I think this will happen, further down the line. I think they will eventually release a 'server only' OSX that doesn't come with iLife and costs in the medium hundreds, so that there's little advantage to buying a third party machine for personal and small business use (because of the cost of the software) whilst encouraging medium-size audio, photography and video businesses to stick with Apple/OSX/iOS as a platform.

I think you're in an inverse reality distortion field there. I know many photography and video professionals who take their MacBooks with them wherever they go, edit in the field, have taken them round the world etc. etc., and have nothing but good things to say about Apple. It's true that they've had their fair share of issues, but part of it is the very narrow range of products they have on the market at any one time (compared to say Dell, HP and Lenovo) - usually they only have one product hitting a particular market sector, so when there's a problem it's well-known very quickly. All computer equipment has its issues, but for all the years I've been buying technology, the only equipment that I trust to carry everywhere are my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and Canon EOS 10D camera. Everything else I've ever owned has fallen apart very quickly, even from reputable manufacturers.

That is hardly an article about regressions from OS9. It's a complaint about the sizes of some windows (mostly irrelevant now we have high-DPI screens), some GUI features that are deprecated as far as I know (drawers), and quite a lot that's complimentary about the OS. The only thing you really have to complain about is the window widgets. I agree that it's not as immediately clear to the new user (although RED is a pretty global idiom for STOP) and almost all apps would throw up a warning dialog before throwing away data. Those that don't (e.g. Safari) have a history function anyway. Calling it a "massive regression" is ridiculous. There are many things that are better, a few that are arguably worse, as with any OS update.

There's actually quite a big difference between calling methods and sending messages. Take a look at this if you're not sure. It's not semantically equivalent, what is going on under the hood in Obj-C when a message is sent to an object is quite different to calling a method in C++.

Yes, that is what you do, you put a citation tag after every sentence that is a citation. If that ends up being your entire dissertation (or >90%), then you need to go back to your supervisors and discuss the fact that you don't have much original to add. The only time you don't need an additional citation mark is when you are quoting sections of an already quoted work the course of an argument.

I think it's more that Apple created a market (just like they did for GUI-based computers in the 80s) and don't want history to repeat itself. Whether they have a right to protect that market by litigation is a different matter, but I think their motives are about keeping a degree of control in a market where the 'me too' companies are doing quite well.

What she appears to have done (as much as I can figure out via Google translate) is quote a source verbatim, with a reference, then continue to paraphrase from the same source for several paragraphs more without making that clear. Someone familiar with the literature of her field would probably recognise that. It is plagiarism in the letter of the law, but it was probably not her intention to deceive, more likely it was sloppy work on her part and sloppy supervision from the university.

Citing is not plagiarism. Plagiarism is copying from other works and claiming them as your own. Whether you quote directly, or paraphrase, it is absolutely essential to clearly indicate at each point throughout a work when ideas are not your own. It's not that hard to do. Probably in this instance it was more sloppy work than anything else, which should attract criticism from the supervisors at the university as well as the author of the dissertation.

I really hope so. iDisk was great, if a little temperamental, and was the thing that made the Apple ecosystem viable for me. The good thing about Apple dropping it is that I was forced to look for alternatives, and it turns out that Dropbox totally smokes iDisk in every way. The iCloud approach to managing files is abysmal, and has the distinct feeling of something designed and maintained by people who don't themselves use it for their day to day work, because if they did it would be 100 times better. Either Apple have totally dropped the ball on this, or they have a really good alternative nearly ready for release.

It's not that clear cut. Mostly people would use those links for authorising their new app to access their existing Dropbox account (just like the prolific 'link to Facebook' dialogues). A few people would use those for signing up to a new, free, Dropbox account. I seriously doubt many people were using that service to process a payment for one of the subscription-based Dropbox services, which is the only thing that would violate the App Store TOS.

I'm not sure it's as simple as that. Most Dropbox users are using the free service, so really the sign-up is no different to the sign up on a hundred other apps that can link to an online service. In fact, I would argue that the vast majority of people linking to Dropbox from within apps already have an account, and if they wanted to upgrade the account they wouldn't be doing it from a link in some PDF viewer app they downloaded.

What worries me is that Apple might be using this as a lever to decrease the relevance of Dropbox because it breaks their app-centric model. I love my MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad, but it's Dropbox that makes them usable for real work. Steve Jobs said that MobileMe was a disaster because it didn't work - I would argue that iCloud is even worse - it's taken away the iDrive and replaced it with a total mess. My jaw hit the floor when I realised that the method for getting files back onto my Mac after editing them on the iPad is to log into the iCloud website and download them one by one onto my Mac. Total disaster. I've been defending Apple on Slashdot for 3 years now, but if this is the start of a war on Dropbox then I would seriously consider dropping the platform.

I would take issue that it's not relevant, but of course it's not binding. It's my understanding that higher courts do look to international precedent at times, so it's possible that this EU ruling will have some relevance as Oracle Vs. Google makes its way forward. I am wondering whether this will turn out to be as long a legal battle as SCO Vs. The Known Universe, and how Oracle will look by the end of it...

Ooooh I miss calling Microsoft MICROS~1. The first time I saw that was when I went to Uni and had access to Usenet for the first time. This was after a few years of battling the awful Windows 95 for various friends, family and my secondary (high) school. I nearly fell of my chair. How times have changed.

You can apply that 'logic' to numerous situations and reach the same faulty conclusion. If you've ever worked in the catering trade, you might have been faced with a container full of fillet steaks. I might think a few has value to me, but once I get above the number I could comfortably eat before they rotted, they're of no value - to me. But if I put a board outside the restaurant and start selling them, they have immense value. Many goods, tangible and intangible, fungible or not, have more value when distributed to multiple people than when held in by one person.