Slashdot Mirror

Yeah, that word sucks:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman
2. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10367052-16.html

This is Apple we're talking about. The only documentation you get is "You need to install this. Don't ask any more questions."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3258
Besides which, you're talking about apps. I'm talking about the OS not working.

I have to use Photoshop, you insensitive clod!

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10319435-264.html

Everything back to CS1 apparently runs just fine. What's the problem?

"The 1.2 GHz K8 is already substantially faster than the 1.6 GHz Atom. The 1.6 GHz K8 will widen the gap even more substantially."

First, we're talking about a specific processor, the AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 ( 1.6GHz ). K8 is the general name for all Athlon64. That's like saying Chevys are faster than Fords. Ok, but there's about a dozen different models, going to need to narrow that down a bit. (god i love car analogies, they muck up everything ;)

Second, proof? Where's your reviews? Where's your benchmark? I posted mine already and they said "As unsatisfying a conclusion as this may be, there is no clear-cut winner in our match-up of Netbook CPUs... spending hands-time with systems using all three processors, we didn't find any large difference in our anecdotal usage experience..."

So there you have it.

Don't blame Obama, blame Biden: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html

Competition, in this particular case, may not be the best thing for customers. Why so, you may ask. It is because of the lopsidedness of the market that makes this situation so precarious.

Spot on! Mod this guy up. The lopsidedness of the market where Microsoft already enjoys a monopoly on the desk top and is easily able to leverage that to compete unfairly against Google makes this situation so precarious. Competition, in this particular case, may not be the best thing for customers, as you say. Microsoft has been unable so far to create a search engine that can compete with Google, so instead is attacking Google from every underhanded angle, including planting people right here on Slashdot to try to turn people against them.

"Now we're talking about an even-more-capable K8 core at an even-higher clock rate and you want to compare it on a clock-for-clock basis with an Atom processor? I thought we were done with that nonsense some time ago.

read reviews before commenting. Like I said, "it's barely more than a Acer Aspire One"

Google did it with good results

Here in Canada we pay a huge levy on blank CD media, MP3 players, and virtually any other media capable of holding music. This "goes into a fund to pay musicians and songwriters for revenues lost from consumers' personal copying. ", as per the Cnet article here http://news.cnet.com/2100-1025_3-5121479.html

Therefore, this shutdown is infringing on my legal right to download music.

Meh, there's always ISOhunt, or like everyone else has already said, plenty of other choices.

Teamviewer sound like what your asking. It is free for home use and handles portforwarding and encryption. The newer versions however do not play nice on Mac and Linux. Version 3.5.4437 however runs on WINE and OS X Intel. I've set up a small web-page with a picture-guide to downloading and running it, I then direct people there and we are up and running within a few minutes. Get the old version from http://download.cnet.com/TeamViewer/3000-7240_4-10398150.html?tag=mncol

Anyone who thinks that once Google perfects this, they're going to be content to simply sit idle on the cloudbook (I'm making that word up; consider it public domain) market with it is fooling themselves.

Google is also working on implementing 3D in the browser. They're also saying that for most features users use, Google Apps will be caught up with Microsoft Office in a year. They're also working VERY hard on developing a standard codebase to implement a desktop UI within a browser, and they're making very good progress.

Is Google overly optimistic? Maybe, but what company isn't? My point, though, is that they've got a LOT of really good things going for them. Don't dare think of Chrome as forever relegated to "OS-lite," or else you'll be making the same fundamental mistake that many other companies have made with Google. (And indeed, that a lot of them made with Microsoft in the past. "Oh, Internet Explorer will never catch up to Netscape." "Excel is like a scaled-down Lotus 123." "Our company has invested way too much in Netware to change." "Visual C++ is neat, but for serious development, go with Borland.")

It's really kind of fun to watch a company out-Microsoft Microsoft, except in a good way. As far as I'm concerned, I hope Microsoft continues to think of ChromeOS as just a toy that will never be a serious contender with Windows outside of very limited niche devices.

Hunh? Who said Android isn't multitouch?

That seems especially bad compared to this, never mind LCD or Plasma:

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-consumption-chart/

(but those numbers are for the TVs as they come out of the box, so who knows)

LCDs (of 50") are nowhere near that. From a nice article:

Average plasma: 338 watts

Average LCD: 176 watts

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-power-efficiency/

It frustrates me that these bureaucrats really do not get it, well maybe they do and just want to force more unnecessary laws on us. The television companies have obviously performed some cost analysis and decided while the consumers power costs maybe slightly higher, the TV will cost $1200 instead of $2400. According to this CNET article, a typically 50-inch plasma LCD would cost an average household around $63/yr to run. This legislation is going to do nothing but slow the sale of TVs in California which may result in job loss for the individuals who work for these TV manufactures. The economy has slumped enough, why can't we just leave it alone so a recovery will come in a year rather than years.

Now the good devs are leaving for Android? I may buy a droid or droid++ next year.

Sure, go ahead. But let me point out that none of the articles said that the developers were going to concentrate their efforts on Android.

In fact, the only mention of Android or the Droid was in the xkcd strip featured in the Ars Technica article. The Rogue Amoeba guy explicitly said that they were going back to focusing on the Mac, and Williams, the Second Gear guy, said "with the latest app rejection being Google Voice, I am one step closer to selling off my iPhone products and focusing entirely on the Mac once more" (quoted from the Ars Technica article).

While it is obvious that some of the fleeing developers will turn to other mobile platforms, there is not enough information to conclude that "the good devs are leaving for Android"

It might sound trivial (which it is) but there is way and way to propose and adopt open source. Check this out: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10398202-16.html

I'm shocked - *SHOCKED* - I tell ya. I find it hard to believe that ComScore would report such a thing.

Yes, I know the numbers may be valid but when a company is reporting on another company, with whom they are partnered, I find it hard to invest any credibility in the report.

I don't think that's accurate, the info online indicates that cuban wasn't the sole owner of Broadcast.com (which was a company making money), and the transaction was for Yahoo stock rather than cash see http://news.cnet.com/Yahoo-completes-Broadcast.com-acquisition/2100-1023_3-228762.html/. If he's still got $2bn after the dotbomb, then that's not bad. Call the guy an idiot mouth piece, but his financial skill isn't that bad.

'One of the great strengths of the Windows platform is that it has always been licence-agnostic', westlake

as long as it isn't the GPL ..

'The system never frets or complains when you try to install an app that doesn't meet Microsoft's standards of political correctness', westlake

Except with WGA, Microsoft can remotely disable your desktop if it deems it 'unlicensed' and they don't give a toss about unlicensed third-party software.

'The Linux distro can make you jump through a hoop or two or three before you get to that closed source app or binary driver', westlake

Except, a certain software company keeps threatening codec developers with litigation, therefore such codecs have to be supplied seperately. If such a 'closed source app' exist do you mind telling us what it is. And if a binary only driver is available, then that's down to the supplier of the hardware, in'it?

'Windows does like to see a signature', westlake

Microsoft gets to approve what gets installedon my computer. Besides they are now selling a 'crapware' free computer, that's software from third party developers I assume.

"We think we're really unlocking the potential of Windows 7 "

OLPC ran into trouble because of its "all or nothing" attidude, westlake

bs, there was much machinations behind the scene. In fact MS was initially going to join the project to 'help' it get better .. :)

'The meeting begin with a question by Marcelo on wether Microsoft felt the OLPC project would be successful without its involvement '

MS even wanted to get a license for the "open source hardware"

'Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where even if Nick rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long and visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the "open source hardware" and we will make our own offering on the commercial side'

If that didn't work, then they proposed creating their own 'open source' license and naming it "Education Open Source" or some such ..

'I think we should name our new open source license and romance its creation. "Education Open Source" or something like that'

'When the minister took his business elsewhere there was suddenly room in OLPC for XP and MS Office', westlake

You're comments are becoming ludicrous here ..

I dunno man, living on an entirely different continent, I am very concerned over my IP being logged by viewing a few damn YouTube videos from Russia. I better install Tor as well and go down to Starbucks with a brand new netbook, just in case.

No Script and Flashblock don't help if you're running flash anyway.

It's potentially more than the video, watching that using flash puts for all practical purposes a backdoor on the computers of an interesting group, especially those within Russia. Idiots that use flash and javascript are almost as bad as the ones that set up sites to depend on them for operation. Again, this is a case where using open standards would not just help get the message out but help protect the identities, interests, and machine integrity of those receiving the message.

Basically there is a severe show-stopper every few weeks. Here's a 1 minute search, taking longer to post here than to find in Google:
2009: Flash Origin Policy Issues
2009 also: New attacks exploit vuln in (fully-patched) Adobe Flash: Browse and get owned
2008: Adobe Flash exploit raises concern
2007: Serious Flash vulns menace at least 10,000 websites
There's plenty more where that came from. Again, it was 1 minute of searching.

"A lot of people really do not like the idea of pictures their houses and gardens being put on a globally accessible site, linked to map information."

Well, they can do something about it: Google Street View has to reshoot in Japan.

Give them a copy of the Ernie Ball story for starters and let them know they are much more vulnerable.

http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
http://www.screaming-penguin.com/node/3251

"So after this little debacle the President of Ernie Ball said get the Microsoft crap the hell out of here if they are going to treat us in that manner.

It's not exactly the same, but the phone comes with an expansion port built in and a keyboard you attach to it. They plan to release other hardware expansion devices for it over time.

http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/lg-versa-verizon-wireless/4505-6454_7-33530742.html?tag=mncol;lst

Finally found one linked from the web. http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/at-t-formerly-cingular/4599-6454_7-32137726.html?carrier=&mode=voice

Yes it did. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-5906892-7.html

You know, this has the potential to get rather interesting...

Sony is being sued by a blind fellow for not making their PS3 ADA compliant. Amazon was threatened with a lawsuit by the Authors Guild for making their Kindle ADA compliant. Now Intel is taunting the Authors Guild by making a device with the express purpose of giving blind and otherwise visually impaired access to written works.

Verizon is also increasing the early termination fee to $350 for advanced devices.

Source

With a Bose 3-2-1 system, you can have fine dining for 5 people, but only 3 sets of chairs, flatware, etc. Nobody can tell the difference. It's advanced technology.

So it's Okay for MS to use open source code but any open source project that uses MS code can be hounded and threatened? Let's see, is it 238 patents MS complains open source uses of MS's?

Falcon

At least ATI GPUs don't melt. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-10020782-33.html

Speaking of Arab TVs, the king of content delivery Akamai has took off Al Jazeera "from the air" (web) because of Sep. 11. That website of TV paid for the contract and they ended up without having a hosting provider. The TV, no matter what you hear about it is extremely mild, run by TV professionals, especially British (Ex BBC) and it is off the web just because it is "Arabic Owned" (UAE BTW) and they possibly had some mails from some idiots connecting that TV Network to Al Queda. (hopefully not @whitehouse.gov) It can't be financially motivated since Al Jazeera is considered as a very rich media company, run by some Arab Prince. These guys use Ikegami HD Cams as ordinary things while other TV stations (including CNN etc) struggle with Betacam SD in some cases.

http://news.cnet.com/1200-1035-995546.html

If I was an American, I would be extremely alerted about the "net neutrality" discussions. That is Akamai doing it, imagine the rest... Like Murdoch buying some financially unstable Tier 0 network. Check the Tier 0 network owners, they are still recovering from dotcom crash...

http://news.cnet.com/Study-File-sharing-boosts-music-sales/2100-1023_3-898813.html

http://nme.com/news/44688

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=25462&mode=threaded&pid=225929

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/01/20/dutch.study.file.sharing/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090828/0444096038.shtml

Actually there was one study that showed the opposite -- it was done by the IFPI. It took all of one minute on Google to find those citations.

Spoken like a man who doesn't understand networks.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-232210.html&tag=mncol%3Btxt

Even back then the cable companies weren't saying it was impossible, just that it wasn't fair.

They just have to have access to the network to have customers, same as Comcast (as a specific example). If Comcast can add me as a customer, then the same bandwidth could be handed over to another company in the server room for some fee.

1xEV-DO: Also known as Evolution, Data-Only, this subset of CDMA2000 runs on CDMA networks and reaches peak speeds of 2.4Mbps and averages 300Kbps to 600Kbps. As its name implies, EV-DO networks handle only high-speed data; handsets supporting EV-DO would use the underlying CDMA network for voice calls. Both Verizon and Sprint are launching 1xEV-DO service.

UMTS: Universal Mobile Telephone Service, the 3G service that GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile plan to roll out for its subscribers. UMTS boasts speeds of up to 2Mbps, although users will typically see speeds in the 300Kbps-to-400Kbps range.

SO EVDO is comparable to UMTS, with HSDPA and HSUPA (3.5G services) being much faster than both. EVDO is 3x faster than EDGE (average 90Kbps), but that's a 2.5G service. AT&T has more UMTS than HSPA coverage, but they don't show that in their "3G coverage" map, so they're still comparing different generations (3G to 3.5G services).
On a final note, they also neglect to mention that they do not support simultaneous voice and data on their 3G nework.

Erm - how is this not also a problem on Windows? A 2-minute Google search

Hard disk not recognized:
- http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-73640-windows-setup-cannot-detect-my-hard-disk

Flickering screen:
- http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?threadID=240410

Blank screen
- http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-vista/windows-vista-hangs-at-a-black-screen-when-booting-up/

So in short: nothing to see here, move along.

(Macs may or may not be a special case,because their hardware is relatively limited)

Intel has a very similar tech called MyWifi in their newer cards, it uses Windows ICS so it differs in implementation, but does offer a full AP mode while being connected to an external wifi network.
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10139172-100.html

Anyone who uses any computer (including Mac AND Linux) without anti-virus is asking for what they get.

Yep, I've been "asking for what I get", and getting what I ask for, by running Macs without anti-virus for almost 25 years now.

I use Avast Home Edition. It's free (just registration required), fast, and small-footprint.

Yeah, I'll pop that right onto my Macs, especially after reading these five-star reviews. Five reviews with one star each makes five stars, right?

You mean this one

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/apple-ibook-g4-12/4505-3121_7-31466301.html

That's was $999.

Or the MacBook Air

http://gizmodo.com/348753/macbook-air-review

. It has Wireless N/B/G, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR, and is available in two basic configurations: $1799 for a 1.6GHz chip, plus 2GB of RAM and a 80GBs 4200 RPM Drive. For almost double the price at $3098, you can get a 1.8GHz chip with the same 2GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive module that, like all SSD, is shock resistant.

Neither of these are Netbooks. Netbooks are small (9"-10") cheap (<$500) minimalist (cheap but slow Atom processor, tiny SSD, horrid graphics/chipset) notebooks. Apple do small but they don't do cheap. The marketing term for Apple's small notebook is ultraportable - i.e. you pay a premium for a smaller machine. It's actually the opposite concept of a netbook. Now if you're a manufacturer it's better to make "ultra portables" than "netbooks" - you put a bit more powerful hardware in and charge higher margins than than regular notebooks (ultra portables) rather than lower ones (netbooks). Unfortunately in the world of PCs it only takes one manufacturer to break ranks and make a netbook and they will sell millions - like the Asus EEE pc or the Acer Aspire One. At that point everyone else is forced to compete with them. Of course there's only one vendor of Apple hardware and so they can just keep making "ultra portables" and ignore the netbook market.

Of course this is the reason it's better to be a user of an open, multi vendor platform like the PC than a closed, single vendor one like the Mac. But if you're Apple a closed platform is obviously better for you.

Yes,
  there's
  always envy among the inferior.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6636341.html

Or is it just another shitstorm of astroturf and payed for reviews that is pretty much the trademark of Microsoft?

Yeah I'm sure they payed off Cnet, PC World, PC Magazine, and even Engadget... You're an idiot.


And technically astroturfing is payed-for reviews since I'm pretty sure most companies pay their employees.

They bought a 1.5" hard drive, which unless I'm mistaken, is Hardware, not Software. They didn't rename anything. They needed something with capacity that would fit in a small form factor. Don't confuse a piece of technology with the whole.

The first gen iPhone didn't sell well? What planet were you living on? It was back ordered for weeks with people lined up around the block and lining up days in advance. They sold over 6 million of them in a little over a year. Even when 3G's release was imminent, it was still selling well. You're obviously a little confused about the definition of 'disaster'.

This is scary.

Second time? Citation needed, seriously.

Apart from self-contained data loss bugs that corrupt single files or bork their own data, the only difference between them is the identity of the data affected--deleting your user folder is no more or less "destructive" than deleting the Program Files folder or the System32 folder or any other combination of important data.

More to the point, you have a short and selective memory. On the Windows side, the number of data loss bugs in the Microsoft KB is staggering--many of which far more easily triggered than the Snow Leopard bug (which PC World was unable to reproduce). There have been plenty of famous and significant data loss bugs in Windows' history, like the Windows 98SE shutdown bug, the Windows 2000 ATA bug, and even the Windows XP bug that ate the user data folders, quite similar to the Snow Leopard bug: http://www.v3.co.uk/vnunet/news/2116562/winxp-bug-ate.

How about the similar data loss bug in the Linux kernel a few years ago: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-976427.html. A simple Google search will reveal several more, before and since, in the kernel and in distribution packages.

Then there's the infamous Mozilla bug that wiped out the entire Program Files directory on Windows: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4264

It's not just user-level software development, either. Just look at Intel's repeated data loss bugs in their SSDs.

All the big names have let a bug like this slip at one time or another. It's unfortunate, but inevitable.

From the summary (which was copied from the article): with a moderate increase to the size of the chassis. Of course they don't say how much larger it actually is.

Fortunately, a Google for "DSi LL dimensions" yields some useful results. Product-Reviews.com has this:

According to a recent Cnet article it seems as if the handheld has had to be almost completely re-designed around the display, the physical dimensions of the device are (when closed), 161mm wide, 91.4mm height and a 21.2mm depth.

It also suggests checking out the image on CNET's article, which appears to be the same image as in the story /. linked to, except it shows the dimensions.

Also, someone has made a comparison chart on Sizeasy.com.

I hate the search bar in Firefox too, so I deleted it and set up keyword searches for the half-dozen search engines I use regularly. (If you're not familiar with this FF function, right-click on any search box and select "add a keyword for this search."

A pre-written list (chosen at random) for easy import.

Actually it should read:

Undeservingly distinguished hack scientist participates in unremarkable product development, set to make virtually no impact on the gaming world.

...or some other form of dead air.

And this gizmo is just a minor variation on an old theme.

File this one under 'yawn'.

So no google maps navigation for the iPhone?

From this CNET article:

However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

So yes, this will come out for the iPhone, but it's not ready yet.

not really. go find a copy of "rub rabbits" that one will freak you out and make you wonder what the hell is wrong with Japan as a whole.

http://reviews.cnet.com/ds-games/the-rub-rabbits-ds/4505-10068_7-31481766.html

It is completely freaky and nothing like anything I have ever played.

As long as there is no competing hand held on the horizon [...]

No competition? Think again, buddy. The iPod Touch is a strong competitor for the Nintendo DS and the PSP. Not for all gamers, sure, but there is lots of talk for instance by Joystiq and C|Net comparing the two.

The big thing is that the games for the iPod Touch are very, very cheap compared to the prices for the DS and the PSP. The price difference for professional games like Madden 10 are astounding. Tetris is between zero and two bucks on the iPod Touch, while it grosses more than $30 on the DS. Studio GameLoft produces professional games for the iPod Touch, always around $10.

If I was Nintendo, I'd piss my pants.