There really aren't that many computer ads. Lately, they suck.
Annoying Computer Ad I:
Apple iPad. Not as annoying as other pad ads (maxiPads, etc) and Huxley likes to dance to the music (the tune that goes like this: da da da da da da da da da, you know the one), but... This ad shows a hand using the iPad to do all sorts of cool and amazing things. As with all Apple ads, it does not show the stopping, slowness, or hesitation that inevitable happens in real life. It does not show the dialog box popping up to tell you that you have to re-read a 92 page End User License Agreement document for the fifth time this week. Or the message that says "You can't install this software because you bought the wrong hardware, chump." No. Everything is as smooth as glass on ice. But most importantly, the ad doesn't show the KEYBOARD. Why? Because there ISN'T ONE!!!
I write a lot. In fact, I kinda do it for a living. As I watch this iPad ad, my hands keep twitching because they want to see, and feel, a keyboard in front of this thing. Imma let you have your touchscreen, and that's really cool and all, but without a keyboard you can't write. Or, if you do, you are writing on something that is broken.
I would love that screen, but bigger, on my laptop. And, I'll be happy to use an iPad as a really nifty book reader. But spreadsheets? Editing? I don't think so.
Annoying Computer Ad IIa and IIb:
The Microsoft "Cloud" ads. Some people on a trip or something and they have to talk to their computer at home, or the ad where the mother is just so exacerbated over the inability of her family to act like models when she's taking their picture, and uses some photo retouching software to fix it. "Thank you cloud" and "Oooh, I love the cloud" and "I want to rub my body on the cloud" and so on and so forth.
No. The cloud is not a Microsoft thing, even though they seem to be taking credit for it in these ads. In fact, if anything, The Cloud is a Linux thing. Linux runs the cloud. The cloud is a massive amorphous distributed bunch of databases that exists mainly on reliable Linux servers around the world. If Microsoft ran the cloud, it would be raining. Or worse. Mud slides.
And, photo retouching software is not the cloud. It's an app. Jeesh.
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So iPads really aren't all that smooth?
I, too, dislike virtual keyboards. I like keys.
When I was in high school we had a TI Sinclair with it's little touchpad keyboard. Hated it. Of course, the computer was cool but I thought that I wouldn't be happy if computers ended up with keyboards like that.
I know these things are different now, but I don't think I could ever get used to a virtual keyboard. Like my laptop touchpad, it's either too sensitive or not sensitive enough.
Amen. It's called "touch typing"* for a reason. Touch includes tactile feedback.
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*At least it was when I took a typing class on actual typewriters in Jr. High back in nineteen-(cough, cough).
So iPads really aren't all that smooth?
They are very smooth, but no, not as smooth as in the ad. And, my iTouch, which is a first generation, is VERY UNSMOOTH to the extent that there are actually apps that I can't use on it. I assume the same thing will happen to the iPads... If you go that route, expect the system and software to require you to buy a new one in two or three years.
Which is fine. It's a wonderful thing, the iPad. But expect to pay for upkeep.
And, the whole renewing your EULA crap etc. I'm sure is the same on the iPad as on the iTouch because it is the same exact system. That comes in waves. I've not had to do it in weeks but a couple of months back I never once used the machine for an actual purpose because each time I turned it on for a "quick look" at my schedule or something I had to upgrade, re-do the EULA, reenter passwords, etc. etc. etc. and the quick look turned into turning it off and going down stairs to my Linux desktop.
My daughter has an HP (running .... ick .. Windows) with a touch screen but also a keyboard, ec. and she seems to like that. (I quickly add, not in this house ,but in her mother's house)
Ads? What ads? I use Adblock plus and have not seen an ad in years.
New England Bob: AdBlock plus works on TV?
I literally laughed out loud.
you know what works to block ads on TV?
the power switch in the "off" position. :)
*
Now everyone learns keyboarding--in elementary school.
Heck I just learned that I don't need to type two spaces after a period anymore. When did that happen? Where was I supposed to learn that? My daughter seemed confused when I told her to do it. It's a hard habit to break.
Heck I just learned that I don't need to type two spaces after a period anymore.
That is a widely believed myth. You don't have to in the same way that you don't have to type "I" because your software will convert a lonely "i" into an "I". The final result is still I and it is still a period with two spaces.
If you work with text files instead of word processors, you should use a period and two spaces to signify the end of a sentence so that software that uses that convention to identify a sentence works better.
Sometimes I just don't know what the world is coming to.
Greg, I think Lynn was referring to the oldskool requirement that you type two spaces after a period on typewritten material. For digital publication, that's unnecessary. I seem to recall that the rationale was the fixed-width limitations of typewriters - you needed the extra space to make the periods stand out more.
Of course, you're correct that typing space twice on an iDevice gives you a period, but with only one space following, not two.
The uppercase "I" auto-conversion is a little annoying sometimes. my iPad wants to do that when I'm closing an italics tag, for instance. (I do rudimentary HTML editing with mine when I'm composing a blog entry, with the MarkdownNote app as my HTML verifier.)
I can disable that through the system settings (i'ts part of the autocorrect feature), but I don't know of any per-app provision to do so, which means that when autocorrect is on, it's on everywhere. Using a bluetooth keyboard seems to override at least some of that.
For me the single most irritating feature is the shake-to-undo. When you're working with something balanced on a knee, such a feature quickly becomes a bug. Unfortunately there is no Apple sanctioned way to disable it; you need to jailbreak first.
Comparing your iTouch to an iPad isn't valid, though. The iPad uses a considerably faster processor than the first-gen iTouch. It's actually faster, more responsive, and "smoother" than the 3GS. It handles about like the 4G. I don't think it's particularly fair to state outright that the iPad isn't as smooth as they portray on TV based solely on your experience with three-year-old hardware.
Also, there aren't compatibility issues with iPad software - since it's all officially available through only one channel. Whether Apple's walled garden is really a good way to handle software distro (in the long run) or not remains to be seen; however, there are no native iDevice viruses, and for the most part there aren't compatibility issues. The biggest ones seem to come from folks who download software intended for the 3G or later, who discover it doesn't run on their first gen devices.
As for typing - yes, a touch typist will be operating at a deficit with the iPad. I'm not good enough at touch for it to work; I keep looking at the keys on physical boards, so the iPad's keyboard doesn't throw me, particularly in landscape mode. I've written something like 200,000 words on my iPad so far.
What's funny, though, is that the iPad's onscreen keyboard has little graphical nubs on the home keys, just like a physical keyboard has physical nubs - even though you can't feel them.
Where the device really shines is with anything that uses tactile gestures. Painting apps are fun; Angry Birds is simply outstanding. Book reading is all right, as one expects; apps like Flipboard, though, do a very good job of demonstrating how a rich-media digital device can display content in a way that's quite enlivening.
For what it's worth, though, all iDevices work using a fork of Darwin, which is Apple's version of FreeBSD, which is of course BSD, which is (sometimes seen as) a fork of UNIX. So the pedigree of iOS as a hacker's system is pretty solid.
It's amazing to me to compare iOS today with Slackware, which was the first Linux distro I installed on a 486 way back in the 90s. Took forever to get Xwindows to run, and even then all it was really good for at the time was loading JPEGs.
It's equally amazing to see how tightly Apple has tried to lock Darwin down. You'd think something with a Linux history would be a hell of a lot more customizable for sophisticated users.
Oh, and I agree that most computer ads are irksome.
tv with no ads?
i use all-new BBC!
great content - at a price you can afford [/cheesy voiceover]
"The Cloud is a Linux thing. Linux runs the cloud. The cloud is a massive amorphous distributed bunch of databases that exists mainly on reliable Linux servers around the world."
No. Cloud computing is (cpu) cycle serving. If those cycles are consumed interacting with a database then...whatever...it doesn't matter what the cycles are used for. And you can build clouds on just about any major operating system. Linux doesn't have a corner on cloud computing.
The keyboard is purchasable for iPad as an accessory if you want one.
Greg, I think Lynn was referring to the oldskool requirement that you type two spaces after a period on typewritten material. For digital publication, that's unnecessary.
Unnecessary for computer typesetting purposes, but still good practice, so all those of you who are out there doing it, keep it up for those of us who like to mess around with the text using awk.
99 percent of what I type is typed in emacs.
Paco, are you saying that the Microsoft ads are correct? Because, that would be a big fat "no" back at ya. And I did not say that Linux had the corner. But it does have most of the street.
Mike I want to get an iPad and a keyboard and duct tape them to together sort of like two halves of a clam.
Ugh, I will totally second the hatred of the Windows ads, especially because it includes my least favorite meme in advertising and sitcoms - the stupid husband, smart wife thing. Not that I have a problem with the wife being represented as more knowledgeable, but because the hubby is always so fucking stupid he belongs at Answers in Genesis. You look at the photo ad you talk about, and he's pathetically hanging his head, as if it's somehow his failing that their kids don't want to take a family photo. And in the end, she ends up with a picture where everyone's smiling nice - but wearing the same goddamn outfit! Who does this in the 2000s? If she wants to blame someone for her shitty family photos, it's herself and her choice of matching flannel. Apparently last year's Christmas card didn't get her son beat up enough at school, and she's trying to fix that little problem.
Paco's right, in this and also the fact that while dbs are one application increasingly run on the cloud, that's just because dynamic web sites use dbs for persistent storage.
The Windows 7 ad is dildoic, but MS does offer commercial cloud computing services on server farms running server versions of WIndows.
(I'll agree with Greg if he says *sane* people provide cloud computing services on Linux or other versons of Unix ...)
... but MS does offer commercial cloud computing services on server farms running server versions of WIndows. which is not really related to the lady's decapitation of her family ... I mean, she photo shopped them on her desktop.
EC2, Eucalyptus, other major cloud projects run on Linux. "Not having a corner" is a bit vague and may mean merely that it is not the case that 100% of the cloud is using Linux cycles and Linux managed storage.
Joe Brockmeiser wrote "It should go without saying, though I'll say it anyway, that Linux powers the bulk of cloud computing solutions. You'll find some Windows-based offerings, but Amazon, Google, and other major players are running their cloud infrastructure on top of Linux."
So there. Actually, there: http://tinyurl.com/4sh98s2
Greg:
There is an iPad keyboard; it doubles as a dock. It's an extra $69 though.