Emily writes: > You use AoHell because you can't figure out how to store bookmarks in > your browser so you need the horoscope ads that come up when you > launch you AoHell app. > > That's why you use AoHell. it's not just aol sadly.. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g/ and since this isn't intended as an apple bash, http://defectivebydesign.org/ ALL the big companies are restricting your rights, imposing their ideology and ensuring their devices control what you do - the bad guy used to be seen as IBM a long time back, worse now by far are Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and Sony. Laugh.. I was just thinking of the old 'His Masters Voice' company and how appropriate it would be to have this name re-emerge today.. it's the main reason I'm such an advocate of recommended freeware *note 'recommended' - I don't just download and run any old thing, I rely on good references and even then I thoroughly test applications in a petri dish computer. why is it simple MP3 player software has to embed it's self thoroughly in the registry? why when a program is uninstalled, it can be re-installed in a flash (because it was 'masked' and not uninstalled) - why do Sony feel the need to install rootkits on peoples machines ? so much of the freeware I have to come to use writes nothing to the registry and can be simply deleted when its no longer needed. 'Portable' applications run this way - so for those wanting clean, safe software, I advise searching out the portable versions. I even stumbled across a portable adobe CS3 a few weeks back! Guess what? It didn't do an operating system check! so it didn't need the latest version of MS Windows after all as Adobe claimed it did - nor did it need to embed it's self in ones machine.. this stands as proof that the reason you NEED XP and you NEED to have it embed it's self is all a lie. of course, whoever reverse engineered the software to remove the 'protection' has committed a serious offence, and I'd guess anyone havin g a copy of the software would be doing so to.. I have bought some expensive, large software packages in the past, only to find *tiny* *free* programs around which do the intended job a whole lot better and a whole lot faster! it's a minor inconvenience to switch to faster, lighter FREE software written by people jaded by the Big Guys, who've gone to the trouble of creating better software to do the job the way they see it should be done. for example - why does Adobe Photoshop, a supposed professional package insist on using the most basic, archaic algorithms for resizing?? they're shockingly inadequate for photographers. Fine for graphics, lousy for photos.. so better software has been written. But the world has come to rely on The Big Names. I had a call for help from a government department here who'd installed the latest Adobe reader - which mangled their writer software and caused innumerable problems. they tried to roll back to an earlier version but it couldn't be done (there's heaps on the web about this) - with no fix in site I recommended Foxit. they were delighted with foxit but found Adobe had utterly mangled the system and they were forced to spend weeks in contact with Adobe following the instructions Adobe provide (known across the world not to work) before they began the expensive and time consuming task of formatting and reinstalling all the software across the whole department. not happy people! I read of the problems experienced by a UK Graphics company who were blocked from scanning money by CS. Stupid.. Howling their dilemma to the world they were off seeking government intervention to have Adobe resolve their problem - they were so used to using ONLY adobe products they hadn't the wit/experience to use another graphics program to scan the image and then copy/paste into their work! But that's the way it goes. we become so used to going with what the big guys dish out I know I rant, but there are other options if we keep our minds open and reject the authoritarian garbage being foisted on us. No I do not need Adobe CSX because I can use all the features I need in V5.5 - without the rubbish. No I do not need Adobe reader embedding it's self at the very core of my computer because the faster Foxit behaves like a reader should. And no, my Adobe writer is gone - I get smaller files created quicker by CutePDF for free. I do not need itunes phoning home, I can copy/paste whatever I want onto my MP3 player.. That comparison I put up some time back where a 1986 mac with 4Mb or ram beat the pants off a pentium4 with 4 Gb of ram at a number of tasks was very telling. no it's not a mac/pc thing, it's a functionality thing.. I have an entertainment PC, I have Gamez PC's, they have all the kewl interfaces with dynamic lighting stuff, slick effects - but for the machines I work on I have them stripped to bare bones, no nonsense , efficient software to do *work* I do not need them grunting and heaving under the weight of software limitations, screen effects and eye candy! I actually want the software working FOR me. I believe others could also benefit from having their computers running better too. My wife started with the government in the days of the 386 - turn PC on, go make coffee, come back when it was loaded. Apparently that's the way it is again these days! there was a time in there (P3's, better software) when things were fast. now we're slowing down again from all the bloat and the software writers demand better hardware to do jobs that could be done on 1/100th the system specs years back.. I have a Malaysian bought phone that's rated as having the best 5Mp camera (sony ccd) on the market. it cost 1/2 what any brand known to the Western World cost even though it was manufactured by Sony. It has better specifications than comparable units and it gets 320 hours standby! Why so long? well it's not running that e911 cr*p that tells god-knows-who where I am all the time with built in tracking like all the big name phones! I went out of my way to avoid DRM, e911 etc and got a bETTER phone - so much more in keeping with the times we live in.. it's DRM free and does not limit me in any way, I need to third party software slowing my computer to access all it's functions - it actually lets me do what I want rather than having A Company decide how I am to use my phone :) gawd, I have been reading that some of the latest motherboards have DRM built into them! the very core of the computer is now deciding what you can and cannot do! no thanks, it's my hardware - I'll decide what I can and cannot do! One of the reasons I keep on about Irfanview is the powerful batch processing it can do. I have created a few no brained .BAT files for specific tasks and am delighting local photographers by showing them what can be done this way. 600Mb of processed RAWS - stick them in a folder then double click the BAT and 4 minutes later they have their images backed up, a contact sheet printed dated and named ready to file, a web page created, a slide show created and being burnt to CD along with a folder of 800x600's for the web. there's no thinking involved, no work to do. All they need is to work up the images in whatever program they want and when they're done copy them to folder A, double click the BAT and literally 4 min later their post production has been done. it'll only take about 2 minutes if the final images are jpegs. HOW is this not an improvement in workflow?? and the program that does it is totally free. I have really come to loathe the way programs have become so controlling and seeing the amount of good free light clean programs available, it seems a lot of programmers feel the same way. And now as though it weren't bad enough with the new operating systems phoning home, DRMing our affairs, monitoring us and who knows what else, we've got lousy 3D rendering of 2D images. Quartz on the macs and whatever forsaken muck MS is using. this alone renders these machines utterly useless for digital photography :( Question for the mac users - does anyone know if Quartz can be turned off and if so, how 2D is rendered on screen? I've still not had an answer to this and I find it a troubling development in mac land.. karl
