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2004 Good Year for Xbox
Voodoo Extreme has details from a Microsoft release about Xbox accomplishments in 2004. From the article: "Xbox Live online gaming service has set a new standard for online gaming with more than 1.4 million members around the world."
I modded my xbox with a sodderless chip (Spider), bought a remote control, and installed XB Media Center.
Now I can play all of the movies (almost any format), mp3s, and images (slideshows with Ric Burns effects), all on my TV over my LAN (shared via SMB). All with a SLICK interface.
This is a real killer app. All told, under $200. (I hear that MS sells the Xbox as a loss-leader, profits come from game licensing.)
If you decide to do this too (which I STRONGLY recommend), you'll find literally thousands of others trying to do the hacks as you work your way through it. It's a bit of a pain to get compiled binaries of the software, and you'll wonder just how clandestine an act it all is.
In fact, the whole process has an underground, illegal feel to it. When you show your non-techie friends what you've done, they're strangely unimpressed, seeing the results as completely logical and mundane, not a leap in technology. They'll slightly mock your tales of illegality as well, thinking that you're overstating the case (how could something like this be illegal?).
The Xbox2 will no doubt, have media-playing powers, and it will be easier to set up than the Spider/XBMC. But it will come at the price of not letting you play certain files, and/or not letting you use non MS servers, and/or making you watch various ads...
It is official; Netcraft confirms: Linux is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that Linux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Redhat is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Redhat developers Michael Evans and Timothy Buckley only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Redhat is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Mandrake leader Jacques states that there are 7000 users of Mandrake. How many users of Slackware are there? Let's see. The number of Mandrake versus Slackware posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Slackware users. SuSE posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Slackware posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of SuSE. A recent article put Debian at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Debian users. This is consistent with the number of Debian Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Mandrake went out of business and was taken over by Redhat who sell another troubled OS. Now Redhat is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Linux continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.
Fact: Linux is dying