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That's much less than Bang & Olufsen charged me for the SD card in my MP3 player, so I don't know where you got such a callous term as "raped" from.

Besides, using non-Sony accessories in a Sony device is just asking for trouble. I buy my electronics at boutiques and premium retailers, so I assume things are different in your neighborhood.

I suppose you think that MP3s, which do not benefit the artist at all are better than my Sony compact discs, which are specially desgned to protect the artist.

i thought about leaving my 2000+ songs on there and addign that as a selling point. with what little common sense i DO have, i figured it would be illegal and i didnt want to get sued.

You just need to delete the files and re-word your selling point.

15GB iPod with 2,000+ deleted files on it! Great bargain!

Actually, LCD and plasma TVs do not use any less power than CRTs. Here's an article which actually measured the power use of a bunch of TVs of different sorts. Only microdisplay rear-projection TVs use significantly less power than CRTs for a given size, but that is offset by the fact that they are considerable larger than the CRTs which they replace.

They missed the poor man's Revolution controller featured at CES 2006.

Sitting beside me now are four new-in-box Intel Pro/Wireless 5000 wireless access points.

PC Magazine, 5/21/2002:
"...optional support for 802.11b and a reasonable price make the Intel PRO/Wireless 5000 802.11a Access Point worthy of consideration if you want to be an early adopter of 802.11a."

C|Net, 7/31/2002:
"With its simultaneous support of 802.11a and 802.11b, the Intel Pro/Wireless 5000 LAN dual access point is well suited to open office areas packed with wireless PCs."

2002 price: $449 list according to PC Magazine, $649 according to C|Net.

I got mine from an outfit called surpluscomputers.com for four bucks a piece. Plus $12 shipping. Here's a link to the product if it's still in stock (it is now, but probably won't be after the Slashdotters hit it).

The moral of the story: compatibility with the next standard is fine and dandy, but in three or four years, you're going to look back and either laugh, cry, or hurl.

I just checked a manufacturer's site, theirs produce 1.5 to 5MW. So, even if we assume their smallest model, that would mean the household in question would have to run almost 10.000 XBox 360s, which of course is impossible since nobody could survive in such a hot environment.

I fully agree with the other half of your comment, though, and would like to add that you wouldn't be able to hear them from a few hundred meters distance anyway.

But will Sony allow me to borrow it from a friend?

So now I can no longer revel in the fact that "1080p isn't THAT much better" and continue on my way to wishing that I got the latest and greatest.

not sure wtf "judder" is.

I think that now is a good time to invest in an HTPC.

For an added laugh, go take a look at their "worst products of the year"
Lowest score? 3.5 and the Toshiba Satellite M35X-S163 was rated 4.2.

So yeah, basically whore shills.

How are we supposed to trust CNET's ratings now? Shouldn't they review and change their ratings to reflect its true/overall quality?

CNet has started including video reviews that are brief, but usually a pretty good overview of the product. I would ignore the "editor's rating" number, though. I've never found those to be consistent, on any website. If you want an indicator of quality, check the user ratings. Those usually point out any glarinf product deficiencies.

Actually, according to CNET, Media Center is XP Home, not Pro. (4th paragraph on the linked page.)

So as a computer, it's kinda useless.

Microsoft routinely moves future estimated pre-sales of their products to current year's tallies, making it near-impossible to gauge their true sales numbers.

Is that different, at all? I mean, Microsoft's business model is somewhat akin to a subscription service, correct? (this is a serious question)

Enron, on the other hand, booked $53 million in profit on their on-demand-video co-venture with Blockbuster, before the technology was even proved viable.

This isn't insightful. 1 GB USB watches are readily available.

http://reviews.cnet.com/EDGE_DiskGo_USB_Watch_Driv e_USB_memory_watch_1_GB/4505-8897_7-31529242.html

I consider myself to be fairly competent when it comes to computers. I have a bachelor in computer science and I work all day at a job where I program web applications. I even run my own little review website on the side.

I tried building my own machine a couple years back, but it was a complete disaster. I have had nothing but hardware conflicts from day one. I used name brand equipment, but I did not, and still do not, have the time to research each product to see if it is compatible with every other product. I choose what, at the time, was considered top of the line, AMD Athlon 1400+ processor, ASUS motherboard, Radeon 9800 pro graphics card and a sound blaster sound card. There is just something there that does not work well. I get a blue screen of death at least once a week; even when the computer is idle it will sometimes lock up. I have had to stop playing games on it completely because it crashes more when I do. I FDISK the hard drive at least once every 6 months so that I make sure I don't have any stuff on it that may be causing problems. I run Norton Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Pro so that I can keep viruses and unwanted people off my system.

So after all that trouble you cannot blame me for not wanting to do it again. I just want something that works the first time. No I am not going to switch to a Mac. I have crashed just as many Macs as I have PCs.

I like many others would like to purchase a system which is already configured to work correctly. So if Dell is so bad, who would you recommend? I was planning on purchasing a XPS 600 with Dual NVIDIA 7800 GTX cards, Dual core Pentium chip, 20" LCD monitor and such. That was all going to cost less then $3500. Everywhere else I look, a setup like that is closer to $4000 or more. Just so you know I have checked Gateway, Velocity Micro, Alienware, and Overdrive PC.

I would like to get the low prices that Dell offers but still get a good system. I know Dell does not sell AMD but I would prefer an AMD processor because it seems like they are doing better then Intel.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a company that can provide all this and next day on site service for the price that Dell offers? Maybe that is too much to ask.

Sorry, but you should have picked up a Dell XPS M170.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_M170/4505-3121_7- 31520758.html

Apart from a much sexier design, it's 1920x1600 resolution, 8.6 lbs, and got a Pentium M giving less heat (and fan noise from said heat). Then slap in 2GB RAM and ask for a 7.200 rpm disk.

Then plug in a 500GB external drive. One drive is plenty for your OS, apps, and any games you're currently playing. External USB2 is fast enough for your movies and holiday pictures.

How this post got modded insightful i'll never understand.. maybe because its anti-microsoft...

The x-box was supposed to have the higher tech and the live advantage and it bombed.

I direct you to here: the xbox outsells the gamecube everywhere except Japan. http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11 067. If that means it bombed then the gamecube bombed too.

The x-box had it and it didn't sell. Nobody has ever in my opinion come up with a satisfactory reason for the failure of the x-box.

See point one.

Another one that amazed me is that one post said the x-box had signed the big names. Bungie and EA. Wtf? Bungie IS NOT a big name. They got 1 game and that is it. EA is big but EA signs on to anything. Getting EA to endorse your new console is like getting a hooker to go out with you for money. Even /.ers should be able to manage that.

Erm what? Xbox already had EA supporting them, and Microsoft owns bungie so obviously Bungie would be supporting Microsoft. Also, bungie only got one game? Clearly you don't know your history, Bungie was out and out the most critically successful Mac games producer ever, also making very critically successful games for pc. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/myth2soulbligh ter/ Myth II is about as good as a computer game can possibly be. To all those who followed Halo's development, Microsofts initial purchase of them was most definitely a big thing, given that it was clear even from early dev shots that halo could be something special.

As for the graphics being amazing. Oh please. I already play at higher resolutions on my now 2yr old PC. Richer friends won't accept anything less then 1600x1200 while sony's own games like eq2 can already make use of 512mb video cards despite the fact they were not even out. Other recent games to can make use of hardware features that even top of the range pc's don't have let alone these weak consoles.

You seem to be confused about the difference between a computer monitor and a TV screen. See this article: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dtv2.htm Weak Consoles, do you realise the xbox360 has a triple core processor? How many of these do you see in your local PC shop? The current fastest dual core AMD is the 4800 X2, which is dual core 2.4ghz per core. Which costs around 800 dollars! http://shopper.cnet.com/AMD_Athlon_64_X2_4800/4014 -3086_9-31396324.html. Note: The cheaper xbox360 costs 300 dollars. Want to carry on comparing the un-comparable? I suggest you start with melons and small off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic wardens.

The 360 is lacking launch titles and has not got the mindshare with the general public.

Xbox360 Launch Line up: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6139695.html
PS2 Launch Line up: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&cl ient=safari&rls=en&as_qdr=all&q=+%22ps2+launch+lin e+up%22+worst&btnG=Search
Indeed, most people regard PS2's launch as one of the worst ever with the DC being one of the best ever. The ps2 steam rollered the DC thus meaning that the initial launch means nothing.

Try searching for a review of a commerical product like a TV by model number. Google will fill the search with places selling the product, not with reviews. If Eopinions or Amazon does not have a review, you're screwed. You'll be buying blind. Okay genius, what keywords do you enter? If I wanted to find reviews on the Sony KDL-V40XBR1, I personally would type in "sony KDL-V40XBR1 reviews".

I tried your search. And I wasn't impressed with the results.

1. http://www.pricerunner.com/sound-and-vision/vision /tv/456966/reviews - No user reviews posted, no editor review posted
2. http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/ov erview/index__cat_id--11520000,prod_id--346857528. html - two users reviews posted, no editor review posted
3. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_Bravia_XBR_KDL_V40XBR 1/4505-6482_7-31470102.html - 24 user reviews, editor posted review
4. http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3148.html - 2 user reviews, editor posted specs
5. http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_343744_2728crx.aspx - no user reviews, no editor review

This is similar to what I've experienced recently searching for reviews on Google. I can eventually find them, but I usually need to use a much more complex search that removes keywords stores usually use. The next time, I'll try Yahoo and see how it goes.

Or maybe not. The same search at Yahoo turned up shopping.yahoo.com twice in the top 5, and a similar lack of reviews.

Not quite as minimalist, but more ergonomic, and probably more durable are these products (which may be simply wrappers around the iDisk.):

• Pretec iDisk Tiny $40/128MB - $150/1GB
• Iomega MicroMini $16/64MB.

I was curious as to whether or not there were any resources for finding out which stations do what - like your example of WVIR vs. WSLS.

Also I heard that DirectTV, at least in some markets, has dropped some of its 1080i signals from 1920x1080i to 1280x1080i with the excuse that most HDTVs only natively support 720p (downscaling 1080i as needed) and thus 1280 horizontal is sufficient and lets them compress further, fitting more channels on to a single transponder which, from what I have read, costs satelite companies a lot more to rent than it does cable companies.

I'd be fascinated to see a table like the one at http://www.widemovies.com/dtvtransponders.html that shows how given local cable and satelite providers divide up their feeds - were such a resource to exist.

Part of this is motivated from the story on WebWire about 50% of users thinking they're getting HD because they have an HD ready set but no means of receiving a signal, aren't connecting their HD Cable box with the right cables, are watching the 480i versions of the channels also shown in 1080i further through the channel lists, etc.

Call it the obsessive nerd thing but I'd like to get a better understanding of what I'm actually viewing and also a better understanding so I can give advice to friends when they ask "So, is HD worth it? Is it better to get DirectTV or Cable? Are 720p sets that much worse than 1080i?

From seeing *most* HD channels turn out to be 1080i, a 1080i set seems to make sense as most channels would need downsampling from 1080i to 720p whereas, the other way around, relatively few channels need upsampling from 720p to 1080i. That much I gained from finding resources like CNet's. Knowing the provider/bandwidth answers would help in picking the best services (cable vs. HD vs. over the air) to avoid compression artifacts.

This listing indicates that resolution is set by the network although, I suspect that the resolution may also vary depending on your local cable provider or re-broadcaster.

Think of all the bandwidth you could have saved the world, if you had simply asked Google instead of Slashdot.

As for intentionally hiding it; No, they simply omit it because nobody really cares and only a twat would reconfigure his HDTV every time he changes the channel.

Here's what you do; configure your TV so that the picture looks best to you and then, regardless of the resolution or color temperature or what your neighbour says, leave the settings alone.

And ipod was totally the first HDD DAP ever

Though yes, the patent seems somewhat cheap.

Yeah, and native resolution is the highest resolution an LCD screen can generally do, lower resolutions are interpolated which as you pointed out looks like crap most of the time. This review, this one (over in the pros), and this one (way down in going wider) all note the resolution, typically in the first line. If it were interpolated all three reviews wouldn't rave about the displays unless Mikey was passing out a good chunk of his fortune. These are 15.4" widescreen screens with a native resolution of 1920x1200. "They are real, and they are spectacular!"
Since they are laptop screens they go pretty cheap on ebay when someone breaks their computer but the screen is in good shape.

Trend Micro's non-corporate suite is widely reguarded as the best in the business; C|Net touts that it "is the best antivirus software package I've seen in a long while" (in Why you should ditch Norton AntiVirus), and PC World declares "hands-on evaluation points to Trend Micro's PC-cillin Internet Security 2005 as the clear winner here" (in Internet Security Suites Face Off). We like it because it is easy to install, administer, and use, it is cheap, and it integrates perfectly with Windows XP Service Pack 2's security system (while Norton and Mcafee do not; see the reviews).

Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay.

I know there's a difference between retail "CompUSA" prices and OEM prices, but I think his "estimates" ($100 for Windows XP, $350 for Office) might be fair, although he should have been more specific.

$100 is probably his estimate of the "average" cost (to the end user after markup) of Windows XP Home and Professional OEM preinstalled. His $350 estimate for Office is probably his "average" price of preinstalled Office Basic, Office Small Business, Office Standard, Office Professional, and Office Enterprise. He also might be factoring in volume site licenses bought by businesses.

First, he didn't specify which versions of Windows XP (Home or Professional). Since he seems to be targeting a business-oriented audience, I think we can assume many of them will be using Windows Professional, which we can buy for about $162 OEM. A computer manufacturer buys it for significantly less, but there's a markup by the time it reaches the buyer. A quick check of Dell's Small Business site will show you that Dell currently charges $119 more to upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro.

So if XP Home adds about $50 to the final price of a computer and XP Pro adds about $150, then his $100 estimate might be fair. For similar reasons, I think his $350 estimate for MS Office might be fair. OEM versions of Office Basic can be bought for about $160, Office Small Business for about $230, Office Professional for about $320, and Office Enterprise for about $450.

Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay.

I know there's a difference between retail "CompUSA" prices and OEM prices, but I think his "estimates" ($100 for Windows XP, $350 for Office) might be fair, although he should have been more specific.

$100 is probably his estimate of the "average" cost (to the end user after markup) of Windows XP Home and Professional OEM preinstalled. His $350 estimate for Office is probably his "average" price of preinstalled Office Basic, Office Small Business, Office Standard, Office Professional, and Office Enterprise. He also might be factoring in volume site licenses bought by businesses.

First, he didn't specify which versions of Windows XP (Home or Professional). Since he seems to be targeting a business-oriented audience, I think we can assume many of them will be using Windows Professional, which we can buy for about $162 OEM. A computer manufacturer buys it for significantly less, but there's a markup by the time it reaches the buyer. A quick check of Dell's Small Business site will show you that Dell currently charges $119 more to upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro.

So if XP Home adds about $50 to the final price of a computer and XP Pro adds about $150, then his $100 estimate might be fair. For similar reasons, I think his $350 estimate for MS Office might be fair. OEM versions of Office Basic can be bought for about $160, Office Small Business for about $230, Office Professional for about $320, and Office Enterprise for about $450.

Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay.

I know there's a difference between retail "CompUSA" prices and OEM prices, but I think his "estimates" ($100 for Windows XP, $350 for Office) might be fair, although he should have been more specific.

$100 is probably his estimate of the "average" cost (to the end user after markup) of Windows XP Home and Professional OEM preinstalled. His $350 estimate for Office is probably his "average" price of preinstalled Office Basic, Office Small Business, Office Standard, Office Professional, and Office Enterprise. He also might be factoring in volume site licenses bought by businesses.

First, he didn't specify which versions of Windows XP (Home or Professional). Since he seems to be targeting a business-oriented audience, I think we can assume many of them will be using Windows Professional, which we can buy for about $162 OEM. A computer manufacturer buys it for significantly less, but there's a markup by the time it reaches the buyer. A quick check of Dell's Small Business site will show you that Dell currently charges $119 more to upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro.

So if XP Home adds about $50 to the final price of a computer and XP Pro adds about $150, then his $100 estimate might be fair. For similar reasons, I think his $350 estimate for MS Office might be fair. OEM versions of Office Basic can be bought for about $160, Office Small Business for about $230, Office Professional for about $320, and Office Enterprise for about $450.

One of these would be fun to have. (And the notebook's nice too...) They appear to be out in Europe already and should hit America soon.

Throw in an AMD Turion MT40 (2.2GHz, 25W) CPU (see ewiz.com), 2GB RAM (Crucial PC3200, ~$240), that Hitachi 100GB 7200RPM HD (see zipzoomfly.com), along with the stock 17" widescreen and 256MB Radeon X700 GPU and you'll have a seriously nice gaming notebook.

If you want something really outrageous, the Clevo D900K notebooks take Athlon 64 X2 dualcore CPUs and GeForce 7800 Go GPUs. Heavy though.

There are some nice 15.4" Turion notebooks with X700 GPUs too from Acer and MSI.

Hopefully we'll see some really neat stuff next year when nVidia's new notebook chipset comes out.

My notebook has a lowly GeForce 440 Go though because apparently nobody at HP is into gaming. Nice machine otherwise though.

Graphics cards which can rival their desktop equivilents have been the main bottleneck to laptop gaming. They've come a long way over the last few years though.

I have personally just hit the threshold where I'm prepared to give up my desktop gaming for the convenience of a laptop - I just purchased a Dell XPS M170 which includes a GeForce 7800 Go. It benchmarks at 87fps on Doom 3, high quality, 1024x768, 4xAA, which is on par with higher end desktops.

I personally find the LaCie fairly plain compared to the Monster Drive.

I disagree. The PADD could be easily built today. Have you ever heard of a Palm Lifedrive? Well, if you haven't here are the relevant details: 4GB Microdrive (ok, not a 1.8", but better than flash memory), 416MHz XScale CPU, 5 hours and 15 minutes of battery life in the worst-case scenario (i.e. playing video), and $500. This already does everything a PADD would do; the only difference is that it's too small. To build what I want, you'd literally just have to attach the guts of a LifeDrive to a bigger screen and battery, and you'd have $500 extra to spend to do it. Now tell me it can't be done!

Slightly more difficult would be to do the same thing but with a Transmeta, Via C3, or low-voltage PPC chip and a 30GB iPod-size hard drive, but even that seems within the realm of possibility.

CNET reviews will do my dirty work for me. Check out their review of the ORIGINAL xbox for a detailed list of its capabilities.

Taft

>>As regards sound quality - that mostly depends on the headphones you use rather than the player.

True. But then, if you listen to different players with the SAME headphones, iRiver scores much better. Check this 'blind' test performed by cNet a while back. See where iPod stands compared to others (esp iRiver).

As for RDS, iRiver scores there, irrespective of RDS, as long as iPod does not have it.

Yet another stupid requirement to the EULA is according to this article here: "You must delete your songs if you move out of the country or if you file for bankruptcy."

I stand corrected.

However, for the Great grandparent's posts purposes, it is argued that sports look better in progressive scan opposed to the flicker of interlacing. (See question two in the first link)

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449-6361600-1.html
http://www.avsforum.com/hdtvfaq/HDTV-FAQ.htm

I don't think it was sabotage, it was most likely not tested well, had issues with performance and was rushed to the market.
Why have an artificial 100 song limit? Good question.
Itunes compatible cell phones are inevitable, this first prototype just didn't cut the mustard.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Motorola_Rokr_E1/4505-6454 _7-31515635.html
ROKR review from CNET:
CNET editors' review
Editors' rating Good 6.3 out of 10
Reviewed by: Kent German and James Kim
Review date: 9/15/05 Release date: 9/7/05 Average user rating: 6.1
The good: Solid call and music playback quality; includes speakerphone and Bluetooth; bright display; user-friendly controls; integrated iTunes player.
The bad: Dull design; small 100-song memory; limited Bluetooth functionality; sluggish iTunes interface and transfer speeds; can't download songs wirelessly; VGA camera only.
The bottom line: The Motorola Rokr E1 takes a step toward integrating a usable audio jukebox into a functional cell phone, but the 100-song limit and the slow processor performance will disappoint iPod users looking to carry a single do-it-all device.

So it looks like just a shoddy product from Motorola. On a side note, a friend of mine just returned his Motorola cell phone for the second time, needless to say he did not like their products.

--The next step is removing the problem of "Oh, I'd like to watch that, but I didn't record it."

ReplayTV solved this years ago with internet program sharing... TV companies stopped/slowed it though.

http://reviews.cnet.com/ReplayTV_5504__40_hour_DVR _/4514-6474_7-30445942.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/Toshiba_Portege_M205_S809/ 4505-3126_7-30612819-2.html?tag=nav

I have one of these, and I ADORE it. I got mine for $1100 refurbished (couldn't tell it was used at all). 1.5GHz Pentium M, 512MB of RAM, 1400x1050(!) 12" LCD, discrete graphics controller (GeForce FX Go 5200), wifi and optional Bluetooth. Plus it's lighter than the HP model and the stylus is terrific - has an eraser and a button on it to do left-clicking. I also think the hinge is sturdier than both the HP and IBM models.

The only thing that is lacking on it is the bundled software. Yes, you have OneNote, but I need something that combines OneNote's organization and keyboard-pen input with the selection flexibility of Journal (ability to lasso stuff and move it around). You can SORT of do that with OneNote, but not really - it decides for itself what should be grouped together, and God help you if you want to change it.

It was simple to find so many reviews to back up my comments, that being the Sony's CRT is the best out there. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34XBR910/4514-6485 _7-30536650.html http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetailReview .do?oid=96194&com.broadvision. session.new=Yes&BV_SessionID=@@@@1779814821.113043 5483@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdeaddgd hdiiijcfngcfkmdffhdfkl.0 http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-1341-x-10-11 -x http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34HS510/4514-6481_ 7-20886712.html Yes they are more expensive than any other type, but you truly get what you pay for. It is like buying fine furniture made of real solid wood or the stapled together crap that you get at the brick. The CRT industry is being phased out just like fine furniture did a long time ago. People bought crap because it was cheap and served their immediate purpose. Fine furniture is a rarety, but it is better. So too is the CRT. It is being pushed aside by inferior products that are cheaper and of less quality because most consumer demand it. This is why Sony is turning down the product lines. Unlike fine furniture, technology will make the competing products better Just not yet. Until that time, I'll stick to my Sony 34" HDTV CRT thank you.

It was simple to find so many reviews to back up my comments, that being the Sony's CRT is the best out there. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34XBR910/4514-6485 _7-30536650.html http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetailReview .do?oid=96194&com.broadvision. session.new=Yes&BV_SessionID=@@@@1779814821.113043 5483@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdeaddgd hdiiijcfngcfkmdffhdfkl.0 http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-1341-x-10-11 -x http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34HS510/4514-6481_ 7-20886712.html Yes they are more expensive than any other type, but you truly get what you pay for. It is like buying fine furniture made of real solid wood or the stapled together crap that you get at the brick. The CRT industry is being phased out just like fine furniture did a long time ago. People bought crap because it was cheap and served their immediate purpose. Fine furniture is a rarety, but it is better. So too is the CRT. It is being pushed aside by inferior products that are cheaper and of less quality because most consumer demand it. This is why Sony is turning down the product lines. Unlike fine furniture, technology will make the competing products better Just not yet. Until that time, I'll stick to my Sony 34" HDTV CRT thank you.

The samsung model in the article summary seems to have a full-sized keyboard. More importantly, it has a detachable monitor, which solves the real problem with using a laptop as your desktop replacement: needing to stay hunched over the keyboard in order to see the screen.

Last I checked, it is still illegal here to make a copy of the music on a CD you own, for any reason at all - personal uses of any type included, even for an MP3 player. We have no fair-use provision in our copyright laws, nor (AFAIK) are we getting any as a result of the Free Trade deal with the USA (though copyright terms are being drastically lengthened to match the US). We own the media, but have no "license to the music".

There are already a few online music stores in Australia, but to my knowledge they only sell songs in WMA format, not much good for iPod owners. iTMS will be the first useful site.

I can imagine that all of our iPods would be desperately looking forward to playing something other than crappy bootlegged highschool bands, home-recorded birdsong & the occasional scroungings from Creative Commons.

CNET review, looks kinda crappy:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Olympus_M_robe_500i__20GB_ /4505-6490_7-31149052.html

Firefox has vulnerabilties, yes, but they tend to be:
1) Patched Faster
2) Less critical
3) Patched completely
4) Openly admitted to

Apple iPod Color marketing exagerations "The original iPod changed the way you listen to music by putting thousands of songs in your pocket." As if nobody else put thousands of songs in your pocket? This seems to suggest that Apple's iPod was the first device to put thousands of songs in someone's pocket by using a hard drive?

Other MP3 players seem to have changed the way people listen to music, before the iPod even existed. "The world's first iPod Credit for this goes to Compaq's Systems Research Center and the Palo Alto Advanced Development group--essentially a bunch of engineers from Compaq's laptop division who realized that hard drives could replace flash memory in MP3 players and enable them to hold far more music. When I reviewed the MP3 player these groups created (the Hango/Remote Solutions Personal Jukebox PJB-100), I was blown away by the then-unheard-of 6GB capacity, crystal-clear sound, and ample display, as compared with the skimpy 32MB devices I'd seen previously, such as the MPMan and the Rio." Maybe heavier than the iPod, but it clipped on the hip and fit into large pockets like the original iPod did (before the iPod Mini and Nano).

So much for Apple invented the MP3 player with a hard drive first, myth, and changed the way we listen to music. Apple really needs to be more honest in their marketing. So, apparently, do Apple Zealots like you. Are those URLS good enough for you, or are you going to go into shock and denial? Check and mate, sucker!

Firefox was supposed to be more secure than IE. But exploits for both browsers are close in numbers

If you compare numbers, please compare them correctly. According to Secunia, IE has much more OPEN security holes than Firefox has.
http://secunia.com/product/4227/
http://secunia.com/product/11/

I also suggest you to read this article about the "Fun with statistics", which is about the security holes in Firefox and IE:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-6333507-1.html

Ok, guilty as charged. You are correct on both counts. I didn't really research which was first, I just knew that they both predated the iPod (BTW, I said the Rio was the first portable MP3 player- not the first one with an HDD). That being said, the point of the grandparent post remains the same: Apple wasn't first, but they deserve some credit on the innovation front.

The hard part was finding the product at a reasonable price, with reasonable shipping (I live in Hawaii) from a respectable source. I had read numerous accounts of ppl who tried to order their Plasma TV from sites that advertised lower prices only to have "problems" with their oder, requiring them to call customer support, at which time they would be pressured into buying a different/bigger product or buying accessories.

Indeed this is what happened to me. I placed an order with LCDTVS.com and recieved a message saying "There was a problem with your credit card." . I immediately canceled the order and decided to bite the bullet on a higher price and get it from Amazon.com ... Well I guess they farmed it out to TigerDirect.com which turned out great for me, because for whatever reason, the shipping, which was guessed to be at around $300, ended up being only $78 vs the $430 that LCDTVs was going to charge... So even though I paid more for the TV, I saved about $100 on the total expense.

Another hard part was worrying if I had chosen the wrong time to buy...The *7UY is an older model. I wasn't able to verify if an *8UY was on its way, but I got freaked out because the tiger direct page for my product was "page not available" right after I bought mine.

TD didn't have a problem with the credit card, but they did mess up the order tracking, so I never knew for sure where my TV was.

Also it took a month to arrive, so the anticipation was killing me!

It was a lot of stress but like I said, I could not be happier with the product.

-D

CNet and PCMagazine already call it for Y!Mail (not the beta, the current one) because of its security, antispam, and global language support:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1830114,00.as p
http://reviews.cnet.com/Yahoo_Mail/4505-9236_7-309 80704-2.html?tag=top

I read people writing about Yahoo! playing 'catchup' - that is so ridiculous.

Google has maginally better web search, made a great marketing move with 1GB webmail, and has done an absolutely unparalleled job at serving the needs of both sides of the advertising market.

The weirdest part of the Google phenomenon is when everyone started hyping how superior Google was for web search back in the day when Yahoo! was *using* Google for *their* websearch! This really illustrates how much difference fresh branding in the post .dom-apocalyse makes.

However, side-by side comparisons show that Yahoo! has competitive and frequently better products (Messenger vs. Google Talk, Y!Mail vs GMail, Y! Toolbar vs. Google Toolbar, Y! Desktop Search vs Google Desktop Search) and most of them have been around a lot longer.

If there is one place Y! got its ass soundly kicked where it hurts its with AdWords and Web Search.

But certainly not all that is Google is god and some of their products are just plain lame (Google Talk). And dont talk to me about judging betas either because Google has a habit of just calling everything a beta forever to avoid scrutiny and invite interest, which is really, really lame.

No, I think the point was, as I said, "and be mediocre". The iPod actually has access to ALL of those features through add-ons without altering the basic iPod design. There aren't any real standout multifunction mp3 players YET. I'm sure they will be designed, but there isn't even another standout mp3 player yet that is as good as the iPod (some are close, but they need to nail down the physical design, UI, and software, and I think they at most nail 2 out of 3)

It's your OPINION that FM tuning, voice recording, gapless playback, replacable batteries, etc. somehow completely fuck up the interface of every other player. Why this doesn't apply to iPod accessories I don't know. And I don't know of any "accessory" that adds a replacable battery or gapless playback. Sure, you CAN get an extra battery, and an FM tuner, and lots of other accessories for the iPod but then you've lost the size, appearance, and design advantages of the iPod and spent a lot of money to get the same features as other, cheaper, players.

For the record, I personally don't give a fuck about FM tuning and voice recording, but I can understand that other people DO. For example, MY holy grail of MP3 player features is crossfade.

Price competition forcing the #2 manufacturer to actually LOSE money to compete (Compare the fact that because Apple is cutting prices to maintain dominance, Creative is losing money to 'keep up')

You are out of the loop. Unless of course you don't think Creative is number 2?

Repitition doesn't make something true. Yes, Creative has announced in their Q4 numbers that they've lost money in the MP3 sector. I can't FIND a Q4 announcement by Apple so I don't KNOW if they lost money in the MP3 sector or not. And even if I DID find such a report and even if the report said that Apple made money, you STILL haven't demonstrated that Creative lost money because of Apple. Creative could have lost money for any number of reasons (mismanagement, disaster, smoking crack, etc). So unless you have insider information from Creative, and can verify that, you're talking out of your ass.

Apple's pricing structure prevents Creative from charging enough to make a profit. Read the press release, and you'll see them say "We had set our targets higher for unit volume and average selling prices for our MP3 players than we achieved in the period."

They wanted to sell more and charge more. Apple stopped them.

Assuming your interpetation is correct (we simply don't know), why should I as a consumer consider this a GOOD thing? Microsoft having a monopoly on the OS market is bad, but Apple having a monopoly on the MP3 player market is good? What sense does that make?

If all you're trying to show is that iPods are popular, you're absolutely correct. But this is largely do to really good marketing.

Look it up. They are the first to do 2gb and 4gb of flash. The biggest anyone else has is 1gb.

Incorrect. Took me 30 seconds on Google to find this.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3623064539673730/

Yes it was. The iPod mini was the first microdrive based mp3 player, with Creative being the second. Apple's mini was announced and released in February of 2004, while Creative's was October.

Can you find another microdrive based mp3 player that was earlier?

The eDigital MXP-100 was released in late 2001, YEARS before the iPod mini was available. Here's a review at cNet:
http://reviews.cnet.com/eDigital_MXP_100_340_MB_Mi crodrive/4505-6490_7-7820490-2.html?tag=top

So you can't deny that, in 2001, the iPod was the first mp3 player to upload data at 12mb/s, when everyone else using USB1 (2.0 didn't exist) was uploading at 1mb/s.

Whoopdie fucking do. Even if this is true (I won't bother to disprove it) it irrelavent because other equall

>Who is going to accept a pathetic 6 hours of battery life from their phone (or their MP3 player, for that matter)?

OK. Considering the limit of 100 songs, it takes you *less* than 6 hours to hear everything you can pack in it.
Then you have to listen to the same stuff two more times. Why accept that? And who would want to listen to the same set of songs for 3 times in a row?
(And add to this other limitations from the review below).

I, on the other hand, can store well over 100 songs in my phone (and that's only because I didn't buy the next bigger, 1GB memory card) without listening to the same stuff over and over again.

I can't find about ROKR's organizer or Web browser either (Pocket Outlook too, but I don't use it on my Smartphone). Would I trade these features for a "better" MP3 player? I don't think so.

With a Smartphone, I don't need a dedicated music player - it does its job, not in a stellar way, but it does it.
With a ROKR, I'd need an extra PDA (or a Smartphone).

"What's worse is that songs are stored only in the included TransFlash memory card. While TransFlash cards are currently limited to 512MB anyway, Apple indicated this version of the Rokr will keep its 100-song limit even if bigger cards come out. Integrated memory for photos and other applications is also somewhat small at a paltry 5MB."
http://reviews.cnet.com/Motorola_Rokr_E1/4505-6454 _7-31515635-2.html?tag=top