djst's nest » Software http://djst.org/blog David Tenser's brand new microblog Tue, 22 May 2012 03:58:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 I love the iPad! http://djst.org/blog/2010/04/07/i-love-the-ipad/ http://djst.org/blog/2010/04/07/i-love-the-ipad/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:34:27 +0000 David Tenser http://djst.org/blog/?p=633 Mmm, the iPad. It’s so beautiful, so sleek, so elegant, so useful. I think everyone should buy one. A couple of things I love about it:

1. Seal of Quality

Isn’t it great that Apple reviews all programs before they’re added to the App Store? It’s a bit like the Seal of Quality™ stamp that good old Nintendo put on their NES games to ensure you that your purchase would give you hours of quality game play in front of the television set make more money.

In practice, this means that we can feel safe with our iPads knowing that the virtual chocolate box app we purchase meets Apples’ rigorous quality standards. And it’s only $0.99! That’s almost free as in beer, folks (who cares about free as in speech anyway?).

2. Browser Choice

We all know how important the web browser choice is. That’s why it’s so convenient that Apple already made the choice for us on the iPad: Safari! They even went the extra mile to make it impossible to install other browsers, so I don’t need to worry about whether or not Safari is the right choice for me.  And besides, Safari is the best browser out there, right?

Or as they say themselves:

“Our lives are full of choices. iPod Touch or iPod Nano? Silver, Pink, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple or Black? All of them?

As a for-profit corporation, we have always believed that the freedom to make smart choices should be restricted to Apple to make the product experience, the Web, and the world, a better place. This shows through with our iPad running Safari, a free-as-in-beer, closed-source Web browser that we have chosen for more than 350 people in the US. Values of choice and self-determination are built into everything that we do: you can either buy the iPad, or don’t. You know you want to.”

]]> http://djst.org/blog/2010/04/07/i-love-the-ipad/feed/ 7 Ubuntu is old, most of the time http://djst.org/blog/2010/02/19/ubuntu-is-old-most-of-the-time/ http://djst.org/blog/2010/02/19/ubuntu-is-old-most-of-the-time/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:20:11 +0000 David Tenser http://djst.org/blog/?p=584 One thing that I really don’t like about Ubuntu is that, by default, it doesn’t automatically upgrade popular software releases until a whole new version of the operating system is released. This means that right now Ubuntu 9.10 (the latest stable release) is still running Firefox 3.5.8 and OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, when the latest versions are 3.6 and 3.2, respectively.

I can definitely understand why such a policy simplifies maintenance on older releases, allowing the developers to focus on the upcoming release, but why can’t they just change this policy at least for the most popular desktop programs?

The way they do things today is annoying and makes Ubuntu feel old-fashioned. Is there another Linux distro that has a better software upgrade policy that I can switch to instead, or am I stuck having to upgrade software manually and store the programs in my home folder?

]]> http://djst.org/blog/2010/02/19/ubuntu-is-old-most-of-the-time/feed/ 9