Slashdot Mirror
Spotlight On Windows-Powered Gadgets And Gizmos
An anonymous reader writes "WindowsForDevices has published a big article showcasing seventy-three consumer devices that were on display in Microsoft's device expo at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Each device runs Windows CE, Windows Mobile (Pocket PC, Smartphone, etc.), or Windows XP Embedded. A photo and brief description are provided for each. Some cool stuff!"
As neat as some of these inventions are, the logical section of my brain is forced to conclude that this is yet another step in the wrong direction for desktop Linux.
A few years ago, I found an Open-Source project online and just jumped right in. Using the Web interface, IRC, etc., I was able to teach myself proper C++ coding and Linux system software design, which allowed me to realize my dream -- starting my own (Linux) company. Fast forward 12-16 months, and I find myself hounded daily by CFOs, CTOs, and other executives waiting for our bubble to finally bulge into a profitable, hugely influential corporate entity. Unfortunately, it's lack of corporate tie-ins that Microsoft utilizes (abuses?) so frequently which keeps companies like my own down in the basement, while the Microsofts, Nortons, Computer Associates, etc. all help one another and co-sponsor many new projects.
The desktop Linux companies like mine do not network very well. I've had discussions about this with subordinates, but it seems that there are a few issues: 1) Lack of social tact among Linux startups 2) Lack of tie-ins between true GNU/Open-Source/Free Software and the corporate Linux companies such as my own, and 3) Lack of raw capital. While a company like Microsoft has billions at its disposal to pay other companies to develop Windows-only gadgets, startup Linux entities such as my own have little or no pull among hardware vendors. This is readily apparent by reading SourceForge -- roughly 25% of the projects hosted there seem to involve reverse-engineering non-Linux devices. The worst part is that such tactics are usually illegal and can place young hackers in jail just because they wanted to use the Web camera they got for Christmas on their Gentoo/Mandrake machine.
What we need is better alliances, more open communication, and more money (this is capitalism, and unfortunately one thing I've found is that money really does influence people and get things "done" so to speak). Sites like this one (Slashdot) and the OSDNs, Red Hats, and other big players in the Linux market need to support the fledgling companies and give hardware hackers incentive to create new, LINUX-ONLY hardware gadgets that will finally make Linux a viable piece of desktop operating system software for everyday Ma' & Pa' users. The all-to-often heard phrase of "lusers" or "lamers" when referring to people who aren't computer experts is disappointing because with a negative attitude, nothing significant can be accomplished.
So let's keep our heads held high, support one another, and spread the word to both hardware and software vendors about what Linux has to offer -- not only on the server side, which is the only area it's highly popular, but for desktop PC users as well. It may sound silly, but at pep meetings I like to say "Hey guys, remember that we are a TEAM, and Together Everyone Accomplishes More."
Thanks for hearing me out, friends. There are some novel and intriguing ideas proposed above. Let them sink in and don't ever forget it!
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
what about the [far superior] devices that run linux? :-/
It's called 'Intro To Unix' and they're making us use vi and KDE. Does this tell me anything about the administration at my school? Should I drop the class?
yes, bmw has a car with a computer with some version of windows running it. it sucks, it will probably crash. blah blah blah
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Its almost drinking time again. Why? Cos whenever Geo Bush speaks, its so depressing one must either get totally fucked up, or jump off the highest bridge in town.
Here are some suggestions for State of the Union drinking games:
Thursday, January 15, 2004 11:17 PM
The George W Bush State Of The Union Address Drinking Game
What You Need:
A group of four taxpayers: including 1 white guy wearing a suit, 2 wearing normal clothes and 1 in semi- shabby clothes.
A shot glass per person (all bought in a second hand store)
100 tiny toothpicks with American flags wrapped around them.
A slab of soft French cheese, ie: brie.
A large stash of beer. The one in the ragged clothing gets the cheapest crap you can find, like Milwaukee's Best; the white guy in the suit gets to drink whatever import he wants; and the other two pick between Bud and Miller Lite.
Rules of the Game:
1. Whenever George W mentions the liberation of the freedom loving Iraqi people, the last person to grab his throat in a choking motion has to drink four shots of beer.
2. Whenever George W uses the words: "God," "America" or "jobs," drink a shot of beer.
3. Whenever George W mispronounces the word "terrorism" the last person to knock on wood drinks two shots of beer.
4. Whenever George W mentions the phrase "sanctity of marriage," take a shot of beer. The first time this happens, the last person to finish has to drink two more shots of beer and do the dishes during the Democratic Response.
5. Whenever the speech is interrupted by applause, the last person to stick one of the American flag toothpicks into the soft French cheese from a distance of two feet drinks two shots of beer. The white guy in the suit gets an extra chance each round.
6. Whenever George W smirks during a standing ovation, take turns drinking shots of beer until the audience sits down. Do it double time if his shoulders shake with silent laughter.
7. If the Vice President Dick Cheney or First Lady Laura Bush are caught on camera not paying attention and talking to somebody else while Puppet- Boy is still speaking, drink a whole beer.
8. If George W Bush mentions Halliburton, his inability to find the Weapons of Mass Destruction or Osama bin Laden, the white guy in the suit has to drink a shot of everybody else's beer out of their shot glass, and they get to wipe their glass clean on his jacket.
9. If George W Bush attempts to make a joke, anybody who laughs drinks three shots of beer.
10. Whenever George W Bush quotes the Bible or uses the word "evildoers" in a sentence, the last person to fall to their knees drinks two shots of beer. If he pulls a quote from the Bible about "evildoers," the last person to get prostrate, drinks an entire beer.
Extras:
1. The white guy in the suit gets to kick the person wearing the shabby clothes if George W uses a heartfelt story of an individual's grace and or courage under pressure to illustrate a point. He gets 15 seconds to kick everybody if that person is in the audience sitting next to an astronaut.
2. Everybody gets to kick the crap out of the guy in the suit for 15 seconds, only if Bush's teleprompter goes out and he begins to flail about mumbling nonsense about his days with the Texas Rangers.
Source [willdurst.com]
My zaurus can already do this...
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Hey All! Have you ever seen Linus Torvald's wife Tove Torvalds? Not to be rude but can't that beautiful baby get a makeover and put on the sexy?! I mean, Linus has become very metro recently and he is a very trendy metrosexual! You see, Linus used to look like a complete dork. But now, if I was a faggot, I would be all over this guy today! In the meantime, I'm sure Linus is getting his share of the booth babes... ;)
Does it run linux?
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
Yeah like the zaurus, ipaqs that run linux instead of pocket pc. An obscure devices that Linus discovered like Electronic picture frames. It's a little scary to put windows powered devices on display like this.. very brave decision.. Almost every geek has the clip with Bill Gates showing off Windows 98 and have it crash right???? Its not like Microsoft gets too much of the spot light already :P
Does anyone know how to change the colour of my MS Tablet PC? It's just blue all the time...
Now the worlds most hated technology item. can be combined with world's most hated OS!
Windows-Crashed Gadgets and Gizmos
clifgriffin > blog
I attended the CES show and was surprised to see the lack of non-Windows gadgets. I was hoping to see something like this run Linux. One day hopefully, there will be a section for all Linux gadgets. One day...
I was impressed with the length of that list. I'd like to see such a list of devices that are running Linux. I fear that it will be a much shorter list.
It already did!
Each device should be spec'ed with its estimate of MTBR (mean time between reboots).
a perfect example of what not to byu!
The "BEETLE iPOS".
Is it just me or are truth in advertising laws getting kinda strict?
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Here ya go: http://www.linuxdevices.com
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Especially the MobilePro 900c. It says it has a "nearly full size keyboard", so it must really look like half a laptop, with a really shitty screen. The point is...?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Good God, What makes you qualified to even suggest linux is better than microsoft?
Heck I use linux daily. But this blind zealotism wont get us anywhere..
How about giving some insightful, informative, or even funny reasons why linux is far superior than windows.
Dunno if this was one of the amazing devices shown, but recently an LCD display was installed outside of a food court at my school. All it seems to do is go through a powerpoint-like slideshow, telling us all of our lovely options in eating. For the past two days, however, all it has displayed is the Windows XP default screen saver.
Oh, I'm glad the money I'm paying for my education is going somewhere useful. Though this Windows-based LCD advertisement probably cost thousands of dollars, it's worth every penny in its ability to cause me to ignore the dining halls and make my own food.
Somehow, an advertisement running Windows seems to enhance my ability to ignore it - I'm ignoring two birds with one stone!
-agent oranje.
... but can it run linux (Had to be said)
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
whats with all these Windows powered devices all of a sudden on slashdot?
I mean come on? most slashdotters wouldnt advocate it so why do these pro-embedded proprietary systems keep getting articles here?
Is CowboyNeal getting some handy shandies from the boys at redmond or something?
come on lets have less of the old incey wince stuff please !
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
My wife has a Samsung SPH-i700 wireless phone from Verizon Wireless (motto: I am your father, Luke), and while it is a great tool to retrieve email remotely, it is an absolute JOKE as a wireless phone. To make a call, you must tap the start menu, then select "Phone" from the menu. My wife, a relatively small woman, finds the handset clunky and impossible to hold for more than a few minutes, so she uses speakerphone for almost every single conversation. The thing also loves to be tethered to an electrical outlet at every opportunity, battery life is dismal.
People who want to create features for wireless phones need to realize that ringtones in the workplace or in the presence of anyone over 14 make the owner of a ringing phone look asinine, camera phones are for perverts, and that anything that chews batteries generally makes my phone less useful.
Give me a phone that is lightweight, gets decent talk time off a single charge (I'd LOVE to be able to carry my phone an entire work week without charging), and that has features I'll actually use, and I'll be a customer for life.
Give me a PDA with a sorry excuse for a phone built-in, and I'll go find another vendor.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Cool, a handy list of what not to buy!
I dunno if anyone else feels the same way, but I hate those touch-screen lcd ATM machines. They seem to go slower, the touch screen doesnt always line up with the pad, and some even play advertisements! I don't care if these things run Windows (I believe they do) or Linux, I just wish theyd go away.
Phew... good I don't own any of them... I own some good number of devices with embeded linux on them though and so far so good. No problemo here.... :)
an actual quote from one of the devices
"They also wanted to reduce the footprint of their OS image to further harden their OS image from viruses & hackers, just another reason they chose Windows XP Embedded for their device. "
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Has anyone used the Poma Wearable PC ??
/.
Description: The Personal Optical Mobile Assistant (POMA) Wearable PC is a small wearable PC in a headset form factor for browsing the Internet. There is no boot time and gives the wearer the ability to privately view websites and access information...
I would like to see a review of this and any similar device posted on
The X-Box is not in the list, doesn't it run a version of windows too?
(\(\
(^.^)
(")")
*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
...the Poma wearable PC still looks dorky!
They forgot XBox running CE.Net. I mean how often does it happen, Microsoft software on a Microsoft hardware?
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
While everyone (here at least) would rather see *nix running on these devices, I'm none too suprised that Microsoft is pushing embeded Windows.
Their basic strategy from their inception has been to throw money at a problem untill someone finds a fix. Look at the X-Box (the lack of a Japanese market) or any number of their other projects.
Since Microsoft already has strong ties with most of the vendors, and plenty of money to throw at promoting embeded Windows, it only follows that they will continue to grow in that market.
"See you, space cowboy." -Spike
I'm so glad I didn't buy that MN-700 wireless router!!! Fuck I was about to buy one a couple of weeks ago and got the D-Link instead. Crisis adverted.
Recently I was shopping around for a high-end German-made sedan. The new ones were just way out of my price range so I was looking for a recent used model.
After searching everywhere I found an incredible deal. When I questioned the salesman about the extremely low price he explained that the previous owners had died in the vehicle. At first I thought "Yeah, so what?"
It turns out that the previous summer they had been driving through the Florida everglades and gotten lost. They eventually baked to death in the car miles from nowhere when it ran out of gas.
The first thing I noticed when I opened the door was that the seats were permanently stained where the bodies had rotted for over a month in the summer sun. This was followed by a terrible nauseating wave of putrescence. But when I turned the key, I was like, "Ugh gross! The GPS navigation system runs on Windows CE!"
Needless to say, I abandoned all thoughts of purchasing that particular vehicle.
---
Raising the bar on Slashdot trolling since 2003
The Maron-1 consists of a drive mechanism, a camera that can rotate left, right, up, and down. With the robot you can take pictures and relay them to the phone's screen, so that the owner can check conditions at home. It includes an infrared remote control capability that can be used to operate appliances such as air conditioners, televisions and VCRs.
I think a more likely situation is that it's so small that somebody will step on it, or its the first thing to get stolen in case of a robbery!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
If you're into the occult, you'll love these!
Again, slowly this time, since some of us were apparently asleep last time this subject was covered...
A ...u t o m a t e d
T ....e l l e r
M ......a c h i n e
Not 'Automated Teller Machine machine'
got it?
Some products (eg the XPDA-9) must be real sincve they appear on the list more than once.
Many of these are more development/experimental devices than real products. Quite a few, eg. Cerfcube run WinCE or Linux.
What is most interesting with WinCE is to see the number of "design losses", rather than design wins. Many products went first generation on WinCE and then were redone on Linux. I have not heard of the reverse, but I expect there might be a few cases.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I note that a bunch of these items are not yet shipping, including the Phantom Gaming System that came in 3rd in this years Vaporware Awards
Now, you don't have to settle for just your ATM being infected by the next Blaster worm.
You can now enjoy the comfort of experiencing MS Blaster on your new Artista 200E Sewing System! Imagine the luxury of devising creation after creation with only 60 seconds to make it! Only Microsoft could possibly think of this... :D
Sewing System
loser!
thanks! now i can't view the pictures at moblog! *scurries off to another site*
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
I've got a Casio Cassiopeia EM500 PDA with Windows Pocket PC. I dont know who was responsible for choosing the software setup on the ROM but who ever it was id like to think they are jobless now. It comes with a memory eating AOL setup tool - at most your going to use that once, at most! So now you have an ugly AOL icon sitting there and the software is on the ROM chip wasting space. Similarly other useless applications, and things that Casio have added that just duplicate windows apps that are already on there - eg there are two address book apps - one by casio, one by ms!
Microsofts motto when developing PocketPC was that apps stay resident in memory when you open them - so if you want to close them you have to go to the memory manager. The idea is stupid because apps load almost instantly anyway and while running in the background some of them seem to eat CPU power even when the PDA is off!! so the battery dies. Luckly other non ms software writers just put Exit buttons in their apps.
Microsoft is just not good at.. erm.. anything really.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
EEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like Dean screaming.
the rest of it is lame PDA bricks with stupid .NET on it. the media related items are a total joke. I fail to see how that's something to hoot about.
Intervideo is the company that makes WinDVD, InterVideo Home Theater, and a bunch of others. The story is at New Scientist. Basically it is an "InstantOn" PC with LinDVD (which is developed by InterVideo) that fits on a read-only memory chip. Linux handles TV, DVD, CD, MP3, radio. The twist to this product is that it also has a bootable MS Windows XP OS so you can run any of the MS Windows app that you still want/need.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
rofl...
And watch the damn TV.
The leader of the free world is speaking, and he's talking about the need to renew the Patriot Act.
Even though Slashdot is a bunch of scumbag liberals, I think we can all agree on Patriot Act being a necessary tool to fight terrorism.
They list the InFocus LiteShow and then have a description of something else (some projector, maybe?). And they refer to "The Infocus is...". Hello, InFocus is the manufacturer, not the product name.
LiteShow is a wireless projection system that attaches to any InFocus projector with an M1 adapter (i.e. any recent model they make). It allows you to use an 802.11b/g card in your computer to wirelessly project (i.e. no cable). You don't have to attach anything to your computer. The thing in the picture attaches to the projector, not your computer.
It works on Windows and MacOS X. Sadly, there is not a Linux client available yet. (If you want one, I suggest you call InFocus and ask for one. If they get enough requests, they'll probably start making one!)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Is that some kind of record? You used the same post twice in the same thread, and scored both a +5 Funny and +5 Insightful out of it.
What is your company making? What OS project did you make use of?
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
Do they run windows? Oh wait...
The difference between a PocketPC Phone Edition and Smartphone is the later is phone first, pda second, the former is pda first, phone second. So do your research and buy the righ tool for the job.
I guess he should have used a Simpson's reference, not a Family Guy one.
...POS meaning 'Point Of Sale' and not...the other thing.
This isn't helping.
think of how many post-crash error reports you could submit while on the go!
Linux Resources
I just got myself a Treo 600 for Christmas and I think it balances pretty well. True it is a Palm first with a phone built into it, but it works. One of the palm applications buttons is a phone button. Once on the phone screen you can make a call either by using the direction-pad thing to scroll to a contact / favorites list or by dialing on the keyboard. True it has a built-in camera, but I'll probably end up ignoring it. The battery life's great from what I've found so far (couple of days easily). The only downside to it is the keyboard buttons are a little small untill you get used to them.
Seventy-three
- new reasons to hate Bill Gates.
- new songs to watch Steve Ballmer dance to on stage.
- new areas of significant exploit vulnerability.
The microsoft wireless residential gateway. $110?! You've got to be kidding me. Must mean you're paying for an XP home licence??!! I have to wonder how often that POS locks up.
I wonder why he chose to be anonymous?
... than the little Windows logo! I'm heading to the store right now to pick up some of these awesome gadgets!
Psyche!
Same here! Did you find the human-fecal interface to be rather unpleasant as well?
True story.
Quotes that stuck out for me;
Note that there is no comment on what "Professional Plus" licence costs are. These licences cover;
Note that the last part of the sentence is "viewers ... are available as extra-cost components" meaning per-item costs.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
The year is 2025, White people HAVE become a MINORITY in America. On our streets hang Aryan men who refused to accept the "New Way," or perhaps they just looked too White. Perhaps they never thought MUD RULE would really come.
K KK EE KE EE EK KK EK KK EE KK EE KE EE KK EK KE KK K
White girls who refuse the advances of Negroids, are publicly gang-raped so as to serve as examples to other shuddering Aryan females. Children are now taken from their houses, by force, to be brought up in a "Multi-Cultural" home of Negroids, Arabs, Muslims and Gooks, all in the name of "brotherhood and love"...
And yet, some fight back! Alone or in small cells, Aryans...men and boys...but most of all women who stand the most to lose, since the decline of real men among the White Folk, strike back...at night and with any weapon near at hand.
How often do the hunted Whites think back to the "old days," when action and dedicated work, might have Reached, Educated and Organized enough of our folk, to have averted what now seems like a hopeless Hell. All the old excuses for not working for the Movement...My Job...My Money...My Friends...My Fun...My Beer, all gone. All the boasting, but never REALLY sacrificing for what they knew was coming, now it's too late, too late, TOO LATE. Are YOU a TALKER or do YOU make a difference now?
If so, you can contact us at:
ANP
P.O. Box 85942
Westland, MI 48185
staff@americannaziparty.com
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XPDA-9 POS terminal .. $US1500 .. Free
.. Priceless!!!!!
Credit cards to skim
Holidays in the Caribean, paid for by some unsuspecting dupe
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
For posting news about windows on slashdot. ;)
Okay now mod me up
Python script to convert photos into "artsy" portraits: http://p2pbridge.sf.net/pyPortrait/
Ok, which one of those pages came first? (LinuxDevices.com or WindowsForDevices.com) They both look amazingly similar.
:)
I guess I could check register.com, but that would require actual work, which I obviously am not capable of since I am posting on Slashdot while 'working'.
/.: why the hell am I here?
It looks to me like Motorola's i.MX Reference Design PDA is running Linux and the Qtopia embedded windowing system from TrollTech. The device is about halfway down the page.
Or, the (crappy) picture can be found here.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
And the brethren went away edified.
Quick! Vote the Republicans out of office! Those pussies aren't helping your cause! Bush won't stop until you're a slave to his will!
Heretic, You Shall Die on the Flaming Cross, and then where's your GOD! Huh! Hot Cross Buns!
Actually, look at the "i.MX Reference Design PDA" on their list. They mention it running Win .NET, even though their screenshot is Qtopia on Motorola's Linux PDA.
For those thinking MS business were kaput, think again and read this article.
Some persons predicted the end of MS soon, but forgot the marketing power of MS. Also that MS has been more aggresive in licensing it's technologies and offering more support and development tools, while on the other end people are discussing KDE is better than GNOME or Konkeror is better than Mozilla. Remember is not the technology what matters, is the implementation, the added value and usability that counts.
My wife has a Samsung SPH-i700 wireless phone ... My wife, a relatively small woman, finds the handset clunky and impossible to hold for more than a few minutes, so she uses speakerphone for almost every single conversation.
What the hell kind of research did you or your wife do before purchasing? I'm sorry that your wife's phone sucks, but did she not even hold it up to her head before buying it? Did she not look at the menus or try dialling a call? Cavaet emptor.
There are so many phones on the market that do things differently, I find little sympathy for someone stuck with a GUI or form factor that doesn't fit their needs.
Whenever you look at a Linux ad, you get a blue-screen :)
got sig?
allowyntais: dude, you're wierd.
..fuck its so fucking hard and I want fo fuck pelase please, just say "Its time for dinner son...and then bend ovfer and hyou are wearing a dress and yoyur son lifts it up and starts fo taste yhour pussy and the mom moans and sayhs no but she doesnot stop and then she turns around and starrts -playing with my cock and makes me hard for the first time and then she says its time for a shower..l..=Plkease please please
sethwraith: yeah. well we gots to make a living somehow...
allowyntais: I don't think this is the way to go about it.
sethwraith: well...the tentacles approach allowyntais and prod her tentatively waiting for the right time to strike and rape the shit out of her every orafice....tentacles look expectant and somewhat confused
allowyntais: odd look gee, tentacles. how....original.
sethwraith: ok..... tentacles suddenly grow massive razors... Tentacles monster opens mouth and begins to spit massive wads of shit into allowyntais' cunt.... (is this better?)
allowyntais: ewwwww...
sethwraith: the mouth of the largest tentacle opens, releasing 5 small dwarfs from Underhill of Sabishii. The dwarves, all with hidiously large male organs, surround alloyantais and begin forcing her into submissive positions. they chant and begin stabbing her with their large members, one in her mouth, another in her ass, and two in her vagina. the laugh and chant in their foreign tounge as they press their huge cocks into her small body....
allowyntais: um.....
sethwraith: are you wet baby? is this working for you? these are hairy dwarves and huge thick tentacles. they wrap all over your body and touch you all over and the dwarven rapists grab your titties. (fuck I am so hard, i am jacking it right now)
allowyntais: good for you.
sethwraith: oh yeah.... the dwarfes grab your tities and one of the m sticks his huge cock in your ass while another pucnches you in the face
allowyntais: dude, get a life.
sethwraith: (oh fuck, you zre my mom and the dwartves are raping the shit out of you) let me suchk your tits mommy, cry out for me. yoru bleeding facecries out as a hairy dirty ofld dwarf shoots his steaming gload all over your face. your bleeding all over now, i broke your nose, the blood is on my huge rhtorbbing cock. a tentacle plows up a dwarfs asshole as he shoves his big gray-haired cok up your bleeding cunt. (you have to be driping wetg now, i am gonna fucking blow my load all o 0ver...sayu you are my mom and you are wet baby
allowyntais: um...no.
sethwraith: fuck...yes.. please please[lease!!!1 Just type something for me to blow it to.... please...plase plase
allowyntais: no.
sethwraith: I am begging you fucking pelase do it
allowyntais: NO!
sethwraith: listen...seriously, this is not going to work unless we both participate. i am losing my vibe because you are not helping at all. what do you want to do here?
allowyntais: nothing. go talk to rikimaru.
sethwraith: why, who is that? why would you say that..? Anyway, lets just forget all this Hentai and fucking up shit.... Lets talk....real human to real human... (who is rikimaru?)
allowyntais: um...go away?
sethwraith: Hey, relax..... we were just playing around. Are you really a 22 year old college student.. we are and we are just here to see what people will do.
allowyntais: yes, I am.
sethwraith: Are you ugly and fat? (Please just answer honestly... we are just curious...we will not judge....this question is not meant to humiliate you... i promise.) I just want to know about the psychology behind all this strange role playing (strange at least from my point of view).
allowyntais: No, I am not ugly, no, I am not fat. I work as a Stripper at night, when I don't have classes. satisfied.
sethwraith: well...ok that is a little hard to believe actually. that would seem to be a cookie cutter response....try to understand that it makes little sense that a stripper would be online roleplaying. it is certainly not usual
a
"Some cool stuff!"
Wait, I thought you said they ran Windows?
Hu? Oh. Who do we hate today?
I guess all the mods have gone to bed. WAKE UP! There is a troll in the house!
Hmm. That didn't take long. Oh well, perhaps we can look forward to more of his invasive New Amerika! OOH YEAH! No permission slip necessary, you dirty foreingers!
We were looking at using the X86 version of Windows CE for a kiosk application. I tried to explain why this was a bad idea to the less technically inclined with the following metaphor:
Picture a Steam Locomotive. Its big, robust, kind of ugly, but purely functional. It requires a lot of finesse to operate one, and if you are not careful, you can blow yourself up. On the other hand, it has a rugged, simple design, being mostly a network of pipes. As such, anyone with a pipe wrench and a basic understanding of plumbing can repair a steam locomotive. This is what Linux is like.
Now imagine a Diesel Locomotive. The whole thing is controlled by a simple lever. Push the lever forward, it goes forward, pull it back, the locomotive backs up. The diesel can't pull as much as the steam locomotive, and diesel fuel costs more than coal, but anyone can operate the diesel. However, the diesel engine itself and its accompanying systems are very complicated. Most people (even people knowledgeable about trains) cannot fix a diesel locomotive, because they do not have access to the special tools and knowledge needed to fix the diesel engine. That is what Windows NT is like.
Now picture a handcar. You can't see how the handcar works, but you know that when you pump it up and down, it moves down the track. So you can kind of imagine how it works and use it effectively. Anyone can use it, but most people don't have the patience for it anymore. That is DOS.
Now, to understand Windows CE running on an X86 processor, picture a pleasure yacht sitting on the railroad tracks...
We all had a good laugh, but deployed what may be the world's only X86 CE application anyways.
Unknown host pong.
At our nearby Wegmans they recently replaced all of the produce scales, which you enter the product code and it prints a sticker with the price & UPC, with a new model running some version of Windows. Twice already I have seen them completely lock up. Once when I went to print out the sticker it got jammed, but rather than display a message saying to clear the jam and try again, the application running quit, a typical windows-like error ("the address at 0x0592FC could not be 'read'" or whatever) appeared and the whole thing completely froze. Here's to progress!
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
Jesus christ man... are you for real? I know, I know, YHBT.
because you slashdorks are too lazy to vote so more bush in 04! wooooooooooo! suppport the troooooooopppps!
I thought it was interesting that the Digi Fi "hard drive audio player" is clearly built on the same base as the hush PC. Who is the OEM here, and where can I buy their chassis wholesale? Hush PC is, IMHO, way too expensive (although a great concept). There has to be a Sager equivalent making their stuff. Anyone know?
Heh.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Windows is great. Install it and you'll turn any useful computer into a buggy gadget.
There! Now they'll never get an integer overflow!
If you wanted a Phone that is also a PDA (not the other way around) you should have gone for the Samsung i600. I'm a big Linux guy and I love mine... much better then my old Palm based phone. (The only OS LESS stable then Windows) There's not as much software out there yet but everything I need is available. Plus it's just a regular phone size wise and a Verizon phone. (the Motorola MPx200 /w AT&T/T-mobile didn't cut it for me.. no signal anywhere)
Of
Man what a waste. All that computing power and you're stuck with Slackware. Your system is begging for a sleek copy of WinXP Pro and all the latest games.
I think we're entitled to anyway, after the hell microsoft put us through with their (initially) unstable products.
Please take me seriously. The electriconic engineers which design these products are no idiots. They choose the right tool for the job, and I'm certain that almost all of them are well acquainted with Linux.
However, it seems that embedded Windows CE is winning the embedded devices race - by quite a good margin. Now, there is no big reason for embedded devices to share a common operating system (as 95% of the PCs in the world now do), but Windows still comes out on top.
Let this be a lesson. There is a reason why Windows is winning this race, and it has absolutely nothing to do with market-dominance. Windows CE must be a hell of a lot easier and practical to intergrate into embedded devices.
This is especially apparent in the fact that embedded linux costs nothing. If linux and CE were equally good, linux would be the natural choice. But CE must have some sort of edge.
Don't get me wrong, an embedded OS will always offer advantages over "traditional" electronics, but right now it seems that CE offers more advantages. (Linux has its advantages too, specifically, networking, as shown in the proliferation of Linux in consumer routers)
i hope this can be a lesson to all of the Linux zealots. I really want Linux to succeed, but the attitude of the linux community simply prevents that - it is true that even IF linux were superior to Windows in all respects, we still might not see it on the desktop for a long time. However, the same does NOT hold true for embedded devices. Right now, microsoft has a better produce, and the only people the Linux developers can blame for this are themselves.
That being said, I will say that I've used Linux pretty extensively, run Windows XP on my PC, but the only true OS in my heart right now is OS X.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I sure hope these aren't windows "powered" too..
OK, So you keep your phone/address book on one of these devices. Suddenly, Microsoft knows exactly where all your friends live. I wouldn't feel secure.
I was in a building once where the lifts had an LCD display above the door saying what level you were on.
:)
Found out that these displays were running windows.
How I found out - got into a lift and saw 'this program has executed an invalid instruction'.
The Blue Screen of Death does not inspire confidence when stepping into a metal cage hundreds of feet above the ground!
My picture frame just crashed.
Apparently the selling point of every new portable gaming system is its ability to play some version of Tomb Raider. Otherwise looks like they've already built most of the toys I'd build myself if I had time to do so....
"Device type: POS terminal" Peice Of Shit terminal
Then I got confronted with WinCE/PocketPC. I never imagined it would get worse. The emulator won't run. Period. Been that way for over a year, no matter what we did. The IDE is a bit better, but whatever gets compiled seems to have memory leaks. Things slowly degrade and destabilize rather than the old PalmOS "kablooie" response, and I'm not sure that's a lot better, since you're forced to hard-reset preemptively since you never know if it's your code or some memory management problem making things act weird. The tools suck, and vary by hardware vendor, so it's a new adventure with every device to figure out why the 802.11 isn't working. iPAQ, Dell, Symbol, Intermec -- everything is different outside of the standard apps, and it often behaves differently in a networked environment.
So we got a pre-market Fujitsu tablet PC to work with, and I hoped that perhaps this was the deliverance I had hoped for. Nope, it was worse -- far worse. We have to pull the battery every 15 minutes because WinXP Tablet PC edition is a total piece of crap that locks up like clockwork. Can't get the pointer to match where the pen is hitting the screen, which is mildly annoying, and setting up network stuff is a royal pain in the arse with about nil control over network configuration.
So I spent my money on a Sharp Zaurus for my own mobile device and have a CF 802.11 card for it with an SD memory slot still available. Works like a charm. Haven't rebooted in over four months. Compile with gcc, java, can write Qt apps for it, and have wlan-ng tools available for network configuration. Can replace the entire stack on the thing with OpenZaurus should I ever feel the need, but since everything is open source and works well, haven't bothered with it.
Palm has gotten a lot better, but still suffers from it's architectural design flaws. WinCE is crap, which should be obvious when they keep changing the name and the PocketPC 2003 is labeled internally as WinCE 4.2 (more confusion, less accountability). Tablet Edition is everything an MS version 1.0 is expected to be. Linux is still good-old-linux, on any device, as capable, solid and easy to work with as on a desktop.
I just wish it was better marketed, so I wouldn't have to put up with this crappy MS garbage.
What's up with the Bally's casino machine, it claims to have a Pentium IV 4 GHz... typo probably (2.4 GHz?)
Phhbt. Get real, mine's been playing(not just downloading) video for years.
Oh, and nominee for "worst named product" of the bunch: "Beetle iPOS." Visions of a mid 60's beetle in a junkyard...
Please help metamoderate.
I doubt it, but it can probably play Ogg. Performance in a cluster has not been reported.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Product design and market research services, courtesy of Microsoft
If I sound like Darl McBride dropped his private stash in my peanut butter, please let me know, but I suggest that all the anti-Microsoft and/or open source/free software advocating Slashdotters should welcome news of new Microsoft and Microsoft-pimped products on Slashdot. You want to know what the competition's doing, don't you?
Microsoft may be a lot of things, but dumb and impotent they're not. If you see someone doing something smart, stand on the shoulders of giants (even evil, grind-your-bones-for-bread giants) and build on it to do something smarter. And when they do fumble, take time to figure what's dumb and why, and whether it creates a vulnerability in Microsoft's business plan that you can exploit.
Native Americans didn't refuse to run down their oppressors with horses and shoot them with guns just because their oppressors thought of these tactics first.
Every Slashdot article on MS stuff could be the seed for useful analysis of what ideas are good enough to be stolen as much as the law will allow. Shouldn't the bazaar be able to find ways to do what Microsoft does better before Microsoft even has time to patch their first bugs? How's that for embrace and extend?
Take this embedded device article. Why don't we figure out what's worth copying, work with companies that already have the manufacturing infrastructure, undercut Microsoft on embedded OS license price ($0.00) and outperform them on speed and stability. (I'm not smart enough to come up with the legendary Step 2: ???, but collectively we ought to be).
Maybe people who post serious analyses (and no, I'm not saying my post qualifies. I'm talking about something of business presentation quality) of, or heck, a link to a new SourceForge project for, a new open source product should modded-up +1, Open Source Opportunity.
I want to be able to compute my way, in every arena. I like a (good) Micro$uck joke as much as the next guy, but let's not laugh so hard that we end up with Microsoft Home, Microsoft Car, Microsoft Secure Digital AM/FM/CD/MP3/Karoake, and Microsoft 911 by the time we unclench our bellies and look around.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of open source product analysts.
I gave in to impulse and bought one ($199 plus $59 per year MSNDirect service).
It's actually pretty cool (and I'm no Mircosoft fan). If I could have found one that didn't rely on MSN for the content it would have been better, but it works pretty well. I only wonder if it will turn out to be the bomber that was Fossil's Wrist Palm.
In any case, does anyone know what the watch actually runs? I can't find anything in the documentation.
Really.
For all the bitching I hear about WinCE/Palm being awful environments to develop, I don't see much work for the Embedded Linux side. I can assure you your work would be appreciated. And we'd pay for good, solid apps.
Slashdot is the only place I know of where the BSOD is still a prevalent meme. It's one of those things everybody talks about happening constantly without ever really seeing. Sure, now and then someone gets one due to a driver, but let's get real.
It's the same with Clippy jokes, even though I haven't seen Clippy in close to six years in ANY Office installation, and he never installs by default anyway. Never mind that telling him to "Hide" always got rid of him anyway.
Last year at the calgary international, they 'modernized' all their arrival and departure screens with portait oriented flat screens running Windows XP to cycle through the flights. For the first few weeks, it was next to impossible to find a feild of view that did not include a sideways XP boot screen as it kept booting, crashing, and trying again. Was a CCTV system really too outdated to justify setting up so many terminals? (not all departures or arrivals would be down at once, so yes, there were a lot of individual systems)
Windows XP Embedded. A photo and brief description are provided for each. Some cool stuff!
So Microsoft wants to make more billions by extending its monopoly. And here are some more devices with closed, proprietary software. If you want to upgrade the software, you will have to pay Microsoft more money.
What is "cool" about that?
Oh, too bad. If you were a gay Yalie, I would have been interested. But-- no, I'm sorry. You just don't qualify.
Is it possible to buy one of these devices and put Linux on it? Any of them? Would a new distribution need to be made for each, or is there one distribution for a particular CPU family that would work on many devices using that CPU?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
We, the RBI (Really Bad Internetusers) have opened a new goatse.cx mirror on www.internetweber.de. Just click on the 'Gastebuch' link and enjoy!
Particularly so when the cheap shiny toilet paper was provided also..thermal fax bog roll??
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Most modern Windows Mobile devices provide some (Up to 10MB) of the 32 MB of Flash RAM for user data, since the current OS Footprint is aproximately 22MB. Of course, ALL Windows Mobile devices either have an SD or CF Slot, and it's trivial to store data or app's on an SD or CF Card.
Yeah, I posted that story too. I reckoned that mine had been rejected because I made it too long. In fairness, while Intervideo never released LinDVD, it is incorporated into this new product so it's not complete vaporware.
Maybe this idea could be developed
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Nothing to see here...move along.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
If I could get my hands on the AvantGo client source code, I'd get a port for the Zaurus environment up as fast as possible, but alas, I'm not in product engineering. If enough people out there complain about it, Waterloo might add it though.
I counted 44 devices that were available "today", and most of those were embedded, such as the exercise bike.
I would expect that at least half of the devices that aren't yet available will never be available.
And is listing a reference design (see the Atlas ACE reference design, or the MicroPDA, or the i.MX Reference Design PDA) really valid?
I don't need it in my peripherals, too!
--
ummmm, its painfully simple.
How amusingly quaint.
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