Doesn't really make any difference that Cox finally shut off their usenet. I used it 5+ years ago when I lived in Phoenix, but the completion was terrible and the retention was like 3-4 days. Giganews FTW: 600 days retention and completion is great, unlimited downloads and unlimited bandwidth for $25 a month.
Oh sorry, I forgot rule #1 - usenet? What's usenet?;)
Started out as a giant mirror in space to deflect the sun's heat, but got flipped around and "somehow" got turned into a magnifying glass and scorched a line in the earth
"Power from landfill methane exceeds solar power in New York and New Jersey, and landfill methane in those states and in Connecticut powers generators that produce a total of 169 megawatts of electricity — almost as much as a small conventional generating station. The methane also provides 16.7 million cubic feet of gas daily for heating and other direct uses."
I too immediately thought of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar when I saw this story. I can remember being pretty high up on all of my virtues, then stealing some of Lord British's gold or attacking him or something. doH! I lost ALL of my virtue progress and had to start over building them up. Why I didn't just load from a saved game at that point, I don't know - this was over 20 years ago.:)
Damn, now I feel like loading up Ultima IV in an Apple II emulator and playing through.:) Best. RPG Game. Ever.
Not all new advanced features are going to be available on phones with more limited hardware. Time and technology marches on, and you can't expect the OS writer to simply code to the least common denominator. This is true in Android, and even in iPhone and iPod Touch:
"MMS is not supported on first-generation iPhone. Video MMS is not supported on first-generation iPhone 3G."
"The new iPod touch is the second Apple pocket device to include hardware support for OpenGL ES 2.0, a newer graphics technology that debuted in the iPhone 3GS. OpenGL ES 2.0 gives developers the ability to use programmable “shaders” to create more impressive and realistic looking visual effects than the first two iPod touch and first two iPhone models were capable of generating. The upside of this new feature is that future games will look better on the new iPod touch and iPhone 3GS than on earlier models; the downside is that only a handful of games, and then mostly mediocre ones, have been released with support for the new graphics feature."
In other words, some advanced games won't even install on first generation iPhones. Exactly like on Android. Why should phone manufacturers provide an Android 2.0 or 2.1 OS update for the G1, when the hardware clearly can't handle it?
I do understand getting NO updates to your phone ever - my HTC WinMo 6 phone never got any updates and it was frustrating. But Google has shown that it will release updates to Android as long as the hardware will support it with reasonable performance. And if you are not satisfied with that state of affairs, Android makes it fairly easy to root your phone and install whatever custom ROM you want. You do have to be technically proficient to do so, but at least Google does nothing to stop you.
Point well taken that some programs work at such a low-level that even intra-OS builds break the system. On the other hand, most basic functionality splits based on the Win95/WinXP/Vista lines.
This is pretty much my entire point about Android in a nutshell:
SOME advanced Android apps are broken by intra-OS builds - exactly like Windows is. However, the majority of Android apps work just fine under any version of Android - again, exactly like how it works in Windows.
(BTW, I'm referring to desktop Windows here, not Windows Mobile.)
And if you want to say that the variety of Droid devices is as consistent as the desktop computing environment in Windows... well, I just don't believe it.
I count approximately 35 current Android devices on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_devices
I'm pretty sure there's more than 35 unique desktop and laptop models of computers that run Windows. Each with their own unique mix of hardware and drivers. And yet, there are plenty of developers writing software for Windows. I fail to see how Android is any different.
With very few exceptions, such as games and low-level OS extensions (e.g. virus-scanners), any XP machine can do anything any other XP machine can do.
Again, that's pretty much what I'm saying: demanding apps that need low-level access to the hardware will generally break during any OS upgrade. Simple apps (which means most apps, both in Windows and Android) will probably work fine when the OS is updated. Meaning claims that Android is "too fragmented" are simply alarmist and unfounded.
The Droid has been out for LESS THAN 4 MONTHS, and has already had one fairly major upgrade (2.0 -> 2.0.1). It was mostly bug fixes, but also included some new functionality. The 2.1 update is imminent - although we don't have an exact date, Verizon has stated flat our on their Facebook page that the Droid WILL get the 2.1 update soon.
Just for comparison, but how often do upgrades come out for the iPhone? Major new versions once a year, minor point upgrades about every quarter, bugfix upgrades every month or two:
Even an embedded kiosk machine with a touchscreen and no mouse or keyboard running XP Embedded, or that Windows Media Center computer with a remote and no mouse?
The different Droids have [keyboard or not]/[multitouch or singletouch].
Some Android apps need a physical keyboard, most do not. Or you can write your app to work with both - many of the emulators like Nesoid works with either your physical keyboard keys, or onscreen touch keys. Most apps don't care what kind of keyboard you have. If there's a text entry field, tap it and the onscreen keyboard slides out. Slide your keyboard open if you have one, and the onscreen keyboard goes away. The app really doesn't care which you use. How is this a problem for apps again?
And you are just wrong about multitouch - The Droid and Droid Eris both had support for multitouch in the OS at launch. It's just the stock apps didn't ship with support for pinch zoom. Most of the stock apps have this feature now, or Google is adding support. But many apps in the Marketplace have had multitouch pinch zoom for a long time, such as the Dolphin browser.
Most PCs run some flavor of Windows, so the OS is constant for ~5-7 years; the Droid is already on the second (incompatible) version of the OS. If you developed for Windows 95, you were good until XP. If you developed for XP, you were good until Vista. If you developed for Droid, oops, redo.
Really. So the virus scanner that you wrote that worked on Windows 95 worked on Windows 98, 98 SE, Me, and 2000?
This all depends on what your app does. If it's a virus scanner or something that requires low-level access to the OS, you're going to need to upgrade it every time you install a major update to your OS, even frequently Service Packs. Conversely, I've had simple utility apps that I started using on Win 95 and I'm still using in Win 7. Depends on what your app needs to do. I'm pretty sure a simple note-taking Android app will run on all Android versions - but if your app needs access to the 3D hardware (like Google Earth), then it's only going to run on a very few models - pretty similar to how PC games require a certain base hardware level.
The bottom line is PCs have essentially the same hardware, with a well-abstracted OS. Speed may vary, but most machines can do anything any other can. The Droids have so much different functionality it cannot be abstracted, so you cannot write-once run-everywhere. And until you can, the app market is going to be mcuh smaller. And since the only reason to get a smart-phone is to run apps, the Droid OS is in a state of flux.
Again, this all depends on what the app does. I have a Droid (Android 2.0.1), my wife has a Droid Eris (Android 1.6). We have a very similar set of apps installed on our phones. Besides some very advanced apps like Google Maps with Navigation that will only run on a phone with Android 1.6 or above, I have very few apps on my phone that she can't run on her phone. (And the user doesn't have to figure out if their version of Android is compatible - the Marketplace simply won't show apps that require 2.0 to a 1.5 user.) There's also some Windows 7-only apps out there too.
So tell me again how Windows is so much different and better than Android?
I totally disagree. Nintendo had a great idea with the motion controller, but I think that only Nintendo in their branded titles have figured out how to use the motion control effectively.
How to use the motion controller effectively:
1) Use it only where it makes sense - if there's a platform that needs to tilt, use the motion control for that.
2) Use it as an additional button if it makes sense - i.e. spin jump
3) Use it as a sword - I got a total kick out of swinging the Wiimote to swing my sword in Zelda Twilight Princess to kill random enemies - although in a pitched sword battle with a sword-wielding boss, the lack of sensitivity becomes a weakness and you end up just wildly swinging the Wiimote hoping to connect a hit. Hopefully the Motion Plus will fix that deficiency.
4) Use it as a pointer to pick up items - like picking up star gems in Mario Galaxy
5) Give gamers an option. New Super Mario Wii gives you the option of playing just with the motion controller sideways using the D-pad, similar to an old-school NES controller. You can also instead use the nunchuck and its analog stick - WAY better IMO. Especially since I always played Mario on the NES with an NES Advantage joystick - I always thought the D-pad was a weak excuse for a joystick.
How NOT to use the motion controller:
1) Don't use it as the main method of control because it's not sensitive enough for that
2) Don't us it as a steering wheel - The Need For Speed series on Wii uses the motion control as the ONLY available method for control, and it SUCKS big time. I quit playing halfway through because it just wouldn't respond well enough. You can't beat an analog stick for racing IMO. Mario Kart Wii gets a pass since you can also use the nunchuck analog stick or the classic controller.
While this new game definitely has its foundation in the earlier SMB games, it's not simply a rehash - you will have to learn new skills. One of my favorites is a level in World 8 - you're on a series of platforms that you move right and left using the Wii motion control by twisting left and right - while simultaneously controlling Mario moving left and right on the platform and jumping over enemies that are flying towards you and negotiating among blocks in your way. Serious multitasking. It's like nothing I've ever seen in a game before - it was brutally hard, I died over and over - but I loved every minute of it.:)
Nintendo, keep "churning out" more games like this one - I'll buy every one.
Mario 64 is IMO one of the top 10 video games on any system ever. So yes, it's worth going back to. Find a walkthrough online, that will give you the basics - but the game itself teaches you the moves you'll need to play - which is genious, and common to Mario games. It only requires you to master advanced moves when you actually need to use them to finish a level, and it always gives you a chance to practice those new moves.
I never had an N64 console, but I played it on a PC emulator. First 3-D game I ever played through all the way - until then I was really stuck on 2-D games, but Mario 64 opened my eyes to the potential of quality games on 3-D.
I (and many others) consider Super Mario Galaxy (another top 10 game) to be a sequel to Mario 64. The gameplay is very similar. I highly recommend picking Mario 64 up. The 3-D graphics are blocky (not an issue IMO), but the gameplay is amazing.
I went back a few years ago and played it again, and it was as good as I remember it. Hmm, now I'm itching to go play it again.:)
Exactly. On my Moto Droid, which has Android 2.0.1 (just got its first major update about 2 weeks ago, and the Droid has only been out for about 1.5 months...another major update is scheduled for mid-January), you just go into the Settings and put a checkmark on "Unknown sources - Allow install of non-Market applications" and you can install applications from anywhere.
And TFS's premise, that "few of these Android apps are free software" - I call BS. Has the author even looked at the Android Market or are they talking out their ass? I've installed 44 apps, from weather widgets like Weatherbug, to games and utilities, and even GameBoy and Nintendo emulators, and they were ALL free as in beer. Some of them are commercial and closed-source, like Weatherbug (Weatherbug is ad-supported, but very unobtrusively - but there are other weather apps available that are completely ad-free, just not as cool as Weatherbug.) Others are FOSS, like some of the game system emulators - and there's even pay game emulators that I hear are quite good. I tend to prefer completely free (beer and speech) apps if I can find them, just on principle but also because they tend to be updated more often, but I'll probably buy a few paid apps eventually. I've even bought a few mp3's from the Amazon MP3 app included with the phone - because I knew they were unencumbered with DRM and I could copy them to my MP3 collection on my computer easily.
Like other comments have said: I don't see the proliferation of paid apps in the Android Market as an issue, there are plenty of free ones too. And when you browse for apps, you can click a button to restrict the list to Free Apps or Paid Apps. It's not like Google has made it difficult to find free apps.
As far as Verizon blocking certain apps and features - if they're doing any of that, I haven't seen it yet. You can use any MP3 for a ringtone, notification, or alarm tone. You can take a picture with the camera and set it as your background. Just connect the phone to your computer with the data/charging cable, and you can transfer files (including MP3 and pictures) back and forth using Explorer. I've seen apps in the Market that claim to enable tethering for free, but haven't tried them yet to verify. Google Voice is allowed. So far, Verizon is being non-evil, at least as far as the Droid is concerned. Time will tell if they stay this way, but my opinion is that it will stay this way - the Droid is being marketed as the ultimate geek phone (which in my opinion it definitely is), and geeks don't take kindly to artificial locking out of features.
Re:Why does anyone want internet GPS anyway?
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Up-to-the-minute online data about where any police checkpoints and speed traps are would be nice.
They also have versions for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc.
Re:Why does anyone want internet GPS anyway?
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Google Maps with Navigation (beta of course) already has street view, it actually shows you a street view of the intersection where you need to turn. And thanks to the network connection it also has traffic updates and automatic rerouting around traffic.
As far as updates - my current non-network-connected GPS (from Mio) has map updates available...for $70. I'm sure that high price is courtesy of one of the two map companies mentioned in this article. They probably charge Mio the same for a map update as for the cost of the maps in a new unit. Screw that, when I can buy a brand new updated model for $99 new.
Even only a couple months after I bought it I discovered several roads in my town that didn't exist on the GPS. I've probably found at least 5 or 6 instances of that in the couple years since then, just in my town (Hillsboro, Oregon, in the Portland urban area.) It tells me my work address is on the other side of a main road than the actual location. Etc. There's been a lot of new construction in this area the last few years. I would imagine an urban area doesn't have as many new roads, but a lot of the land here is farmland that is getting sold off as new developments, and new roads here are commonplace.
So I personally am very excited about Google Maps, although I haven't tried it out yet. My current GPS is great, but I can see so much room for improvement.
In my experience they don't enforce this limit, at least in my area (Portland, Oregon.) I routinely exceed the 250 GB/month download limit and I've never received a notice from Comcast.
Personally I liked Vista when it came out, mostly for the eye candy. I'm a very visual person, and I had just bought a new 20" monitor, so I wanted something that looks good. XP was looking dated. I was going to switch to either Ubuntu or Vista - I like Linux, but I haven't really used it much. Vista was more familiar, and it was good enough, so that's what I went with. I've been using it since the day it came out. But Vista did have some major bugs, the most annoying having to do with file copying, both local and network. All the file copy bugs are fixed in Win 7. The behavior when merging folders is the same, though.
1) Windows 7 still does ask you if you want to merge the folders, and if any of the files are the same, it asks you what you want to do: overwrite, copy but rename one of them so you have both, or skip the file. Personally I like this setup - even though I'm a power user, I'm not perfect, I still accidentally almost overwrite files that I didn't intend to all the time. Vista and Win 7 also provide you with a thumbnail view of the files when asking you if you want to overwrite - a nice touch when you're not sure if the files are the same even though they have the same name. Personal preference, I guess. I much prefer this behavior than the XP way. Also much improved is the fact that if one of the files you want to copy can't be copied (like if it's in use), the whole file copy operation won't stop - it will just fail that one file and go on to the next. XP's instant failure of the whole copy operation if one file is in use drives me nuts.
2) The folder left behind after a move - definitely one of the most annoying bugs in Vista. One particular annoyance of mine was that if you tried to move any folder named VIDEO_TS - i.e. the contents of a dvd, it wouldn't let you - period. You had to re-create the folder in the new location, and copy the individual video files to the new folder, then delete the old folder. And frequently it would show a few of the video files in the old folder, and you couldn't delete them - but they'd disappear on reboot. All of that is fixed in Win 7.
3) Vista had a bug where some network file copies took FOREVER. And sometimes they just hung, requiring a hard reboot. Network file copies in the Win 7 RC work just as fast as XP though (there were still some issues with this in the beta, but the RC fixed it.)
3) Windows auto-setting folders to type "Media" - I think it still works like this, but there is an option in Folder Preferences to turn this off (I did.) And it actually remembers the setting if you set a folder to a certain type. I agree, this has been broken since at least Win95. They finally fixed it.:)
4) Vista also had an annoying way of, if there were any media files in a folder, and you click into it and it starts creating thumbnails - if you then tried to move the folder, it would wait until it finished creating the thumbnails, THEN move your files. Win 7 stops creating the thumbnails and just moves the folders. I had turned off the auto-create thumbnail functionality in Vista because it was so annoying and slow. I've turned it back on in Win 7 - it doesn't slow you down like it did in Vista.
5) DRM - well I never did run into any DRM issues in Vista myself (unless the copying VIDEO_TS folder issue above was related to DRM). However, I don't have a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive, and I don't see getting one any time soon. However, I do have a 55" HDTV with Vista running Media Center, connected with HDMI (but no HDCP on anything.) I "find" all kinds of HD video on the internet (Matroska mostly), and every other format you can think of, and Vista and Win 7 have never stopped me from playing anything I want. I use Zoom Player, it can play anything if you install the CCCP codec pack. AnyDVD works fine in Vista (haven't tried it in Win 7) for removing advertising, region protection, and encryption, and so does CloneDVD2. Never understood what the "Vista has DRM!" people were g
FYI, NewsBin Pro has the exact same functionality: point it to your nzb folder, download your nzb's there, and it takes care of all the rest. Hellanzb looks pretty cool, though. Looks like NewsBin and Hellanzb have most of the same features. NewsBin IS closed source though, if that matters to you.
1) Giganews.com. Period, end of conversation. Rock solid, almost a year of retention even on binaries, max out your internet connection 24/7 for $24.95/month, or $29.95 with SSL encryption. NEVER had a single problem with Giganews, and I've used them for 5 years. Looking at my download stats, I'm at around 17 TB currently.:) All open source and public domain downloads, of course.;)
2) newzleech.com. Search at www.newzleech.com, choose your files, and download a.nzb file containing your chosen files. I believe the site is hosted in the Ukraine, and their FAQ says they don't keep user activity logs, but who knows really.
3) NewsBin Pro. Have the NewsBin Pro program auto-load the nzb file, auto-download all the files, auto-download par files to repair any damaged files, and automatically unrar the files. NewsBin Pro is only $35, with free lifetime upgrades, is updated very frequently, and the license allows installation on up to 3 computers simultaneously if I remember correctly. I'm not affiliated with them, but I'm a HUGE fan. Available in 32 and 64 bit native versions for Windows, and I've heard it runs fine in Wine but have never tried it myself.
What's this bittorrent thing?;) I think I used bittorrent twice in the past year when I couldn't find it on Usenet. Usenet FTW.
I've been using Usenet since about 1993 on a 14.4 modem. Wasn't ever too much into the discussion groups so can't comment much on that. I do know the newsgroups are crammed full of spam and viruses these days, hence using newzleech.com to search for what you want instead of loading up the group and searching through it. Giganews and NewsBin Pro both support using port 80 for news, helping you to slip under your ISP's radar.
I'm pretty sure it's the cable company's speed boost doing it, not some incorrect measurement. I had the exact same thing happen to me a couple years ago, but with Vista, not Ubuntu.
I have Comcast cable internet, and at the time paid for a 8 Mbit/sec connection. I was using XP, and could reliably get 8 Mbit/sec sustained speeds when downloading from newsgroups using NewsBin Pro and Giganews. I installed the Vista RTM in January 2007, and suddenly I could get 24 Mbit/sec sustained downloads. It wasn't just a speed test reporting wacky numbers, I could tell that my downloads were coming in 3 times faster than normal.
At the urging of fellow slashdotters, I downloaded and tried a Knoppix live cd, and ran a speed test: I got almost 20 Mbit/sec.
My conclusion was that Comcast at the time must have set up their speed boost feature in a way that worked on Windows computers only. Something in the Vista networking stack (Microsoft completely re-wrote the network stack for Vista), and also something in the Linux networking stack, caused the speed boost to stay turned on and not drop back after a few seconds.
A couple weeks later, my download speeds dropped back to a maximum of 8 Mbit/sec, so Comcast must have figured it out. Time Warner apparently hasn't figured it out yet. Enjoy your free extra speed while it lasts.:)
Here's my post from back then (my first slashdot post ever.:)
I'm pretty sure I have 90% of those items in my house and garage right now, and I've never been to a public protest in my life. Should I be arrested also?
I'll second this. I bought a Sony Discman in 1987 or 88 (for $300), and it was a freaking almost-all-metal TANK. I carried it with me every day at high school, and lost track of the number of times I dropped it on the concrete ground. It sounded awesome, had a replaceable rechargeable battery pack that charged when you plugged the CD player into AC, FM/AM tuner, line-out as well as headphone port, etc. The circuit board cracked around the headphone port several times (not a manufacturing defect, it was from daily abuse), and a local stereo store was able to repair it.
That Discman withstood over 5 years of heavy daily use until finally mysteriously dying. Bought another Sony CD Walkman years later, and it was a plastic piece of crap...died within a year or two of light use, but was never all that good to begin with. Bought a Sony car CD player around that same time: also a piece of crap. Shame, because Sony really made quality CD players once upon a time. Now I only buy Panasonic CD players...haven't got a bad one yet. Although since I bought my iPod and Panasonic head unit with iPod dock cable, I suspect my CD-player-buying days are over.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't really make any difference that Cox finally shut off their usenet. I used it 5+ years ago when I lived in Phoenix, but the completion was terrible and the retention was like 3-4 days. Giganews FTW: 600 days retention and completion is great, unlimited downloads and unlimited bandwidth for $25 a month.
;)
Oh sorry, I forgot rule #1 - usenet? What's usenet?
Sounds exactly like part of the plot of the Futurama episode "Crimes of the Hot":
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9389/futuramathreadpic.png
Started out as a giant mirror in space to deflect the sun's heat, but got flipped around and "somehow" got turned into a magnifying glass and scorched a line in the earth
That's actually very common at landfills.
Tapping Power From Trash http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/14Rmethane.html
"Power from landfill methane exceeds solar power in New York and New Jersey, and landfill methane in those states and in Connecticut powers generators that produce a total of 169 megawatts of electricity — almost as much as a small conventional generating station. The methane also provides 16.7 million cubic feet of gas daily for heating and other direct uses."
Yeah, yeah. Thought of that right after I'd posted my comment. Can't edit your posts though.
I too immediately thought of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar when I saw this story. I can remember being pretty high up on all of my virtues, then stealing some of Lord British's gold or attacking him or something. doH! I lost ALL of my virtue progress and had to start over building them up. Why I didn't just load from a saved game at that point, I don't know - this was over 20 years ago. :)
:) Best. RPG Game. Ever.
Damn, now I feel like loading up Ultima IV in an Apple II emulator and playing through.
Not all new advanced features are going to be available on phones with more limited hardware. Time and technology marches on, and you can't expect the OS writer to simply code to the least common denominator. This is true in Android, and even in iPhone and iPod Touch:
"MMS is not supported on first-generation iPhone. Video MMS is not supported on first-generation iPhone 3G."
From the iPhone OS 3.1 Software Update page at http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/
"The new iPod touch is the second Apple pocket device to include hardware support for OpenGL ES 2.0, a newer graphics technology that debuted in the iPhone 3GS. OpenGL ES 2.0 gives developers the ability to use programmable “shaders” to create more impressive and realistic looking visual effects than the first two iPod touch and first two iPhone models were capable of generating. The upside of this new feature is that future games will look better on the new iPod touch and iPhone 3GS than on earlier models; the downside is that only a handful of games, and then mostly mediocre ones, have been released with support for the new graphics feature."
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple-inc.-ipod-touch-third-generation
In other words, some advanced games won't even install on first generation iPhones. Exactly like on Android. Why should phone manufacturers provide an Android 2.0 or 2.1 OS update for the G1, when the hardware clearly can't handle it?
I do understand getting NO updates to your phone ever - my HTC WinMo 6 phone never got any updates and it was frustrating. But Google has shown that it will release updates to Android as long as the hardware will support it with reasonable performance. And if you are not satisfied with that state of affairs, Android makes it fairly easy to root your phone and install whatever custom ROM you want. You do have to be technically proficient to do so, but at least Google does nothing to stop you.
Point well taken that some programs work at such a low-level that even intra-OS builds break the system. On the other hand, most basic functionality splits based on the Win95/WinXP/Vista lines.
This is pretty much my entire point about Android in a nutshell:
SOME advanced Android apps are broken by intra-OS builds - exactly like Windows is. However, the majority of Android apps work just fine under any version of Android - again, exactly like how it works in Windows.
(BTW, I'm referring to desktop Windows here, not Windows Mobile.)
And if you want to say that the variety of Droid devices is as consistent as the desktop computing environment in Windows... well, I just don't believe it.
I count approximately 35 current Android devices on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_devices
I'm pretty sure there's more than 35 unique desktop and laptop models of computers that run Windows. Each with their own unique mix of hardware and drivers. And yet, there are plenty of developers writing software for Windows. I fail to see how Android is any different.
With very few exceptions, such as games and low-level OS extensions (e.g. virus-scanners), any XP machine can do anything any other XP machine can do.
Again, that's pretty much what I'm saying: demanding apps that need low-level access to the hardware will generally break during any OS upgrade. Simple apps (which means most apps, both in Windows and Android) will probably work fine when the OS is updated. Meaning claims that Android is "too fragmented" are simply alarmist and unfounded.
Just for comparison, but how often do upgrades come out for the iPhone? Major new versions once a year, minor point upgrades about every quarter, bugfix upgrades every month or two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_OS_version_history
The Droid got 2.0.1 about a month and a half after launch, and is getting 2.1 about 4 months after launch. Sounds pretty equivalent.
All PCs have keyboard/mouse input.
Even an embedded kiosk machine with a touchscreen and no mouse or keyboard running XP Embedded, or that Windows Media Center computer with a remote and no mouse?
The different Droids have [keyboard or not]/[multitouch or singletouch].
Some Android apps need a physical keyboard, most do not. Or you can write your app to work with both - many of the emulators like Nesoid works with either your physical keyboard keys, or onscreen touch keys. Most apps don't care what kind of keyboard you have. If there's a text entry field, tap it and the onscreen keyboard slides out. Slide your keyboard open if you have one, and the onscreen keyboard goes away. The app really doesn't care which you use. How is this a problem for apps again?
And you are just wrong about multitouch - The Droid and Droid Eris both had support for multitouch in the OS at launch. It's just the stock apps didn't ship with support for pinch zoom. Most of the stock apps have this feature now, or Google is adding support. But many apps in the Marketplace have had multitouch pinch zoom for a long time, such as the Dolphin browser.
Most PCs run some flavor of Windows, so the OS is constant for ~5-7 years; the Droid is already on the second (incompatible) version of the OS. If you developed for Windows 95, you were good until XP. If you developed for XP, you were good until Vista. If you developed for Droid, oops, redo.
Really. So the virus scanner that you wrote that worked on Windows 95 worked on Windows 98, 98 SE, Me, and 2000?
This all depends on what your app does. If it's a virus scanner or something that requires low-level access to the OS, you're going to need to upgrade it every time you install a major update to your OS, even frequently Service Packs. Conversely, I've had simple utility apps that I started using on Win 95 and I'm still using in Win 7. Depends on what your app needs to do. I'm pretty sure a simple note-taking Android app will run on all Android versions - but if your app needs access to the 3D hardware (like Google Earth), then it's only going to run on a very few models - pretty similar to how PC games require a certain base hardware level.
The bottom line is PCs have essentially the same hardware, with a well-abstracted OS. Speed may vary, but most machines can do anything any other can. The Droids have so much different functionality it cannot be abstracted, so you cannot write-once run-everywhere. And until you can, the app market is going to be mcuh smaller. And since the only reason to get a smart-phone is to run apps, the Droid OS is in a state of flux.
Again, this all depends on what the app does. I have a Droid (Android 2.0.1), my wife has a Droid Eris (Android 1.6). We have a very similar set of apps installed on our phones. Besides some very advanced apps like Google Maps with Navigation that will only run on a phone with Android 1.6 or above, I have very few apps on my phone that she can't run on her phone. (And the user doesn't have to figure out if their version of Android is compatible - the Marketplace simply won't show apps that require 2.0 to a 1.5 user.) There's also some Windows 7-only apps out there too.
So tell me again how Windows is so much different and better than Android?
I totally disagree. Nintendo had a great idea with the motion controller, but I think that only Nintendo in their branded titles have figured out how to use the motion control effectively.
How to use the motion controller effectively:
1) Use it only where it makes sense - if there's a platform that needs to tilt, use the motion control for that.
2) Use it as an additional button if it makes sense - i.e. spin jump
3) Use it as a sword - I got a total kick out of swinging the Wiimote to swing my sword in Zelda Twilight Princess to kill random enemies - although in a pitched sword battle with a sword-wielding boss, the lack of sensitivity becomes a weakness and you end up just wildly swinging the Wiimote hoping to connect a hit. Hopefully the Motion Plus will fix that deficiency.
4) Use it as a pointer to pick up items - like picking up star gems in Mario Galaxy
5) Give gamers an option. New Super Mario Wii gives you the option of playing just with the motion controller sideways using the D-pad, similar to an old-school NES controller. You can also instead use the nunchuck and its analog stick - WAY better IMO. Especially since I always played Mario on the NES with an NES Advantage joystick - I always thought the D-pad was a weak excuse for a joystick.
How NOT to use the motion controller:
1) Don't use it as the main method of control because it's not sensitive enough for that
2) Don't us it as a steering wheel - The Need For Speed series on Wii uses the motion control as the ONLY available method for control, and it SUCKS big time. I quit playing halfway through because it just wouldn't respond well enough. You can't beat an analog stick for racing IMO. Mario Kart Wii gets a pass since you can also use the nunchuck analog stick or the classic controller.
While this new game definitely has its foundation in the earlier SMB games, it's not simply a rehash - you will have to learn new skills. One of my favorites is a level in World 8 - you're on a series of platforms that you move right and left using the Wii motion control by twisting left and right - while simultaneously controlling Mario moving left and right on the platform and jumping over enemies that are flying towards you and negotiating among blocks in your way. Serious multitasking. It's like nothing I've ever seen in a game before - it was brutally hard, I died over and over - but I loved every minute of it. :)
Nintendo, keep "churning out" more games like this one - I'll buy every one.
Mario 64 is IMO one of the top 10 video games on any system ever. So yes, it's worth going back to. Find a walkthrough online, that will give you the basics - but the game itself teaches you the moves you'll need to play - which is genious, and common to Mario games. It only requires you to master advanced moves when you actually need to use them to finish a level, and it always gives you a chance to practice those new moves.
:)
I never had an N64 console, but I played it on a PC emulator. First 3-D game I ever played through all the way - until then I was really stuck on 2-D games, but Mario 64 opened my eyes to the potential of quality games on 3-D.
I (and many others) consider Super Mario Galaxy (another top 10 game) to be a sequel to Mario 64. The gameplay is very similar. I highly recommend picking Mario 64 up. The 3-D graphics are blocky (not an issue IMO), but the gameplay is amazing.
I went back a few years ago and played it again, and it was as good as I remember it. Hmm, now I'm itching to go play it again.
It is silly. And don't call me Shirley.
Exactly. On my Moto Droid, which has Android 2.0.1 (just got its first major update about 2 weeks ago, and the Droid has only been out for about 1.5 months...another major update is scheduled for mid-January), you just go into the Settings and put a checkmark on "Unknown sources - Allow install of non-Market applications" and you can install applications from anywhere.
And TFS's premise, that "few of these Android apps are free software" - I call BS. Has the author even looked at the Android Market or are they talking out their ass? I've installed 44 apps, from weather widgets like Weatherbug, to games and utilities, and even GameBoy and Nintendo emulators, and they were ALL free as in beer. Some of them are commercial and closed-source, like Weatherbug (Weatherbug is ad-supported, but very unobtrusively - but there are other weather apps available that are completely ad-free, just not as cool as Weatherbug.) Others are FOSS, like some of the game system emulators - and there's even pay game emulators that I hear are quite good. I tend to prefer completely free (beer and speech) apps if I can find them, just on principle but also because they tend to be updated more often, but I'll probably buy a few paid apps eventually. I've even bought a few mp3's from the Amazon MP3 app included with the phone - because I knew they were unencumbered with DRM and I could copy them to my MP3 collection on my computer easily.
Like other comments have said: I don't see the proliferation of paid apps in the Android Market as an issue, there are plenty of free ones too. And when you browse for apps, you can click a button to restrict the list to Free Apps or Paid Apps. It's not like Google has made it difficult to find free apps.
As far as Verizon blocking certain apps and features - if they're doing any of that, I haven't seen it yet. You can use any MP3 for a ringtone, notification, or alarm tone. You can take a picture with the camera and set it as your background. Just connect the phone to your computer with the data/charging cable, and you can transfer files (including MP3 and pictures) back and forth using Explorer. I've seen apps in the Market that claim to enable tethering for free, but haven't tried them yet to verify. Google Voice is allowed. So far, Verizon is being non-evil, at least as far as the Droid is concerned. Time will tell if they stay this way, but my opinion is that it will stay this way - the Droid is being marketed as the ultimate geek phone (which in my opinion it definitely is), and geeks don't take kindly to artificial locking out of features.
Up-to-the-minute online data about where any police checkpoints and speed traps are would be nice.
Trapster for Android:
http://www.trapster.com/android.php
They also have versions for iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc.
Google Maps with Navigation (beta of course) already has street view, it actually shows you a street view of the intersection where you need to turn. And thanks to the network connection it also has traffic updates and automatic rerouting around traffic.
As far as updates - my current non-network-connected GPS (from Mio) has map updates available...for $70. I'm sure that high price is courtesy of one of the two map companies mentioned in this article. They probably charge Mio the same for a map update as for the cost of the maps in a new unit. Screw that, when I can buy a brand new updated model for $99 new.
Even only a couple months after I bought it I discovered several roads in my town that didn't exist on the GPS. I've probably found at least 5 or 6 instances of that in the couple years since then, just in my town (Hillsboro, Oregon, in the Portland urban area.) It tells me my work address is on the other side of a main road than the actual location. Etc. There's been a lot of new construction in this area the last few years. I would imagine an urban area doesn't have as many new roads, but a lot of the land here is farmland that is getting sold off as new developments, and new roads here are commonplace.
So I personally am very excited about Google Maps, although I haven't tried it out yet. My current GPS is great, but I can see so much room for improvement.
Throttle yourself too often and you'll go blind.
In my experience they don't enforce this limit, at least in my area (Portland, Oregon.) I routinely exceed the 250 GB/month download limit and I've never received a notice from Comcast.
Personally I liked Vista when it came out, mostly for the eye candy. I'm a very visual person, and I had just bought a new 20" monitor, so I wanted something that looks good. XP was looking dated. I was going to switch to either Ubuntu or Vista - I like Linux, but I haven't really used it much. Vista was more familiar, and it was good enough, so that's what I went with. I've been using it since the day it came out. But Vista did have some major bugs, the most annoying having to do with file copying, both local and network. All the file copy bugs are fixed in Win 7. The behavior when merging folders is the same, though.
:)
1) Windows 7 still does ask you if you want to merge the folders, and if any of the files are the same, it asks you what you want to do: overwrite, copy but rename one of them so you have both, or skip the file. Personally I like this setup - even though I'm a power user, I'm not perfect, I still accidentally almost overwrite files that I didn't intend to all the time. Vista and Win 7 also provide you with a thumbnail view of the files when asking you if you want to overwrite - a nice touch when you're not sure if the files are the same even though they have the same name. Personal preference, I guess. I much prefer this behavior than the XP way. Also much improved is the fact that if one of the files you want to copy can't be copied (like if it's in use), the whole file copy operation won't stop - it will just fail that one file and go on to the next. XP's instant failure of the whole copy operation if one file is in use drives me nuts.
2) The folder left behind after a move - definitely one of the most annoying bugs in Vista. One particular annoyance of mine was that if you tried to move any folder named VIDEO_TS - i.e. the contents of a dvd, it wouldn't let you - period. You had to re-create the folder in the new location, and copy the individual video files to the new folder, then delete the old folder. And frequently it would show a few of the video files in the old folder, and you couldn't delete them - but they'd disappear on reboot. All of that is fixed in Win 7.
3) Vista had a bug where some network file copies took FOREVER. And sometimes they just hung, requiring a hard reboot. Network file copies in the Win 7 RC work just as fast as XP though (there were still some issues with this in the beta, but the RC fixed it.)
3) Windows auto-setting folders to type "Media" - I think it still works like this, but there is an option in Folder Preferences to turn this off (I did.) And it actually remembers the setting if you set a folder to a certain type. I agree, this has been broken since at least Win95. They finally fixed it.
4) Vista also had an annoying way of, if there were any media files in a folder, and you click into it and it starts creating thumbnails - if you then tried to move the folder, it would wait until it finished creating the thumbnails, THEN move your files. Win 7 stops creating the thumbnails and just moves the folders. I had turned off the auto-create thumbnail functionality in Vista because it was so annoying and slow. I've turned it back on in Win 7 - it doesn't slow you down like it did in Vista.
5) DRM - well I never did run into any DRM issues in Vista myself (unless the copying VIDEO_TS folder issue above was related to DRM). However, I don't have a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive, and I don't see getting one any time soon. However, I do have a 55" HDTV with Vista running Media Center, connected with HDMI (but no HDCP on anything.) I "find" all kinds of HD video on the internet (Matroska mostly), and every other format you can think of, and Vista and Win 7 have never stopped me from playing anything I want. I use Zoom Player, it can play anything if you install the CCCP codec pack. AnyDVD works fine in Vista (haven't tried it in Win 7) for removing advertising, region protection, and encryption, and so does CloneDVD2. Never understood what the "Vista has DRM!" people were g
FYI, NewsBin Pro has the exact same functionality: point it to your nzb folder, download your nzb's there, and it takes care of all the rest. Hellanzb looks pretty cool, though. Looks like NewsBin and Hellanzb have most of the same features. NewsBin IS closed source though, if that matters to you.
For binary downloads, it's as simple as 1-2-3:
:) All open source and public domain downloads, of course. ;)
.nzb file containing your chosen files. I believe the site is hosted in the Ukraine, and their FAQ says they don't keep user activity logs, but who knows really.
;) I think I used bittorrent twice in the past year when I couldn't find it on Usenet. Usenet FTW.
1) Giganews.com. Period, end of conversation. Rock solid, almost a year of retention even on binaries, max out your internet connection 24/7 for $24.95/month, or $29.95 with SSL encryption. NEVER had a single problem with Giganews, and I've used them for 5 years. Looking at my download stats, I'm at around 17 TB currently.
2) newzleech.com. Search at www.newzleech.com, choose your files, and download a
3) NewsBin Pro. Have the NewsBin Pro program auto-load the nzb file, auto-download all the files, auto-download par files to repair any damaged files, and automatically unrar the files. NewsBin Pro is only $35, with free lifetime upgrades, is updated very frequently, and the license allows installation on up to 3 computers simultaneously if I remember correctly. I'm not affiliated with them, but I'm a HUGE fan. Available in 32 and 64 bit native versions for Windows, and I've heard it runs fine in Wine but have never tried it myself.
What's this bittorrent thing?
I've been using Usenet since about 1993 on a 14.4 modem. Wasn't ever too much into the discussion groups so can't comment much on that. I do know the newsgroups are crammed full of spam and viruses these days, hence using newzleech.com to search for what you want instead of loading up the group and searching through it. Giganews and NewsBin Pro both support using port 80 for news, helping you to slip under your ISP's radar.
Funny you should mention that: the four terminal servers here ARE actually named Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pluto. It's a pediatric clinic. :)
I'm pretty sure it's the cable company's speed boost doing it, not some incorrect measurement. I had the exact same thing happen to me a couple years ago, but with Vista, not Ubuntu.
:)
:)
I have Comcast cable internet, and at the time paid for a 8 Mbit/sec connection. I was using XP, and could reliably get 8 Mbit/sec sustained speeds when downloading from newsgroups using NewsBin Pro and Giganews. I installed the Vista RTM in January 2007, and suddenly I could get 24 Mbit/sec sustained downloads. It wasn't just a speed test reporting wacky numbers, I could tell that my downloads were coming in 3 times faster than normal.
At the urging of fellow slashdotters, I downloaded and tried a Knoppix live cd, and ran a speed test: I got almost 20 Mbit/sec.
My conclusion was that Comcast at the time must have set up their speed boost feature in a way that worked on Windows computers only. Something in the Vista networking stack (Microsoft completely re-wrote the network stack for Vista), and also something in the Linux networking stack, caused the speed boost to stay turned on and not drop back after a few seconds.
A couple weeks later, my download speeds dropped back to a maximum of 8 Mbit/sec, so Comcast must have figured it out. Time Warner apparently hasn't figured it out yet. Enjoy your free extra speed while it lasts.
Here's my post from back then (my first slashdot post ever.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=217980&cid=17700566
I'm pretty sure I have 90% of those items in my house and garage right now, and I've never been to a public protest in my life. Should I be arrested also?
I'll second this. I bought a Sony Discman in 1987 or 88 (for $300), and it was a freaking almost-all-metal TANK. I carried it with me every day at high school, and lost track of the number of times I dropped it on the concrete ground. It sounded awesome, had a replaceable rechargeable battery pack that charged when you plugged the CD player into AC, FM/AM tuner, line-out as well as headphone port, etc. The circuit board cracked around the headphone port several times (not a manufacturing defect, it was from daily abuse), and a local stereo store was able to repair it.
That Discman withstood over 5 years of heavy daily use until finally mysteriously dying. Bought another Sony CD Walkman years later, and it was a plastic piece of crap...died within a year or two of light use, but was never all that good to begin with. Bought a Sony car CD player around that same time: also a piece of crap. Shame, because Sony really made quality CD players once upon a time. Now I only buy Panasonic CD players...haven't got a bad one yet. Although since I bought my iPod and Panasonic head unit with iPod dock cable, I suspect my CD-player-buying days are over.