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The 100 Best Tech Products of 2006
prostoalex writes "You've read about the 25 worst tech products, now it's time to check out a list of the 100 best tech products of 2006 from the same publication. PC World named Intel Core Duo, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core, Craigslist.org, Apple iPod Nano and Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive the best tech products of this year."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They have two products listed: a keyboard (#54) and the Xbox 360 (#89). Odd for a company that focuses mainly on software. Apple has a decent showing, even Ubuntu Linux shows up at #27.
Trolling is a art,
Can't believe they feel Intel Dual Core 2 Duo X2 Dual-Processor CPU2 better than the Athlon 64 X2?
Not to mention the score is now on the far right from the title of comments.
Usability was definately not considered here.
1st post not talking about the new layout....
uh... wait. dang it!
People on Craigslist tend to be really flaky- we're talking the stoned kind of flaky, or the "I'm going to try and cheat you because I think I'm clever" kind of flaky; I'm not sure which is worse. Then there are all the wierdos posting in the various personals section- if you want a great laugh (no matter your gender), read those sections; makes you think of someone walking into McDonalds with $2 and expecting a rare Filet Mignon with sauteed mushrooms. Or the ever popular "I'm hot. Send a picture. Sexiest one wins." I laughed for about 5 minutes so hard I couldn't breathe, and resolved never to look in w4m again because it was dangerous to my health, even if it was a fantastic laugh.
Top problem though, is that people are complete IDIOTS when it comes to listing their items. "Printer. Best offer." Inkjet? Laser? Dot matrix? Made this decade? God forbid they tell us what company made it. I also love it when useless, worthless stuff is offered up- like cheapo computer speakers. People, I'm all for the recycling bit, but take that shit to the RECYCLING CENTER, don't waste anyone's time putting it up for sale for $5. Round trip subway fare costs at least half that...
The hysterical bit is that Craiglist supposedly has an "advisory committee" that handles how the site is presented to users. When I complained that even basic instructions were never shown to users as part of the posting procedure and it was clear there was a problem, Craig just replied, "thanks, the committee will think about it".
Then there are the people who post the "free" iPod/plasma/whatever emails (which are usually flagged by the community)...the problem is that there's nothing to keep them from posting over and over, because (to my knowledge) there is no automatic blacklist after X number of posts flagged...so spamming is pretty easy.
Then there are the ripoffs. Go read your city's /sys/ for a few minutes, and see how many times you say "WHAT?!"...like people asking $500 for a Pentium 3 system. Go read /ele/ and see how many times you see "Theater Research" speakers being offered for $500; the more honest (or naive) ones admit to buying it from some guys in a white van...the others just think "oh well, I'll get some other sucker to buy 'em".
Classic example of the try-to-sucker-you-by-omission-and-feined-ignorance approach was a Phaser printer being offered for sale for a few hundred $ with no mention of WHY nobody uses wax printers anymore. In short- you MUST cover your ass like crazy. If it's too good to be true, it most certainly is someone trying to sucker you.
Typical, but when you consider it against Craig's motivations (community building and other crunchy-granola-ness), Craigslist has ultimately been a pretty spectacular failure. I used to report at least 5-6 posts a day to the abuse department for various reasons (all were accepted, and the abuse group IS very nice; they ALWAYS write you back! To the CL abuse staff, you have my sympathies and admiration), and I just got tired of it...it was like throwing a sandbag into a levee break and watching it disappear.
I also have a policy now, which I inform sellers of upfront. If the item is different from how it was represented in the post or follow-up emails, both of which I will have with me, I walk out the door- this is after several sellers presented something that was nothing like what they described (like a PC missing half its ram, being sold by a software programmer who played dumb. Riight).
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
The games page is finally viewable without sunglasses.
(Yeah, yeah, this is off-topic)
Looks like you're not hallucinating. However, it also looks like they didn't really bother testing it, either.
- Loading pages spikes my IE7 process to 100% CPU for a minute or so, even on short pages like this one.
- The subject and comment box I'm typing in right now extend too far to the right (or more precisely, they're not lining up on the left correctly, pushing the boxes out to the right).
- A number of the collapsible arrows on the main page to hide sections and such simply don't work
- Speaking of the left-hand section headers, don't click on them. If you do, you'll waste a couple minutes while Slashdot AJAXly tries to load configuration information.
- The "Meta Moderated" link in the "Have you Meta Moderated recently?" block is unreadable (dark green on dark gray)
- Bulleted lists in comments don't display correctly, at least in the preview. For those that can't tell, this indented section here is supposed to be a bulleted list. (This one is also broken in FF)
Interestingly enough, most of the above issues are fine in Firefox. While I realize Slashdot is Firefox-friendly and anti-Microsoft, I wouldn't be surprised if 50%+ of their traffic is still on Internet Explorer. I don't have IE6 installed on this machine so I can't veriify that the site works correctly there, but it's horribly broken with IE7. Way to go, guys.THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!
How about letting the comments extend to the left edge of the screen. To be honest, I don't come here for the crap articles. Slashdot's real content is the comments.
The way it is now looks like a xanga page 'customized' by someone with maybe some aesthetic ability. It looks ok, but it's still generic as hell. The front page is pretty good, but the format doesn't support area where the real value of the site is.
So apple gets two listing for the ipod. Both Intel and AMD gets the top two spots. Hey, I wonder who makes chips for most computers? Googles gets a number of spots all the way through, and even Amazon, someone who probably advertises a lot but has done almost nothing interesting, gets an honorable mention for it's lame search facility. Throw in an award for every printer, every camera, and a few nods to popular technology, and can we say suck up.
I know that people like to complain about stealth ads on /. In this case, the complaints are warrented. This has no editorial content, and simply is a way for pcworld to prove to advertisers that pcworld cares about them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Now the poor 100 best product story will be filled with NOTHING but comments on Slashdot itself.
The Boot camp is at number 10, while the Mac Mini is down at 35??? Surely they are the wrong way around?
Surely the trip-proof magnetic AC adapter is far more important than Boot camp?
Apple got Windows working on Intel hardware, Big Whoppee, Windows on Intel, like fifty billion other people haven't already?
-----------------------
If this is nuts then excuse me but I having a hyper-fit with this new Slashdot layout. I'll just go lie down in dark room for a bit.
My little Linux and tech blog
1. The font sucks. It's harder to read.
2. Too much white, like there's too much space in between everything.
3. Posts not indented enough, it's hard to tell what's a reply to what without much pointless scrolling up and down.
4. Accidentally clicking on the "sections" header opens a settings box which won't go away for a minimum of 5 seconds after you click the [x].
5. The "Read More" link is far away from where my eyes and cursor end up after reading the summary.
6. Scores on the wrong side of the comment header.
7. Why the hell isn't the old layout an option? CmdrTaco was explicit in his statements that it was just a superficial redesign with no drastic changes, it can't require much more than an extra variable in the code.
I'm sure I'll keep discovering reasons to hate it as time goes on. If you'd like updates, just say so and I'll post them here.
ResidntGeek
If a browser crashes, it's the browser's fault. No web page can be held responsible for a browser crash, regardless of content. File a bug report with Opera.
Please for the love of god fix that, or give us the option of going back to the old way. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
I like the new look overall, but I have a couple complaints:
- The 'Sections' header in the sidebar should not open up a (kludgy) preferences window. People only change that kind of thing once in a blue moon; there's no need for it to be on the front page. I'd much rather it be a link (like the 'Vendors' header), pointing to the search page or something
- The open/collapsed state of the lefthand sidebar seems to be preseved between browser sessions, but only on the front page: Once you enter a story, it defaults to the open state for all items in the sidebar
- The comment score should not be on the extreme right
- The [blink] tag is used far too sparingly
Worst thing of all, by not changing it at the same time as posting an announcement story, all the meta-discussion about the new look is stuck here in a story making it impossible to read.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Come on now, you can't totally pass judgement on the new look Slashdot until we get the "OMG PONIES!" look. Imagine this in pink...
if you don't like it then tell us some specifics on why you don't like it!
Took me a few minutes to put my finger on it, but I finally figured out why I hate it:
Too much negative space. (Read: blinding fscking WHITE). Sure, it's cleaner, with all that space, but now its little bits of black on white. Too hard on the eyes.
How about a green-on-black CSS option, CmdrTaco?
It's truly amazing. Zonk's on duty, and everybody's bitching about something other than him!
I believe that this list is BIAS. This list is not rated on raiting but by who gave PCWorld the most money. Since I, Bushido Hacks, is a broke college student here is a top 10 list.
1. YouTube.com - Who the hell put in in 9th place?
2. Google Earth - Google Maps: good. Google Earth: f***ing awesome!
3. eBay - Great spot to browse for technology products. Though the virtual mall is great, it is a good idea to browse the real mall to compare prices and features first.
4. Sony Viao Notebooks smaller than 12 inches - Any notebook with a screen larger than 15 inches is NOT a notebook. It is a freaking TV. Computers are suppost to be small as well as fast.
5. Any MP3 player not by Apple or Dell - As much as technological convergence is a convience, I prefere to buy things for what they were used for. An MP3 player is for playing MUSIC, not videos, not "podcasts", not these overated technology that turns everything into TV or as I call it "The Virus". Televison is stupid!
6. Texas Instruments graphing calculators with the USB port - FINALLY, TI gets with the program.
7. Sony PSP - Who cares what the critics say! This would be the greatest gaming platform since the Sega Game Gear if only Sony didn't keep trying to kill itself like a 15 year-old emo kid. Why does Sony keep trying to kill itself? By the time the PS3 gets here, Nintendo and XBox will be on to the next thing. Why does Sony keep procrastinating? The people who create the Sony products want what they are making as badly as their consumers, but their Marketing (marketing, the sworn enemy of any computer sciencist!) keeps pushing it back saying things like "people are going to hack into it" or "DRM". These Japanese guys need to grow a little backbone and stop letting these salarymen with hidden agendas kill their company.
8. Yahoo! Answers - I must get up to 20 answers sometimes with the questions I ask. Some times I ask questions to test peoples knowledge or to express their opinions about things.
9. Holograms - yet another suppressed technology. You know what would be a great application for these things: automobile decals. You've seen these cars with the hydrolics at car shows with teh airbrush. Why not airbrush a hologram onto a car. One of those 3D projected holograms with a half-naked valkyre warrior woman with a battle axe or sword riding horse with wings that breaths fire! Something worthy of Heavy Metal magazine and Popular Science! 10. The new Slashdot layout - Do I really need to explain why?
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
At first glance, it looks prettier, but its much less functional. I was much more comfortable reading slashdot in the old format.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
For the sake of building consensus, I also agree. I like most everything else about the new version, but, especially when you have a wide browser window, the current score location is very spatially jarring.
8. The scores are on the right hand side. The score is an important part of deciding whether to read a comment. When it is over the far right hand side you can't read the subject and the score in one quick glance.
meh