含蓄的张扬

看到王建硕的中国互联网不缺乏创新一文，实在不敢苟同，故写此博文。

文章为国内抄袭山寨的互联网产业进行了开脱。观点：“技术商业模式都很方便拷贝，但是用户成熟度没有跟上” 还引用了“中国的互联网现状究竟相当于美国的哪一年？”一文加以说明。

首先，用户不知到自己需要什么，这类情况显而易见，IT业和传统产业相差甚远，作为创新不断的IT产业，应该是不断创新的科技告诉用户他们可以干什么，而并不是由用户来告诉开发者他们需要什么。在3G网络成熟的时候，用户可以想象手机上网能大到那样的速度么？在facebook成功之前，用户有想到sns是什么么？在twitter成功之前，用户知道什么是微博么？技术的发展创新的速度已经远远超越于人们的想象。所以所谓的用户对互联网创新的制约小而又小，不是没有，但却不能成为借口。难道说中国的网民都是傻x，只配用山寨。

其次，所谓抄袭也分抄的好与不好。完全照搬还要说自己是创新，这个和“当了xx，还xxx”有什么区别？如今的抄袭已经不是抄什么技术特点和商业模式，连域名，界面，甚至颜色都一起搬来这个好像也没有从用户的角度考虑多少吧？拿过来改一改，改的好了，就变成了借鉴。而直接照搬，还要标榜创新，那么大可不必。

文章中说“这就像小芳同学先拿到考卷，看到题目是1+1，就答了2；小明拿到考卷晚了，看到的也是1+1这道题，小明同样写了2。小明是后给出答案的，无论是自己想出来的，还是瞄了一眼小芳的，我们都说小明是抄袭的。这对小明同学不公平。” 但是问题其实是小芳写的是”1个美国人＋1个美国人＝2个美国人“，而小明写的是”1个中国人＋1个中国人 ＝ 2个美国人“ 这不是抄袭山寨又是什么？

最后文章也承认了中国市场比国外晚半拍。那么既然晚了，那就晚了，也就是没有创新了，又何来得不缺乏创新？

Woke up this morning, with WWDC news flying all over the Internet. iPhone 4, Safari 5 and many others. This shows that Apple is still the innovation leader, with every product released with a “WOW”.

I have removed firefox away from my dock, and start trying out the new Safari 5. Will it actually replace firefox? I see the light, but it will not happen in a long time. I have only used it for 10 minutes, so this is a very early review. Welcome to leave your thoughts in the comment.

Start with what I noticed immediately, tab management:

Now, we can finally configure (not using the command line) Safari 5 to open new pages in tabs instead of windows. Seriously, this should be enabled a lot earlier. What’s the point of having tabs while still using many windows? Remember how we use to do it in command lines? You don’t have to any more.

The Reader:

The reader function is pretty cool. I don’t really mind to read articles within the web pages, but the nice feature about reader function is how it prints the web article. You can use “Shift+Command+R” to start or stop the reader for particular website article.

The Search Engine:

Another feature is more built-in search options (Bing search). This doesn’t excite me much. How about let user decide what search engine they want? How about Google Scholar? How is this helpful to have 3 options but they all offer the same functionality? Think about it, it does not make sense. So give me other options for other search engines, or let me decide.

Safari Developer Program:

Among all these new features, this is very good news. Yes! Extensions! This is why leaving firefox is heart breaking. Let’s see how this works out. Really looking forward to it!

A few days ago, I blogged that the new Macbook Pro i5 and i7 does not do auto sleep very well. It seems that most applications that run in full screen mode breaks the auto sleep for both display and system. More details from here.

It seems that we have figured out a solution to this problem by manually download and install this official update. The question is, why this cannot be found by the system’s autoupdate, but have to be explicitly downloaded and installed.

UPDATE (01 June 2010): This update doesn’t work. More people have encountered the same issue, and currently there is no known solution

UPDATE (25 June 2010): This problem has been fixed by 10.6.4 update

The new Macbook Pro has been released not long ago. There are a few problems I have noticed and listed in the following:

Problem No1. Automatic graphic card switching.

The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models come standard with two graphic cards — Intel HD (low performance and low energy consumption) and Nvidia Geforce 330m (more powerful but more energy consumption). Both computers support automatic graphics switching. Quote from apple official website "It’s a breakthrough technology from Apple that switches graphics processors on the fly to give you performance when you need it." and "MacBook Pro transfers the workload between the powerful discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor and integrated Intel HD Graphics so seamlessly, you won’t even notice." But when I start to notice which graphic card I'm using. I am surprised that I'm always using the Nvidia card (which is the high performance one) simply because I have skype (and some times 1Password) open. I don't see why skype is a graphic intensive application nor 1Password. Common apple, if you cannot implement such function correctly, at least give users the option. My guess: the graphic switching function is implemented depend on whether an application use some part of the API. If it does turn on the NV graphic card, otherwise use Intel. This is not smart, and not a smart judge if an application is graphic intensive.

Now gfxCardStatus v1.6.1 has a experimental function that force the graphics card switching, which is good news.

Here is a incomplete list of applications that triggers the Nvidia Graphic card:

Tweetie
HyperSpaces
Skype
iWeb
iMovie
GarageBand
Parallels 5 Desktop
Microsoft Office 2004
Microsoft Office AutoUpdate daemon
RapidWeaver
PathFinder
Mathematica
Warp
Droplr
1Password
Clips
NetNewsWire
Koolclip
AppZapper
uTorrent

You can find complete discussions of this issue from apple support forum and macrumors.

Problem No2. Auto Sleep

I have noticed that sometimes the auto sleep for display or computer is broken. The system does not sleep when it is supposed to be. E.g. I set the auto display and system display to 1 minute, after half an hour, the display or computer still wouldn't sleep. After a bit of experimenting we found that this may be caused by running a full screen mode application (e.g. Need For Speed, World of Warcraft).

Problem No3. Trackpad Scroll Momentum

The new macbook pro came with a new feature called momentum scrolling. I like this idea in iPhone, because we have limited screen. Glad Apple have the option to turn this off. However, everytime I restart the computer, the momentum scrolling function are back on. It just won't go away! Of course I can turn it off manually every time after restart, but it is really annoying. Please have it fixed apple!

Google left China “中国政府表示拒绝政治化的Google，Google拒绝了一个政治化的互联网”

Google published the blog entry “A new approach to China: an update”. Then google.cn are rerouted to Hong Kong domain. After google quits, Wikipedia founder praised Google over China decision and called on other major U.S. companies, including Microsoft and Facebook, to follow. Some domain name registrars stops registering .cn domain names, this comes after the Chinese government has demanded that the registrar provide photo identification, business identification and physically signed registrar for all .cn domains.

Some blog posts in China about Google left China had been either deleted or the site entirely blocked by the Great Fire Wall.

The reactions of Chinese government: China defends censorship, plays down Google harm on US ties.

The Chinese official press: Google breaks promise, totally wrong to stop censoring .

Opinion: Google’s China decision ignores conventional wisdom.

Mean while, a new so called “sacred creature” has been created in the Chinese internet 古鸽, which follows 草泥马.

Apple/Mac

If you’re a firefox user, but envy the elegant and clean interface of safari, you can use this GrApple, which is a firefox extension to make it more “Safari-look”.

If you really need the audio or video chat in MSN and you are using a Mac. Now Microsoft Messenger for Mac 8 beta adds A/V chats.

Personally, I don’t like Apple’s newly introduced iPad. At least there is no use for me. But when will Apple update the MacBook Pros? one MacRumors reader emailed Steve Jobs directly about concerns about how long he’s had to wait for the new MacBook Pro updates. Jobs responded with a short replay that simply said “Not to worry“.

Ubuntu and Open Source

Switched from Ubuntu to Mac some time ago. I still miss a lot of features Ubuntu offer. This looks promising: Hands-on: Ubuntu One music store will rock in Lucid Lynx.

Education

Harvard puts lectures, podcasts and more on iTunes U — I really love iTunes U. Not only Harvard, but many top Universities (e.g. Stanford University) have put their lectures online for FREE!

Other

A Real Boston Duck Tour — This is cute and funny.

Arena Patio Furniture — Would you like to seat on the Bird’s Nest Statium?

PHD Comics: The Box — PhD candidates may found this fun.

Something in China

“通海大地震亲历记” 1970 年云南省通海县发生7.8级大地震，史称“通海大地震”，这是新中国成立以来首次死亡人数超过万人的大地震。“通海大地震”隐匿了三十余年，“云南大旱灾”只隐匿了三个季度，我们的社会在进步么？From Twitter: “RT @王冉: 一个星期前，如果那位云南省委宣传部的明星伍部长利用自己的微博影响力帮助家乡更多的人喝上纯净水，而不是沉浸在与好莱坞合作成一个电影项目的喜悦里，我会更敬重他。//伍皓啊伍皓，你还真是和章子怡有一拼”。

郑渊洁：我从1995年起就不信任疫苗。我小时候好像也打过不少奇怪的疫苗，很庆幸活到了现在。小学的确是一个能捞钱的地方，老师和校方说什么，家长基本上都唯命是从。正像郑昀说得：“生养一个孩子不容易”。