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Real's Reality
"There's also an interesting conversation going on at Jogin.com, which started with this post from the author, basically a rant, describing how inconvenient and even hostile Real Player is. It would be like any other rant, except an employee of Real Networks replied with some insights into the company's wrongdoings and somewhat explained Real's undeterred hostility towards those who downloaded the free version of its player. Furthermore, a consultant, who used to work at Real Networks, replied, sharing some questionable practices Real engaged in, such as hiding a variety of "add-ons" at the bottom of the page, hoping that the user would not scroll down to un-check the selections, and then charging his credit card for add-ons when he signed up for paid version on Real One."
Q: What do microsoft and RealNetworks have in common?
A: It takes a HD format to remove their software.
G-Force music visualization
I know we are all REALLY sad about REAL's demise.. I think it is more to do with their annoying habits of putting themselves in the start menu, the quickstart, the system tray, and anywhere else they can get...
I know why I don't use Real player anymore...
Real Player used to be a simple piece of audio (then later video) playing software. Now its becomeiwng one of those applications that wants to dominate your system and do everything from playing media to making eggs. RealMessage Center? A constantly running tray icon? Asking me every 2 seconds if I _really_ want it to not be the default player for everything...
RealNetworks might not be having troubles if they were able to produce significantly more advanced codecs and didn't resort to bloat. No innovation, no company, regardless of whether your player can polish my shoes or not.
Its a miracle!
webpage
Their player hijacked your system. At least RealOne played a little nicer. It still has that dynamic app that constantly wants to access the Internet. I have to kill it with ZoneAlarm quite frequently. I agree with this article. Real's problems aren't caused by Microsoft, it's REAL . . .
With their helix community effort, they are trying to gain the benefits of being open while keeping the core parts secret. However, to become the standard, they should make the full featured helix server freely open source and fully free - with no restrictions/purchases/restrictive 'binary-only' non-commercial licenses. This will allow them to establish a non-Microsoft standard, allowing them to compete in the marketplace on a equal playing field, selling products such as helix video encoders and "pro" real players.
I like what the car talk guys had to say about Real:
http://cartalk.com/Radio/windowsmedia-switch.html
Car Talk will now be available via the Windows Media Player, rather than RealMedia. That's right, we're unceremoniously dumping RealMedia.
Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we finally decided to take action.
Here's the problem. In order to hear our audio, you have to go to Real.com and download their "free" RealPlayer. But when you get to the web site, the free player is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden at night. And the site seems to do everything it possibly can to get you to "buy" a player instead. You have to work very hard to get the free player. And we think that stinks. And get this. It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?
We've heard from many of our fans that have been duped, and who have accidentally shelled out their hard-earned dineros. And we won't even get into the ways that the RealPlayer tries to take over your computer once you install it. So, after surveying the alternatives, we're switching to Windows Media Player (which works on Macs, too).
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Is that Real Player is a big bloated piece of crap. No one uses it if they have a choice. Microsoft's destroyed a lot of competitors, but in this case, they didn't have to. Real did it themselves.
I remember using Real Player back in like 1996. It was incredible stuff, and it just worked. But then they fell into the trap a lot of other software companies do. They tried to make their software do EVERYTHING, and instead of one doing a couple things well, it did everything poorly.
this is unrelated to the hidden paid add-ons, but when using the free player, you get a list of add-ons you want (add to favourites, desktop shortcut, etc etc), the first 4 are unchecked by default, but if you scroll down there are more, which ARE checked. very sneaky if you ask me. they could have easily increased the size of the viewable list from 4 items
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
I once bought a legal version of RealPlayer back in 1999, and it worked great. But as soon as the new version came out, it seemed like my paid for copy started acting screwy, like Real had written code into it so it would work badly as soon as a new version (which would have to be bought again) was available for purchase. Even reinstalling fresh on a fresh install of Windows didn't work in getting back that "flawless" operation. Obviously I can't prove it, but I always got the feeling they purposely wrote destructiveness into the player to force purchases of new versions. Just my take on it.
So now I use Windows Media Player.
Similar to the RIAA blaming Napster for their poor sales, Real just assumes their business is going doen the toilet because of something MS did (they must have done SOMETHING evil, right?). I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that their product is just bloated spyware, or poor corporate leadership, or the "bunker mentality" at Real that the article mentions...
I stopped using Real products after reading this
Get that, Real? Some of us avoid your products because of your policies and would rather not see the cute little movie rather than give in. Enjoy your bottom line.
Realplayer G2 w/RealJukebox.
Great design. I loved it... then it started happening *cue sad music*... The upgrades... they said "RealONE" was the thing... but all it did was take away my ability to listen to crap online for free.
Free Carolina Hurricanes webcast? Gone. $29.95 a month.
Free Carolina Panthers webcast? Gone. Buy NFL Field Pass.
Free racing webcasts? Gone.
Now, I don't mind ads. Heck, I run a website, I live on ads [cheap plug]go to oldos.org and clickyclicky on my google text ads [/cheap plug]. I wouldn't mind listening to ads during the game, watching cheap flash ads before listening, or anything like this. How come TV can survive without needed subscriptions (skin-e-max and h-blow excluded), but internet webcasts can't?
Jay | http://oldos.org
Here's my take on the situation:
*BUFFERING*
Wouldn't one reason for Real losing out is that Micro$oft's Media Encoder is free as in beer and Real's or Apples, for that matter, aren't? (well, they weren't last time I checked)
Perhaps these practices are why REAL has reportedly lost the single biggest contract they ever had which was broadcasting Major League Baseball play by play for $10 per season per listener/viewer.
i nv estor/hellweg/
While no huge amount of money for REAL, it was one of the single largest revenue sources, much of the rest of the revenue stream was from individual purchases of the player.
Supposedly this year its gone to someone else.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/10/technology/tech
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
But, how are people accidently buying the premium version? How do you accidentally type in your credit card information? I don't know about the rest of the world, but when I type in my credit card info I am *not* surprised when I get billed.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I stopped using it when it became 'viral' and blatently slimy. Then I tried winamp, which I was already using for files I own. Not so good, in my experience, at finding streaming music I want to hear. Apart from Media Player, whats left? I feel like if I want to hear music through the computer, I have be willing to sell my soul.
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.
Just for a reference for what I use now:
Some might say that I gave in to the corporate machine; no, I'm simply using the best product for my needs and in WinXP, WMP works very well for most stuff; except for MP3s which I use Winamp 2.x or iTunes. And on Mac, you must give Apple credit for building some good software because iLife '04 rocks. As for linux, I don't use it as a desktop anymore because i can pretty much do it on OSX. Linux: Server yes, Desktop no.Amigori
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I've posted this before, but it's a goodie...
TO: Real Networks
SUBJECT: Fuck You All
I am holding myself back in the most intense way at the moment.
I don't care if this is the wrong address to send this to. Your website is a labyrinth of misdirection in which finding the simple thing you want is nigh-impossible. This, after about 20 clicks, was the first email address I came to. If you, as the person receiving this letter, have a shred of humanity left, you will submit this to the proper people. And now, on to my letter.
Where do you people get off?
My task: download Realplayer in order to view some streaming content. A simple project, one would say. Well, first you have to wade through the aforementioned sea of misdirection, all of it aimed at extracting your visa number to buy the completely useless realplayer plus. I realize you people need to make some money, but save it for the server business - it's bad enough that back in the day, you were inferior to several other streaming technologies, but somehow, like scum in water, you rose to the top. Leave the users who are stuck with your products out of your sick little power games.
All I want is Realplayer Basic, to play realmedia, and ONLY realmedia. I am not interested in realjukebox, realdownloadagent, or realbuttplug. I specified this when I was installing it. I also am not interested in having your inferior product play my mp3s, or any format other than your own. This was also specified when I installed. How difficult a concept is this? Anyone can grasp it. And I won't even get into the god-knows-how-many useless "subscribe to our spam service!" checkboxes I have to uncheck, including five which are HIDDEN AT THE BOTTOM OF A STACK OF UNCHECKED ONES. With each click, the bile rises higher in my throat. If I knew a satanist, I would have him summon demons to terrorize your offices.
So then, I go to launch an mp3 out of Agent, and not only does your software launch even though I SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO DO THAT, but it's not even Realplayer - it's Realjukebox which I also SPECIFICALLY TOLD IT NOT TO INSTALL.
And here's the real point: if you're going to go ahead and do a fascist coup of my system's preferences and resources (getting your filthy little icons out of my system tray gets more difficult with each new version), why bother pretending that you are giving me a choice? Just go ahead and take it, save me the trouble of unchecking all those boxes and saying No 20 times. Just go ahead, play your little game, and let me get on with removing your annoying system resource wastes from my pristine desktop.
In closing, I would just like to say that I view your company as the most evil force operating on the internet today, and while I would end this with "may God have mercy on your souls" for anyone else (including Bill Gates), for you, I only pray that the people behind your software's design are raped by syphilitic camels at some point.
Burn in hell.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
-BIG ASS LINK to their paid player, and damned near invisible links to their older, free download players.
buffering... buffering...
-Huge application window hogged by distracting crap.
buffering... buffering...
-When people download a media player, it's probably because they want to view some media right fucking now, not after filling out a long-ass registration thing and setting a shitload of preferences.
buffering... buffering...
-That stupid Goddamned tray icon that will not die. Where's the "FUCK OFF" button when you need it? Anytime I see that shit in the systray on a client's machine, I go right into regedit and nuke it because the incessant blinking drives me into a rage.
And last, but certainly not least:
buffering... buffering...
God won't SOMEONE mention Apple or Quicktime in this discussion???
-B
There is none currently, aside from Theora, which is still in alpha. The lest evil streaming video solution at the moment is probably Quicktime/MPEG4.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Real could of owned the world, but heres my run down of why Real hurt themselves, they harrased the customer.
1. Takes 10 minutes of hunting around the website for the free version. Even when you click on the "Free" version, it prompts you to buy it.
2. When loading the program, it asks you to register, then prompts you to buy it, and then loads an html webpage.
Back in the day,
Now Microsoft is using the mpeg4 format, and seems to be taking over HDTV format on Dvd's. They win, everything. They will be the OS and multimedia format of the future.
While I agree Microsoft did use its power to assist in taking over, Real networks interaction with customers was on the level of spammers, horrible salesmen from hell. Customers had a bad experiences and walked away.
I donot know if Real managed to port their COM with XPCOM, but, that would help them leverage the functionality of a component object model for developers to exploit and would have helped them to gain acceptance from the open source community. There were more complaints about the install process and the capturing of the file types rather than the actual streaming technology itself. This is a shame for a technology company trying to provide an alternative for a/v streaming. May be the management needs to rethink its priorities regarding this. And whoever the mailer(s) were, and if they are reading this post - nice to know that there are such honest people who are willing to voice their opinions.
Winamp still plays audio files just as good as it normally did. I actually like the video player, my only problem is it doesn't play certain files. Even if you hate it you have the choice not to install video support and get the original player.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Sorry, I should have clarified. I did not personally create or submit this letter. A friend of mine was BCC'd on it.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I can't seem to read the article...it just says "Buffering, buffering, buffering".
I hate sigs.
I'm sure many readers will find this gem interesting:
About 3 years ago I made mention in a closed streaming media group discussion of Real's flaws in their DRM 'solution'. This was widely published, and I was not the starter of the thread. However, I did drop the line (or something like it) of the solution being 'amateur hour'. Real's at-that-time marketing manager was on the list, and proceeded to track down my particulars and call up management at my company accusing me of 'hacking' their DRM product. I understand he was quite miffed. Ofcourse I posted this back to the list and didn't hear a peep.
The long and short of this story - not only does Real make a shitty spamware/adware/annoyanceware product and try to get developers for free with their 'community source' claptrap, but they also go to interesting lengths to stir up bullshit to protect their interests.
These days I am still at the same company, and architect my own product line. Whenever a customer asks about support for RealMedia, I laugh. Then I tell them this story. And thats the last we hear of the request. Oddly enough, I have never had anyone doubt me - gee I wonder why!
A tip for Real - listen to your customers. And if you have bugs and/or shitty software, fix them.
... is the uninstall program. My Dell laptop came with it installed, but it was gone shortly after I saw the icon come up on the first boot. I can't stand nag-ware, and even the paid-for versions of RealPlayer nag you incessantly about upgrading to the version-of-the-week. What has this to do with Real Network's market share? Hopefully, a LOT!
RealOne Player for Mac OS X is a sweet app. No prefs hijacking, looks good, works even better. I like it more than Apple's Quicktime Player. Perhaps there is just something about Mac OS X that commands respect from developers - Windows version of this same app sounds like a real POS.
Why? I mean really, why? "Ooooooo, it works on Linix. Ahhhhhhhh..." Sorry, but Real is a real piece of shit, and they will have to do a lot more than port it to Linux to win "real" respect.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I never installed it, but I've seen it on other people's machines and it launches a popup when you play media files. WTF!? Showing you advertising simply for viewing content already on your hard drive! It's obscene (IMO). I'd never install that crap.
Is there any open source alternative for media serving? Why can't people just use that?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I hadn't tried real's helix player for months, and decided to give it a try a couple days back when I found a link mplayer didn't seem to like. If anyone's looking for an official player from real that actually seems well designed, they might want to give it a chance. The Linux client at least seemed really nice. Clean gtk2 based gui, uncluttered interface, and it dosn't seem to want to do much aside from playing audio and video. The only downside is that it's nearly as much of a pain to find on the helix site as the free version of realplayer is on real's site. Otherwise I think pointing to it might be a viable option for companies providing real streams.
Everything will be taken away from you.
fucku@real.com
realplayersucks@realplayer.com
pissoff@real.com
bob@bob.com
bill@microsoft.com
fucku2@real.com
fucku2xwithdonkey@real.com
fuckusidewayswithbroomstick@real.com
At this point I was tired of making creative statements of protest against registration so I gave a fake hotmail account.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I find the "Upgrade to pro?" each time it starts highly annoying.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
All so that when some idiot plugs his iPod into his PC the thing will pop up iTunes or whatever and do something or other, and the idiot can exclaim "Wow! Magic Apple software duhhhhhh!".
Hey, I don't appreciate all of this anti-Real Networks and anti-Microsoft senti...[BUFFERING 0.03%]
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
Check out the blog posts, especialy the third one. Apperanly real paid $2.5 million to a design company for design advice, and also hired an advertizing firm. The design company told them that they needed to make the software more use friendly, etc. The Advertizing company discovered that Real had universal name recgonition online (along with microsoft, google) but at the same universal distain.
Both were canned, and none of their suggestions were taken.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
and also to assert why I hate RealNetworks,
The product sucks because it's heavily emcumbered.
I recall when RealPlayer 1.0 came out. I found it, and started downloading it immediately.
Then the next version came out, about... oh, about 12 minutes after my modem finished sucking down the first one. Err...
So, pull that one down, because they changed the format and nothing works with the old one. That one's good for a week, and they have a "cool" version for sale as well.
I'm deciding if I'm going to buy this "cool" version and show my support, only to discover that a "new" version is now out, and the current one is useless. I'm starting to see a pattern, here.
I start to download that one, only to discover that 2 more version have been released before my modem can finish. I start to download those, and Real responds by publishing 12 more upgrades, all of which force the obsolence of their predecessor.
About that time, cablemodems are invented, so I get one. I begin to download that week's RealAudio version... at a whopping 3mbs. But, it's no use. In the 25 seconds needed to pull it, those fucks have released 18 more incompatable versions, all of which make the prior ones useless.
So, screw Real, they're little more than an upgrade scam. THAT is why they're a failure.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I went to the Real website, and clicked on three fairly obvious links, and Firefox asked me where to save the installer for the free version. (I chose to cancel, BTW)
.au site, ok, just pick one at random)
I don't see how it's difficult to find:
First click from the main page to the download or buy RealOne. (The link was cunningly hidden in the top-right corner. I admit the choice of location here is a little unfriendly, but I saw it within 2 seconds of the page rendering)
Second click to specify 'Download the free player'. (Bottom-right, large obvious letters, spotted instantly)
Third click to specify the mirror site to use. (Hmm.. no
Are the people who had to 'hunt for 10 minutes' blind?
(If so, then maybe the time was spend waiting for the text-to-speech to read out the whole page?)
Real might have a lot of bloat in their software, but don't blame them for your inability to click on three easy to see links.
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
RealOne on Mac OS X is actually a pretty decent, light-weight player. It plays Real Media streams and only Real Media streams, to my knowledge. That's all I need it for. And once I found the Free Download link, everything was pretty simple after that. Register with a bogus E-mail address, create some dumb-ass password and forget about it. And if I want to remove it, drag it to the trash.
I find that a lot of software for OS X is like this, whereas the Windows versions almost always require some sort of surgical procedure to remove. Do the Windows programming departments of companies nowadays have more programmers just to put in the extra, spyware garbage? Because that kind of stuff certainly isn't in any prominent OS X applications that I can think of.
The problem with that approach is that Real is up against MS and Apple, who don't charge for the server, the encoder, or the player. Both quicktime and windows media exist because they contribute to the MacOS/Windows "user experience". They use qt and wmp as minor bonuses to sell the products that make them real (no pun intended) money: selling more Macs or more Windows licenses.
Real can't do that. Streaming media *is* their product, so they can't afford to just give it away just because Apple and Microsoft are. That means Real is doomed. It's been pretty obvious that Real lost he streaming media war ever since Apple started getting exclusive deals to do movie trailers online and MS started pushing for streaming wma/wmv on every site they could get.
And that's just looking at their business model The outlook for Real is even worse if you start considering the quality of their software compared with wmp or quicktime...
0 1 - just my two bits
They do keep them available, however hidden they are.
The reason they are in trouble is because of their poor vision of the future.
We (company of 40,000) looked at their multicasting technology and news delivery in 1997. We liked what we saw and wanted to license or buy it for the entire company. They said "NO" - Real still wanted access to our desktops in the form of ads. I guess they thought there was a lot of money in that.
Think logically, why would any CIO sign off on a product to keep his employees busy watching ads instead of doing real work?
They did crawl back (at least a year later) and try to sell just the engine piece but no one was interested. There was better stuff available out there and cheaper by the time they realized their mistake.
Well, let's look at Freeamp. First of all, it's now called "Zinf", continuing the tradition of stupid names for open source programs. Second, when we go to the Zinf home page, we have to click on "Download", one of a number of options (including "SF", which developers know as SourceForge but users do not.) On the "Download" page, the first option, in typical user-clueless style, downloads the Linux source distribution. You also have to download and build the "MusicBrainz 2.0 client library", whatever that is. "RPMs will be available soon for RedHat 9". No date is given.
Further down, there's a Windows version, but it's three revs behind. But at least there's an installer and a binary.
If you want to build the thing, there are obscure instructions. ("You'll need perl and NASM in order to compile the latest MP3 decoder assembly optimizations. If you don't have NASM, you can still compile successfully, but you'll only be able to use some of the older optimizations written in gas.")
The Windows version is built with MSVC 5, circa 1997. Builds require some workarounds. ("NOTE: In order for the build to succeed you will need to install the SGI STL. ")
Now consider a typical Windows user. Will they be able to figure out what they're supposed to do?
Or worse, someone who bought a Linux machine at WalMart and wants to run Freeamp, er, Zinf. Will they succeed building this on Thiz Linux? What do you think?
This is halfway on topic, talking about crappy software. I hate it when software is not multi-user aware:
Broderbund and Maxis are infamous for this. Both "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 15" and "The Sims" require you to run as Administrator.
There is absolutely NO FUCKING REASON why any app -- except for certain system utilities (and games and typing tutors aren't those) -- should require Admin. It's fucking lazy sloppy programming.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Like all of the above, I too got fed up with anything Real has put out lately, for obvious reasons. That and it spontaneously reboots everyone's machines here in the lab.
Did some searching, found Media Player Classic (Article)- it's an open source clone of Windows Media Player before it got all colorful, space wasting, and less functional (WMP 8-9). Plus, with a bit more Google searching, I found Real codec packs for it as well. On the rare occasion I need to play Real content, I can.
Let me begin by saying that I don't run windows so I'm not all upset about the windows realOne player shenanigans.
I run Linux. The realplayer on linux runs fine, it plays live real audio and video streams for me. (mplayer does everything else)
Windows users may want to go try one of the new players. (there's one written in python you know... it is very simple, no bloat.)
that's up to you though, it doesn't affect me much.
Real network's server software is pretty good though. Better than windows media server.
- It runs on linux.
- It has an excellent system for live stream redundancy. Every step of the way from the camera to the player you can have multiple redundant systems so that no matter what; your live event does not die. I cannot over-state the importance of this when you are running a live event for a paying customer!
- It is extremely modular. Especially now with the mostly open source helix software you can write/modify most capabilities.
I am admin for several Real and windows media servers.
Windows servers are an all around pain in the ass. Maybe that biases me towards Real.
The windows media server is a black box, when it does something odd like suddenly stop logging or something all I can do is apply the standard MS remedy: restart the service.
With the helix servers running on linux I can see what's going on. maybe I've just been spoiled by using OSS all the time.
Oh, and have you ever encountered a bug is MS software, emailed a developer and had the problem resolved?
helixcommunity.org actually has developers you can talk to.
It seems to me the 'Jane' is missing a computer industry standard. "...how pissing people off can be a revenue generator" seems like an obviously bad tactic, but lets seriously think about this. Microsoft does this all the time. So does AOL, and many other companies.
As for my best example of how companies do exactly this to make money.
A) Visioneer Paperport Scanners.
Used to work right next to the people that were the outsourced support for them. Thier first response was that the customer "needed to upgrade" thier version of the software for like $40 if I remember right. And then, the problem they called on may or may not work with the new version of the software.
-or-
B) Crappy Utah Based Computer Manufacturer that has nothing to do with Hewlett Packard. They had the toll support line, and then the pay-per-incident ($34.95) 800 support line. If someone called in we got a credit card before we would help them, or else refer them back to the toll number.
But then there is the old "your system does not meet the minimum system requirements" line that takes care of a lot of people. They have opened the software and installed it, so there is no chance for a refund so just one less end-user to support.
Then for Microsoft, try to set Windows Messanger to disabled on XP Home.
And AOL never seems to uninstall once you connect through them. And it installs with everything.
It seems like in a country of "the best and the brightest" we have a lot of lazy companies that would rather make money out of mediocrity than through products and service. Companies are more excited to get on to someone's monthly credit card and fly below the radar for a couple years than to assure the customer is not too frustrated to use thier service.
Just another anonymous $0.02.
The recent Helix milestones are great
Clean looking player, no bloat, great quality, plugin gets even the most troublesome pages (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod, for example) working just sweet
There's a 0.2.1 Milestone (crack out the party hats - we got a 0.2.1 milestone!, but I digress..) out. There are Solaris, Symbian (!), GNU/ Linux RPMs and tars with installer, as well as the src, obviously
you can get it here
There are still shed loads of forms to click and agree to, you gotta signup, etc, etc. but they *say* this is part of their new, GPL-friendly and OSI-certified ways.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Go to the BBC News site first and get the link from there (it'll be under one of their video clips). Saves wading through all the sales puff for the paid-for player. Does anyone use the paid-for version anyway?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
real alternative allows you to play all realmedia files without having to install realplayer.
That is not the way he described it. Besides, current Linux scenario is close to this with /etc being the system-wide repository and ~/.myapplication being the place where an app will put its per-user config.
What he was praising was a Mac OS X method whereby everything is in "personal preferences" and application directories. That is neither robust or wise muti-user policy, because it exludes centralized administration which is crucial to any corporate deployments of applications.
This is a sign of a Microsoft-like desktop-centric small thinking, which is then followed by a panic flood of kludges and contorted "fixes" to remedy a fundamental design flaw when it comes to scaling up the system.
TERRORIST DRILL!!
*Grabs monitor and throws it out the window, kicks comp case, picks up chair and smashes case repeatedly, rips out video card and waves it around with his mouth like a dog, pulls out HD and stuffs it down his pants, rips calendar off the wall and lights it on fire, uses burning calendar to light the drapes and carpet on fire, throws pens across the room, pours coffee on papers, flips over the desk, kicks down the door and runs screaming towards elevators*
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
I can't be the first to make this observation, but here goes anyway...
?
Has anyone ever noticed that
THEIR
SOFTWARE
SUCKS
A
BIG
HAIRY
NUT
!
?
Haven't allowed it on any machine of mine in about 3-4 years -- haven't missed it, either.
Thank you for this opportunity to share.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Ok. I don't know this for sure, but I got a pretty good gut-feeling, since I can't recall ever hearing about that /mbr option before.
fdisk /mbr is probably as well documented and mentioned (by Microsoft) as format /mbr. Which means none, zip, zero for any average user.
I have been using third-party tools to install standard MBRs for years, not knowing of format /mbr until recently, which supposebly has been around for years.
Try format /? on your favorite dos-prompt. See any /mbr mentioned? See any mentioned in the manuals?
This is, as I started out saying, pure specualtion and gut-feeling, but I bet that fdisk /mbr was also one of these really handy, yet thoroughly undocumented things that seems to exist in every Microsoft product released.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I'm not sure if it was original, but I saw a gentleman in a forum describe Real software as "facehuggerware."
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
As of today, Penny Arcade had a newspost from Tycho that takes a paragraph at the bottom to disparage Real and plug RealAlternative like so many Slashdotters have already done here.
On a pretty much unrelated topic, I thought it might also be interesting to point out that none of the major media players, as far as I can tell, suffer from the buffering which has been the butt of so many (!) jokes in this topic already. All of them have some feature (under different names, of course) that allows them to build up their playback buffers as fast as the Internet connection will allow, which basically gives you minutes of buffer after only a short period of time. Borders on progressive download, I guess. That and RealPlayer 10 has a feature that allows you to cache a user-specified amount of the past stream, even for live streams.
Perhaps I'm too quick to consider forgiving Real for their privacy issues, but as far as playback quality goes (both in terms of streaming and codecs), bashing Real for being bad at that would be just plain misinformed.