Who Really is the "Director" of Dashboard?

MacManX writes "Does the director of Apple's upcoming Mac OS X feature, Dashboard, have something to hide? Or does he wish to remain hidden? Or are we just reading into this way too much? Rick has an excellent observation over at MacMerc. The evidence will astound you."

Is there a new Alan Smithee?

[CoolGuySteve]

Now that everyone knows, it doesn't really make sense for companies to allow Alan Smithee to be associated with their productions. So what's the new alias? I'm guessing that if there is one, it's David E. Kelly.

Alan Smithee is one of those little pieces of knowledge that people know because it helps make them feel elite, which is weird because everyone knows about it by now. It's like the way mullets were a big joke a while back.

But really, odds are, if you know about it, then it's not hip and you're cool, stop pretending and go listen to some more Weezer.

Re:Dashboard Information

[PierceLabs]

I'm more concerned with whether or not this will be as easily exploitable as Active Desktop which is its closes kin - not Konfabulator.

Re:Dashboard Information

[NutscrapeSucks]

I think you're confused:
New Plugin Archtecture --> New way of interfacing and running Flash etc.

ActiveDesktop or HTAs --> Local HTML pages can call Local Code, proprietary tags for enhanced functionality.

AFAICT, "Dashboard" seems to be just another take on Windows HTAs from 1997. (Although, the orange calculator was a sexier demo than most of Microsoft's stuff.)

The problem with IE's implementation is that the browser is easly confused between local and remote pages (using iframe tricks, etc). It will be interesting to see how Apple avoids this.

Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain?

[sg3000]

> Didn't Apple along with a bunch of other software
> corporations stop putting credits in their software a few years
> ago, to help prevent large competitors in or around Redmond
> from paying whatever it took to make ridiculously generous
> offers for those employees to work for them?

I've heard this, too, but I think this might be related to two other facts. First, it's impossible for everyone who is involved in delivering software to have their names included these days. Second, Jobs has mandated that there would be no more developer-endorsed "personalization" to Macintosh applications in order to improve software quality. Most specfically, this seems to be the prohibition of easter eggs (where most developers put their names). In fact, I haven't seen an old-style easter egg in Mac OS X at all.

Since then, the quality of the Mac OS has increased significantly from the bad old days of Mac OS 7.5.5, where the little flag easter egg was the only good thing it had going for it.

Re:sweet app

[mjpaci]

College isn't votech. You don't go to college to learn a specific trade or subject. You go to learn how to THINK. Once you know how to think, you apply that to any field.

The subject you major in is just the vehicle you use to learn how to think. I majored in Chemistry and now, 10 years later, I manage a technology group at a financial services company. I have yet to set foot in a lab for work since I left college.

I find the kids these days that major in business (MIS, whatever) don't really know a whole lot outside of their discipline. Liberal Arts gives you exposure to different fields. If you use your college experience properly and learn how to THINK, then you can use your off-major classes as practive for the real world.

In the past few years I have interviewed ~30 students from the MIS program at Northeastern for internship positions in my company. i have found that most of them have no idea what MIS is and are a bit suprised when they realize they will be working the help desk or desktop support as one of their first jobs out of college.

--mike

Re:Dashboard Information

[SandSpider]

Nah, I understand the difference. The reason I bring it up is because it was mentioned explicitly [mozillazine.org] with regards to concerns similar to yours on Surfin' Safari. The point being that the native code is contained in the plugins, rather than just being located arbitrarily on your computer or the internet.

I also suspect that the plugins for Dashboard items will be bundled all together, much as Applications are in OS X, so that other webkit applications can't access random Dashboard plugins. But that's just a guess.

=Brian

Somebody call and ask.

[Fritzed]

If you look in the last couple of frames as the things fly toward the screen. You can see Alan Smithee's phone #, how about somebody calls him and asks him what's up. It is also the number in this [byte.com] article about opendoc, but that was in 1996 so maybe it got reassigned.

ALAN SMITHEE
408-796-1010

-> Fritz

Re:Another Meaning

[FFFish]

Much to my amusement, there's an "Alan Smithee Restaurant" in one of Edmonton's cineplexs... a diner so bad, the chef demanded the removal of his name!

Re:sweet app

[scottblascocomposer]

I suppose I should clarify that I don't actually think ill of a liberal arts education, or indeed of my music degrees. It's just a sardonic joke I have with my wife: how much easier would things be right now if we had taken career paths with more immediate tangible rewards?

I don't expect music (or writing, foreign languages, film studies, etc...) to make me rich, but I do expect to find the life we lead more rewarding long-term in intangibles like contentment, creativity, personal pride in accomplishments, contribution to culture and such.

Not to say I wouldn't mind a few tangibles as well! :)

Re:Somebody call and ask.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure that it was not 408-996-1010? That's Apple's corporate phone number in Cupertino CA; see Contacting Apple [apple.com].

Re:Somebody call and ask.

[Chucker23N]

It's also listed on "Steve's Resume": http://homepage.mac.com/steve/Resume.html

Re:Worried About Competitor Braindrain?

[stere0]

Does /Applications/Mail.app/Contents/Resources/senders. tiff (remove the space) count as an easter egg? If you open it in Preview you can see eight pictures of Mail.app developers..

Re:riiiight...

[TravisWatkins]

Heh, it goes deeper. The descryption key for the previews on the iTMS is a l33t version of 'try-before-you-buy'.

Re:Somebody call and ask.

[dubstop]

Apple Computer Inc. 1976-1986 ...

Learned many things, including do's and don'ts for building executive teams ...


Best. Resume. Ever.