azslow3

Anderton
 The latest example of ransomware using a command and control center in the Tor anonymizer network to encrypt data and then demand a ransom from iPhone users is perhaps something Apple couldn't have prevented, but apparently they didn't anticipate it, either.

That has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, as clear explained in the article.

 
Yes it does - it targeted Apple phones. One of Apple's points of pride was always the supposed immunity to the viruses and malware that affect the PC platform. There's no equivalent function I know of like UAC that lets you know when something wants to modify your system. Again, I don't claim to know about code so that may be making the wrong connection between the two, but it seems targeting Apple + no way of knowing your phone is being targeted makes Apple responsible on some level.
 

Anderton

azslow3

Anderton
 The latest example of ransomware using a command and control center in the Tor anonymizer network to encrypt data and then demand a ransom from iPhone users is perhaps something Apple couldn't have prevented, but apparently they didn't anticipate it, either.

That has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, as clear explained in the article.

Yes it does - it targeted Apple phones. One of Apple's points of pride was always the supposed immunity to the viruses and malware that affect the PC platform. There's no equivalent function I know of like UAC that lets you know when something wants to modify your system. Again, I don't claim to know about code so that may be making the wrong connection between the two, but it seems targeting Apple + no way of knowing your phone is being targeted makes Apple responsible on some level.

I do not think that Apple have ever claimed it is immune to programs in general. Let me describe parallel example (which I hope will never happened).
 
Let say someone has hacked my site and put (signed!) executable in place of AZ Controller. Reading this (official) Cakewalk forum, someone went to my site and has downloaded it. And that has installed the malware. Unlike with my original unsigned AZ Controller, he will not be warned by UAC. He will be asked to install signed(!) software, but that was his intention by downloading... He thought to install some software, just not the software he was really installing! And then, that someone will start to blame... Microsoft! He can also start to blame US President, as the head of the country which has registered Microsoft company while has asked Verisign to proof (and sell...) certificates for developer, from which the certificate was used to sign the malware...
 
In the original case, people blame Apple for trusting certification services which issued the certificate, probably stolen by hackers to sign bad program...
 
If you seriously think such a chain of responsibility is valid, you should agree that Cakewalk should take full responsibly not only for all Roland products with Cakewalk label but also for all other products from all other companies Cakewalk has ever claimed to be compatible with Sonar

Wow, this discussion took a strange trajectory.  Can we move the latter part to an Apple Forum ;)
 

Anderton
Every now and then it's fun to give yourself a time limit on a song. I occasionally make a point of recording a song from start to finished mix in under four hours. It's a fun exercise 

Agreed (and also not trying to hijack the thread, though I guess this is pretty much the definition of off topic)... I actually started a project a few years ago - still alive but on hold while other things have priority - which is explicitly dedicated to this idea. It's called Sound Fascination, and it sprang from a desire to a) explore a more from-the-hip mode of composition, and b) use some of the 10 gazillion synth sounds and sample sets I've amassed over the years. Basically the concept is to find a sound that seems interesting, record pretty much the first thing that comes to my fingers on it, and base a piece on that - but the idea is to start and finish it in about an hour, or in any case in a single sitting, without stepping back and remixing or overthinking anything. Then it gets posted immediately to the blog. 
 
It's been a very illuminating project on a creative level, and much of the music - mostly kind of melodic ambient sketches - has found a new home in a soundtrack project I'm working on now, a kind of cinematic audiobook. You never know where these things will go! But if you don't start something, it rarely goes anywhere at all...

Anderton

lingyai

jpetersen
Not sure how many clients I'd still have if I took that as a professional leitmotif.

Exactly. I code for a living -- complex financial models ... they could get me sued / fined.

But presumably your company has the money to pay for that degree of quality control, as well as personnel with the required expertise not to make mistakes. 
....
A factor that's often overlooked is how much are people really willing to pay for bug-free software? I'm not just talking about SONAR by any means. ... I'm sure SONAR could be very close to bug-free if Platinum cost $15,000.
 

The Linn drum, Fairlight and Synclavier were high ticket and yet buggy items because they were low volume.
 
I do project software and similarly to lingyai, it's a question of diligence and taking client's concerns seriously. If a bug is holding up a project I jump immediately or risk losing that client forever.
 
Comparing problem reports to bugs actually fixed reflects on how seriously client's concerns are taken.
 
And the question on who decides what bugs to fix is still open.
 
I was struck speechless when I read in Newburyport that the Clean Audio Folders utility, something that was written for the Windows 3.1 days and which everybody uses once and then never again, after over a decade it has suddenly been discovered that it could hang when scanning multiple drives and has been given priority to have this fixed.
 

Mystic38
What we currently have with Sonar is a developmental philosophy which on a monthly basis introduces new features and hence ALSO clearly introduces the opportunity for new bugs...  This is just a poor process from a Q&A perspective as at no time is there a known gold release to fall back to, and is significantly inferior a methodology than the prior annual (plus 1-4 maintenance updates).

 
To be fair, there was never a bugless gold release to fall back on. X3 had bugs, and still had bugs after X3e. Ditto SONARs 1 through 8.5.
 
You can either introduce a few new bugs every month, or a whole bunch of bugs every year. No one HAS to update every month. You can do quarterly or yearly updates...or some variation thereof, like immediately downloading the update with patch points if that's something you really want, and waiting for the rest.
 

jb101
Correct me if I am wrong, please, but don't "bug fixes" in software often create new bugs almost as often as "new features" create bugs?

 
This happens a lot in organization models where responsibility for checking bugs is passed on to a bug fixing / QA department.
 
But if it is true that the developers are enthusiastic users of Sonar, then the devs themselves should notice the bug long before we users do.
 
However, some things described in the reference manual do not work since the feature was introduced. This mean the dev didn't try it, the QA didn't try it and the help writers didn't try it.

Mystic38
 
monthly updates ?.. it. makes. no. sense.
 

... and yet, people seem to like it. Myself included. 
 
And the program, despite obviously hosting countless bugs due to its massive complexity, quite possibly exacerbated (as well as ameliorated, due to a fair number of bugs squashed per month) by the release schedule, remains quite stable and usable for most of us, even if we're early adopters. I've got an extremely complex project open just now with numerous soft-synths, tons of automation, several thousand edits on a slew of audio tracks, plugins galore, the whole gamut. And it runs quite nicely on my 9-year-old Q6600 machine running 64-bit Win10. So I guess the bugs aren't really showstoppers - at least not for anything that I'm doing. 
 
I think this was the point of the original article. If Cakewalk suddenly decided to abandon all new features and focus exclusively on attaining as close to bug-free status as possible on the current feature set, they would be ruined as a company, unable to compete with other products that continue moving forward. The goal of the company is to stay in business, so they have to continue serving existing customers, attract new ones, understand the market and how a variety of users interact with the software. Their decision to use a monthly release schedule is likely not capricious, it's almost certainly a calculated risk that a continuing flow of new features *AND* bug fixes / performance improvements will keep enough existing users happy, and bring in enough new ones on an ongoing basis, to outweigh those the model's flaws end up driving away. 

icontakt
If anyone here suffers from a bug or bugs that were officially confirmed but have been left unfixed for some time, it's better to start a thread about them explaining why you want them fixed now. That's what a Baker recommended, IIRC.

Is this correct?
 
I recall a Baker saying something was being planned, but for now, AFAIK, the correct place is still the Problem Reports and Feature Requests forums, where folks can also vote.
 
I would gladly start threads motivating the fixing of individual bugs but I'm not sure it will be a popular move.

subtlearts
If Cakewalk suddenly decided to abandon all new features and focus exclusively on attaining as close to bug-free status as possible on the current feature set, they would be ruined as a company,

As a user of competing DAWs I find Sonar is well ahead in terms of features and in little danger of being overtaken any time soon. If only there were a way of communicating this and raising Sonar's profile in the marketplace.
 
But regular users are also happy to pay for versions where annoying bugs are fixed. I know I certainly am. I want to go deeper into Sonar and the deeper I go, the more I am discouraged by bugs.

jpetersen

icontakt
If anyone here suffers from a bug or bugs that were officially confirmed but have been left unfixed for some time, it's better to start a thread about them explaining why you want them fixed now. That's what a Baker recommended, IIRC.

Is this correct?
 
I recall a Baker saying something was being planned, but for now, AFAIK, the correct place is still the Problem Reports and Feature Requests forums, where folks can also vote.
 
I would gladly start threads motivating the fixing of individual bugs but I'm not sure it will be a popular move.

 
Maybe it was before the Problem Reports forum section was introduced when I read the post. At any rate, I think it's all about how to grab the Baker's attention. I often wonder how helpful the Problem Reports forum is to the Bakers, because there are way too many bugs to choose from and people don't vote. The highest rated bug has only 8 votes, and although it was fixed about a year ago the thread is still not marked as "Fixed." The second highest rated bug isn't even a bug, and it should be moved to the Feature & Request forum. These suggest that the Proble Report forum isn't really working. Also, how about the majority of users who don't/can't participate in SONAR forums? I'm sure they'll use the Cakewalk Problem Report Form or a similar form if they are in a non-English speaking country. In whatever method you like, let the Bakers know that you really want the bug fixed. You can bump an existing thread or start a new one yourself, or contact tech support directly (periodically if necessary) and ask why it hasn't been fixed yet (I would call if I were in the U.S.). Anyway, I think it's better to explain to the Bakers why the bug annoys you so much (making the explanation as short and clear-cut as possible would probably help, as the Bakers seem very busy), rather than have philosophical discussions about bugs in general.
 
Another practical action you can take is to highly recommend SONAR in other music forums or purchase channels like Amazon. With higher sales Cakewalk might be able to hire some new stuff and allocate one or two to their bug fix department. Having said that, I personally can't really recommend SONAR yet, especially to those who are just starting out, because it has too many bugs. I guess those who are very happy with SONAR are not heavy users or they don't use competitor DAWs. If you use Take lanes, clip/track automation, etc. heavily you'll realize how buggy SONAR is. Then why is SONAR still my primary DAW? Because it has features/elements that are important to me and they are not available in other DAWs (e.g. Studio One doesn't have a screenset yet, Cubase lacks a professional-looking mixer view). But the competition is severe and I may switch if I find a DAW that beats SONAR overall.
 

@icontact - I report all my bugs in the official bug reporter. I also include links to threads where more knowledgeable members have helped find the cause and get a repeatable recipe together.
 
Apart from that, a big +1 to all you say. It reflects the way I feel, too.

tenfoot

jsg
It's not only software.  Everything humans make is imperfect in some way or another.  Why?  Because we humans are imperfect in some way or another; how can imperfect beings created perfect products? 
 

The dead hand of Plato makes an appearance in the Sonar forum! More of a humanist myself,  so I hold great hope for perfect software in the distant future 

Well, not exactly.  People and things are perfectible, to some degree.  The problem is time.   Whether we're talking eons, centuries, months or days. 
 
Jerry
www.jerrygerber.com
 

Mystic38
..... as at no time is there a known gold release to fall back to, ....

This is my main issue with the current system!!
Perfectly described.