10 Failed Technology Trends of 2005

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case muses on ten trends of 2005 that never panned out. He points the finger at analysts like himself for waxing glowy-eyed at technologies like the BTX form factor and the 64-bit version of Windows XP. On DRM and the Sony rootkit fiasco: 'Hint to the music publishers: It's not going to work. There have been easy workarounds to every system that's been tried, and the more stringent the copy protection, the greater the risk of having angry customers who won't buy CDs. I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.'"

Comments

Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[ackthpt]

I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.

Like that's going to work! People who crank out flawed, bombastic, and ultimately wrong business models are trying to keep a job. If any business sat on its hands and coasted along on a simple and functional business model they'd ultimately be defeated by someone with an angle on wedging new business between them and their traditional customers.

Take iTunes for instance. Wildly successful in the face of its predecessors and competitors. The RIAA doesn't like it because it undercuts their old business model (and these people have worked that one a long time to their great profit) Apple's frisky little model says, "give it to them on a flashy little toy and keep it cheap." CD sales plummet. (RIAA biz model sez: Any flattening of growth or dip in sales is due to piracy!) Reminds me of when Detroit, back in the 70's thought they could continue to do business as usual as those japanese cars started to sell particularly well ("after the price of oil drops again we'll go right back to 454 blown dual carb thingamajigs") Funny they repeated the same erroneous reasoning with 4WD's in the late 90's and into the next century and are now closing plants left and right.

While high-definition video and the PC may be natural bedfellows, the content providers and studios are not exactly making nice with the tech industry. The studios are deathly afraid that high-definition content will become widely pirated, adversely affecting an already creaky business model.
...
The iPod and its camp followers in the digital audio player business seem to be the modern incarnation of the 1960s transistor radio. Way back then, audiophiles complained vociferously about how the transistor radio was creating a generation of consumers who couldn't appreciate quality audio. That lament is echoed by industry pundits (me included) who yearn for even higher-fidelity sound than current CD technology can deliver.

High def video and audio. What's funny is people are fine with the crap we have now. Heck, there's people driving around town with self-installed audio systems in their cars which not only sound awful, but bring Lo-Fi to an all new low -- and they're actually happy with it.

64 bit OS, only when you've got apps or a killer must-have game will 64 bit OS be all the rage, even drivers will follow. Until then, like hi-def video and hi-fi audio, it's only in the realm of those who really must have for practical or fashionable reasons.

Digital home: Right. When I was a kid we had this great intercom system that came with our new house, all rooms connected to one main spot, could pipe radio into any room or page anyone. That lasted about a month. After that it was mom shouting up the stairs that supper was ready, someone at the door, etc. Evolution of technology doesn't guarantee it will be any more necessary, but it looks flash and shiny if you've never seen before and might impress the uninitiated. Up to me, I'd worry more about noisy water pipes and insulation in the walls.

"it even comes with high definition squirrels in the attic!"

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[MightyMartian]

I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.

Like that's going to work! People who crank out flawed, bombastic, and ultimately wrong business models are trying to keep a job. If any business sat on its hands and coasted along on a simple and functional business model they'd ultimately be defeated by someone with an angle on wedging new business between them and their traditional customers.

The root of the problem isn't guys trying to keep their jobs, but laws which essentially encourage media companies not to adapt. By always getting their way in Congress (and with other governments around the world), media conglomerates won't adapt, and the cost of that will be their extinction. You simply cannot fight technology, and all the laws in the world won't save you in the end. If lawmakers wanted to do these companies a favor, they'd say "Sorry, you're going to have to change your business model. It's not our job to keep you afloat."

In the end some online service, whether iTunes or something else, is going to start directly signing artists, and once that happens, Sony and their ilk will be toast, and it will be the fault of them and lawmakers all too easily bought off.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[Fear the Clam]

Heck, there's people driving around town with self-installed audio systems in their cars which not only sound awful, but bring Lo-Fi to an all new low -- and they're actually happy with it.

Just how good do you expect the sound to be in a convertible? What's the point of getting anything other than the cheapest stuff when engine and wind noise make it pointless and anything good will just get ripped off anyway? My crap car stereo and iPod cassette adapter are good enough.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[geekoid]

shouldn't that be "Deja Fubar"?

as in:
Fucked
Up
Beyond
All
Repair

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[ackthpt]

Just how good do you expect the sound to be in a convertible? What's the point of getting anything other than the cheapest stuff when engine and wind noise make it pointless and anything good will just get ripped off anyway? My crap car stereo and iPod cassette adapter are good enough.

I'm referring to typical commuter fare, such as well aged Honda Accords, Toyota Camrays, small pickups, etc.

Bose engineers went at the interiors of some cars to determine the accoustics, which are nothing short of ultra-complex. They designed some very impressive car audio systems. What you have around town is people who consider the installers at Circuit City "factory trained experts", whereas most of these minimum (or slightly above) wage wire jockeys are on a mission to get int hooked up and you and your car out of the way for the next customer. They aren't going around with all manner of reflective sound analyzing equipment, accoustic dampening panels and wot. You can certainly find people who do this, but they likely do it by appointment and charge a pretty penny (and quite a lot of ugly ones, too.)

Audio Fidelity is left to the bass range, which being rather omnidirectional is very forgiving. The rest of the range is probably beyond the tin ears of most drivers, especially those with those exhaust systems which sound like flatulence.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[TheUser0x58]

Take iTunes for instance. Wildly successful in the face of its predecessors and competitors. The RIAA doesn't like it because it undercuts their old business model

Bullshit. i think the RIAA likes iTunes just fine. Did you forget that without the RIAA the iTunes music store would not exist?

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[aconbere]

even in the quietest of commuter cars engine, road, and external noises make hi quality auido nothing but a pipe dream. Just becuase Bose told you that the make it worthwhile doesn't mean that they are doing anything more than the typical car audio manufacturer. Which is siding on the fact that external noises help cancel out poor audio quality and sell you the cheapest stuff they can. Everything sounds good in a car, nothing sounds great.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[geekoid]

A good system will hit frquency cleaner which makes it easier to hear over road noise.

For example, a good system playing load music will still allow people to tlak in a normal voice and be heard.

No you can not get concert hall opera sound, but you can hear the music without having in blaring to cover up the raod noise.

Any high quality stereo component store should be able to give you a real world example.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[blincoln]

Bose engineers went at the interiors of some cars to determine the accoustics, which are nothing short of ultra-complex. They designed some very impressive car audio systems.

I've only heard one Bose car stereo (factory-installed in an Audi TT), but I thought it was really underwhelming. The homebrew subwoofer and not-particularly-expensive CD deck/speaker setup my friend put together for his car was much nicer-sounding.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[hondo77]

For example, a good system playing load music will still allow people to tlak in a normal voice and be heard.

I guarantee you that when driving down the 210 freeway in my del Sol with the top off and the latest Testament album cranked up (which I did recently, what with the abnormally warm weather we've been having), you're going to need to talk over the music or turn the music down. CD or iPod, expen$ive system or my decent one; it doesn't matter. Covering up road noise? Ha! I just want it loud, baby! Woo hoo!

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[aaronl]

Having experienced both the BOSE system and the Monsoon system that VW/Audi has used, I find that I definitely prefer the Monsoon equipment. The BOSE stuff really does seem underwhelming.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[willpall]

Reminds me of a saying I once heard...

"No highs? No lows? Must be Bose!"

I've had a couple of cars with a factory Bose system, and although they *do* sound better than normal stock systems, they are by no means comparable to any mid-level setup you can put in yourself from Best Buy (or equivelant). I've installed many stereos myself. They've ranged from shitty to very great sounding. I've learned that it had little to do with the components I selected and more to do with the car I was working with and they way those components were installed. Never again will I attempt to make a '96 Sentra sound great. Never could find all those rattles and resonances!

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[Ed Avis]

But the media companies are moving towards new business models. That is exactly the problem.

Old business model: you go to the shop and buy a vinyl record, or a printed book, or a cassette tape. It is now yours. Copyright law prevents you from making copies or at least from distributing them to others, which is a civil wrong, but apart from that you can do as you wish with the goods you bought. (Widescale piracy is a crime, but what you do in your own home with the CD you bought is not criminalized.) It is not illegal to posess a photocopier or a tape recorder. If you have a CD, of course you can sell it on.

New business model: in exchange for your payment you don't really own anything, but are granted a limited set of rights to 'use' the content in particular ways determined by the publisher. The devices you must use to watch or listen, such as a DVD player, are programmed to act against you and to prevent things which have nothing to do with copyright law but serve to prevent fair competition in the market, for example stopping DVDs from America being played in Europe. The laws restricting what you can and cannot do are wide-ranging, overlapping, include criminal as well as civil penalties, and you'd really need a lawyer (and perhaps a court battle) to determine what's legal and what isn't.

If companies would go back to the traditional business model, and the original scope of copyright law, we wouldn't have too many problems. It's the same with those who argue that copyright law needs to be modernized and updated for the digital age. No, not really. Far better to return to the simple and balanced copyright laws that were first implemented, with a term of 14 years extendible for another 14 during the author's lifetime.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[Glsai]

The only problem is it'll have to be someone else and not Apple/iTunes who would do the direct signing of the artists. This harkens back to the original trademark dispute Apple computers had with Apple records (The Beatles Company). Apple computers were allowed to use the name, but were forbidden from entering the music industry. I do remember there was a lawsuit about this a year or two ago after iTunes was launched, but I'm not sure how that turned out.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[miceyman]

Now you're just wrong. The major labels negogiated the $0.99 price because they thought it would totally flop. iTunes' contract is almost up, and ready to be renegotiated. The RIAA's not about to let them continue on their path. $9.99 a CD is NOT the price point they've demonstrated they're comfortable with. Try twice that.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[Prophet of Nixon]

I've got a Monsoon (in a Pontiac though) and it sounds great. I haven't seen Bose car equipment, but I did have one of their wave radio/cd players once, and it was decidedly underwhelming. I gave it to my grandmother since she always wanted one, and she loves it.

Save yourself the trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the list:

•      The BTX Form Factor
•      High-Definition Video on the PC
•      High Fidelity Digital Audio
•      Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
•      High Definition Optical Drives
•      Copy Protection for Music CDs
•      iPod Competitors Emerge
•      The Digital Home
•      Google's Gmail Service
•      Dual Graphics Cards

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[CCFreak2K]

So where's Sony's rootkit on there?

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

Copy Protection for Music CDs

It's the sixth one down.

Read much?

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dotgain]

I think copy protection on music CDs is a _great_ thing.

I used to buy 80% of my CDs, pirate the rest, and fell a little guilty about it. Now there's no _point_ in me buying CDs. They're useless to me. So I pirate every single one now.

Why do I think copy protection is great (for me) ?

Because I don't feel guilty anymore.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[soupdevil]

There are plenty of non-DRM CDs out there from artists who didn't sign their lives away to labels. You can demo thousands of tracks at places like CD Baby or My Space. Many of them suck, but many of them are more interesting (and just as talented) than anything you'll find at Tower Records.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[zootm]

I agree with you to a certain degree — I mean, the music industry is actually attempting to fix their product by crippling it for the paying consumer (while having little or no effect on the illegitimate distribution of files). But while there are artists who are embracing new business models, it is presently completely unclear what the new business models for artists will be, and artists who are already stuck (being treated terribly, in many cases) with the existing giants are in danger of being treated even worse by these companies, while having no immediately obvious way out.

I feel guilty if I pirate music because the artists aren't being paid. I don't buy into music which is DRMed in any way, because I refuse to buy a crippled product for what is typically a completely ridiculous price. But when I can buy a traditional CD, I buy it. I mean to start using an online service which does not implement DRM, but still many artists are left out here, and often by no fault of their own — they're musicians, not businessmen, and this is not something they'd ordinarly be able to get particularly good advice on.

Never stop feeling guilty about pirating music, unless you are still buying it from fairer systems. The fact that some companies use unfair means does not give one free reign over media. The artist deserves to be paid for their work in some way, and there is always fantastic music to find at terms you agree with if you're willing to look.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[r7]

Seems like a bit premature to label most of these "failed". We just need
to separate concepts from implementation, that and keep in ExtremeTech's
need to sell papers.

• The BTX Form Factor
  
    Home systems need to be quieter more than cooler. Colo servers are
    better off with larger/fewer drives and more energy efficient cpus.
  
  
• High-Definition Video on the PC
  
    PCs are replacing TV in this respect. People want better content more
    than prettier pictures. Then too there's the problem with bandwidth
    and storage capacities. This is a technology whose time will come when
    the supporting infrastructure catches up.
  
  
• High Fidelity Digital Audio
  
    Demand is there but cheap storage is not
  
  
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
  
    Microsoft FUD, just like IPnP.
  
  
• High Definition Optical Drives
  
    WTF? CDs are dead.
  
  
• Copy Protection for Music CDs
  
    RIAA/MPAA/Sony FUD.
  
  
• iPod Competitors Emerge
  
    As the owner of a Creative MP3 player it seems to me that iPod
    competitors have always had better technology but need to match Apple's
    marketing.
  
  
• The Digital Home
  
    Haven't you been eating your X10 spam? Seriously though, this is as
    promising a field as it gets, especially regarding energy efficiency.
    Only reason there's little development is the fear of Microsoft's
    monopoly. Thanks due utterly clueless Republican economic policies.
  
  
• Google's Gmail Service
  
    Privacy issues, spam problems, nothing really new about this service.
  
  
• Dual Graphics Cards

  Preempted by workspace ergonomics, cubicle size, and multiple virtual
  desktops.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dotgain]

Yes, but I haven't got the time. My money goes to the man who finds what I want, sticks whatever profit I'll bear on in, and makes the actual transaction as simple as possible. I'm not planning on keeping up with which labels use which DRM and so on, and if it has to go on record that thanks to Sony, I won't now buy a CD from any label, so be it.

Even if I'm wrong when I state "Sony has fucked the music industry for me as a consumer, never mind the artists" it doesn't matter, because that's the honest belief of a once-paying customer. If they think that people like me will only be a small percentage of the demographic then they're either:

• correct, and they'll keep on creaming it off those who are like what I used to be, and not stop piracy. or:
• wrong, and they'll get just what they deserve. And not stop piracy.
  • As many others have said here, the business of taking something, adding nothing but an obscene margin to it and ultimately doing the exact same thing as the pirates are (copying the CDs en masse) has died. All they were ever doing was loaning their CD burners to us until such a time we could do it ourselves.

    Sorry guys, the ride's over and it's as simple as that. You're lucky it lasted this long.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[Edward Kmett]

I just stopped listening to music.

I gave up and started listening to public radio.

Where's that in their business model? =)

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dc29A]

No list failure list is complete without Duke Nukem Forever played on a Phantom game console! ;)

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dotgain]

Where's that in their business model? They'll just assume the loss of your business is due to piracy. Not due to honest folks who'd actually become disgusted with their slimy underhand tactics. Ultimately they'll probably turn on radio as well, and we'll need to licence FM reception from them.

You gotta hand it to them, they've done so well for so long making money out of nothing. Not everybody can do that.

No matter which way you turn, they'll be there doing anything they can so as not to be deprived of their slice.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[typical]

MagnaTune: returning guilt to life.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dotgain]

Hey, thanks!

Especially interesting for me is this page.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[puck01]

I'm just the same.

I used to buy 1-2 CDs per week. Then the copy protection came. When I was younger it was no big deal, I had the time and the energy to circumvent all them so I could back up my copies and add them to my media player. Once I started working for real, I lost the time and desire to deal with it. By far the easiest thing to do is to just pirate the songs I want. I'm not sure how many people are like us, probably by the numbers its a small percentage, but the day I know I can buy music CDs again on my terms and not have to worry about any copy protection is the day I start buying CDs again.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[t-twisted]

Yes, but I haven't got the time. My money goes to the man who finds what I want, sticks whatever profit I'll bear on in, and makes the actual transaction as simple as possible. I'm not planning on keeping up with which labels use which DRM and so on, and if it has to go on record that thanks to Sony, I won't now buy a CD from any label, so be it.

You've blown your own argument. Your "money" goes nowhere, it is not supporting the entity with the best service or business model. You have arbitrarily decided to ignore all the laws because of the misdeeds of one record company, Sony, to justify your own illegal behavior.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

and it's so stupid anyway
even if they create PERFECT digital encryption, nothing stops people from creating analog copies and then converting to mp3. There is NO way to stop that.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's that in their business model.

Why rag on Gmail?

[thewldisntenuff]

I find it odd that Case complains about Gmail. He goes on about how hard
it is to add attachments - it's really not that hard.

And why does he bitch about it still being in Beta? Hell,
most of the stuff on Google STILL is in Beta. Besides,
invites are like a dime a dozen now (as I type this, I have
100 invites). But GMail being a "failed tech trend?". Hmph.

BTW, the article layout is disgusting - 11 pages!

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[forkazoo]

He didn't say it was hard to add attachments in general. He said it was hard to add an executable attachment, and it is. Frankly, it kind of pisses me off some time how many hoops it takes to send an exe.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[EvanED]

He goes on about how hard it is to add attachments - it's really not that hard.

Actually he's referring to EXE attachments, which Google won't let you send. Even if it's in a ZIP file. If you want to send an exe you have to change the extension first, and that IS starting to tread into the realm of a pain. It's not hard to do, especially if you usually have Windows set to display extensions, but it's still an extra step on both ends. (And even then it's possible it wouldn't work; I haven't tried it.) But if you try to send an EXE or a ZIP with an EXE in it, it (after uploading it no less, which is really bothersome) displays a javascript alert saying that you can't do that for security and virus propogation reasons.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[mikemuch]

The problem with it being in beta is that Google is basically covering their asses and taking no responisibility--after over a year of development. Gmail has not revolutionized email, except by giving users of other webmail more space. Not like it's ever going to replace Outlook. Like it or not, that's the unrivaled standard in business email. And on the layout, what doesn't make sense about a "10 Trends" piece having a page per trend plus an intro page?

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Hettch]

That may be true, one can't even attach an Access database because of "security reasons," but the article doesn't just focus on that aspect of Gmail. He focuses on Gmail helping free email by offering 2GB of storage. In my opinion, that is the very least that Gmail has done. The interface is simplistic and lovely (IMHO, as opposed to his "sleek outlike like" yahoo mail, which I avoid since Outlook bothers me like no other), the conversation threading has made me not use regular email clients, the search features are fast and effecient (faster than Thunderbird), and the labels and filters are easy to setup. Am i a gmail fanboy? Probably, but to call gmail a failure is ludicrous. I'd guess that he used gmail to send a hello world email, then tried attaching something, and then hasn't signed on since.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[jonnythan]

The problem is that in 2004 we thought it was going to revolutionize email.

2005 came and went with no significant advances in gmail, and it's still in beta mode with some annoying issues. It's basically just another webmail service now.

It was hyped to high heaven in the beginning of the year and ended up being virtually irrelevant. Hence, it's a failed, overhyped technology trend.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[spisska]

Funny thing is that it's no problem to send a tar.gz, a bzip, or foo.sh.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[EccentricAnomaly]

Why do you need to send an EXE attachment? Seems like a sane thing to forbid.

Before Microsoft started allowing email to execute code, email viruses were impossible. It seems like a very good policy for google to try and restore something like the original restrictions on email to stop the virus problem. SFTP, WebDAV, etc are for transferring programs... Windows should just make them easy to use like Apple's iDisk and you can just send a URL.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[rob_squared]

I just don't think he's been paying attention, besides, you can get a gmail address WITHOUT an invite nowadays:

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

The link is in my gmail sig, which I now use exclusively for email.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why do you need to send an EXE attachment?"

Because you want to send someone a program of course!

Some of us actually write software for a living, and that's typically delivered as EXE files. We don't use gmail of course, but corporate firewalls are just as touchy about not letting anyone send a software update by email. All those wasted car journeys, just to have someone transfer 2MB on a CD or USB key because their email system is too restrictive...

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[John Miles]

Why do you need to send an EXE attachment? Seems like a sane thing to forbid.

Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Before Microsoft started allowing email to execute code, email viruses were impossible.

You don't have to prohibit executable attachments to disallow automatically-executing content. Google has thrown out the baby, bathtub, and half of the house's indoor plumbing.

Microsoft's dumbass move was making everything executable. It's easy enough to tell Grandma not to click on .EXE files, but not so easy when the OS vendor chooses to hide the suffix from her, provides easy ways to disguise the suffix, adds support for some arbitrarily-large number of additional executable file types, and ships a macro engine designed to run the content automatically without asking first.

It's not appropriate to fix any of those problems by preventing me from sending my customers a .ZIP file containing an .EXE. This is a case where Microsoft did some stupid things and Google responded with a hearty, "Hey, wait for me, guys!"

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would any sane person want to send an .EXE attachment? Or, more to the point, why would any sane person want to receive and open a pornads.exe attachment?

I use Gmail and it's OK. But my main gripe is when I want to forward an email to someone on my contacts list. I can't see any way to do that other than to open another Gmail window with my contacts list and c&p the email address between windows. This is cumbersome, to say the least. Can anyone give me a clue how to do it more simply? It's piss-easy with PINE, so I keep thinking I'm missing something obvious....

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Feanturi]

add attachments - it's really not that hard.

I love gmail, but that's one part I hate. Even though they now do virus scanning of all attachments, you still cannot send an .exe file (such as a non-infected winzip self-extractor) the message says this is "For security reasons". The extremely lame part of this, is that gmail does not tell you it's going to refuse to send the .exe, until you hit send, wait for it to upload, and then after wasting your time it will fail and tell you why. Stupid and lame.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Kredal]

If you start typing in the "To:" box, either the first name, last name, or email address of the contact you want to send it to (and you should know one of those three, I'd hope) it starts an autocomplete list below the cursor that you can choose from once you've got it signifigately narrowed down. It really is easy.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[emurphy42]

No you can't:

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer. py?answer=27440

Does creating a Google Account give me a Gmail account?

Unfortunately not. Gmail is currently in a limited release, so you need to get invited by another Gmail user in order to sign up. If you are interested in Gmail, you may want to check the About Gmail page periodically for updates. If, on the other hand, you already have a Gmail account, you can use your Gmail username and password to sign in to your Google Account.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[0spf]

Frankly it pisses me off that people still try to send my users mail with executable attachments.

It should not be hard it should be impossible.

I have to block anything that has a remote possibility causing problems.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[jacksonj04]

That's for a Google Account, not a gMail account.

It's like a Hotmail account is automatically a .NET passport, but a .NET passport is not necessarily a Hotmail account.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[emurphy42]

Why don't you just throw it on a web server and e-mail them the URL?

Or, depending on your situation, set them up to run Terminal Server or something. Then you can upload it directly to their system, and even install it for them. Plus, in many cases, you can use it to do tech support. Much better (for us and for the clients) to spend less time on site visits or tedious walk-the-user-through-some-steps phone calls for otherwise trivial tasks, and more time on development or site visits with meaningful content.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[rob_squared]

Fair enough, turns out you need a cell phone:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/landing.html

Thanks for correcting me, I need to update my links now.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[drsquare]

Something as simple as email not getting out of beta in years despite millions of beta testers and legions of overpaid PHDs working on it? That counts as a failure in my book.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[jedo]

Not true. You do not need to be invited to get a gmail account. You do, however, need a cell phone.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there are ways around it, right?

Password protect a zip file and name it .zi_ or somesuch, leaving the password in the email itself.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[DaChesserCat]

I agree with you on this one. In my book, GMail has done a lot more than just up the ante on disk space.

I use my GMail account as my primary account. I've got three POP3 accounts at various places, plus Yahoo and Hotmail, but GMail is where my "legit" e-mail goes. The Hotmail account gets handed out anywhere I figure SpamBots are searching, so it usually has 200+ messages, all of them crap. Fitting place for it, if you ask me.

We use Outlook at work (company-mandated). I've got Thunderbird loaded on my machine at home (decent RSS aggregation). And yet, I'd still rather use GMail for e-mail functionality. The message threading is simply too useful.

When e-mail clients can match that functionality, allowing me to follow a thread of e-mail messages as easily as following a thread on Usenet, I'll find a reason to switch. When I can manually reorganize message threads (so that messages with different subjects are included), I'll be even happier. You guys at Google listening?

At first, I thought "labeling" messages was a nuisance. Then, I started using it, and promptly found the older, "folders" method to be constraining.

The fact that I don't have to wait for the whole screen to redraw every time I expand a message is simply icing on the cake.

These aren't just "show-off" features, which look nice on the "features" list but never get used. There are plenty of practical, useful and heavily-used features here. The fact that no one else has copied them (yet) doesn't mean they're a failed trend. It just means the rest of the world hasn't caught up, yet.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

A friend of mine had a problem with a dll being corrupt, wanted me to send her my copy. No problem I thought, her strict firewall rules mean I cant just dcc it, but emailing it should be easy. Except gmail decieded we're both too idiotic to be trusted with file transfer, so it rejected the dll attachment until I stuck it in a zip. Thanks, GOOG.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[(startx)]

While technically you need an invite to sign up for gmail, this link, off the GMail homepage will send an invite to your mobile phone. I suppose your out of luck if you don't have a cell phone and don't know anyone who currently has a gmail account, but if you fall into both of those categories you need to get out more anyway.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[dbucowboy]

Amen. They're just upset because Gmail doesn't hold their hand and breaks out of the webmail box. Personally, I use Gmail almost exclusively as do most of my friends. Anybody that has used a computer more than a couple of times can use Gmail with little effort. I mean, come on... my mom uses Gmail and it was only about two years ago that she learned how to power the PC on and off.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[applecrumble]

"Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people." Don't you have a company email account for that? Gmail probably doesn't let you email 50+ people at a time to stop spammers abusing it. That would also fall under your "some people actually need to do this for a living" reasoning. The vast majority of people have no reason to email others .exe files, send mail to 50+ people at a time etc. so it makes sense to block these to prevent abuse.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[ChrisKnight]

> Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Here's a nickel kid, go download yourself a copy of WinZip.

-Chris

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuo = teh dumb

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Mark J Tilford]

I think GMail checks the contents of a .zip for executables.

At least, I had trouble mailing inform source code (.inf) because gmail thought it was a Windows registry file (also .inf); trying to hide the file in a .tar.gz or .zip didn't work; I ended up having to compress it then rename the executable. (Though compressing it twice, and passwording the latter might also have worked.)

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[ChrisKnight]

Damn... Reality getting in the way of a funny straight line...

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[scibbers]

.rar files work fine as well, which I use more often than .zip anyways.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[bi_boy]

I second you good sir. For me, the reason I use Gmail isn't the gobs of space but rather spam. The spam protection is second to none. Only one or two stray spam emails have found their way to my desktop, and I haven't had any false positives yet.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

or use gzip, or some other compressor that gmail doesn't check. Programmers ought to be able to figure out gzip :)

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[NuShrike]

What does suck about Google Mail is it doesn't support subthreading.. Considering how complex email reply threads could get, this single-threaded web-forum-like interface is a huge step backwards from pine, mutt, and Thunderbird by making it difficult to see what was this email replying too which subject.

If it was only configurable.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[MrNougat]

I switched to using gmail as my primary email account because of its usefulness, and spartan layout. I'm very happy, and never looked back. So far as I know, no other email client/web service allows you to put a single email in more than one folder. Gmail does, with "labels." Thank you, Google, for allowing me to file things in a non-linear fashion.

Oh and, if you still desire to use a POP client, your inbound *and outbound* email stays on the gmail server for you to access anywhere.

Now I'm also using it for work, since my job's mail host only allows 20mb and the web interface is virtually useless. I forward everything from my work POP to my gmail address, apply a filter to file it, and set up an alternate from address to send from.

What's not to like?

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[King Babar]

The problem is that in 2004 we thought it was going to revolutionize email.

2005 came and went with no significant advances in gmail, and it's still in beta mode with some annoying issues. It's basically just another webmail service now.

Evidently, what counts as "significant" for some people differs from others. I use gmail as my preferred email account these days, and here's what I've seen:

• 2+ GB of storage up from 1 GB, and the promise that you'll never run out of space.
• Everybody can get gmail now, unlike last year. That's actually a major tech move in the sense that there now must be litereally tens of millions of gmail accounts, and it might actually be the largest email system on the planet.
• Gmail now has autosave, which is much nicer than (say) the Outlook webmail client we have.
• Gmail now lets you add formatting to your message. Useless to me, but some people probably like it...
• POP access is new in 2005, I believe.
• Gmail now checks all attachments for viruses. Not very important for a Mac OSX user like me, but probably a God-send for my pathetic little brother. :-)
• You can now customize your "From:" address, which might be handy if I wanted to use my "professional" email address from Gmail
• Gmail now lets you see RSS and Atom Feeds from Gmail itself. Not a huge plus for me, again, but I can see the utility in some situations.
• Basic HTML view of Gmail is nice in situations where you must use a screwed up or obsolete browser.
• Mobile access to Gmail is also new. I don't own a cell-phone, so I don't care, but my brother does, and he thought it was the bomb.

So I can understand if you feel like there are things that Gmail could do even better, or do differently, but to pretend that nothing happened to Gmail in 2005 is just plain weird.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[mlow82]

I don't think so.

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer. py?answer=27440

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[solios]

Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Webspace + WGET or FTP/SFTP app. Problem solved.

If you're tossing applications around in forwards you've either got a bad sysadmin or severe lameness/cheapness issues.

(self-extracting zips excepted)

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[dbIII]

Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Learning about archive file formats is part of learning how to use email effectively, so that then you can "work with .EXEs for a living". Even people with ludicrous bandwidth have to worry about attachment size in case they have to send things to people with puny bandwidth - and a major design flaw from 1995 or before that is still with us means that files that can execute without unachiving them should not be sent as email.

Prohibiting sending executable files is a sensible policy.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem.. Try adding ".rename" to the filename..
Worked wonders for me.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[forkazoo]

Even so, if I make a program for somebody, and I don't have any web space setup, the easiest way for me to get it to them is by email. Often, the little things I write for folks are 100k, so attachment size isn't an issue. If I zip it, gmail still checks inside. If I use a less common format like 7zip's native .7z, the person I'm sending the file to probably won't be able to open it.

So, I wind up with some annoying combination of zipping and renaming, and having to explain to the recipient how to go to extra steps get at the thing I wrote to (theoretically) save them time.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you get modded as informative? The previous poster gave a link to get your own Gmail account without an invite and I just registered.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is the problem? MSN messenger doesn't allow executables to be sent either (and I would imagine that hotmail (being part of the same network) would not allow executables as well).

Why do they do it? Well, have you ever had to fix someone elses computer who does not get the fact that programs are not always good or the one that installs any old bit of software that they find in case it is useful (or even the one that installs any old bit of software that IE prompts for). Its the lowest common denominator and, sadly, its very low for a reason...

Anyhow, a simple fix is to just zip them. :P

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[dbIII]

If I zip it, gmail still checks inside

I didn't know that - but I still consider it a good idea with all the virus payloads in zip files these days . There are still people out there without antivirus software - and someone has to be first with a new version of a virus. It sucks that you have to make sure that people REALLY want to run an executable and need to make them go through hoops to run it due to the run on default policy of some email clients which will be with us for a long time.

having to explain to the recipient how to go to extra steps get at the thing I wrote to (theoretically) save them time

You explain to them that you are relying on a beta web based email client with a published policy of blocking executable file formats and you have a little trick to get around it because you can use it for free - you are right, that won't go down well at all if they are paying you money.

It's free - understand the limitations, work within them, and if you can't many of the alternatives are dirt cheap or are already part of something you are paying for now.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[tcoady]

BTW, the article layout is disgusting - 11 pages!

Perhaps this URL would have been more helpful? http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =168194,00.asp

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Chaset]

Hmm... this thread is veering off topic, but I would like to just vent on this stupid legacy left by the dominance of MS. Three-letter extensions. As indicated by the parent post, it's a badly limited namespace, and muddles the distinction between "file type" designation and "preferred application". Apple had something saner (separate file and creator types, as well as much greater name space for each [4-byte codes, registered with apple to avoid conflicts]). Now even they are encouraging the use of extensions to remain compatible with the lowest common denominator of computing.

I think BeOS had something even better, but it will never be in a position to influence the computing world at large.

If a sane system existed, it would have been simple to specify a file as an "executable" file type, and use the application type field to specify what kind of executable it is, thus making filtering easier.

It's lame lame lame! There.... all vented. Now back to your regularly scheduled slashdot pedantry.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Baloo Ursidae]

No. Not at all. No difference.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you should download 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/)

It's free.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[tcoady]

OK then it looks like you need to click on the print icon below, sorry.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[CheeseyDJ]

Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Only if these people don't have the ability to rename files.

If you change the file extension to anything other than .exe, this "security feature" is circumvented.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[dcam]

A sibling poster has pointed this out, but the whole executable/zip thing with gmail is darn annoying.

I program for a living. I got a gmail account relatively early but had other email options so used them. Recentlt however I had a contractor who used gmail as his primary means of contact. Trying to get some files to him was a major headache.

exe doesn't work. zip doesn't. However renaming the zip seemed to work. Woohoo, lets party like its 2002 google. I mean just scan the damn files for viruses, OK? Emailing exe's is necessary under some circumstances. If gmail is for techies, exe and zip files should be passed through.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or not be in the US.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[twosmokes]

If you're paid to work with EXEs, why can't you PAY for email that will let you send them?

You get what you pay for.

The notion that you're emailing your paying clients from a gmail account is a little odd to me.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Omicron32]

GMail checks the contents of ZIP, TAR.GZ and BZIP2 files. I tried sending an .exe the other day in an archieve. Doesn't work!

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[ClioCJS]

rename it from ".exe" to ".rename-to-exe". duh. People have been doing this on IRC for a good decade. Also, renaming ".zip" to ".zipppp".

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Prophet of Nixon]

It doesn't like rar files either, though it has no problem with remarkably similar yar files.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Alioth]

Sending EXE files is a problem because people get 'socially engineered' into running them, especially a forged email from someone they supposedly know. For this reason, the MX for alioth.net rejects all Microsoft executables. So far, 100% of the executables sent to any of the two dozen or so domains the host is MX for, they have been malware.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[iron-kurton]

You know, I was kind of bummed he ragged on Gmail so hard.

First, I use the service as my primary personal account. Why shouldn't I, since I travel so much? What, use yahoo or hotmail instead?? BAH! (I do have a yahoo junk acct though).

Second, are there any 'fox extensions for yahoo or hotmail? I didn't find one (but I didn't look too hard). Fear not, 'fox has a gmail extension. That of itself speaks of gmail's popularity, I think.

Maybe it's just me, but I find Gmail sleek, elegant, and most of all, much more usable than yahoo or hotmail. And for a free service that survives on ad placement, I think google has done a terrific job of not letting the ads interfere with your mail retreival...

Just my $0.02

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[crimson30]

Fair enough, turns out you need a cell phone:

I didn't use an invite and don't have a cell phone and I still got a working account. I remember joking with a friend, something along the lines of "Ha... I didn't need your stupid invite!". This, only months ago.

Although, shortly thereafter, I tried to sign somebody else up in the same fashion but couldn't figure out how I did it, so I just ended up sending an invite :/

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've stopped giving me invites, which I don't know if that's good or bad.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[emurphy42]

Why did you get modded as informative?

I'm sure it was because the cell phone workaround wasn't generally known; I didn't know about it until I saw the responses to my comment. Mod me down if you feel that strongly about it. (Aww, but I might lose my first ever karma bonus. Oh well.)

The previous poster gave a link to get your own Gmail account without an invite and I just registered.

This is, at best, ambiguous. My parent linked to Google account sign-up; I linked to a FAQ entry saying that it wasn't that simple; one of my children linked to the cell phone workaround. (Okay, I'm being pedantic.)

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[emurphy42]

Whereas the end user's WinZip will Just Work on it. If it must go by e-mail, then yeah, this seems like a good workaround.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Nicolay77]

I also use gmail as you use it. It's very convenient to have your email whenever you go, and that much space.

However the labels feature is not exclusive of gmail. There was first in the email client of the Opera browser. I could even say that google got the idea from there.

So you know which POP client I use for gmail.

The list of tech trends that never go out of style

[Anonymous Coward]

One tech trend then will never fail:-

Vaporware

Gmail

[JonN]

Alright so let me get this straight about Gmail. First:

First off, the Gmail screen still reads "BETA." Will it ever not be beta? Who knows? That means that you still need to be invited to, uh, participate in the beta.

Alright, so it is still in beta. To most people (the author seems to forget this) this means that there are probably little bugs or issues with the service. It may have been in beta for quite awhile, which could mean that they are still working on bugs, but then again most geeks are quite fickle about release dates (The author of TFA even admits this when he discusses Windows x64). Next, he goes on to say:

Gmail is inconvenient in many ways. Managing a mailing list isn't trivial. Trying to send legitimate attachments with executable files is damn near impossible. Even ZIP files are a chore.

Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues? Alright, so we have a service that shouldn't be in beta, but that has issues. Gotcha. Perhaps the arguement should be that there aren't enough resources going into Gmail, then perhaps I would buy the arguement.

Re:Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohoho you win the logic race.

Err, at least in the same way that creationists do anyway.

Re:Gmail

[Hey Pope Felcher . .]

Maybe it's just me, but I read the argument as being fairly consistent i.e.:-

The product is still in beta.

Indicitive of the product being in beta, the following issues arise:- :-

Managing a mailing list isn't trivial. Trying to send legitimate attachments with executable files is damn near impossible. Even ZIP files are a chore.

When will these issues be fixed, who knows?

When they are Gmail will probably no longer be a beta.

In my opinion, as a simple web mail system Gmail is fine, no better, no worse than most on the market.

Re:Gmail

[EvanED]

Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues?

At least the part with not being able to send zip files and exes is NOT because it's in beta; that's an explicit policy decision. Try it and you're told that you can't for security reasons. It's not like it just hasn't been implemented yet.

Re:Gmail

[jonnythan]

That's the point.

In 2004, we thought it was going to revolutionize email.

2005 came and went, and it's still in beta with lots of annoying issues.

GMail is cool, but it hasn't lived up to the hype at all.

Re:Gmail

[MightyMartian]

I find that it works quite well, and haven't seen any annoying bugs (though, as with any application, there are doubtless some). As to ZIP and EXE policies, they aren't the only email service around that bans the extensions, and quite frankly, I don't see it as a problem. If it means having to rename the file, then so be it, but considering the vast majority of files being tossed about with those attachments are in fact very bad indeed, I think it's a wise choice.

Re:Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

"BETA" is google's excuse to not fix bugs, and for use as an arguement when comparing other email providers, "well it's still in beta what do you expect?".

Re:Gmail

[Dunbal]

When they are Gmail will probably no longer be a beta.

      This is expected to be around the same time as Duke Nukem Forever goes gold...

Re:Gmail

[bcrowell]

Trying to send legitimate attachments with executable files is damn near impossible.
I've been using e-mail since 1987, and I haven't ever had to send an executable file as an e-mail attachment. I'm still trying to figure this one out. Why would you want to???

Re:Gmail

[Blakey Rat]

I could see emailing an installer (an .exe) to a client, if he has some kind of special need or feature not on the FTP/web copy.

Re:Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Managing a mailing list isn't trivial.

They just added contact lists, what, last week? So scratch that one off.

Although I'm not sure what he means by trivial. Does he want managing lists to be so insignificant that it's almost inconsequential? That it's like trivia?

Re:Gmail

[Detritus]

Sending software updates to a client.

I hate fascist mail systems that make it almost impossible to send updated files to my customer.

Re:Gmail

[mnemonic_]

Actually, Gmail's "beta" status explains its failings, but does not justify them. Like how greed explains why someone robbed a bank, but does not justify bank robbery. Case tries to describe the difference between the Gmail hype and the actual Gmail. Everyone hailed it as an email revolution, but in fact it isn't all that great. It's a letdown because of its poor state, signified by its beta status and its badly implemented features. At the end of the day, Gmail's only distinction is its 3GB of space. Which is what Mr. Case says, and perhaps what you missed.

Re:Gmail

[Gonoff]

And I hate ars3h0les that keep trying to send my users .EXEs.
If you want to send something, put it up somewhere and send a link...

Re:Gmail

[karuna]

Just add some other extention like .xxx to your exe files and it will go through. People may not use gmail so widely because you need invitation (it is still beta) to sign up but I see that more and more people who require reliable email service use it more and more often. To have yahoo or hotmail as your primary email for business dealing was considered as a sign of incompetency or computer illiteracy and thus not bringing any trust. Today you can proudly announce your gmail address and be regarded as the power user and as an expert in your own field.

Re:Gmail

[miller17]

This is true, but BETA for Google simply means any product that isn't going to be making them money, at least not directly. If noone's actually going to be paying for it, then why should they take the responsibility that is associated with calling something a full release? The answer is, there is no reason. Noone cares what they call it except for the fickle techies who feel the need to complain about the semantics of how most of their products are still in beta.

For all intensive purposes though, Gmail is a fully released product. It works better and faster than any other email service out there, many of which claim to be "final versions". That comparison alone should tell you what stage Gmail is really in. So as long as they continue providing this wonderful service for free, I'm cool with them claiming it's in whatever stage they want, even ALPHA.

Re:Gmail

[jonnythan]

Today you can proudly announce your gmail address and be regarded as the power user and as an expert in your own field.

Unless it's "hot_pants@gmail.com" that is.

Re:Gmail

[GeorgeH]

Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues? Alright, so we have a service that shouldn't be in beta, but that has issues. Gotcha.

Does that mean there aren't legitimate criticisms of Gmail's functionality? By slapping the word "Beta" on it, does Google absolve themselves of any shortcomings?

Maybe Microsoft should permabeta the next Windows to avoid any quality concerns. "Oh, don't worry about that IE security flaw, it's just beta."

Re:Gmail

[Tim Browse]

I haven't ever had to send an executable file as an e-mail attachment. I'm still trying to figure this one out. Why would you want to???

I write software. A few friends of mine test it. If I want them to try a new version (or they want the new version with the wobjob feature I just told them about), I send them an EXE.

Jiminy jillikers, that was hard to 'figure out'. How long did you think about this for?

I have come across the GMail/EXE problem, which is pretty annoying, but at the moment you can just rename the extension to .dat or something and it works. I wonder how long it will be before they scan all attached files for PE headers though.

(Incidentally, now I just use IM file xfer to send people EXEs of the latest version of my software. And before anyone asks, no, I don't want to send them the source of my software and insist they have a full dev environment set up to build it, and they live miles away so I can't hand them a copy).

Ok well that's a stupid list

[Sycraft-fu]

XP-64 is a failure? How so, because it's on on every desktop? It's not supposed to be. 64-bit at home is still in it's infancy. However that doesn't mean it's not desirable to have 64-bit OSes. At this point, the main point is for developers to be able to convert apps and drivers to 64-bit and get them well tested, ahead of widespread adoption.

However even for that they aren't useless to the end user. HFSS supports 64-bit XP and that's real useful if you want to solve really large problems.

I think it's a mistake to say a technology has to immediatly take off to be a success. Some things are introduced ahead of time, with the knowledge that it'll be a slow adoption process. Id' much rather have 64-bit Windows and Linux NOW when there's still only a few chips on the market than not for another 4 years when we all have the hardware but are starved for software that can use it as happened with 32-bit chips.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[BCW2]

Win XP 64 is still not ready for prime time. The problem is drivers. To get an HP printer to work requires hacks, finding drivers is no fun at all. Since 80% of all the computers I've built in the last 6 months are AMD 64's for home use, this is a problem. If they insist on Windows, they get the 32 bit version. If there smart, they get Suse 10.0 which is a 64bit OS and works out of the box with very few driver issues, (high end video cards will always be a pain it seems).

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[susano_otter]

Of course, the author does actually explain his reasons for each item on that list. Not sure what on earth caused him to put something on the list? RTFA.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[jellomizer]

I think it was a failure for 2005 because after its release it didn't create a surge of 64 bit computer buying like when Windows 95 was released, where people rushed to upgrade their 286s with DOS to 486s and Early Pentiums with Windows 95 to take advantage of the 32 bit processing, and get past the 64k of ram.

It will be a little longer until 64bit will become popular, and 64bit systems will be around for a long time. Until the average system needs over 4 gigs of RAM cheaper 32 bit systems will probably still be popular. Right now 2GB of ram for a desktop system is considered high end. Next year it will probably be 3GB and 2007 It will be 4GB so by 2007 and 2008 64bit systems will start really getting a foothold. 64bit systems right now are for Real Power users and Servers but for desktop the need for aditional Ram will be the main motivation factor.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[MightyMartian]

There's always a point early on in a transition where it's tough to find hardware and drivers. The transition from 8 bit to 16 bit was no different, and involved a lot more pain as the hardware itself was so different, and to some extent IBM and the clone makers chickened out and we were stuck for years with 8-bit hardware.

I remember when we first transitioned to NT 3.51, and having to check through Microsoft's HCL before even buying a motherboard. In reality, it's taken well over a decade for NT's descendants to get to the point where you really don't have to blink when buying hardware.

Another fact about the transition to 64-bit is that we're in a bit of in-between period, where the majority of applications won't yet benefit so much from 64 bit hardware that there's any sense among consumers that there's a need. Among commercial buyers, obviously the applications in question will benefit servers and here we see the early adopters, but that's always the way it is. For corporate IT departments, HCLs are just a way of life. In a few years this will spread to the consumer market, and then, by the beginning of the next decade we'll start the transformation again as new hardware platforms come online.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Sycraft-fu]

That's my point, actually. That XP-64 didn't take off in 2005 is irrelivant to if it's a worthwhile product overall. I fully realise it wasn't a massive success in 2005, my argument is it wasn't intended to be. It's intended to be something so peopel can start 64-bit porting and usage NOW, and not play catchup later. The driver siuation is pretty abysmal right now, but that's fine, hopefully that means that by the time it is needed on a large scale, the drivers are ready. I'm hopine the 32-64 transition is very smooth and gradual rather than a big, long overdue one as the 16-32 software transition was.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[(H)elix1]

I'm one of those early adopters / evangelists they lost. Since I've got both an AMD64 CPU and a MSDN universal subscription (via work), I gave it a spin. Several times... Drivers were OK for me - Nvidia video card and nforce 4 chipset both had pretty solid driver support. I've also got 4G of RAM, and it picked it all up without any issues. Should have been an easy sell.

Things fell apart once I started to install programs. Can't remember if it was Rational Application Developer or some other tool/program, but it had problems with the changes they made for the legacy (32-bit) install. Had my normal stack worked - LDAP, DB, App Server, and IDE just worked, I'd be pounding out more 64-bit specific C/C++ code as well. Games were also problematic. Installing stuff is all end user problems. Had things worked reasonably well in XP-64 and/or 2003-64, I would have used it for my primary Win development system and made sure things degraded nicely to Win32 platforms. To be fair, there were plenty of growing pains on the 64-bit Linux side of the fence, but those were a good bit easier to sort out. That, and many people had already pounded that road smooth before I got there. Had things also worked well with legacy applications, I would have also recommended friends and family that have AMD64 to take advantage of the *free* (plus a bit of shipping) offer Microsoft made to swap out copies of WinXP with WinXP-64 this spring. Instead, people got the same 'don't go there' speech I gave them when WinME came out.

I would not use it, nor would I recommend those I give a damn for use it. AMD absolutely nailed the legacy support, making 32-bit OS's run on a 64-bit platform. Had Microsoft been able to do the same, you would have seen a ground swell. As is, I'd say others agree WinXp-64/Win2003-64 is half baked as well.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[6*7]

Ahhh NT 3.5x, the (long gone) times that there was support for 64bit machines.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Just Some Guy]

http://localhost:8080/

Greatest. Porn site. Ever. That guy rocks!

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Firethorn]

I would not use it, nor would I recommend those I give a damn for use it. AMD absolutely nailed the legacy support, making 32-bit OS's run on a 64-bit platform.

Agreed. I have several 64bit computers. I looked into 64bit windows, saw the issues they were having and said 'I'm not even going to try'.

The other question I thought of was 'why do you need 64bit drivers for things like sound cards and hard drives?'. The most essential need for 64bit drivers would be for the motherboard, specifically the memory controller system.

Support I can see. Advanced features I can see. Heck, even 64bit programs that state 'You need a 64bit video driver for full use of this program'. But by supporting 32bit as fully as possible, you ease the transition, get a larger installed userbase, which encourages people to write 64bit drivers.

Then again, I view window's current 64bit version as not even a beta. They release an incomplete product, listen to the complaints, and make the next one better.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Anonymous Coward]

You totally missed the point of the article. It was written as a mea culpa by a tech news writer who, as most of his peers do, have the habit of wildly hyping new tech that is just around the corner. But they rarely go back and admit the overselling openly in the cases that later turn out to not live up to immediate expectations.

He's not saying that it can't or won't live up to the hype, just that it didn't on arrival. And that is certainly true of X64, people had wild (and mostly unrealistic) expectations for what it would do for the consumer experience. While it wasn't a mistake in any real way, the rush to adopt hasn't really been a boon to anyone on the keyboard side of the computer yet.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[kfg]

Until the average system needs over 4 gigs of RAM cheaper 32 bit systems will probably still be popular.

I know vim is getting a bit "bloated" these days, but how much bloody ram do you figure it's ever going to really take to run?

KFG

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Liam Slider]

XP-64 is a failure? How so, because it's not on every desktop?

It's a failure because Microsoft attempted to innovate a market that was already innovated, and everyone already knew it. Microsoft kept telling people that the future would be 64-bit....when anyone who wanted 64-bit pretty much already was getting it...running Linux on it. And then when Microsoft finally came up with a "working" 64-bit implimentation....it was a pathetic joke. It still is a pathetic joke. And anyone who has the least brains at all who's using AMD 64-bit with an actual 64-bit OS....is using Linux. Which has drivers, and loads of software (even games), and isn't buggy as all fucking hell.

If the future is 64-bit....it's not Microsoft that's taking you there.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Joe123456]

The thing with the drivers are way make drivers for XP-64 when visa is comeing soon and you will need to redo the drivers for that anyways.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Joe123456]

The 64bit version is like ME a in between for win-xp to visa As ME was for 9x to xp.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[dangitman]

It's not supposed to be. 64-bit at home is still in it's

No, it's not really uncommon at all in the Mac universe. Can't really describe it as "infancy" either, as the products are very solid and reliable, based on IBM's experience in big iron. No significant bugs or teething problems. 64-bit home desktop computing has seemed pretty mature in the years I've been using it.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[dangitman]

64bit systems right now are for Real Power users and Servers

What about the iMac G5? it's not a "Power User" machine and sells quite well.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[dangitman]

There's always a point early on in a transition where it's tough to find hardware and drivers.

If this "always" happens, then why was there no sign of it happening when Mac processors went from 32 to 64 bits?

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, sorry. I thought we were talking about users that mattered.
And make sure you qualify "sells quite well" with "for a Mac".

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[dangitman]

And make sure you qualify "sells quite well" with "for a Mac".

More like "is the best selling 64-bit desktop machine on the planet. And if Macs are outselling PCs (which have a much larger market) - then that must mean that 64-bit PCs are doing much worse than it appears.

Since the original has 15 pages...

[funklord9]

Link to the "print" version.

Beta

[ackthpt]

Google News is still Beta! And AFP (l'Agence France-Presse) sued them over content, despite their argument that it was Beta and "still under development".

lossless

[JonN]

"While a scant few players do support lossless compression formats (mostly FLAC), lossless formats are generally unavailable for portable players."

I don't see how lossless was meant to be mainstream or an explosive technology. It is generally for audiophiles, geeks, and nerds. Would they call Linux a failed technology? True it could be easy for producers to make portable players capable of playing FLAC or similar, however since when do they play to the minority? This is capitalism, and FLAC is not for the mainstream as most people can't tell the difference, or even care. Minorities rarely win in capitalism.

Re:lossless

[jellomizer]

I don't know anyone who would have thought it would grow?
Most people with MP3 or Ipods listen to music with ear phones or ear buds, while they are doing other things. They are not going to plug them in into high quality speakers, spaced properly around them and listen to the music. The Compressed stuff is good enough for most music listeners even most audiophiles will give it a good enough when they are listening to their iPod while they are jogging, or doing their non-audio work.

Re:lossless

[arothstein]

Would they call Linux a failed technology?

I would. Riddled with security holes, splintered into several dozen distros, every application duplicated countless times (reinventing the wheel) just to satisfy the egos of the individual authors, resulting in a huge pile of crap known as Linux (tm).

This is capitalism, and FLAC is not for the mainstream as most people can't tell the difference, or even care. Minorities rarely win in capitalism.

And why bring skin color into this? Race has nothing to do with audio codecs, sir.

Re:lossless

[mrchaotica]

Wow, the article actually says that?! I guess the moron has never heard of the iPod then, seeing as how it makes up 75% or so of the market and does support lossless audio (AIFF and Apple Lossless)!

Re:lossless

[timster]

Besides, the premise is nonsense. All iPods except the Shuffle support Apple Lossless, which makes lossless audio a very well supported feature in the market.

Re:lossless

[Anonymous Coward]

Shill? Is that you?

Re:lossless

[geekoid]

these days, most Audiophiles won't consider it good unless the earphones use a gold connector..

Re:lossless

[Hosiah]

Would they call Linux a failed technology?

You must be new here...

Re:lossless

[coolGuyZak]

I think he was trying to be funny.

Failed!

[The 13th Duke]

Spreading a rather thin article over a multitude of pages so we can be sure to see all the ads.

Re:Failed!

[sqrt(2)]

I don't see any.

Another trend that is bound to continue

[datafr0g]

Stupid tech trend predictions

:)

Multiple Standards for DVD

[ozmanjusri]

From TFA: Consumers don't want multiple standards. DVD was successful because there was only one standard.

One standard? What about +R, -R, DVDRAM etc? Manufacturers love competing standards. They get to sell to early adopters, then sell another unit with identical functions to the poor sods who jumped on to the wrong standard.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[georgewilliamherbert]

If you RTFA a bit more carefully you'd notice that they contrast DVD (the ROM format) with the various DVD writeable formats, pointing out that DVD ROMs caught on with now nearly 100% market penetration (prerecorded VHS delinda est), but instead of DVD writeables killing off VHS for recording, Tivo did. And basically because of too many DVD writeable formats.

The original CD (ROM), and original DVD (ROM), were both excellent, universal, and well liked formats.

What happened with the writables in the DVD space is an object lesson. Unfortunately, one now being emulated by the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray folks.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[LiquidCoooled]

When have you ever had a problem with a prerecorded dvd?
Have you ever considered if its + or - ?
Does it even enter the equation, or are commercial dvds standardised.

I am 100% with you for home recordable media.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, well, you could try reading the next sentence:

One of the reasons that DVD recorders for consumers haven't been bought by consumers in droves was because of the confusion inherent in multiple DVD writeable media standards.

+R, -R, RAM, etc are all recording media, and they really haven't picked up to the degree that was expected of them. That may be more due to consumers who don't believe they need the size, or many other reasons, but that's another debate.

As for GMail, I don't know, it has one of the speediest interfaces available at the moment, and even if other competitors also offer more space now, that doesn't detract from the fact that GMail offers plenty. Yes, a slightly less restrictive stance on attachments, i.e. no hard limit to attachments etc (though we all know why they don't offer that) would be nice, and yeah, it might be time to get off the invite only position (they're so easy to get, yes, but given that, why use them?)

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[spectral]

+ and - are home-recording standards only. Pressed discs do not have such a ridiculous divide.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[Moofie]

You didn't read the article, did you?

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[kisielk]

I don't see the big deal is in this DVD format argument. I regularily use both DVD-R and DVD+R disks without usually giving it much thought, and I've yet to ever come across a situtation where I was not able to use a disk in a particular player, regardless of format. And where the heck do you even see DVDRAM these days or whatever the heck the other format was? I don't think think that writable DVD's failed to kill off VHS recording because of too many writable formats, that's just a silly argument. What really happened is that people who used to record TV shows on VHS started using PVR's because it's simply more convenient. You don't have to worry about changing disks, and usually portability is not an issue, and most of the devices can automatically record your favorite shows in case you forget. DVD recording is still widely used to convert home movies and the like in to a portable format and duplicate for family, friends, and whatnot without loss of quality. In that respect DVD has replaced VHS. It's simply a matter of using the best tool for the job.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[captaineo]

I agree that the proliferation of writeable DVD formats is teh suck, but I think the reason they didn't make it as far as recording TV and home movies is that DVD-Video is just not designed as a real-time recording format. The DVD spec is based around an extensive offline authoring process that makes it very difficult to build a usable real-time recorder.

(I don't think this is a malicious DRM-type decision, I think it's just because way back when DVD was designed they had no idea of the demand for end-user recording; they must have figured people would just continue using VHS)

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[RoLi]

What happened with the writables in the DVD space is an object lesson. Unfortunately, one now being emulated by the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray folks.

Well, at least Blu-Ray is easily distinguishable compared to DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RAM, HD-DVD, HD-DVD-R, HD-DVD-RAM, ...

Let's hope they keep it that way and don't start to release Blu-Ray-R, Blu-Ray+R, HD-Blu-Ray and HD-Blu-Ray+R...

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[dangitman]

I regularily use both DVD-R and DVD+R disks without usually giving it much thought, and I've yet to ever come across a situtation where I was not able to use a disk in a particular player,

It was potentially a big issue in the early days before there were hybrid players. However, Pioneer and Apple pushed DVD-R drives out to the market first, so DVD-R was the early leader. So, the DVD+R people also had to support DVD-R to avoid a format war. I suspect something similar will happen with HD-DVD being subsumed by Blu-Ray by using hybrid drives.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

DVD is a good example, but there were over 10 formats of CD before everything settled down and at the time people were warned to buy readers that were compatible with everything. Search archive.org for an episode of The Computer Chronicles show on this new technology called SEE DEE ROM

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[Tim Browse]

My favourite stupid thing about DVD-R and DVD+R, is that DVD+R was produced (think I have this the right way around) by the DVD ReWritable group, which was a breakaway/different group from the DVD Consortium.

So, impressed by their own cleverness, they get people to stamp their logo on DVD+ format discs. Which puts you in the situation I was in where I'd bought a spindle of DVD+R discs (precisely to avoid RW compatibility issues) only to take one out and find it had the letters 'RW' stamped on the disc in a prominent way.

This was not to indicate that the disc was re-writeable - it was to indicate that the disc was in a format of a type specified by the RW group. It took me a few minutes of googling to confirm that I did in fact have R and not an RW disc in my hand.

I mean, what a bunch of goddamn muppets.

Sturgeon's Craw

[fm6]

I get so tired of people who quote "Sturgeon's Law" as if it meant something. So 90% of everything is crap? Is 90% of what you say crap?

Sturgeon's Law is just a lame excuse for a genre that attracts a lot of bad writers. Don't get me wrong, I love SF. It's just that everybody who's sat through an episode of Star Trek thinks they know how to write it.

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[ultramk]

I think it's fair to say that 90% of what people read is crap.

I enjoy a lot of SF, but once you start looking around at other genres (especially mainstream fiction), you start realizing that most authors suck, and almost all of the popular ones do--no matter what the setting. (i.e. Cussler, Grisham, Crichton, Clancy... and my own personal antichrist, Dan Brown)

The sad truth is that people seem to like bad writing. A notable exception: Salman Rushdie. He's very popular, and (imo) perhaps the English language's best living wordsmith. Not sure how that happened.

At least SF has people like Robert Charles Wilson, Connie Willis and Charlie Stross. Gives you hope for the future.

m-

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[starling]

I get so tired of people who quote "Sturgeon's Law" as if it meant something.

Hear, hear. 90% of Sturgeon's Law is crap.

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[geekoid]

dear lord, could you be more biased?
every genre has 90% crap , and SF is NO exception.
The only exception to this rule would be if I had to categories:
1)The top 110%
2)everything else

Even then, it would only apply to me.

Good writing is subjective,
Bad writing doubley so.

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[ultramk]

All art is subjective. Of course I'm biased. Everyone that I've ever met is. I'm ok with that. For the record, I didn't say that SF is any better on average than any other genre, I just don't think it deserves the crappy reputation that it has. I completely agree that most SF is lousy, like most of anything is lousy.

Ah... but when it's good... really really good? There's nothing better, in my book. It deals with big ideas. It can ask (and answer) big questions. It makes me think. Postulate. Wonder.

This thing is, I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to poor writing. I'll finish a book that doesn't seem that good, just because it might get better near the end. (rarely, but it happens) I read a lot, and I read reasonably quickly, so it's not a huge waste of my time to finish something that isn't any good. Here's my criteria for deciding if someones writing sucks.

1. Is the plot obvious, and full of cliches?
2. How's the dialog? Natural, stilted, inane?
3. Is the science/history/physics etc. appropriately believeable? (If it's a magic box, fine. I can accept that. But at least have some passing familiarity with a field like cryptography before writing that your super-duper quantum computer can break any code, including one-time pads. That crap just makes me angry.)
4. Do the politics of the person writing the book drive the entire plot, till it's nothing but a soapbox.
5. Do I feel like the book is written for an audience who is mildly retarded?

Of course, these are just _my_ hot buttons, but I don't think they're totally unique to myself. A lot of this stuff is at least somewhat objective. Bad physics don't have an excuse.

m-

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[iainl]

Sturgeon's Law works for me, because I don't take it as an actual indication of the value of a genre.

All it _really_ means is that for most sample sets, the very best stuff (10% or what have you) is noticeably better than the rest of the set. You can even ignore that 90%, and for the remaining samples, 90% of _those_ are probably crap compared to the very very best, too.

And yes, 90% of what I say is less insightful than me on an inspired day.

No lossless?

[outZider]

He makes a jab at the iPod by talking about how larger capacity players add video capability, while ignoring fidelity by not offering lossless. While it isn't the longer-running FLAC format, the iPod does support Apple Lossless, which is just an extension of the standard MPEG4 Lossless Audio format. It works great, and my iPod Video certainly doesn't have a problem playing those as well. :P

Re:No lossless?

[TheHawke]

iPod was a blowout cuz the battery maker got cheap with their materials in a lousy effort to skil profits. This bit Apple in the butt. Most likely when Apple tears the batteries down and finds the substandard composistions, they will be nailing the ROC factories that skimped.

Re:No lossless?

[Skuto]

>the iPod does support Apple Lossless, which is just an extension of the
>standard MPEG4 Lossless Audio format.

It is NOT.

MPEG4 Lossless is ALS, and was finalized only a few days ago.

Apple Lossless is ALAC, and is *NOT* compatible. It's a proprietary format.

Re:No lossless?

[outZider]

Fascinating, I always read that was the case. I stand corrected, after research, you're definitely right.

Nevertheless, the original point stands -- it's there, it works. There are now open source tools to deal with this format, as well.

Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[cvd6262]

As it turns out, driver availability has been the main Achilles' heel. While graphics cards, chipsets, and audio drivers have been readily available, drivers for newer printers, webcams, and other common peripherals have been MIA.

I bought a laptop with a Turion64 processor and secured a copy of XP64 Pro from my work (the surprised tech had to dig in his desk for it). I got it up and running, but....

No drivers. No trackpad driver, no video driver, no sound, nada. Not even on the manufacturer's site.

Well, good thing Ubuntu64 works just fine.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[KwKSilver]

Thanks for the clue/confirmation. I'm typing this from a Knoppix DVD on new AMD64 box which came w/ ...Windows, what else?! I'd tried the Ubuntu64 Live CD and it worked after some finagling ("expert" install, which can't be that expert, if I managed it). Knowing it works on a laptop helps steel my nerves. Ubuntu64, here I come.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[FrostySol]

Fedora for the 64 processor works great too and seems to be a lot more stable than windows 64 is!

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[thesandtiger]

The new desktop I had made using an AMD64 3000 is running Win XP 64, and the only problem I've had is getting my 3 year old laser printer running on it. According to Samsung, however, they are anticipating having 64 bit drivers out "soon" so I'm not feeling too bad.

Other than that, everything I've got has been just fine. Webcam, camera, scanner, drawing tablet - all good. I did get it with the os pre-installed, and I did select components for performance, price and compatibility, which is usually not a luxury one gets in a laptop unless one pays through the nose.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[geekoid]

your work needs to implement a software control policy.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[twitter]

your work needs to implement a software control policy.

Aw, you're just jealous that your work does not hand out Ubuntu CDs. You can't be too angry about his company not having a use for a 64bit version of an OS that does not work stuffed deep in a drawer, can you?

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[(startx)]

Yeah, I tried out XP64 and Slamd64 (64-bit Slackware port) on my desktop for a few months recently, and I've since switched back to Win2k and regular Slackware. Some of the brokenness that forced me to switch back include:

• Windows:
  
• Services for Unix (SFU) has not been, and will not be, ported to XP64. I need NFS.
• x86-64 programs are put in C:\Program Files, and 32bit programs are put in C:\Program Files (x86). Many old windows programs (including the steam installer) can't handle parenthesis in a path.
• NVidia's windows x86-64 driver installer doesn't support my gf4 ti4600, although modifying the .inf file allows it to install and run fine.
• Useful things like Daemon Tools don't work because of driver format changes.

• Slamd64
  
• /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 confuse some programs
• some poorly written software (like mplayer) assume 32bit pointers and won't compile
• Shell script game installers blow up very, very badly. So badly, in fact, that I've been unable to run any of my native games (Q3, UT, UT2k3, etc)

Overall, neither OS is ready for everyday use, but MS should be asshamed of themselves for charging people full price for beta(at best, probably alpha at this point)-quality software.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[tuffy]

Shell script game installers blow up very, very badly. So badly, in fact, that I've been unable to run any of my native games (Q3, UT, UT2k3, etc)

"setarch i386" is typically enough to bypass the check and the installers and games work fine thereafter. Though in the case of Quake 3, one can use a native x86-64 version now that the source is available.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[Anonymous Coward]

"x86-64 programs are put in C:\Program Files, and 32bit programs are put in C:\Program Files (x86). Many old windows programs (including the steam installer) can't handle parenthesis in a path."

That's easy to work around. First open up a cmd window, then do a 'dir /x' on the root of your system drive, that will tell you the 8.3 filename for "Program Files (x86)" - something like "PROGRA~2". Then on the Steam installer type this name (eg C:\PROGRA~2) in as the path. Looks fugly but works great.

Now if only someone would make an x64 patch for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory...

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[dbIII]

No drivers. No trackpad driver, no video driver, no sound, nada. Not even on the manufacturer's site.

We shouldn't really be surprised - unfortuately it's trying to get a home computer operating system to work with server hardware. 64 bit is enough to put it in the server bucket and be mainly ignored for the home market.

Microsoft didn't get rich by being good, but by being just good enough - other companies did better stuff but charged a lot more and sold less.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[dbIII]

I should add, before the flames come and so they can be better aimed, that MS Windows Server2003 has a 64bit version that was a lot better in beta and is probably a lot better now that the thing that needs to have "Professional" in it's name to be considered as such by the gullible. The only problems I had were with some non standard digital camera drivers, but it will obviously vary with hardware.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[Carrot007]

>>x86-64 programs are put in C:\Program Files, and 32bit programs are put in C:\Program Files (x86). Many old windows programs (including the steam installer) can't handle parenthesis in a path.

Which is hardly MS's fault now is it, on my 32 bit windows install i have ended up with a C:\Program Files\ directory even though windows and program files are on the d drive, is the ms's fault? no it's crap software. Want it fixed moan to the software makers.

> Useful things like Daemon Tools don't work because of driver format changes.

They released a 64 bit version now.

about high definition video

[circletimessquare]

this year it became possible for independent film makers to make high quality 16:9 films for the first time... economically

yes, the sony hdr-fx1 and jvc's offering came out in 2004/ 2003, but dual core became economical this year (really necessary for the editting environment and importing the mpeg stream) and sony introduced it's low cost cmos hdv camcorder

i'm talking economical in something a middle class high school kid could set up with a little help from his parents and some after school jobs: under $5K

that really means something for 2005

the author gripes about hdv content distribution and the big cable and studio players wary of rights management, but that's not really where the story is in hdv: it's in creation

Re:about high definition video

[evilviper]

but dual core became economical this year (really necessary for the editting environment and importing the mpeg stream)

Not really. Editing/importing doesn't need to be done in realtime.

Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[soupdevil]

but your example is flawed. CD sales have not plummeted. While total sales are down slightly, labels have axed their research/product development, and numbers of artists. Their sales per release are up, and their profits are way up. Digital downloads are currently a drop in the bucket. People with iPods generally still buy CDs. They are filling up their iPods the same way we filled up their glove boxes with mix tapes in the 80s: by copying our CDs, and our friends' CDs. Except that, thanks to P2P, we all have a lot more friends to share with.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Saige]

I know my amount of CD purchasing has went up lately. But it's not mainstream crap that I just can't stomach, but more and more independent stuff that has nothing to do with the RIAA. But that's cause Last.fm has directed my music tastes in a new direction that is decidedly not mainstream. In fact, I think I'm going to get a handful of new CDs soon - The Cruxshadows, Icon of Coil, Autumn's Grey Solace, and Collide. Take that, RIAA, they're all artists that you don't have anything to do with. :)

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[geekoid]

you keep advertising like that, some label will pick them up and they will become mainstream. And you hate mainstream! what will you do?

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[heinousjay]

Call them sellouts and feel superior for knowing them first?

(Not the OP, just guessing.)

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Decessus]

I always thought musical taste was a subjective thing. Why is it that because a certain song or band is mainstream, it is automatically crap?

You can certainly say that you like one song over another, but I don't really get how you can say one song is better than another.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Richard_at_work]

CD sales havent plummetted? They havent? Really?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4566186.s tm

And to all those who say that the Music Industry needs a new business model - why should they get one? THe old one works fine when people ACTUALLY PAY for the product rather than infringing copyright and getting it off someone else. Just because people want their product for free doesnt mean their business model is broken, it simply means people will get for free whatever they can.

As a consumer, you have two choices - buy it or go without. There is no justification to the third option that people on here assume - take it anyway.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[GregWebb]

Actually, that's not how I read the post or what I feel about music as a heavy CD buyer (OK, whose tastes are more mainstream than that - http://www.last.fm/user/eftpotrm/) BUT I would say much the same - because I feel that what is being pushed as the CURRENT mainstream is largely crap.

I would counter that by saying though that there have been times when genres were pushed as part of the mainstream that weren't crap - as a rock fan, I'd have to go for the early to mid 70s, most of the 80s (though tailing off towards the end) and the mid 90s.

If the mainstream were to move from its current obsession with vacuous kiddy / frat boy pop on one hand and hip hop on the other and embrace wider genres, that'd be fine with me. What? I don't really mind. Start signing Jazz artists with greater depth than Jamie Cullam and I'll be happy. Pick up some nice blues and I'll be happy. Or some proper rock, not the current punk / rap influenced group of clones (disclaimer - Green Day have definite potential IMHO). I just can't see the appeal of hip hop (so don't really consider myself best placed to judge its artistic merit) and consider the current pop market thoroughly silly.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Shakrai]

As a consumer, you have two choices - buy it or go without. There is no justification to the third option that people on here assume - take it anyway.

As a business, you have two choices. Adapt or die. Suing your customers and buying off politicians is not a viable strategy in the long term. Of course nowadays the CEOs don't need to think long term because if they mess things up badly enough that they need to leave they will just get a fat severance package. Maybe one day shareholders will start thinking long term again instead of hoping for that huge price jump tomorrow.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Saige]

Oh, I won't stop listening to them if, by some amazing chance, they went mainstream. I don't listen to them becaues they're not mainstream - I listen to them because I like them, and they're not mainstream because they're absolutely nothing like the stuff that the big record companies are focused on, and those artists probably wouldn't appeal enough to most people to ever really be looked at by the big labels.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[soupdevil]

7% is not exactly plummeting. I didn't dispute that overall sales are down. But their costs are down by significantly more than 7%, because they are consolidating like mad, laying off thousands of employees, signing fewer artists, and releasing fewer albums. Actual sales per release are up.

BTX should die

[mal3]

I have to say I'm glad to see BTX on this list. It seems like it was developed soley to make up for the stupid amounts of heat generated by the P4, with no regard for making anything else better than ATX. How about standardizing all those case connectors into one block of plugs, or consolidating the 3 power connectors I have to hook to my motherboard. If I'm going to switch form factors, I want these obvious things taken into account.

Re:BTX should die

[TheHawke]

BTX as a attempt by Intel to corner the form factor market that had one foot in the grave even before it entered preproduction. All that they did with BTX as to flip the bloody board 180 degrees on it's Y axis. What's the big deal about that?

Intel and Dell entered into an agreement to make custom boards and backplanes where the standoffs are 2cm offset from the ATX standard, invalidating any attempt by anyone wishing to upgrade the system to a better board and chip. Talk about waste management! If the user wishes to do anything about major upgrades, they are forced to pull all the accessories save for the main board out of the case and throw it away. It's next to useless.

Re:BTX should die

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, did you just pull that comment out of your arse, or what?
BTX is NOT Intel proprietary, it is a freely-licensable formfactor just like ATX before it (see www.formfactors.org if you don't believe me). Far from attempting to "corner the formfactor market", Intel would be delighted if AMD-based motherboards appeared in BTX.
And what's all this shite about "..the standoffs are 2cm offset from the ATX standard.."? Have you even seen a BTX board? No? Well don't go spouting such rubbish, then. BTX is an attempt to significantly improve the airflow through the system case, and does this very well indeed, by putting the hottest components at the front, right behind the ambient temperature air intake. Sheesh, I really despair. You remind me of the people who, back when ATX was introduced, whinged about that, too. In fact, I seem to recall that the complaints about ATX at the time were along the same lines.. "it's an attempt by Intel to lock us into their form-factor", "Baby AT is still perfectly good enough for me".
Now, go off and read the BTX spec, then come back when you think you can talk sensibly with the grown-ups.

Re:BTX should die

[LurkerXXX]

Well, I'm an AMD fan and agree about the Intel heat machines however,..

To be fair, there are a few more changes in the BTX layout from the average ATX layout that are smart moves. If you look at the majority of ATX boards, the RAM is usually aligned vertically on the motherboard. Since in most cases, air is taken in from the front of the machine and blown out the back, the DIMMs going up and down act as a wall, preventing good airflow from the front to the back of the case. This is not a good thing. BTX makes it standard to have the memory aligned horizontally, so that air from the front of the machine blows between the DIMMS, allowing for a lot better airflow for all the RAM, not just the first DIMM it hits, as well as for other components farther back on the motherboard. That's just one example.

I much prefer cool AMD chips to Intel ovens, but that's no reason to ignore some of the real improvements to layout that BTX brings to the table, no matter which CPU you want to use on the board.

Re:BTX should die

[MtViewGuy]

The thing is that the best ATX case designs do a pretty job of system cooling. But one thing that is really helping cooling issue is the wide availability of less obstructive cabling, which really goes a long way to keep ATX cases cool; rounded ATA-100/133 IDE cables, rounded floppy disk cables, thin Serial ATA cables and modular power cable connections from the power supply are actually good trends.

The new trend is towards dramatically smaller system case designs such the XPC design pioneered by Shuttle Computer, which use a combination of heat pipe cooling and careful location of cooling fans to keep the components inside that small case decently cool.

Re:BTX should die

[coolGuyZak]

And what's all this shite about "..the standoffs are 2cm offset from the ATX standard.."? Have you even seen a BTX board?

He was talking about the Dell "ATX" mobos, actually. The mounting points for those boards are slightly divergent from the standard for ATX. I believe their intent was to force users through Dell's website for upgrades, albeit they probably justified it using other means. (I have no clue if they still operate in this manner, but it was definitely true a few years ago).

Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, exactly how have XP 64 and Gmail been failures? Both have been very successful. ESPECIALLY gmail

This article is total crap. Stop posting shit like this

Re:Uh

[karuna]

At least for me and my small scale private business Gmail has been very useful. I could say that it revolutioned my email use without actually introducing any previously unknown features. I migrated between several desktop clients -- Eudora, Outlook, The Bat, Mozilla Mail, during several years gathering incompatible archives of old mail while trying to balance webmail and POP3 client synchronization. Regardless how much I tried I lost my mail with system upgrades, while traveling, etc.

While still in beta Gmail has been more useful for me than all other systems together. Now I just forward my mail from the personal domain to my gmail account where it archives everything. It is the best interface I have ever used - quick searching, keyboard shortcuts, superb spam filtering. Now more problems with synchronizing data with laptop, just use it online always, whether at home, at office or travelling in another country.

I even use it to backup important files I work on by emailing myself. Once it got stuck and did not accepted .exe attachment -- no problem, just added the extension .xxx in 3 seconds and it went through. Threading is another option that is so useful. Anyway, the only worries I have is what will happen when I exceed my 2.5 GB quota, and judging by the rate I fill it up it will take slightly more than 1 year. I hope that by that time it will be increased or google will offer commercial versions for those who need more resources.

Re:Uh

[gasjews]

Windows XP x64 is a gigantic failure. Where are the masses of 64-bit apps? What about drivers? Sorry, they are pitiful and few.

As it stands, I can't even get 64-bit drivers for half of the devices on my Athlon64 notebook, despite it being sold to me as "64-bit ready" by HP. Hell, half of the drivers for 32-bit Windows haven't been updated for over 1.5 years (my mistake for buying HP, won't do it again!).

The average desktop user doesn't need 64-bits. Maybe when software becomes so bloated that the minimum reccomended RAM for a PC is 10GB it will catch on. Otherwise, it was premature. Hell, Intel still makes processors that are only 32-bit.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of IMAP email accounts (servers)?

If you can hookup a good client (Thunderbird, etc) to an IMAP server, then you will have everything - folders, searching, and other features.

I'm still having a hard time understanding what's the big deal about gmail.
All that extra space will simply lead to chaos, and email abuse.

People need to be forced to keep their stuff in order, otherwise they won't even bother; next thing people will start bitching about too much email, and someone will advocate for some super-duper AI to solve the problem, and that will be another "trend".

List is Windows-Centered

[EccentricAnomaly]

- The BTX Form Factor

I'm writing this on a powermac now with the same sort of cooling system...

  - High-Definition Video on the PC

this one looks like it's only delayed... the content is now showing up on iTunes... and since it looks like it's going to be very successful, it's only
a matter of time before they offer HD too. ...maybe on the MacIntosh New Year in two weeks

  - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)

  - iPod Competitors Emerge

What's so wrong with the iPod that they're wishing for competitors. None of the competitors really care about mac users, so why should I care about their products? And why do we want WMV to win the DRM battle? And why is the iPod entry level?

ExtremeTech my ass. more like WhatTheGuysWorkingAtBestBuyThinkIsExtremeTech

Shit I wanna see the Mac user list of top ten disappointments....

10. Market share still sucks
9. iPod still can't do bluetooth
8. Market share is what 3% or something now
7. Turns out the G5 wasn't a supercomputer on a chip
6. No Civ IV
5. Have to wait more than 3 months for 10.5
4. Mac mini turned out not do have anything to do with Tivo
3. Damn, that market share sucks
2. OS X still can't read minds
1. Fucking market share

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>6. No Civ IV

since crippling copy-protection means that even legitimate versions don't work, that's not so bad.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Blakey Rat]

Top 10 OS X disappointments?

How about:

1) Finder's crappy UI. (Even worse with Spotlight... ugh!)
2) Finder crashing.
3) Apple products (like DVD Player.app) stealing focus away from my typing, constantly, and not being fixed after years and years.
4) iSync somehow *losing* support for my Motorola v180 when upgraded.
5) A bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.

Yes, I know OS 9 sucked. But at least the Finder in OS 9 had a good UI and didn't crash all the time.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[nxtw]

Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)

It's not completely 64-bit. It's capable of running 64-bit software on a capable CPU, but much of the OS is still 32-bit. I believe you can't have 64-bit software that uses the GUI.

The current Intel OS X builds are 32-bit. Assuming Apple is indeed going to be shipping Yonah-based notebooks, this won't change (as Yonah does not support EM64T/x64.)

Compare this to the x64 versions of Windows XP/2003, which are actually 64-bit, use 64-bit drivers, etc., and can run 32-bit and 64-bit GUI software simultaneously. The shell (explorer.exe) is 64-bit, as is most of the OS software (notepad, all the services, etc.) Both 32- and 64-bit versions of IE and Win Media Player are included, for compatibility with old codecs/plugins/etc. You can run a 64-bit Internet Explorer and a 32-bit Firefox simultaneously with no issues.
Still, just about every program I use is 32-bit only or runs the same way in 32- and 64-bit.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[shawb]

10. Market share still sucks
This really only affects no. 6: the selection for games isn't all that hot.

9. iPod still can't do bluetooth
Why would you want your iPod to do bluetooth? transfering music at 2-12 MB/s would be painfully slow compared to Firewire or even USB2.0. And that wire you plug in? It recharges the iPod. Unless you want to transfer the music FROM the iPod via bluetooth, which means it has to be compressed far enough to push it through that little pipe: yuck. That leaves... a bluetooth remote control. Yippie, that would be SOOO useful.

8. Market share is what 3% or something now
See number 10.

7. Turns out the G5 wasn't a supercomputer on a chip
Have no comment, as I'm not really a mac hardware guy.

6. No Civ IV
Yes, Macs have been known to lack on games, especially since Bungie has been drawn over to "The Dark Side." I thought the macintosh was a hip and trendy tool for getting stuff done, not a toy for playing games. Games go in the living room, not the office.

5. Have to wait more than 3 months for 10.5
How long do Windows users have to wait till Vista? Will there actually be any new features?

4. Mac mini turned out not do have anything to do with Tivo
I thought it was just a little Macintosh. Taking the iMac concept without the builtin monitor. Perfect for a living room media box (play mp3s you downloaded^H^H^H... err... AACs purchased from iTunes.

3. Damn, that market share sucks
So... are YOU happy using your Mac? Now you get to gloat over being exclusive and not part of the unwashed masses. Besides, I really doubt Macintosh as a single company would be able to consistantly handle production of such a high volume of computers and maintain such tight integration of their hardware while keeping prices reasonable. PCs are primarilly so ubiquitous because of all the different companies offering piecemeal upgrades to individual components: this really doesn't fit into the Apple perspective of tight integration between hardware and software (I've never seen driver hell on an Apple like I have on a PC.)

2. OS X still can't read minds
I suppose you have a point there.

1. Fucking market share
Tell me, how do you really feel about Apple's market share? I think you're holding back. Oh, and regarding iPod competitors emerge:
eh. again, I felt the article was saying that the tight integration between iTunes and the iPod made it a winning combination. It was the video aspect that they felt was entry level, and the author didn't even specifically say that it was entry level for portable video players, could have meant video players in general (probably stretching here.) I have no experience or authority to comment on this feeling, as I generally think that portable movies are a bit too extravagant. But they also felt that, unlike the WMV versions, the iPod video is not painful to use.

But yeah, whenever the author mentioned Apple, it seemed to be saying "Hey PC industry, you're doing this all wrong. Look how Apple did it." Oh, and it makes sense to be PCcentric since the website is modder/gamer focused which, sorry to say, falls mostly outside the realm of Mac enthusiasts. probably because 1)Macs are generally built to be less user servicable 2)macs are already designed to look nice and 3)Well, let's refer to point number 6 that you made. There's not a whole lot of video games on a Mac. But fear not, because I feel that those used to the macintosh Aesthetic would be pleased playing video games on this. I mean... color scheme, simple layout, and that controller just screams "think different." And you know the Revolution will have Mario Kart, and that Macintosh people actually would have friends to play it with. And imagine the realism if they would import the fishing mini-game from Zelda Ocarina of time to the Revolution.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[(H)elix1]

>>9. iPod still can't do bluetooth

Why would you want your iPod to do bluetooth?

Headphones. Wireless headphones. Possibly link to a bluetooth car audio system as well rather than some rf modulator.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[shawb]

Yeah, after looking into it that would probably be enough bandwith for decent sound. Especially considering the source is going to be compressed anyways. But I thought the white cables was part of the "iPod chic." Especially if you wear all black.

Offtopic, but one of my friends dressed as an iPod commercial thing for halloween. Man, that was creepy. She literally blended into the shadows, as her clothing was black and all exposed skin was painted black. I'd be talking to someone else, and all of a sudden she was just there right next to me.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[maglor_83]

How long do Windows users have to wait till Vista? Will there actually be any new features?

Well that depends on whether you consider it a bug or a feature :D

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[EccentricAnomaly]

I believe you can't have 64-bit software that uses the GUI.

You can use the 32-bit GUI libraries by threading your app. If you're writing performance code, you should have threaded your app a log time ago.

Compare this to the x64 versions of Windows XP/2003, which are actually 64-bit, use 64-bit drivers, etc., and can run 32-bit and 64-bit GUI software simultaneously. The shell (explorer.exe) is 64-bit, as is most of the OS software (notepad, all the services, etc.) Both 32- and 64-bit versions of IE and Win Media Player are included, for compatibility with old codecs/plugins/etc. You can run a 64-bit Internet Explorer and a 32-bit Firefox simultaneously with no issues.

Why do any of those things need to be 64-bit? Notepad? IE? How could those ever need more than 4 GB of memory?

The main use for 64-bit is for scientists doing number crunching. And Tiger does that... not perfect, in that some libraries are still 32-bit. But 10.5 is promised to be fully 64-bit so that will get rid of annoyances of having to do work-arounds for 32-bit libraries. (A 64-bit app can still use 32-bit libraries, it's just a bit of a pain)

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[nxtw]

You can use the 32-bit GUI libraries by threading your app. If you're writing performance code, you should have threaded your app a log time ago.

It's not quite that easy. It's one thing to have a threaded, single process application; it's another thing to require two separate processes and use IPC between them.

Why do any of those things need to be 64-bit? Notepad? IE? How could those ever need more than 4 GB of memory?

They don't. But the entire OS, minus the 32-bit parts used to execute 32-bit software, is compiled for 64-bit. And it runs 32-bit software just fine.

The main use for 64-bit is for scientists doing number crunching. And Tiger does that... not perfect, in that some libraries are still 32-bit.

Some? Try libSystem & some math binaries.

But 10.5 is promised to be fully 64-bit so that will get rid of annoyances of having to do work-arounds for 32-bit libraries. (A 64-bit app can still use 32-bit libraries, it's just a bit of a pain)

Sure, you can do just about anything with fancy IPC.

If the rumors are indeed true and Apple will be shipping 32-bit only Intel CPUs, Apple will eventually have mixed 32/64 bit software on Intel.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Anonymous Coward]

but one of my friends dressed as an iPod commercial thing for halloween. Man, that was creepy. She literally blended into the shadows, as her clothing was black and all exposed skin was painted black.

You have a friend...that's a girl?! What are you doing on /.?!

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I'm using Vista right now, but I suppose I might be the exception.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[ChaosDiscord]

"9. iPod still can't do bluetooth" "Why would you want your iPod to do bluetooth?"

You seem to have overlooked the obvious one: bluetooth headphones. Not earth shatteringly useful, but it would be pretty cool. And conceivably you could use the same set of bluetooth headphones for both your cell phone and your ipod.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[EccentricAnomaly]

It's not quite that easy. It's one thing to have a threaded, single process application; it's another thing to require two separate processes and use IPC between them.

It's not so bad if you use Cocoa and NSTask

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[LoRdTAW]

I will say one thing and that is SCREW EXTREMETECH. My reason is more personal and OT but hell I will tell it anyway. Few years back at PC Expo here in NYC Extremetech had a booth. They were offering a top of the line athlon PC to the winner of a contest. All you had to do was stand in line. Well the would-be contestants (including myself) all lined up for a chance. The slots quickly filled up and unfortunately I did not get a spot. The Extremetech staff then made the following announcement "There will be absolutely no more entries today come back tomorrow at 10am sharp for a chance". The contest was simple, a bare pc case with motherboard and power supply was given to each contestant along with ram, video card hdd etc. You then assembled all the parts as fast as you could and if the pc properly booted to windows 98 you won. Well the next day came and I was about number 13 on the line. After number 12 was given his slot the staff then informed the rest of us in line that the contest was now closed. Closed? Most of the people in line including myself asked why it closed so soon. The extreme tech guy then said that later on yesterday they started taking in more contestants. When I got home me and my brother put together a near exact setup they had on stage. My time in assembling was 1:46. The next day the winner's time was about 2:30 and was not only awarded the new fancy Athlon system but also a trip to California to appear on TechTV.

Yea I sound bitter but the people in line and I was all lied to due to there poor management. Plus the guy who won was a cocky prick (everyone in the crowd watching wanted to punch him).
Mod me down if you like but I am just telling my little story.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Carewolf]

Don't blame sloppy and right out bad programming on copy-protection.

Even with a NoDVD fixed 1.09 it was very unstable. After upgrading to 1.52 and using the DVD again, it is still unstable, but less so than under the fixed 1.09.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[The Spoonman]

Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)

And, has performance not even comparable to a 6-year old 32-bit Intel-based Windows box. I speak, of course, of the 1.33Ghz Powerbook I bought summer before last to replace the 1Ghz PIII machine I'd been using for years. Aside from the clunky, overly-moused based interface that made it too difficult to edit documents without having to reach for the rat every 3.5 seconds, I got rid of it because the performance was ABYSMAL! I sold it for half what I paid for it, and was glad to get rid of it at that cost.

What's so wrong with the iPod that they're wishing for competitors. None of the competitors really care about mac users, so why should I care about their products? And why do we want WMV to win the DRM battle? And why is the iPod entry level?

Well, let's see...over-priced, poorly manufactured, undersized and lacking of features above and beyond just playing MP3s. The only two reasons people buy iPods is to 1) perpetuate the cult of mac and 2) image. Everyone else buys a creative zen and laughs at their ipod-wielding friends.

10. Market share still sucks

There's only so much recruitment any cult can do before they start running into intelligent people who know better.

9. iPod still can't do bluetooth

Considering how useless bluetooth is for large file transfers, I'm surprised at this, too.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[jonadab]

> Notepad? IE? How could those ever need more than 4 GB of memory?

As for Notepad, have you ever tried to edit a 6GB text file? (Granted, Notepad is *not* what I would use for any serious editing job in any case...) As for IE, ... well, okay, so let's imagine that IE got improved to the point where you could actually use it as your regular web browser. In that case, you could have half a dozen IE windows each with 20-30 tabs open, and you could leave some of those windows open for weeks on end and, yeah, I could see it potentially reaching 4GB of memory then, especially with cacheing and prefetching.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[EccentricAnomaly]

As for Notepad, have you ever tried to edit a 6GB text file?

vi can open files of any size because it caches to disk and only has part in memory. I've opened text files of hundreds of gigabytes in vi on a 32-bit computer with only 64 MB memory. And you can get vi for windows, and I'm sure there are many other editors available for windows that handle large files properly.

As for IE, ... well, okay, so let's imagine that IE got improved to the point where you could actually use it as your regular web browser. In that case, you could have half a dozen IE windows each with 20-30 tabs open, and you could leave some of those windows open for weeks on end and, yeah, I could see it potentially reaching 4GB of memory then, especially with cacheing and prefetching.

I do this sort of thing all of the time with (32-bit) Safari on a computer with 1 GB of memory. It uses virtual memory to page out parts of memory to disk. I'd guess IE does the same thing.

Let me ask another question... how many people with 64-bit computers do you think have more than 4 MB installed? Not many I'd guess since that much memory is rather pricey. And if you don't have that much memory you don't need the 64 bits.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[jonadab]

> > As for Notepad, have you ever tried to edit a 6GB text file?
> vi can open files of any size because it caches to disk and only has part in memory

Notepad, as I'm sure you're aware, is not vi.

> And you can get vi for windows

So, to clarify, are you saying that because it is possible to obtain *other* software for Windows, that therefore Windows should not ship with a text editor that can edit large files? Perhaps there is no reason for Notepad to be included at all?

> I do this sort of thing all of the time with (32-bit) Safari on a computer with 1 GB
> of memory. It uses virtual memory to page out parts of memory to disk. I'd guess IE
> does the same thing.

Now I think you may be (if I understand what you're saying) confusing physical memory with address space. I don't *think* you're implying that each application should handle virtual memory management itself (rather than having the OS do this), although it sort of sounds that way in the above-quoted paragraph. Either way, though, whether the app does the virtual memory management or whether, as is more usual, the OS handles that, the address size still limits how much memory, real or virtual, can be addressed. If the hardware and kernel are 64-bit, therefore, it makes sense for applications such as web browsers also to be 64-bit.

Save some clicks

[technoviper]

Here is a link to the print version of the article, less clicks and only one ad! http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =168194,00.asp

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you have a Gmail address? If so, raise your hand. Ah, good, there are a few. Now, do you use your Gmail account as your primary account to actually send and receive mail? Riiigghhht, most of you put your hands down."

What? I use mine as my primary. I started using it instantly, anything to get away from Hotmails festering retardation and spamnonfiltering. I know lots of people who use it as their primary. Its perfect for primary use, huge capacity, fast, great interface, and despite the Beta ive had no issues.

But this guy thinks FLAC on a portable player is a great idea. Hey, if you work and commute in an area where you are going to be able to hear the improvement over a pair of headphones, all the power to you. Till then ill take small size/large capacity.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

FLAC on portable will be great, when we have 160gb iPods

How about the N-Gage?

[Toxicgonzo]

The N-Gage was a complete failure, and is in fact a joke among gamers. For instance, on the gamefaqs board you can insult someone's intelligence by saying "You bought an N-Gage didn't you?" Recently there was a topic posted on the boards whose title was "I...got...an...NGAGE...for...Christmas". The topic got over 250 responses (most topics don't get more than 20) nearly all of which were other users who wrote "LOL" or some form of condolense.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=1 1198

Re:How about the N-Gage?

[TheHawke]

N-Gage was a disaster by design. You could not pull the chip without pulling the battery. When you did this, you pretty much lost all of your scores and saved games that were on the phones NVRAM.

Re:How about the N-Gage?

[pappy97]

The N-Gage was the bust of 2003, perhaps 2004, but NOT 2005! http://ngage.ign.com/articles/453/453629p1.html

pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

BTX form factor? didn't it just come out? it's a good form factor, but in this age of reusing old and outdated inventories to keep the prices down it'll take a year or two for BTX to be accepted. (just like not all cars have side-impact airbags...)

HD video for PC? I'm on a mac, with broadband, so I enjoy HD trailers all the time. Works on PCs too. The problem is not in HD or PCs, the problem is in the low DVD resolution. Once HighDef video discs come about it'll be better. (720p pr0n torrents are pretty popular)

HD optical drives? they haven't even started selling them. WTF?

GMail? sure, it doesn't give you a BJ every time a new message comes in, but otherwise it's pretty nice. (Quick & Dirty)

Dual Grapics Cards? most macs can support 2 displays on the existing card. Windows users can't seem to think that browser tabs are a good thing, why would they want dual displays? (Sure, 2 graphics cards can still work on a single display and share the load, but people who need that, apart from gamers, already have Macs...)

Anyway, I'm not trolling, it's just not a very well thought out list.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Agarax]

Dual Grapics Cards? most macs can support 2 displays on the existing card.

ALL modern graphics cards have dual output (three if you include S-Video).

You use dual graphics cards (SLI) for GAMING.

Thank you for trying to sound smart!

Re:pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

S-Video?
I think someone sold you some spoiled Kool-aid.
Learn about resolutions before you start bashing.
I think you kids are actually scared of OS X... but hey, keep on gaming while the rest of us are making money... keep your mom proud.

Re:pretty stupid list

[(H)elix1]

Dual Grapics Cards?

The article was talking about two video cards used in tandem to power (usually) a single display. On the Nvidia side of the fence, this was SLI. ATI calls it crossfire (or something like that). The idea is you can link two cards like you could back in the voodoo days - possibly with the thought to buy one card now, and add another linked to it when you need to bump the performance. This was very much geared to a very small group of gamers who had $600x2 just burning a hole in their pocket. I'd call it a failure as the 6600/6800 series cards can game reasonably well and the price differential between a second card and the latest greatest is not large enough to matter.

Windows has been able to do the dual monitor thing since the 98 days. Can't imagine living without multiple displays.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up and you tell me who was drinking the Kool-aid.

• Dual Link
• SLI

Hint, it's you.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

yeah, didn't s3 do something like that way way back. or was it matrox? i think you pretty much nailed it, it was geared to gamers with a burning hole in the pocket. doomed from the start.
i didn't get a chance to read the article, since it was poorly formatted and between me and you, I had a couple of beers in me, so I was just bitching about the article.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

do you kids even read the fucking posts, or do they all look the same to you from all your spyware and virus monitors, xp tweaks, and custom registry hacks? wtf do either of your links have to do with S-Video?

Re:pretty stupid list

[blincoln]

yeah, didn't s3 do something like that way way back. or was it matrox?

3dfx. The Voodoo2 I think was the only model that supported it.

Re:pretty stupid list

[(H)elix1]

Heh. Think it was matrox. I cheated and read the 'print' version. You are not the only one drinking tonight. (grin) Getting pasted pretty bad in Counter Strike - way to much time to browse /. between rounds....

Stupid money some people spend for a few more fps... I don't get it.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Cunk]

What does S-Video have to do with resolutions?

He mentioned S-Video originally because some video cards offer that as an output option.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

hehe, good ol' CS. I myself had spent much of my time on team fortress for HL, though now I am mostly an ET player. quite excited about the new quake wars ET coming out, especially since quake 4 ran nicely on my old ti4200 card.

I think at some point people just realize how much an extra fps is worth... i think that point is when they start paying for rent and utilities:)

Re:pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

What does S-Video have to do with resolutions?
apparently nothing. I stand corrected. I've only used svideo to connect to TVs.
my bad.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Solosoft]

3DFX Voodoo 5 supports it

I have the box sitting here beside me it has 2 166MHz chips and 2 32mb RAM modules. Of course using SLI you link those up and the card becomes a 322MHz 64mb beast. Of course the card is noisey, power hungry (one of the first to have a molex plug on it) and runs like a furnace. I still use it too on my PII 350MHz, does a good job at basic 2D and some small 3D work.

I believe nvidia bought the SLI technology when they aquired 3Dfx (if im not mistaking). Of course if anyone else knows they could nicely inform :)

Oh yeah that thing is frickin HUGE

Long Live 3Dfx

Re:pretty stupid list

[blincoln]

Hah, wow. I have one of those in my current machine, because my Geforce4 burned itself up. Maybe I should find another and enable ultimate Glide power. I could play Jet Moto and Myth at resolutions and framerates too high for mortals to bear.

Re:pretty stupid list

[deaddrunk]

I'm confused by what you're saying about dual graphics cards. The card in my XP/Linux box quite happily does two displays from the one card.

Re:pretty stupid list

[jonadab]

> BTX form factor? didn't it just come out?

ISTR that this is not the first year it "just" came out and also not the first year that was going to be the year BTX completely took over. I suspect 2005 will not be the last year that BTX fails to gain any significant traction in the market. Fundamentally, the considerations are like this. On the one hand, there's a major tech company or two that likes BTX and wants it to be the industry standard. On the other hand, the benefits are minor, and nobody else cares, least of all consumers, and most of the big OEMs would just as soon stick with the existing industry standard. I don't know if this reminds *you* of anything, but it makes *me* think of the MicroChannel expansion bus which, year after year, relentlessly, continued to *not* take over the expansion bus market.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Agarax]

It's all good.

It might help, though, if you keep in mind the fact that very little of what's in a Mac is unique to the line. All the important parts, are infact, standard PC gear. Video cards, RAM, hard drives, ect.

Thus my comment had nothing to do with OSX, and the comments about 'regestry hacks' were especially uncalled for as I'm a Linux user.

Tech Trends?

[ddx Christ]

Tech Trends or some guy's rant? I'd say the latter. The article came off as a person's complaints, a rant more than any actual trends in technology. He just stated things he disliked, and gave some [very little] reasons why. The entire time I was reading it, I just kept thinking: "This guy is just upset because things don't happen instantly. What an impatient..." And that's the jist of it. 64-bit Windows? It'd take a lot to convert everyone and everything to 64-bit overnight. The majority is 32-bit, and will most likely remain 32-bit for a while. It takes time to adapt; especially when it comes to developing for a minority. In the future, what he hopes for will probably come true, but it certainly won't happen tomorrow.

Gmail is fine. You get an invite (there are plenty), set up your account, and bam: sufficient, appealing interface that's quick and easy to use. Nothing complicated, nothing fancy: it just works. Some aspects can be improved, and that's the entire point of beta. Granted, I too think it's odd that more and more products just say "beta" as some sort of defense against bugs. Nothing's perfect, but things will improve. I use it frequently, but I also use Thunderbird along with my server's e-mail. In the end, I like gmail for the quick and easy things, a hurried message or two.

All in all, this article is baseless. I can throw my opinions out with little research too. I wouldn't expect anyone to take me seriously, either. Maybe an agreement or two, but c'mon. This article is fairly pointless.

Satellite - XM Radio

[wing03]

Quick poll...

How many folks here are actually subscribing or thinking about subscribing to XM radio?

There's alot of marketing hype in my area in Canada right now.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[MightyMartian]

I have absolutely no interest in it at all. I know here in Western Canada we're getting bombarded, but I really could care less. This smells too much like "satellite TV is so great" crap that was spewed out way-back-when, and everyone ended up having fifty channels with the same damn shows.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[garyozzy]

I have Sirius

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[XFilesFMDS1013]

First of all, to whoever modded the parent OT, you're wrong. That said...

I would like to, but at the same time, I don't want to pay that much simply to listen to a couple of stations and nothing else on it. Sure, they've hired Stern, but still, thats not enough for me. To the people who tell me that no commercials are the best thing ever, well, news for you, I'm using a cassette adapter to play my CD's in my car, no commercials and exactly the music I want. So yes, XM was a hyped product of 2005.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[Anonymous Coward Gra]

I have XM and love it. Many music channels with no commericals. Got it with my new car. I never listen to regualr radio for past 6 months.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[Mr2001]

XM has about 5 million subscribers, and Sirius now has 3 million (thanks to Howard Stern). That's pretty significant.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[geekoid]

not really.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes really.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[Just Some Guy]

I had a Sirius receiver that I used for work and long road trips. My wife loved it so much that she got a second receiver to leave in her car for the driving she has to do for her job.

It really depends on what you have available over-the-air. I had 5 ClearChannel Pop stations, 2 CC Country stations, NPR, and a few talk channels. I couldn't stand what they played, so I pay a little each month for programming that I actually enjoy.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[wing03]

Offtopic?

I'm a little confused?

Should I have written something about how I thought they missed adding XM radio to the list of "failed technology trends"?

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[wing03]

My bad.... I thought XM was the generic name (like AM and FM, as opposed to a brand of Satellite radio) That may be the case but is it worth it? There are about 4 stations I listen to while living in a large metropolitan area (Toronto). All news and traffic radio, 24 hour Jazz, local university and some version of the CBC if I'm desperate. There's alot more choice than that around here. As far as commercials go, yes, they do serve a purpose and especially on the all news channel, some things have gotten my attention. As far as satellite radio goes, my attitude is "why, when there's already this much on the air?" $10 to $12 / month is what it appears to cost and I'd bet they're thinking that portion of the population who maintain CC balances wouldn't notice it whether they listened to satellite radio or not.

Re:Satellite - XM Radio

[Mr2001]

I happily pay $12.95 a month for Sirius. It's great to have commercial free music, but more importantly, there are a ton of stations with content I just can't get from local radio. Electronic (trance, big beat, chill), alternative, new wave, 90s, stand-up comedy, reggae, old rap, liberal talk, international news... the list goes on. And on long road trips, it's nice not to have to hunt for new stations as the old ones go out of range.

I haven't been a fan of local FM radio since my favorite stations got bought out and switched to crappy formats, though. I don't see satellite radio as an alternative to terrestrial radio, because I wouldn't be listening to that anyway - I see it as an alternative to downloading music and burning CDs. I thought about setting up internet radio in my car, but the cellular data charges would've been far more than $12.95/month.

damn it,I even proof read and still got an extra 1

[geekoid]

damn.
Obvioulsy it's supposed to be 10% not 110%.

Is this for real?

[wesw02]

First of all, I didn't see a name on that article, thats probably for the better, the author seems to be wining about dumb stuff and not looking at the big picture. First of all, any where who has a gmail account knows that it is pretty fantastic, the filtering features, the labeling features, and the size of the email box are all +'s, anyone who takes the time to complain about it being hard to attach a file shouldn't be writing an article like this in the first place.

Secondly, what's wrong with SLI, This page appears to state mostly his opinions about it and not actual facts that support it being on this list.

Thirdly, this whole article is just enraging, theres not very many facts at all, its just mostly his opinion of stuff.

Like hell it's still a beta

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Writing "beta" on something doesn't make it a beta test version. The term "beta test" has a pretty specific meaning in software development, though sadly few people remember what it is and why it's important these days.

If you release a piece of software to the general public and charge for it (as in Microsoft) then it's not a beta, it's a product. If you advertise a web service widely and get loads of people to use it routinely (as in Google) then it's not a beta, it's a live service.

The use of "beta" on everything, even things you're treating as a real product in all other respects, is just the latest meaningless buzzword, and a pathetic attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the quality of your product or service. It will sting Microsoft and Google alike soon enough, as neither customer opinion nor (if applicable) commercial partners or courts ruling on disagreements will give it much weight.

Re:Like hell it's still a beta

[Anonymous Coward]

if you advertise a web service widely and get loads of people to use it routinely (as in Google) then it's not a beta, it's a live service.

I have the firm impression that Google said clearly that their service was in testing, but I may be wrong, of course. Anyway, can you post a link to the advertisements, please?

Re:Like hell it's still a beta

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Perhaps you could visit the GMail home page and tell us where on that page you found an indication that it was under test?

If I asked my many non-techie friends who have GMail accounts what the significance of the word "beta" under the main logo was, how many of them do you think would know? If the answer isn't "all of them" then Google's marketing has misled someone, or at best they haven't corrected a false impression given by someone else. That is not the mark of a public test programme.

He missed one...

[rewt66]

SCO

'Nuff said.

Yeah, no one wants compressed audio

[PunkXRock]

High Fidelity Digital Audio

Really? This failed? When was it ever supposed to take off? But ok, let's assume this was The Next Big Thing a while back.

While a scant few players do support lossless compression formats (mostly FLAC), lossless formats are generally unavailable for portable players.

Again, really? Every new iPod (save the Shuffle) supports Apple Lossless and AIFF/WAV. Every iPod ever made supports AIFF/WAV. Maybe I'm missing something here, but when, I dunno, 75% or more the portable media players out there (that is, iPods) support lossless, it's tough to say "scant few".

Now, maybe he's talking about the iTunes Music Store, which sells only compressed AAC files. There's an argument to be made there, but it's not the argument he's making.

As the storage capacity of these players increases, the designers seem to think you want to watch tiny video, rather than listen to clean, pristine, losslessly compressed music. So we get ten gazillion songs in 128KB format, rather than a few hundred encoded with lossless compression.

Yeah, and with how poorly the iPod sells, it's clear that these "designers" are idiots. Or maybe this one writer is making his own personal interest into a much bigger story than it is. No, no, that can't be it - Apple is doomed!

The iPod *does* support lossless format.

[javajosh]

In particular, the iPod supports Apple Lossless format - I'm listening to it right now, in fact.

Startup iTunes
Select menu Edit | Preferences
Click tab Importing
Set Import Using: "Apple Lossless"

With insightful rhetoric like that

[porkchop_d_clown]

it's a wonder anyone bothers to oppose your erudition.

On the other hand, you my notice that XP64 was late and has minimal market penetration and that GMail is, as the article noted, still in beta after being release ages ago.

So, guess what - as tech trends for 2005 neither lived up to their own hype.

Re:With insightful rhetoric like that

[Anonymous Coward]

The amusing thing is that Microsoft never generated hype about Windows XP x64. They kept quiet about it and toiled slowly behind closed doors. They knew it would be an explosive leap. They knew, and announced many times, that driver support would be very lax out of the gate. Shit, most of that time that we sat waiting and bitching MS was trying to get vendors to make drivers.

We created our own hype and now we're bitching that the product didn't live up to it. Microsoft's stance on 64-bit computing has been for years that it is a niche market for now, and they're correct. Having the OS means little if there are few drivers and virtually no applications. And very few applications really benefit from being 64-bit anyway. MS poised WinXP64 to the workstation market. They have released VC++ for x64, .NET for x64 and SQL Server for x64. They're ready for the market, but the market has to arive on it's own. Until then, it's a niche.

Of course the editorial does mention that the hype fault is their own.

Re:The list of tech trends that never go out of st

[Urusai]

I don't know--hardly anyone is still talking about Duke Nukem Whenever anymore. That doesn't mean vaporware will die, but once people get used to it, it's no longer a "trend", it's just business as usual.

I have one thing to say:

[MsGeek]

I ***HATE*** earbuds.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

They *hurt*. They fall out of your ears. They focus sound all wrong.

Give me a good set of headphones and nobody gets hurt.

Besides, those pasty white regulation iPod earbuds are an open invite to theft for those so inclined. If I have a big clunky set of headphones attached to anything, be it my Mini Disc player or a future iPod or whatever, it's not obvious what I'm listening to. I might even be some sort of looney wearing them to fend off the evil radiation from the Computer Gangster God Control or whatever. I suspect that my insistence on cans would save my ass and my property.

Death before earbuds. Maybe quite literally.

Re:I have one thing to say:

[geekoid]

I agree. I got rid of my earbuds and use an aging, but nice sounding headset.
Bonus, they keep my ears warm on the way to work.

Re:I have one thing to say:

[iainl]

I used to think it, but I really don't buy that argument any more. The decent cans that I see most iPod owners replacing their stock earbuds with cost about as much as a Shuffle anyway (sometimes a fair bit more), so Apple phones no longer scream 'expensive player' to me.

64-bit windows

[NerveGas]

64-bit windows mainly failed because of lack of driver support. I don't run it on my dual Opteron because I can't find drivers for a few key pieces of hardware, and the same has been said by a lot of users of Opterons and Athlon64s.

  Interestingly enough, one of the few desktop apps that really need 64-bit support right now is Photoshop - yet even if Adobe had made CS2 a 64-bit application, printers are one of the largest areas where 64-bit drivers are simply not available.

steve

Re:64-bit windows

[dangitman]

yet even if Adobe had made CS2 a 64-bit application, printers are one of the largest areas where 64-bit drivers are simply not available.

Well, Photoshop on Mac supports 64-bit memory-handling, I'm not sure if takes advantage of it in any other ways, though. But what's with this notion of needing new drivers for a 64-bit processor? Isn't it the job of the Operating System to create an abstraction layer between applications and the hardware? Shouldn't the OS take care of that without needing different drivers?

Re:64-bit windows

[NerveGas]

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/320005.html

CS2 is still a 32-bit app, both on the PC and the Mac, and can't thus can't use more than 4 gigs - in fact, it won't use more than about 3, because right about in there is the limit as to what the OS can hand it, with the exact amount depending on hardware as well as running software. You can try to enable a 3-gig split on XP with SP2, but Photoshop itself is still 32-bit, and has the inherant memory-allocation limitations. Considering the mathematical nature of what Photoshop does, I would imagine that working in 64-bit could also give a noticeable performance boost.

While the OS can run 32-bit and 64-bit apps on an A64, current 64-bit versions of windows require 64-bit drivers. I don't believe that a 64-bit program (the kernel) can use code from a 32-bit DLL, as you'd be switching the same program between 64- and 32-bit modes in the middle of execution. Of course, I could be wrong.

steve

Gmail a failed tech trend?

[dogbreathcanada]

Gmail a failed tech trend? What? As far as I can tell it's been wildly successful. Everyone I know who uses it, has been slowly moving all their email capabilities to it. For the past few months I've been forwarding all my email from all my various accounts to my Gmail account. I haven't opened Outlook Express in a couple months. Sure, it takes a little while to get used to Gmail, but I found that the more I used it, the more intuitive it was as an email service. The labeling is far better than the directory/folder paradigms from other email systems. I prefer it's filtering structure. The search functionality is the best I've come across (which you'd expect from Google). So, Gmail a failed tech trend? I think not. Hell, Gmail sort of launched the new AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) tech trend (or if you want to argue over the semantics of "launched", at least brought AJAX into the forefront of web development). Besides, how can any email service be considered a trend?

Re:Gmail a failed tech trend?

[wesw02]

well put :), couldn't agree more, the filters that gmail offers are also, I have 3 different email addresses forwarding to my gmail one, and they all go in to seperate labels and automatically archieve, gmail filters rock :).

Re:Gmail a failed tech trend?

[stormy78]

I have to agree here. I love Gmail. It's one of the best. The only thing I hate about it is failed attempts at blocking spam.

Re:Gmail a failed tech trend?

[40000]

I use Gmail as my main email account, with everything else forwarding to it. It does the job for me because 99% of my mail isn't personal (mailing lists that also have a web view of their messages) so I'm not too bothered about what happens to it.
It gives me a good way to manage email (I just forget about what isn't on the first page of messages, even though there are 8000 in my inbox after 15 months).
I think one of the reasons that Gmail hasn't got a bigger share of the email market is that many people stick with their old email system because it doesn't support forwarding to another address, and they can't be bothered setting up the POP access. Most people I know aren't interested in me sending them a Gmail invite and even if they accept one, the account ends up neglected.

New Lo Fi

[amcdiarmid]

In an old rattely car, the advantage of Hi-Fi is drowned out by the wind/engine/exaust. I mean, really: If I drop the top on my 91 Miata, no way am I going to hear fidelity. Not even with the top up.

Now for Hi-Fi, How about the Zahlman flower? (Top Ten List of stuff: Quiet PC's)

No lossless audio?

[supabeast!]

From the (lame) article:
"While a scant few players do support lossless compression formats (mostly FLAC), lossless formats are generally unavailable for portable players."

iTunes and the iPod support lossless AAC encoding, which is comparable in size to FLAC. Given iPod's status as the market leader ever since its introduction, it seems like a safe assumption that many, if not the majority of digital media player owners have the option of using lossless compression.

Re:Suck My Dong

[Tibor the Hun]

wow, you do have karma to roast, i'll give you that.

Oooh, Shiny!

[ColdWetDog]

Notepad is a 64 bit application?

Sign me up!

printer-friendly

[mnemonic_]

Try viewing the printer-friendly page while using a hosts file.

You know...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy the Gmail bit. You can just rename any forbidden extensions in Gmail and it'll pass inspection... For example, I tried sending a ZIP file with a few DLLs and EXEs - Gmail wouldn't let me. Renamed the .zip to .zip.rename, and it worked fine. Just rename it again on the other end.

The man is a shill.

[twitter]

He makes a jab at the iPod by talking about how larger capacity players add video capability, while ignoring fidelity by not offering lossless.

The article is full of hype driven and M$ friendly contradictions. He claims to use FLAC and says that nothing else will do for him. Me wonders where he gets better than CD quality Audio. Two pages later he recommends formats for the hoy-palloy:

To be fair, Microsoft's WMA standard has a lot going for it. The audio quality of WMA files is generally pretty good, and the DRM can be pretty flexible.

Sure. Windoze is good enough for you, so suck it and that DRM up. Like that's advice I want.

You will both have to excuse me while I avoid all of that BS by running Debian from ARM to 64bit and beyond. OGG too can be lossless, but I can't tell the difference and don't bother. Apple is beautiful and works, but my freedom is more important to me.

Re:The man is a shill.

[dwandy]

Forward to marketing departments:

I've got a digital music adapter upstairs in my house which can stream music from my PC to my living room audio system. It works great, but that assumes I have my PC turned on. This is silly, since I have an always-on, network attached storage device. The good old bugaboo, DRM, prevents the digital music adapter from streaming music directly from the NAS device. In fact, even if my PC is running, Windows Media Connect doesn't allow network shares to be streamed, despite that I legally own my music and can, in fact, play the same music if it's stored on the PC itself.
Until this sort of issue is sorted out, and it becomes actually--dare we say it--convenient and compelling--the digital home will be the purview of Intel and Microsoft marketing managers who dream of selling more PCs into the home.

(emphasis mine)

Tech doesn't take off because of marketing or limitations or profitability.
Tech takes off because it does something the customer wants. Useless stuff, restrictions and limitations need not apply. If X.2 doesn't do everything X.1 did, people won't adopt, and will wait for someone to come out with X1+2. (X3?)
While I suppose that is generally true in most markets it seems to me in tech it's more extreme. Perhaps this is because technology does stuff for us, or makes our lives easier in a very perceptable way...and since people are generally lazy, only those things that are actually useful will achieve traction in the market.

Unusually vapid rant

[mnemonic_]

For anyone who's confused about what this guy's trying to say, I'll translate:

Changing business models doesn't work because constant models fail due to the success of changing business models[?]. Normal people, not enthusiasts, drive the market.

Great insight? If so, I don't get it. I'd guess neither did the mods.

.exe .dll solution - rename extensions!

[funkdancer]

Just rename the file extension to something else, then ask the recipient to rename it back. Not really that hard.

Firefox is a failure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before anyone jumps down my throat, hear me out:

Firefox has failed to achieve any significant growth in months and months. They have stabilised at a (minor) 8% browser market share.

December November October September August July

Now, they've reached 8% which is commendable, but look at the effort expended in 2005 to push it further:
- Version 1.5 was released with 'much' fanfare, and eager anticipation
- Google started pimping Firefox and paying people to install it
- Many publications recommended Firefox
- The media made Firefox the new 'darling of the internet'
- Firefox was ranked very highly on just about every "must have" software list

All of that effort for minimal growth = failure.

Re:Firefox is a failure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget all the memory leaks and stuff that haven't been addressed for years.

How is that different from

[porkchop_d_clown]

any other web based mail service? You could have accomplished the same thing with, say, .Mac or the built-in POP email service most ISPs provide.

Re:How is that different from

[karuna]

any other web based mail service? You could have accomplished the same thing with, say, .Mac or the built-in POP email service most ISPs provide.

I could, however, no one provided this until Gmail came along. Gmail has not done anything revolutionary but only put all the features together and done them right. I don't need gmail.com address but I would pay them to host my own domain with their "web mail access". So far they are doing it for free, except that I still need to set email forwarding from my current hosting provider to the gmail address.

Self-Image

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we are getting closer to the New Year so that explains all the "Top 10" and "Trends" we've been seeing lately.

So let's start the New Year with a, "Top 10 Slashdot posts for 2005."

true

[circletimessquare]

you don't need to drive to work at 60 mph either, you can get there just fine at 10 mph, but i think you'll agree the speed increase means something ;-)

Re:true

[Baloo Ursidae]

This is why I choose to drive the Glenn L Jackson Memorial Bridge at 2PM and 11PM instead of 8AM and 5PM.

And why I avoid the Interstate Drawbridge at all costs, since ODOT won't raise it at rush hour, even though traffic doesn't move at rush hour save for the HOV lane anyway. After rush hour, shipping traffic needs the river, so I-5 now doesn't get to move, even once the road ahead has space for cars to move to. If only I-5 worked like this at the Californian border instead of with a friendly state...

Hey, Fort Vancouver! Stop pretending your toy transit system can actually do anything and quit voting down every opportunity to sign on to something that works! Just remember, Red and Yellow would have made a loop past SR-500 by now and we all would be getting across the river a lot faster if you just voted "Yes, please let Oregon build us Washingtonians a transit system on their dollar," instead of "NO! We're NOT PORTLAND dammit!" three times running...

Re:true

[evilviper]

you don't need to drive to work at 60 mph either, you can get there just fine at 10 mph, but i think you'll agree the speed increase means something ;-)

Not if you only need to do it ONCE, as with editing.

If we could have 1 person drive the route at 1mph, so the rest of us could get there at 200MPH, I'd be immensely happy.

Non-realtime editing is only a problem, if you don't expect more than 1 person to ever watch it :-)

FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[h3llfish]

This guy mentions twice in the article that he's a big fan of losless audio compression. That's all the proof I need that he's a hype-driven goofball who really has no clue.

I've been a musician for over 20 years. I can easily hear the difference between single coil and humbucking pickups, and between a fuzz pedal that uses germanium trasistors and one that uses silicon. Those are subtle differences that the vast majority of people can't hear. What I can't hear is the difference between a properly done 192kbps/44khz mp3 rip and one made with FLAC. Now, I'm not saying that means that no one on earth can. I'm sure there are golden-eared freaks out there. But I would seriously crap out a brick if this dillhole Case could.

And before you let me know what a moron I am, be sure to conduct a blind A/B test yourself. It has to be blind, or it's just not scientific. Have a friend play two different versions for you, one a high quality mp3, and one FLAC, and see if you can tell. Since the odds of guessing correctly are 50/50, you need to repeat the experiment several times to be sure that you weren't just lucky. I'm here to tell you, it's a rare, rare person who can choose correctly ten times in a row.

And yet this guy is surprised that hardware makers haven't put these lossless codecs into their players? Most people are happy with FM audio quality, let alone FLAC. Case is useless, as proven by the fact that he hyped so many technologies that went nowhere. Extremetech, indeed - extremely stupid.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

What I can't hear is the difference between a properly done 192kbps/44khz mp3 rip and one made with FLAC.

that's just the point. about 5 % of the mp3s out there sound good. The other 95% sound like utter shit. You are a musician (as am I) you can certainly hear that can't you ?? Whatever. Mp3s have taken us a step down in music quality from the 80's. If only because people who encode with bobs encoder from a turntable plugged into a line in or however the fuck they are doing it.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[ad0gg]

FLAC is useless to people who don't realize that AAC(lossy), MP3s and everyother format will become eventually become obsolete. Archiving your music in a lossless format lets you convert to any other format in the future.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[mark2003]

Well done on having not only superior ears that can allow you to hear a rich aural experience from 192kbps MP3 but also on having such a superior attitude.

I have done blind tests (through accident) on differing levels of MP3 compression. I first ripped some of my CDs at 192kps to listen to them on my iPod and they sounded great. I then bought a client device to allow me to listen to my ripped CDs via my hi-fi and they sounded sh*te. I thought I had problems with my hi-fi/digital music client so I re-recorded some of the albums as 320kps MP3s. Now on the client device I can't see the full file name so it is a blind test - in every instance the one that sounded better turned out to be the one recorded at the higher rate. The diference is fairly obvious, the 192kbps rip just sounds tinny.

There is no point spending any money on decent hi-fi equipment just to play poor quality recordings.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[Superfarstucker]

You're wrong on not being able to tell the difference. Anyone can tell the difference at many points in a given track, you just don't notice unless you're given two versions to compare in a blind test. As to whether or not the artifacts create an unenjoyable listening experience, I think it depends on the type and severity of the artifacting. Personally, 192 vbr lame tracks are enough to make compression transparent to cursory inspection, which is how I enjoy music. I think it is more or less the thought of the track being compressed that drives these 'audiophiles' crazy rather than the actual compression.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[h3llfish]

Did you even read my post? I specifically said that I did a blind a/b test. And I gave a blind a/b test to my roommate. So.... whatever.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[h3llfish]

That is a very good point. Amounts of disk space that seemed huge to me just a few years ago are trivial now, and I'm sure everyone else feels the same way. But that said, I also think that in the future, the majority of that archived music will be easy to download in the uberformat of the future. I truly expect that even indy and other hard to find music will be fairly easy to come by, as bandwidth and disk space just continue to increase.

Re:FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[ishmaelflood]

Friend of mine got an iPod a couple of years back, downloaded about 100 CDs onto it. I was listening to it idly, and remarked that the sound quality wasn't up to much (I was probably picking up compression artefacts, as he plays no music that I have ever listened to). He discovered that he'd been using the standard compression, and that switching to recordings made with the higher bit rate was a substantial improvement.

So, last week I had a mess about with Lame and found that 256 was OK for classical music, but 384 was noticeably better. I didn't A/B with the source material, as I knew I wasn't going to keep a CD quality file on my laptop. Incidentally I'd expect classical piano music would be a great way of revealing problems with compression algorithms.

http://www.pcabx.com/ for a very handy comparator tool that allows you to run statistically valid, double blind audio tests.

GMail...

[OneFix]

The biggest reason I use GMail...well, 2 reasons...and they're pretty big...

1) They let me use POP3...I know fastmail.fm does too, but they make you go in and delete spam through their web interface....and not to mention they don't give as much storage space...

2) Gmail Filesystem...

There are of course other benefits to GMail over other "free" e-mail services...Spam protection, Virus protection, they let you forward messages for other addresses through their service, etc...

As far as it being Beta ... Google's search became popular while it was still in beta...it doesn't really mean much that GMail is still in beta...I'll pull a page from this guys book... "How many of you were using FireFox as your primary browser before it hit 1.0? Raise your hand..."

Then again this is exactly the reason why GMail is still in beta...Google is smart about making sure things work before they take them out of beta...

Re:GMail...

[dcam]

OK then, problems with gmail:

1. No exe or zip attachments. To clarify, no exes inside zip attachments.

2. No folders. Blah blah labels blah blah. Labels do not nest. I want folders mmkay?

3. gmail is neat, but you are still at the whim of an external company to provide your email. They can go bust, add an unnacceptable policy, or just shut down your account for any reason they choose. Also, you are tied to their interface, if you don't like it, you can't do anything about it. And while they offer pop, they don't offer imap (or imap over ssl).

Re:GMail...

[coolGuyZak]

First of all, I think that Google developers use the Extreme Programming paradigm (or another agile development model). This explains pretty well why they have such incredibly long beta periods.

• No exe or zips: This is a workaround for people who use MSIE or Outlook to open their mail. The GMail team most likely thought that the inability to send files with certain extensions was a suitable tradeoff for eliminating viral activity on their service. E.g. It's a feature, not a bug.
• No nested labels: I can't say much about this, as it is opinion.
• Whim of an external comany: This is why they provide POP facilities. It allows you to back up your email to another computer. Concerning IMAP vs POP, it would be nice if they had IMAP facilities, but it's most likely a combination of 2 factors:
  • It becomes more costly to support multiple services like that.
  • It would make the "simplicity" portion of gmail a bit too complex. Blow Joe won't want to investigate the difference... but would get rather angry if his email wasn't "around" when he wanted it to. Better to have it make a full copy the POP way, then to confuse him with IMAP.

Just my $.02

Re:GMail...

[coolGuyZak]

$parent_post =~ s/Blow Joe/Joe Blow/

Re:GMail...

[dcam]

This explains pretty well why they have such incredibly long beta periods.

I have no problem with the extended beta periods.

No exe or zips...It's a feature, not a bug.

One man's feature is another man's bug. I realise it is by design. I realise it is generally a smart option for the rank and file. I still don't like it.

No nested labels: I can't say much about this, as it is opinion.

Wrong. You can create *multiple* labels on one message, you can't create nested labels. To match the label system to that of folders, you would need to set it up so that a label is valid only if the message has been labelled with another specific label. Unless you know of some particularly funky option I have missed. Labels are a flat structure.

Whim of an external comany...
* It becomes more costly to support multiple services like that.
* It would make the "simplicity" portion of gmail a bit too complex.

I can give you another reason they don't support IMAP, it means people would no longer need the gmail interface. POP is OK, but the real advantage of gmail is that you can access it from multiple computers. Once you offer IMAP, people would be using the gmail intercace less. Also, it would certainly be more complex, technically speaking.

Anyway, I don't think they are going to do it.

That said, I disagree with your point 2 about complexity. When you provide another option, you are not necessarily making it more complex. For example they can provide IMAP, but sell and provide instructions for use in POP. IMAP they can leave to the techies.

My solution to email is that I own my own domain and I have recently installed my own mail server (althought it is not currently online). I'll by using IMAP over SSL, with my choice of mail client (or a web interface if I choose) and my choice of spam filtering at both client and server.

Re:GMail...

[coolGuyZak]

Wrong. You can create *multiple* labels on one message, you can't create nested labels.

To clarify: Whether or not someone feels they are necessary is opinion. I get by perfectly well without needing any hierarchy within my labels. I assume that most other users do as well, as nested labels have not been implemented.

When you provide another option, you are not necessarily making it more complex. For example they can provide IMAP, but sell and provide instructions for use in POP. IMAP they can leave to the techies.

• They have to specify a way to enable IMAP support. This involves designing, coding, & maintaining the associated interface code.
• They have to set up their IMAP servers, verification systems, security, load balancing, etc. After they have the systems set up, they also need to maintain those servers.
• They also have to update their security systems to allow IMAP protocols to pass through, potentially including application-layer filtering.
• They have to provide support personnel to aid the Joe Blows who don't know what they are doing, and subsequently mess up their accounts over IMAP.

I doubt that bypassing the gmail interface is one of the predominant reasons for disabling IMAP. You have 3rd-party client support via POP, and can set your account up to redirect from gmail to another email address... both of which bypass gmail proper.

Why Gmail is still in beta:

[porkchop_d_clown]

because they haven't figured out step #2.

1. Give away huge free email accounts and make it hard for anybody to permanently erase their e-mail. As a bonus use an invitation-only model to attract the geekiest nerds out there.
2. ???
3. Profit!

FLAC has its uses

[typical]

What I can't hear is the difference between a properly done 192kbps/44khz mp3 rip and one made with FLAC.

Try something with cymbals.

Also, while FLAC may not be useful for a portable music player (especially in a typically noisy environment, with those little earbud things), my desktop computer has ungodly amounts of space available -- FLAC makes a lot of sense for that.

JPEG artifacts may not be visible in normal images under typical viewing conditions, and JPEG may be the most suitable format for photographic images in web pages, but nobody is pushing to replace TIFF with JPEG. :-)

I *would* be interested in knowing why there's so little support for Vorbis -- I can understand on, say, the little value-oriented devices that use ASIC MP3 decoders, but the iPod has twin ARMs, and should be able to handle Vorbis.

Re:FLAC has its uses

[h3llfish]

Try something with cymbals.

Cymbals, eh? Holy smokes, I never would have thought of that. It's pretty hard to find any popular music that features them, but I'll make a special point of it. I don't mean to be snotty (oh wait, yes I did), but that's pretty obvious.

I think YOU should try cymbals, when you conduct your blind A/B test. Did you do the test? Until you do, I gotta lump you in with the people who buy 200 dollar power cables for their 10,000 dollar power amps. Congratulations on being a "connoisseur".

Re:FLAC has its uses

[Anonymous Coward]

I did the test. I did it while I was at audio engineering school. In fact the whole class did the test. through a crappy alesis amplifier and some maudio (budget) monitors the entire class new the difference between mp3 and cd and Saccd from six test pieces with a >90% recognition rate. This was done at 128 to 320 encoding.

Once you have done some critical listening it is simply not that hard to do. We did it in the classroom so its not like it was coming through some genelecs coming out of an SSL or something like that.

Whatever dude. Take a chill pill.

Re:FLAC has its uses

[typical]

Did you do the test?

A double-blind test, yes (A friend ran a program that randomly played a clip, then I called out what I thought, and then he told me what it was). I had decent headphones, but nothing amazing from an audiophile standpoint (about $70, Radio Shack, closed circumaural), and I'm certainly no musician. The test clip I was using had drums and cymbals. I could tell the difference between .wav and .mp3 consistently at 256 KBps CBR (encoded with LAME). Cymbals started to sound "swishy" -- they start to pick up unpleasant patterns.

With Vorbis, I could tell the difference all the way up to the maximum quality setting (to my surprise). With Vorbis, cymbals didn't sound different (to my ear, at least), but percussion sounds slightly different -- a little bit flatter, maybe.

I still preferred Vorbis, because the MP3 artifacts sounded *unpleasant* -- swishy cymbals sound bad -- but Vorbis's artifacts don't.

Note that I was using CBR with LAME (because at the time I was interested in CBR results), though that isn't what I'd use in real life.

When listening on my little computer multimedia speakers (about $25) I've found that I can't distinguish between .wav and MP3 at a lower bitrate (but I don't remember the precise results, and in any case, that wasn't a double-blind test).
Note that this was two years or so ago, and both encoders may have improved since then.

Re:FLAC has its uses

[h3llfish]

Thanks, that's interesting. Can you tell me a track or two where I might hear the difference? I'm curious now. I wonder if it was my speakers that made the difference. The ones I use now are ok, but probably not as good as a decent set of headphones. And Radio Shack headphones? What kind of audio snob are you? ;)

Re:FLAC has its uses

[cciRRus]

I wonder if it was my speakers that made the difference.

NPerhaps you have listened to too much loud music such that your ears are failing? :-)

Re:FLAC has its uses

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that I was using CBR [...]

Try the same with variable bit rate.

Re:FLAC has its uses

[typical]

Can you tell me a track or two where I might hear the difference?

I don't remember what my friend and I were using (actually, *he* was running the test for himself -- it was his CD, and I just happened to drop in and try it as well). It was something with plenty of percussion -- drums and cymbals. IIRC, and this was a while ago, the most noticeable MP3 artifact happened in cymbals (you can also hear this in white-noise type stuff). You hear...darn, I can't think of anything like it, but you hear "swishing" sounds in the cymbals. With Vorbis, the drums sounded a tiny bit flatter (the flatter drums didn't bother me, but the cymbals were annoying).

I wonder if it was my speakers that made the difference.

I've heard that it's much easier to hear minor things like that in headphones than in speakers -- I wouldn't know, since I don't own any nice speakers -- headphones are much cheaper. :-)

And Radio Shack headphones? What kind of audio snob are you?

A bad one, I reckon. :-)

Both of us were surprised that the artifacts could be detected at that bitrate, FWIW. My friend couldn't pick up on the Vorbis artifacts, but could manage the MP3 artifacts.

I'm a little suspicious that it isn't anything about the "quality of the ears", but just a matter of training yourself. I played the MP3, the Vorbis and the .wav back and forth (not blind) many times to try to learn the differences first. While I was able to teach myself to recognize the compressed audio, in an environment where I hadn't just done this, I doubt I'd be able to say "Aha! That's Vorbis-compressed audio!" if I just heard a random clip compressed with something.

This article sucks.

[jozeph78]

It's hard to stomache this article. I could intelligently address every topic with valid counter arguements; instead I'll simply sum it up by calling it downright yucky.

Re:This article sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to stomach your spelling, it gave me an ache.

Mail clients can thread

[typical]

When e-mail clients can match that functionality, allowing me to follow a thread of e-mail messages as easily as following a thread on Usenet, I'll find a reason to switch. When I can manually reorganize message threads (so that messages with different subjects are included), I'll be even happier. You guys at Google listening?

Lots of mail clients thread (if the option to do so is enabled -- most can also not thread). Mutt does. Even Outlook does.

Re:Mail clients can thread

[Trinn]

To me, the nice part of gmail threading (though not nice enough to get me to use its over my centralized sylpheed-claws-gtk2 setup) is that the it includes sent messages, which is a very nice touch on lists that stupidly don't echo your messages back to you (and have no option to turn that on). I just wish gmail would realize that POP is far less sensible for them to support than IMAP since with their never-really-delete system, IMAP is more what it is anyway.

7-Zip, not WinZip

[typical]

How about 7-Zip? Open Source, Free, supports more formats than WinZip, nice shell extension menu interface...

Armchair Experts.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.'"

*smirk*

Funny how an audiance that has never had a business plan, or ran a company in it's life, are suddenly the experts in all things business.

So seriously, did you actually expect the NYT, or ABC news to suddenly take notice of your rantings on a geek forum, and say "Oh Lord! Quick! Drop that "plane crash" story and get an interview with that man"?

Or MIT to call and say "We would like to give you a grant to research new business models for the music industry"? Really, why do you all make these proclamations, knowing that you don't know as much as you wish you did?

Some kind of initiation rite into geekhood? "Hey everyone! Look at what I don't know". *bowing audiance* All hail the all non-knowing one. Or maybe in a crowd of the blind, it's hard to refute the guy who says "I can see!"

64-bit computing is old news

[JimmytheGeek]

This retard seems to think that 64-bit computing will arrive when windows supports it. I've been doing real work on 64 bit platform for 4 years.

Windows is backwards. So is the columnist.

Re:64-bit computing is old news

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a Turion 64 laptop and found out it has 32 bit windows on it. Then I looked around and it looks like every 64 bit cpu notebook has 32 bit windows on it. crap.

Re:64-bit computing is old news

[JimmytheGeek]

I've been using OpenBSD on sparc64 for a loooong time. Linux on an opteron will get you there, too.

It really bugs me that the spin is always in Windows' favor. "64-bit isn't here" rather than "Windows doesn't do 64-bit like Solaris, Linux, the BSDs, (and probably BeOS and Amiga...)"

Or "Computer viruses and spyware are a huge threat!" rather than "...on Windows."

Someday Windows clustering will look more like what VMS achieved in the 1980s and less like the "Caligula" movie produced by Penthouse founder Bob Guccionne. I won't hold my breath, though.

No cell phone needed

[TubeSteak]

http://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+invites

Some of the first page results are no longer doing the gmail invite thing, but even those have links to sites that are.

Oh, and apparently google is/was cracking down on the invite sites. Isnoop (the biggest such site) sent out 1,240,162 invites and had recieved 2,497,681 invites to dole out before google started automatically invalidating invites sent to them.

Critters Buggin fan?

[JimmytheGeek]

You wouldn't be familiar with the Critters Buggin song "Bill Gates", would you?

something similar in the phrasing.

Re:Critters Buggin fan?

[MsGeek]

Nope. Sorry.

Top 10 Overhyped Stories for 2005

[rgelb1]

Here is a related article.
http://www.vbrad.com/pf.asp?p=source/src_top10hype d.htm

my list is just a lame joke

[EccentricAnomaly]

The list is meant as a joke... the bluetooth iPod is a recurring rumour, The G5 was super-hyped, but the switch to intel showed that Apple really didn't think it was all that... and the market share being repeated on the list was a joke... So I'm not that funny :) But please don't let my lame joke start a flamewar.

Re:my list is just a lame joke

[shawb]

I had a feeling it was a joke, and kinda rolled with it. I responded half jokingly. I guess it would have come off better in person. And honestly, I didn't think the original article was all that good. I tried to put that in somewhere, but just made the whole thing feel uneven, and I figured that since truth is beauty, I... I... I have no idea where I'm going with this.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm bored. Happy New Year!

Rebuttal

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Finder's crappy UI. (Even worse with Spotlight... ugh!)
Whether or not you like the Aqua GUI and all the rest of the Finder UI is a matter of opinion. Spotlight, on the other hand, was a serious problem, as searches caused the computer to "hang" while they completed. This is, however, fixed as of 10.4.3.

2) Finder crashing.
I've had Finder crash once in OS X. It crashed 5 or 6 times in OS 9.

3) Apple products (like DVD Player.app) stealing focus away from my typing, constantly, and not being fixed after years and years.
Haven't noticed. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem, but I, for one, haven't noticed.

4) iSync somehow *losing* support for my Motorola v180 when upgraded.
I use neither iSync nor Motoral v180, so no comment other than this.

5) A bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.
Fascinating.

bluetooth ipod is an old rumour

[EccentricAnomaly]

I was referring to an old rumour where a bluetooth ipod broadcasts whatever you're listening to the people around you so you can have you're own private ipod-based mini-radio station. It was just one of those crazy rumours that appear every year in late december and early january... ditto for the mac mini tivo thing, that was a rumour last year too.

This site: http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/ ...does a much better job making the joke that I was trying for...

Finder sucking is MacOS-centered.

[solios]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that the OS X Finder sucks.

The problem isn't that it's worse than Platinum (the matured Classic MacOS Finder).

The problem is that it sucks less than win32's bastardass Motif Ate MacOS interface, and just about every damned freenix "desktop" is in turn a knockoff of that (or OS/2). So BY COMPARISON to the HORRIBLE ASSRAPE of a desktop that everyone who's "switched" has experienced previously, hey... Finder 10.X is great.

And unfortunately, Jobs has made it crystal clear that this is NeXT with a MacOS compatability layer (that's getting ejected with the switch back to Intel*), and that he cares fuckall for MacOS users. :-|

* NeXT went (iirc) 68k -> x86 -| Apple purchase |-> PPC as OS X Server 1.X and then OS X, losing binary compatibility en route.

One more:

[Anonymous Coward]

Lin$ux.

FINDER IS SUK.

[solios]

How's this:

10.3 : Finder kept and displayed Classic MacOS icons. Old photoshop files? 32x32 preview icons, scaled up. Looked like ass but they were there.

10.4 (WITH SPOTLIGHT!!!1oneoneomfg) : Finder not only ignores Classic MacOS icons for images, it now builds new previes for these images regardless of rather or not they have a classic macos preview icon or not. If the document is a few megs, no problem. If it's more than ten, you get some grind - you get a LOT of grind if it's fifty or more megs, while finder/spotlight shits its pants trying to get an idea of what it's looking at. Not only does this preview-building take for-frigging-ever, Finder DOES NOT CACHE THE RESULT . So every time you roll over that image in column view, grind, grind, grind, GRIND, GRIND...

The end result is that column view is now vastly less useful in 10.4. Go Apple.

Yeah, you might care fuckall, but some of us own macs specifically for how the graphics apps handle... and I really do not have the time or patience to reprocess seven years (100+ gigs) of Photoshop documents just to see what I'm fucking LOOKING AT in a modern OS when I had no problems to speak of last year. :P

It's an issue. We're gaining features and losing functionality. Verily, I am irritated.

Re:FINDER IS SUK.

[ad0gg]

Umm.. Learn some grammar.

FINDER IS THE SUK

Re:FINDER IS SUK.

[Reez]

nope, it's:
FINDER IS TEH SUK

MOD ME DOWN!!!!111 ONe thousand one hundred eleven

[parasonic]

You heard it from the right guy, folks! 100% Troll. Bite my butt!!!

Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

The author is a MASSIVE Windows butt buddy.

No big high def video things on computers?

Uh... the FREE iMovie and iDVD on every Mac sold handles HD video now?

Mac Civ 4 is on the way

[schnell]

I wanna see the Mac user list of top ten disappointments....
6. No Civ IV

Ask and ye shall receive. The Mac OS X version is scheduled to be released in February or March.

Anyway, I'm sad to say that not getting to play Civ 4 yet on the Mac isn't such a tragedy. I've been playing it on PC, and I have been underwhelmed (religion ... WTF? "great persons" ... WTF? why can't they make stats and advisors understandable like they were in Civ 2?). I played through one game the first week it was out and haven't played it again. But I may pick up the Mac version anyway since I'm more likely to give it another shot playing it on my PowerBook (which I take on road trips) than the HP laptop that sits around the house.

A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

I can tell the difference between the two easily. Cymbals particluarly will warble and shimmer - you can hear the resolution of the limited audio bands in the top end. Bass response of mp3 at any rate is always bad, careful A/Bing should show that. Having said that I archive non-important stuff at 224kbps AAC and can detect practically no audible difference between that and master (perhaps something in the bass-end but hardly anything). Mp3 is just not as good as AAC anyway. Of course iPods can play lossless audio (ALE) with no problems. The article misrepresented the difference between audio compression and digital compression. This seems to be a hard concept for people to grasp and the author doesn't seem to either. Clue: audio compression affects the dynamics (squashing all the ampliudes to the same kind of level), digital compression reencodes the signal into freq bands but doesn't (usually) affect the dynamic range. 16bits is completely adequate for a master recording and no real difference can be noted at 24bit in any normal listening environment. What would be good though is a higher sampling rate like 96KHz. People would notice that. On 96KHz systems the filtering can be soft slowly tapering down to nothing to prevent aliasing. At 44.1KHz a 'brickwall' filter has to be used which tends to produce a constrained sound.

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[h3llfish]

I think you sorta prove my point - you're a pro, so that puts you in that less than one percent that I would expect to hear the difference. I don't think Apple is going to worry about making their ipods to please the audio engineers of the world.

But now that you say warble and shimmer, I'm curious if I can note that same effect. Can you think of a particular audio track where the difference is noteable? Something that I have a decent shot at finding in both lossey and lossless formats? Not that I usually download music illegally, but this is different - it's for science!

Also, another thing that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that if you are ripping from a CD that has already compromised the audio, then lossless compression isn't going to give you back what was lost. I've heard people mention that the cymbals on The Who's "Live at Leeds" sounded good to them on the original LP, but the CD version is butchered and just provides layers of noise where the ride was being, well, ridden particularly hard.

And that point brings me to my next question, which is that if 44.1 KHz produces a constrained sound, doesn't that mean that all CDs are constrained? I've heard people say that 48KHz was much better, but I thought that the CD format just wasn't capable of that. So in essence, you could make an original recording at that rate, then compress it with FLAC and preserve the full range, but with a CD, that info is already gone. Your thoughts? And thanks for post - mod this dude up, informative!

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

Hi, as for 'warble and shimmer' try a live recording that you have on CD with a fairly open drum sound. Live rock gigs that have been well recorded are good (Led Zep that kind of thing, The Who etc) - most recordings from the 70s have better dynamic ranges than today so it's a good place to start. Then use your favourite MP3 ripper (I use iTunes) to generate a few rips at different bit rates. Try 48, 64, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 256k. When you listen to the 48k one you'll notice resolution breaking down in the top end where the cymbals are - you should be able to notice distinct bands appearing. That's how MP3 works - it gathers the sound around a freq band into one seperate frequency and so effectively quantises the audio spectrum (continuous) into discrete bands. As you move up the MP3 bit rates you'll notice this effect dissappearing although it never entirely disappears. Once you've learned what this sounds like you'll be able to hear it at higher and higher bit rates. Also, what we call 'transients' -- the speed of attack in drum sounds --- tends to slow down with MP3 at any bitrate. The stereo image particularly in the top end can move around a little too.

I do think 44.1KHz conversion adds all kinds of nasties into the sound and tends to strip the sound of some life. That's due to the very unmusical digital filters that need to be applied to prevent aliasing (where the top end become bass again - the old wagon wheels on film problem if you know what I mean). Like you say even 48KHz would be better but 44.1KHz was chosen as it's a sub-carrier of the PAL frequency format. It was in my mind a bad choice but one that we've had to live with for 20 years now. Most projects now are recorded at 96Khz, 24 bit and then mastered down to 44.1KHz, 16bit. That's where all our lovely work gets really chopped down to size and is definitely the most lossy stage of the recording process today. So I do think CDs do have a constrained sound and modern multiband digital compression tends to make it even worse. Sometimes it's refered to as a 'plasticky' sound - somehow it's not quite the real thing. I used to work on 30ips multitrackers (analogue) that never suffered in that way - always had a lovely non-constrained open sound all the way to where only dogs could hear. (Typically flat response from 30Hz to 35KHz on a good recorder)

Having said all this unless you have high quality sound cards and monitors it can be hard to hear what I'm talking about. The iPod has a pretty good sound though especially when put through some hi quality headphones. My soundcard is a MOTU 828MkII at home driving some Mackie HR824 monitors - that's probably too much for most people just for audio.

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[h3llfish]

Funny you should mention Zepplin - as soon as I posted, I figured that Zepplin 4 would be a good place to start. I'll give that a shot.

But, if CDs are pretty constrained, and yet they are also the source of most all digital audio files, how do I find a truly prisine version of the source? Won't my Zepplin IV CD be messed up from the git go, thus making all of my rips, regardless of compression format, messed up? I'm thinking that must be why I can't hear the difference in my blind a/b testing. Like I said before, a lossless version of a messed up copy just means that nothing further is lost, right?

You mention well-recorded live shows, and that's a funny thing - it's often so loud that the idea of "good" sound just goes right out the window. I'm just trying to hear myself _at all_. It's one of those areas where the lab-type setting of a studio and the real-world application of a live gig are so different. I have a lot of experience with live shows, but practically none in a studio.

Do you post on any audio forums where I could learn more about all this stuff from you and others like you? When someone with real knowledge speaks on the subject, it seems a lot less like voodoo to me.

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

Yes you're right - if the data wasn't there in the first place you'll never get it back. I guess the mus-biz is just waiting to provide remasters at 96kHz, 24 bit as the last step in the selling of the back catalogue. Trouble is though (as I'm sure they know) most people won't really see the benefit or care that much. Another thing is that on remaster collections everything gets compressed and re-EQ'ed anyway which is what probably accounts for the live Who cymbal thing. It's possibly true that standards in audio engineering are slipping a little and sometimes really nasty top end gets through in remasters. The record companies couldn't really care less in my experience. Here's a story about that: when they rereleased the Beatles on CD they took the 2trk masters and thought they were stereo splits and made the CDs with it's characteristic hard left/right pan placing (eg Ringo's in one speaker and George is in the other) by the millions. In fact the 2trks were meant to bounced into mono and were actually the final part of balance/control for the mastering engineer not for public consumption. George Martin realised the mistake had been made and told EMI to redo it. Guess what? - To this day they're still sold as split pairs not mono as they should be.

I don't really post much about this kind of thing and prefer reading /. to reading about work. Some of the pro-Audio magazines have fairly high-level discussions about this kind of thing which you can check out on the net. EQ magazine and others.... Or Sound-On-Sound magazine can occasionally be worth a look but it seems to be kids making the same mistakes over and over.

dual cards a failed thing?

[dindi]

I don't know about you but If I could shell out an extra $600+ for 2 sli cards for my gaming machine (non existent as I am playing on consoles), I would go for it.

In fact I know some people who sport DUAL SLI cards and are happy with it.

A failed attemt?

I don't think so. Just because average joe on his win2k does not need one (well 2) to process word documents, does not mean that hardcore gamers are not interested.

It's like saying that Ferraris are a failed attempt because most people drive VWs and Hondas....

Try feeding it 32 bit libraries - with a fallback

[dbIII]

AMD64 CPU ... Things fell apart once I started to install programs.

Linux distros were at this point with AMD64 a couple of years ago. The fastest way to solve this then was to do two installs and tell the 64 bit install where to find the 32 bit libraries where they were needed (eg. the Loki games and Neverwinter Nights). Under MS Windows you have DLL hell, but you may be able to copy in 32 bit libraries from another install for those applications that expect some specific quirk which isn't in the 64 bit version. Obviously make sure you keep the original versions as well, and be prepared to get the thing back from the dead with knoppix or whatever if necessary.

What about the cell?

[to6o]

Now that's something that should definately be on the list. Remember all those articles how the cell was going to be the biggest competitior for PCs and how we were going to have cell processors in everything and link them and do all sorts of cool and weird things? Well, suddenly, nobody talks about it anymore...

Too much high definition

[mnmn]

I think I saw 5 High-definition type technology items in that list. Methinks the Hi-def techs have been multiplied to make the list a nice 10.

One innacuracy I found

[im_thatoneguy]

There is a 64bit binary for 3D Studio Max.

The artists aren't being paid even if you buy CDs

[Joce640k]

Don't feel bad, the artists aren't being paid even if you buy CDs. After the RIAA is finished with them they usually *owe* money.

If you want to support the artist go to a concert and buy a few t-shirts.

Re:The artists aren't being paid even if you buy C

[zootm]

Unfortunately often true, but it does theoretically reduce the amount they owe!

The next step

[hopopee]

"... Hint to the music publishers: It's not going to work. There have been easy workarounds to every system that's been tried, and the more stringent the copy protection.."

That's easily solved. Just do like they did in Finland: lobby in a copyright law that makes it illeagal even to (organizedly) discuss about methods of circuimventing DRMs. Of course, this doesn't fix the "angry customers not buying your crap" problem, but just make it compulsory to use 1% of each paycheck in compensation to *AA for lost sales in grounds of "everybody dl's warez". What? You don't consume mass culture? Shame on you, you unpatriotic slime! You must be a terrorist!

What about that Mouse?

[aka_big_wurm]

That Mac 2 button mouse was horrid also

I wonder how much money

[g0bshiTe]

Sony has spent on the technologies to stop copying cd's, especially the one that could be thwarted by a small piece of $0.00001 scotch tape. 3m, we don't make the copy protections on your cd's, we make the scotch tape better to stop the copy protections.

Re:The list of tech trends that never go out of st

[Indiana Joe]

FUD is another one.

They didn't?

[porkchop_d_clown]

Not for *free* maybe, but I've been getting the same abilities from Comcast, .Mac and (before that) AT&T worldnet since the mid-90s. The only thing Gmail provided that I hadn't seen before was gigs of free storage - and I'm still wondering what sort of data-mining they are really up to.

RAM limits

[Kagami001]

We're going to hit the RAM limit a lot sooner than that on non-PAE 32-bit systems, because hardware virtual addresses come off the top of addressable physical RAM, i.e. on my desktop with 4GB of ram, only 3.5GB or so is actually accessible. Video cards, network cards, IDE controllers, etc. all claim addresses off the top. Those folks with dual 512MB PCI-express cards in SLI are already limited to something around 2.75GB on Windows XP 32bit. (no PAE support in Win XP)

Obviously, Linux users and Windows Server users can use PAE, but I expect the gaming market is going to drive adoption of 64-bit systems for RAM access in the Windows "consumer" market, unless MS decides to toss PAE into the low-end versions of Vista.

by the way....

[Anonymous Coward]

on the subject of DRM and copyprotection. I bought a Sandisk Sansa mp3 player recently. Copyprotection on the player only allow copying and playing of tracks between the first two computers I copy from/to. Anyone have any ideas on how to hack around this?

There is a workaround

[ejtttje]

I think if you get a utility* to make a preview icon**, it can run through your files and store these icons so the Finder doesn't have to recompute them. I agree with your complaint though -- I had the same problem with big TIFF files on a USB drive just yesterday.

Also, as for PhotoShop files, there's a preference item (Preferences -> "File Handling", select "Full Size") to have it generate the preview icons automatically when it first saves the file.

* I like versiontracker
** e.g. GraphicConverter has a function for this

I'm amused...

[John Miles]

... at all these "helpful" opinions from clueful-sounding people who have no clue what the problem actually is.

"Pay for a real mail service" is not the answer. It doesn't matter if I use GMail. If the client uses GMail, I can't send them a zipfile with an .EXE inside. If you don't write code for a living, you'd probably be surprised at how convenient, and occasionally necessary, this is.

"Zip the .EXE file up with WinZip/7Zip/bzip/whatever" is not the answer, for the same reason.

Using FTP and wget is not the answer for some clients who are behind a corporate firewall. (And wasn't GMail celebrated at one point as an alternative for archiving and even sharing content? Google maintains a wee bit more server space than I tend to keep around.)

"Rename the file" is a crappy answer that doesn't solve a damned thing. If I can convince Grandma to unzip and run an unsolicited .EXE, I can convince her to rename it, too.

"Scan for viruses on the server side, and don't mess with my message content otherwise," is the answer. That, for the record, is what Hotmail does, and the world doesn't seem to have come to an end as a result.

Everything is crap

[pv2b]

If you apply Sturgeon's law recursively:

• 90% of everything is crap.
• The remaining 10% is a subset of everything.
• 90% of the remaining 10% is crap. Therefore, 99% of the original "everything" is crap.
• Lather, rinse, repeat.
• Find that 99.9999...% (100%) of everything is crap.

Yes, that makes everything I write crap too. But so are you. So there!

Re:Everything is crap

[fm6]

That's crap!

Re:Everything is crap

[pv2b]

Now you're getting it!

Re:Everything is crap

[fm6]

Spare me your crap!

No need for copy protection?

[heroine]

So with HDTV on the PC proving a flop, does this mean the suits are going to ease up on the copy protection?

DVD's were broken into during a unique time when every kid wanted to do computer programming for fun, kids first discovered they could watch low definition video on their PC, and the idea that you shouldn't be able to copy content that you paid for was new.

Today, programming is once again seen as a money source, not a hobby. Watching TV on a PC is out and buying proper appliances is in. Copy protection is old news and it isn't a big deal compared to the value of an appliance like the iPod.

We've had many encryption standards like digital cable TV, digital satellite TV, WMA encryption, and no-one has shown any interest in breaking those. The WMV9 encryption was only barely broken in Windows and never in Linux.