considered a crime if there is an intent to earn money with it. No judge is going to rule different because their duty is to enforce the law and the constitution, not to change it. To compensate the loss of income due to private copy, we pay taxes when we buy any device able to reproduce any copyrighted work (photocopiers, CDs, iPods, hard disks, ...). There is also a tax for TV and radio devices on public places.

But you never know. This is Spain, a country that has judges that take it upon themselves to prosecute foreign "war criminals", and was only recently rebuffed in their efforts to do so.

That's because Spain signed The Protocol to the Geneva Conventions relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts. According to it, states have a duty to try or extradite anyone charged with having committed any violation to the Geneva Conventions on the basis of universal jurisdiction.

As of 14 January 2007 it had been ratified by 167 countries, with the United States, Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Iraq being notable exceptions.

Comment more do, do, do, less jaw, jaw, jaw (Score 1) 195

If you never wrote anything useful, or are not able to think of any meaningful goal, you are still on a basic skill level. If you need other people to motivate you to keep learning, programming may not be your vocation. It isn't the end result what motivates a developer, it's the joy of learning, and writing software is part of it. But don't despair, I guess you didn't see the whole picture yet. Choose a language and start reading weblogs, you may find a vibrant community to inspire you. And more important: have fun, only that will keep you going.

Comment The Timing of Steve Jobsâ(TM)s Liver Transpla (Score 5, Informative) 436

The following is taken from Daring Fireball, one of the few reliable sources of Apple info on the Internet.

The Timing of Steve Jobs's Liver Transplant I'm curious about the reported timing. The Journal story says "about two months ago", but I heard from a bunch of sources last week at WWDC that Jobs had been seen on campus the week before - i.e. about two weeks ago. I mean, he was there walking around, giving people hell like usual. Regarding recuperating time, the Journal story has this sentence:

Recovery from a liver transplant is relatively fast, said William Chapman, a specialist at Washington University who has no direct knowledge of Mr. Jobsâ(TM)s case.

But six weeks doesn't sound "relatively" fast, to me. It sounds crazy fast. I don't know how authoritative it is, but here's what health-cares.net says regarding liver transplant patients:

After discharge from the hospital, patients are seen every week (for approximately three weeks) in the outpatient clinic for an examination and monitoring of blood tests. During this time, medications are adjusted based on the levels found in your blood. After approximately one month, patients are usually seen only two to three times during the first year. Also beginning at one month, blood is checked every other week; eventually, it is checked only once a month. Most patients are encouraged to resume physical activity, including work, after three to six months, depending on their recovery. Patients may resume heavy activity, including workouts, at six months.

So I'm thinking that if Steve Jobs had a liver transplant, it was more than "about two months" ago.

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