I think you're definitely right about tablets replacing the PC for non-tech types. Since I've started carrying my Asus Transformer around at work to our sites, I get asked all the time about it. They say they've been thinking about getting a new computer, but ask if I think it can replace a computer. And for the casual user surfing the web and sending emails, it definitely can. But if you need to use Photoshop or some other heavy-duty apps, definitely not.
In my experience though, my tablet doesn't necessarily replace my computer, it actually more acts as an additional computer less capable than my desktop, but way more portable and convenient and able to perform about 90% of my most common computer uses. For traveling or hanging out at home it's really convenient to have a tablet that's instant-on and small and light (and solid state memory so you don't have to worry about the hard drive.) And I find the 10 inch screen the perfect size - big enough to show an entire web page or see most of the details in a digital picture I just took with my full-size digital camera (and pulled out the micro-sd card and put it into the slot in the tablet - I LOVE that feature.)
Really though, they're not for everyone. If you really want Windows, feel free to get a netbook, there's a lot of good ones out there. I wanted something that was new and an alternative, and designed for a touchscreen. Once you get used to it, having a touchscreen AND a keyboard (I have the Transformer keyboard dock) is really quite efficient. I find scrolling on a web page with my fingers on the touchscreen way more comfortable than using a mouse or touchpad. And for traveling for pleasure, a tablet is great, I never once found myself wishing for a laptop during a recent trip, and it was so great having a battery that lasts an entire day without having to worry about finding an outlet.
Thanks, that's what I've heard. But like I say in a comment below, it's my work phone so I don't want to mess with it too much. Besides, I've had it two years and a brand new top of the line phone with all the new features and hardware (paid for by my job) sounds a lot better. If I had to live with this phone another year though, I'd be throwing CyanogenMod on there posthaste.
Might be the difference between a cell phone and an MP3 player. Since with a cell phone you have an always-on data connection, you tend to run more always-on background processes, in my experience.
A lot of the background processes I have are things like Google+ auto-picture upload, Facebook, Google Voice, Weatherbug, work email and Gmail (both push emails), etc. Pretty normal and mainstream apps. They don't take a whole lot of RAM each, but when you run enough of them they add up. I'd guess that if I just restored it to stock and didn't install any of these apps, it'd probably run much better - but then running these apps are why I have a smartphone in the first place - added functionality.
I'm sure I could root it and install a custom ROM to fix my issues (and get Gingerbread which was never officially released for this phone), but this is my work phone so I don't want to mess with it too much. And honestly I'd rather get a newer faster more-capable phone anyway.:)
I beg to differ - my original Motorola Droid with 256 MB RAM runs like ass with 2.2 Froyo. It can take 20 seconds to re-draw my home screen after running even a semi-large app, and sometimes it just gets so unresponsive I can't do anything on it.
It just doesn't have enough free RAM to run very fast with newer versions of Android. When it's really lagging, I run a task killer and free up a bit of RAM, and it runs much better - but not what you could call fast at all.
It ran much faster with 2.1, but I do love all the new features 2.2 came with so I grin and bear it for now until I can get a new phone.
I agree with you that it can be nice feedback for the first time submitter, but also that it can be useful telling apart posts from new submitters and veterans. I think it's useful information in either case, and I don't agree with others saying they don't want to see it. More information is better right? (Within reason of course.)
Would be nice if you could edit your post within a certain time period, like a minute. Longer than that, and you get into situations I see at other sites, where people have commented on a post, and then the original poster went back and edited their post. If you read the chain later, you're like "WTF are they going on about, his post doesn't say that!"
I disagree. It is useful information, that tells us that we may need to be slightly wary of the article - did the article poster sign up for a slashdot account just so they could post an article from their own blog? On the other hand, if someone has posted many articles in the past, from that we can deduce that they're probably not an astroturfer, but instead a real actual slashdot regular.
If you RTFA (yes, I know), it is very easy to get back to the normal menus:
"collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon)"
Look around at your local office supply store (Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc.) I was surprised to see them still in stock, and still selling at $499, at my local Office Depot - the day after I was at Best Buy and the checkout girl told me they were selling all their stock at $99 and they were flying off the shelves.
One thing that the Asus browser really doesn't like is posting Slashdot comments - it's crashed several times. But the Javascript is a bit funky on Slashdot. Back to my desktop browser for this.:)
I'm going to be traveling out of state in a few months for a business conference. I'm planning on taking both my tablet and my work laptop. I'm bringing the laptop in case I need to vpn into work (can't currently vpn into work computers remotely, but Logmein does have an Android version I want to try out, and we do use Logmein on our servers), or any other thing I can't use my tablet for. I really expect that I'll hardly use the laptop, but I'm bringing it just in case. I expect it's going to be a real pleasure to be able to carry a 1.5 lb computer with me everywhere at the conference (about twice that much when I get the keyboard dock) and be able to take notes, get on the web, etc.
You're right, tablets are not a replacement for notebooks. They're another beast entirely. For couch web surfing and checking your email, making simple changes to a document, they're perfect. For creating a spreadsheet or word document from scratch, not so much. But I don't really think anyone is claiming they can do that...except the tablet naysayers.:)
For a website that is all about technology, there sure are a lot of people resistant to new technology ideas here.;)
Even though current tablets have much weaker processors and less memory if you compare them to a desktop or laptop computer, they also run OS's which are much less resource-hungry. My Asus tablet actually runs just as fast, or faster, than my laptop or desktop, when web surfing, opening apps, emailing, etc. I'm sure it also helps that tablets use flash memory instead of hard drives. Yes, if I tried number-crunching on it, it would probably explode in flames, but since that's not something I do either at work or home, it's not a concern to me.
The email program on the Asus is really excellent - I think I like it more than Outlook I use at work, and it has the majority of the features that I actually use. The Gmail tablet version is BETTER than the desktop web version IMO. If you've only seen Android phone apps and think that a tablet is just a bigger screen - totally untrue. Developers that take the time to design a tablet-specific app can really stretch their wings, and use all the extra screen real-estate to create great tabbed interfaces. The beta WeatherBug tablet app is a thing of beauty. The fact that all the Android 3.0 tablets have pretty much the same base specs (dual core NVidia Tegra 2 1 GHz dual CPU, 1 GB RAM) makes it so they only have to design one single app for all Android tablets. I've been downloading apps like crazy since I got it, and I've rarely been unable to find an app to do whatever I want.
And the web browsers on tablets have gotten to the point where they can open just about any web page. There's the occasional page that is slow as crap on my tablet, but those are the web pages that tend to run slow on my desktop too - loaded up with javascript and ads. Set the Flash in the browser to only load when you tap on it, and that solves the majority of slow webpage issues. I haven't found a single page yet that simply won't load, and that's after I set the browser to report that it's a desktop browser. Oh, and the stock browser is tabbed, and has no problem opening 6-7 web pages at once. The Transformer also comes with Polaris Office, which can open and edit Excel files no problem.
At home, I haven't picked up my laptop for a week.:)
I think you underestimate the market for tablets among the masses.
I just bought an Asus EeePad Transformer last week, and literally everywhere I take it, I get asked about it - geeks and non-geeks alike. And not "huh, what's that funny looking thing?" but they want to know if I like it, if you can read eBooks on it, how much it cost, is it better or worse than a Kindle, what does it have that makes it better than an iPad, etc. Heck my Mom is looking to get a tablet so she can carry a bunch of nature guide eBooks or PDFs with her when she's hiking and not have to carry multiple paper books - and my mom is so behind the curve on technology she didn't even get her first VCR until the 90's, and her first computer about 5 years ago.
Like others have said, it's easy to discount tablets as simply a toy until you actually have one and use it on a daily basis. Could I use a laptop/netbook instead? Sure, but instead of instant-on, a laptop takes at least 5-10 seconds to come back from sleep. I can use it while I'm standing up, sitting down, whatever. I can tap the screen instead of having to use a mouse or trackpad. It's a fraction of the weight of my laptop. And my laptop brand new probably only got 3-4 hours of battery live (not to mention now where the battery is completely dead and a new one costs $150), whereas my tablet gets 8-9 hours of heavy use easy. I can log into Citrix at work and run our Windows apps on it. There's a Logmein app so I can log into our work servers.
I believe that "the masses" have been waiting for tablets to come down in price, and for there to be a viable alternative to iPad. Finally there are tablets that fit that, such as the Asus Transformer. Wait until after this Christmas season, and we'll see whether tablets are still a niche product...
For one thing, I don't think the article mentioned consumer drives specifically. These standards are just as applicable for servers - and for servers, the faster the drive, the better. Arguing that these SSDs are "fast enough" for servers is ludicrous - you can never have too much speed in your servers.
But I'll give you an example of large datasets that a consumer (me) would use these types of speed for, on a daily basis: I download large HD video files from newsgroups, and the program first has to assemble the posts into RAR files, then check the files for corruption, then assemble and unpack them. These files can be 10's of GB, and all the above processes are very I/O bound. If I could run them on an SSD, they would complete in a fraction of the time, which means I could download even more.
Installing an OS is also very dependent on the speed of your drive. If you can reinstall your OS in 12 minutes (that's how long it took with my SSD to install Windows 7) vs 45 minutes with a hard drive, that's a big gain. If you're a member of your IT department cloning a bunch of computers, that's a huge increase in your productivity.
Does my mother need such a fast SSD drive in her computer? No, of course not, she'd be fine with a slow SSD like you describe. But not every consumer wants "good enough" in their computers - that's why we have a range of options and enthusiast parts. I, for one, will choose the faster drive. I won't always use the increased speed, but when I need it I will sure appreciate it.
There's a golden opportunity here that geeks may want to consider about Google+ - we can shape the discourse and way that the Google+ community develops, and request *useful* features of the Google developers. Facebook was first joined by the cool college kids. Google+ is being first joined by geeks. Everyone posting on Slashdot is by definition engaging in a social network, wouldn't it be cool to have a social network for geeks?
The thing about Google+ now is there's much less noise to signal than Facebook, and that's probably because the majority of people on Google+ are early-adopting geeks, and not your Grandmother or 13 year old sister.
Well that's awesome for you then. I, however, don't have a 3TB XP box sitting in my apartment full of FLAC, and the desire to set this all up myself. This service is obviously not for people that like to roll their own.
I've only really tried it a couple times, but: In my house where I don't get that great a 3G signal, I had a hard time getting a whole song to actually play (buffering...buffering.) Granted that was not too long after it launched. Tried it again just now, and seemed to work great, downloaded a whole 3:20 song in about 30 seconds and had no pauses. Only two points of data, but take it for what it's worth.:)
Turning on WiFi on the phone, it works perfectly, with only about 5-10 seconds pause at the start of playing while it started streaming.
Practical value: Access to your entire music collection on your Android phone, your Android tablet, and anywhere you can open a web browser, all without having to remember to upload the files to each device individually (or taking up the precious limited space on your phone or tablet.) I have an iPod with plenty of space for most of my collection, but if the battery dies or I forget it, I have a backup plan if I want to listen to music (it's happened to me recently, and it was nice to have that backup.) And then if you get a new album, you only have to add it to your collection once, you don't have to remember to upload it to multiple devices.
Remember that Google doesn't sell mp3 players. For you, with an mp3 player with a large capacity, this isn't as useful. But for someone without an iPod, but who has an Android phone, Google Music Beta could easily replace the need for them to buy an iPod. This service is a direct competitor to Apple's iPod business.
Being able to access your collection from multiple devices from anywhere with an internet connection is the major draw of Google Music Beta. I'm still trying it out and deciding if it's awesome or just kinda cool, but so far I'm liking it.
I would love to see solar installations on every building. I'd install them on my roof if I could afford it currently. What, solar panels are uglier than asphalt shingles?
I find them rather nice looking. We have large tracts of windmills in sections of northeastern Oregon - in areas of flat grassland much like the area being discussed in this article. Driving by the windmills in Oregon, I think they're quite pretty. Maybe it's just the knowledge of how they help the environment that makes them look nice to me.
Granted, there are no installations of windmills anywhere near my house in the Portland area (this area doesn't have the sustained winds and lack of high trees that the northeast area of Oregon has), so maybe I'd feel different if they were in my backyard - but I'd like to think I'd be OK with it. I'd definitely be OK with putting wind farms off the coast of Oregon, which is being discussed, along with tidal power farms. Come on people, it's not like very much of this country is "untouched" any more. I love to get out in the wilderness and camp and canoe, but planes do fly over still. You really can't get away from civilization completely.
I'm all for preserving natural ecosystems, but they're not talking about building the windmills IN the Osage preserve, the objections are that the windmills are VISIBLE from the preserve. Come on - turn around and look the other direction if you don't like seeing the windmills. If we want to get off oil and coal, we need to get away from this NIMBY attitude.
I also don't see the problem with building windmills AND going for the gas and oil underneath. It's not like building a windmill forever ruins the land underneath. If you decide later to mine, just remove the windmill and mine.
Windows 7 was Released To Manufacturers (RTM) on July 22, 2009. Windows 8 is scheduled for sometime in 2012. So three years, which is actually a totally normal span of time for Microsoft to release a new OS. It took five years between XP and Vista, so if you're used to that, three years for a new MS OS seems like a really short time span. Windows 7 has seen a very rapid uptake, but the problem is that there are a LOT of Windows XP computers out there. And until those computers die, lots of people will likely use XP. Most consumers will never upgrade their OS, they just use whatever their old computer came with. However, every new computer is sold with Windows 7 these days, and people are generally happy with it. You're not seeing much of the XP downgrades like you did with Vista.
Windows 8 (or whatever MS decides to call it) will be a desktop replacement for Windows 7, and will ALSO be available in an ARM version (or versions) for tablets. You hear a lot about the new Windows 8 ARM version (and less about the desktop OS version) since an ARM version of Windows has never been widely available before now. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall and realized that desktop Windows just is too fat and bloated to run on the new tablets. I know this from experience - I have a Windows XP convertible tablet (I'm using it now) and while it works OK as a tablet with an input pen, hardly anyone at my work actually uses it in that configuration - desktop software just isn't designed to be used with a pen. And the battery life stinks compared to an ARM-based tablet. With dual batteries, the best we can expect from our tablets is about 6-7 hours. The iPad (and other ARM-based tablets) can get over 12-16 hours constant use.
In my opinion, you're going to see the OS stats change drastically from XP to 7 in the next year or so. Businesses for the most part gave Vista a pass - plus during the recent recession, a lot of businesses gave any kind of OS or hardware upgrades a pass. But XP is looking a little dated at this point, and a lot of them can no longer put off upgrades. Businesses are starting to upgrade - and it's to Windows 7 they are upgrading to. (Especially since MS no longer sells XP licenses or provides much support.) The fact that Windows 7 SP1 came out recently is a definite plus, since some businesses wait until the first Service Pack to jump into a new OS. At my work (a medical practice), all our new computers are getting Windows 7 64-bit, and we've had very few problems with it.
That rule applies everywhere, in my opinion. You're free to disregard it and live your life as a cynic, but I choose to live by a general rule of "give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove themselves unworthy."
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're definitely right about tablets replacing the PC for non-tech types. Since I've started carrying my Asus Transformer around at work to our sites, I get asked all the time about it. They say they've been thinking about getting a new computer, but ask if I think it can replace a computer. And for the casual user surfing the web and sending emails, it definitely can. But if you need to use Photoshop or some other heavy-duty apps, definitely not.
In my experience though, my tablet doesn't necessarily replace my computer, it actually more acts as an additional computer less capable than my desktop, but way more portable and convenient and able to perform about 90% of my most common computer uses. For traveling or hanging out at home it's really convenient to have a tablet that's instant-on and small and light (and solid state memory so you don't have to worry about the hard drive.) And I find the 10 inch screen the perfect size - big enough to show an entire web page or see most of the details in a digital picture I just took with my full-size digital camera (and pulled out the micro-sd card and put it into the slot in the tablet - I LOVE that feature.)
Really though, they're not for everyone. If you really want Windows, feel free to get a netbook, there's a lot of good ones out there. I wanted something that was new and an alternative, and designed for a touchscreen. Once you get used to it, having a touchscreen AND a keyboard (I have the Transformer keyboard dock) is really quite efficient. I find scrolling on a web page with my fingers on the touchscreen way more comfortable than using a mouse or touchpad. And for traveling for pleasure, a tablet is great, I never once found myself wishing for a laptop during a recent trip, and it was so great having a battery that lasts an entire day without having to worry about finding an outlet.
The original Motorola Droid doesn't have Motoblur, it's vanilla Android.
Thanks, that's what I've heard. But like I say in a comment below, it's my work phone so I don't want to mess with it too much. Besides, I've had it two years and a brand new top of the line phone with all the new features and hardware (paid for by my job) sounds a lot better. If I had to live with this phone another year though, I'd be throwing CyanogenMod on there posthaste.
Might be the difference between a cell phone and an MP3 player. Since with a cell phone you have an always-on data connection, you tend to run more always-on background processes, in my experience.
:)
A lot of the background processes I have are things like Google+ auto-picture upload, Facebook, Google Voice, Weatherbug, work email and Gmail (both push emails), etc. Pretty normal and mainstream apps. They don't take a whole lot of RAM each, but when you run enough of them they add up. I'd guess that if I just restored it to stock and didn't install any of these apps, it'd probably run much better - but then running these apps are why I have a smartphone in the first place - added functionality.
I'm sure I could root it and install a custom ROM to fix my issues (and get Gingerbread which was never officially released for this phone), but this is my work phone so I don't want to mess with it too much. And honestly I'd rather get a newer faster more-capable phone anyway.
I beg to differ - my original Motorola Droid with 256 MB RAM runs like ass with 2.2 Froyo. It can take 20 seconds to re-draw my home screen after running even a semi-large app, and sometimes it just gets so unresponsive I can't do anything on it.
It just doesn't have enough free RAM to run very fast with newer versions of Android. When it's really lagging, I run a task killer and free up a bit of RAM, and it runs much better - but not what you could call fast at all.
It ran much faster with 2.1, but I do love all the new features 2.2 came with so I grin and bear it for now until I can get a new phone.
I agree with you that it can be nice feedback for the first time submitter, but also that it can be useful telling apart posts from new submitters and veterans. I think it's useful information in either case, and I don't agree with others saying they don't want to see it. More information is better right? (Within reason of course.)
I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Would be nice if you could edit your post within a certain time period, like a minute. Longer than that, and you get into situations I see at other sites, where people have commented on a post, and then the original poster went back and edited their post. If you read the chain later, you're like "WTF are they going on about, his post doesn't say that!"
I disagree. It is useful information, that tells us that we may need to be slightly wary of the article - did the article poster sign up for a slashdot account just so they could post an article from their own blog? On the other hand, if someone has posted many articles in the past, from that we can deduce that they're probably not an astroturfer, but instead a real actual slashdot regular.
If you RTFA (yes, I know), it is very easy to get back to the normal menus:
"collapse the ribbon (double-click the tab, or click the Minimize arrow on the right side of the ribbon)"
Look around at your local office supply store (Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc.) I was surprised to see them still in stock, and still selling at $499, at my local Office Depot - the day after I was at Best Buy and the checkout girl told me they were selling all their stock at $99 and they were flying off the shelves.
One thing that the Asus browser really doesn't like is posting Slashdot comments - it's crashed several times. But the Javascript is a bit funky on Slashdot. Back to my desktop browser for this. :)
:)
;)
I'm going to be traveling out of state in a few months for a business conference. I'm planning on taking both my tablet and my work laptop. I'm bringing the laptop in case I need to vpn into work (can't currently vpn into work computers remotely, but Logmein does have an Android version I want to try out, and we do use Logmein on our servers), or any other thing I can't use my tablet for. I really expect that I'll hardly use the laptop, but I'm bringing it just in case. I expect it's going to be a real pleasure to be able to carry a 1.5 lb computer with me everywhere at the conference (about twice that much when I get the keyboard dock) and be able to take notes, get on the web, etc.
You're right, tablets are not a replacement for notebooks. They're another beast entirely. For couch web surfing and checking your email, making simple changes to a document, they're perfect. For creating a spreadsheet or word document from scratch, not so much. But I don't really think anyone is claiming they can do that...except the tablet naysayers.
For a website that is all about technology, there sure are a lot of people resistant to new technology ideas here.
Even though current tablets have much weaker processors and less memory if you compare them to a desktop or laptop computer, they also run OS's which are much less resource-hungry. My Asus tablet actually runs just as fast, or faster, than my laptop or desktop, when web surfing, opening apps, emailing, etc. I'm sure it also helps that tablets use flash memory instead of hard drives. Yes, if I tried number-crunching on it, it would probably explode in flames, but since that's not something I do either at work or home, it's not a concern to me.
:)
The email program on the Asus is really excellent - I think I like it more than Outlook I use at work, and it has the majority of the features that I actually use. The Gmail tablet version is BETTER than the desktop web version IMO. If you've only seen Android phone apps and think that a tablet is just a bigger screen - totally untrue. Developers that take the time to design a tablet-specific app can really stretch their wings, and use all the extra screen real-estate to create great tabbed interfaces. The beta WeatherBug tablet app is a thing of beauty. The fact that all the Android 3.0 tablets have pretty much the same base specs (dual core NVidia Tegra 2 1 GHz dual CPU, 1 GB RAM) makes it so they only have to design one single app for all Android tablets. I've been downloading apps like crazy since I got it, and I've rarely been unable to find an app to do whatever I want.
And the web browsers on tablets have gotten to the point where they can open just about any web page. There's the occasional page that is slow as crap on my tablet, but those are the web pages that tend to run slow on my desktop too - loaded up with javascript and ads. Set the Flash in the browser to only load when you tap on it, and that solves the majority of slow webpage issues. I haven't found a single page yet that simply won't load, and that's after I set the browser to report that it's a desktop browser. Oh, and the stock browser is tabbed, and has no problem opening 6-7 web pages at once. The Transformer also comes with Polaris Office, which can open and edit Excel files no problem.
At home, I haven't picked up my laptop for a week.
I think you underestimate the market for tablets among the masses.
I just bought an Asus EeePad Transformer last week, and literally everywhere I take it, I get asked about it - geeks and non-geeks alike. And not "huh, what's that funny looking thing?" but they want to know if I like it, if you can read eBooks on it, how much it cost, is it better or worse than a Kindle, what does it have that makes it better than an iPad, etc. Heck my Mom is looking to get a tablet so she can carry a bunch of nature guide eBooks or PDFs with her when she's hiking and not have to carry multiple paper books - and my mom is so behind the curve on technology she didn't even get her first VCR until the 90's, and her first computer about 5 years ago.
Like others have said, it's easy to discount tablets as simply a toy until you actually have one and use it on a daily basis. Could I use a laptop/netbook instead? Sure, but instead of instant-on, a laptop takes at least 5-10 seconds to come back from sleep. I can use it while I'm standing up, sitting down, whatever. I can tap the screen instead of having to use a mouse or trackpad. It's a fraction of the weight of my laptop. And my laptop brand new probably only got 3-4 hours of battery live (not to mention now where the battery is completely dead and a new one costs $150), whereas my tablet gets 8-9 hours of heavy use easy. I can log into Citrix at work and run our Windows apps on it. There's a Logmein app so I can log into our work servers.
I believe that "the masses" have been waiting for tablets to come down in price, and for there to be a viable alternative to iPad. Finally there are tablets that fit that, such as the Asus Transformer. Wait until after this Christmas season, and we'll see whether tablets are still a niche product...
...and 640k ought to be good enough for anybody.
For one thing, I don't think the article mentioned consumer drives specifically. These standards are just as applicable for servers - and for servers, the faster the drive, the better. Arguing that these SSDs are "fast enough" for servers is ludicrous - you can never have too much speed in your servers.
But I'll give you an example of large datasets that a consumer (me) would use these types of speed for, on a daily basis: I download large HD video files from newsgroups, and the program first has to assemble the posts into RAR files, then check the files for corruption, then assemble and unpack them. These files can be 10's of GB, and all the above processes are very I/O bound. If I could run them on an SSD, they would complete in a fraction of the time, which means I could download even more.
Installing an OS is also very dependent on the speed of your drive. If you can reinstall your OS in 12 minutes (that's how long it took with my SSD to install Windows 7) vs 45 minutes with a hard drive, that's a big gain. If you're a member of your IT department cloning a bunch of computers, that's a huge increase in your productivity.
Does my mother need such a fast SSD drive in her computer? No, of course not, she'd be fine with a slow SSD like you describe. But not every consumer wants "good enough" in their computers - that's why we have a range of options and enthusiast parts. I, for one, will choose the faster drive. I won't always use the increased speed, but when I need it I will sure appreciate it.
There's a golden opportunity here that geeks may want to consider about Google+ - we can shape the discourse and way that the Google+ community develops, and request *useful* features of the Google developers. Facebook was first joined by the cool college kids. Google+ is being first joined by geeks. Everyone posting on Slashdot is by definition engaging in a social network, wouldn't it be cool to have a social network for geeks?
The thing about Google+ now is there's much less noise to signal than Facebook, and that's probably because the majority of people on Google+ are early-adopting geeks, and not your Grandmother or 13 year old sister.
Well that's awesome for you then. I, however, don't have a 3TB XP box sitting in my apartment full of FLAC, and the desire to set this all up myself. This service is obviously not for people that like to roll their own.
Have you never heard of a power plug? You can plug things in, AND listen to them at the same time these days. What will they think of next?
I've only really tried it a couple times, but: In my house where I don't get that great a 3G signal, I had a hard time getting a whole song to actually play (buffering...buffering.) Granted that was not too long after it launched. Tried it again just now, and seemed to work great, downloaded a whole 3:20 song in about 30 seconds and had no pauses. Only two points of data, but take it for what it's worth. :)
Turning on WiFi on the phone, it works perfectly, with only about 5-10 seconds pause at the start of playing while it started streaming.
Practical value: Access to your entire music collection on your Android phone, your Android tablet, and anywhere you can open a web browser, all without having to remember to upload the files to each device individually (or taking up the precious limited space on your phone or tablet.) I have an iPod with plenty of space for most of my collection, but if the battery dies or I forget it, I have a backup plan if I want to listen to music (it's happened to me recently, and it was nice to have that backup.) And then if you get a new album, you only have to add it to your collection once, you don't have to remember to upload it to multiple devices.
Remember that Google doesn't sell mp3 players. For you, with an mp3 player with a large capacity, this isn't as useful. But for someone without an iPod, but who has an Android phone, Google Music Beta could easily replace the need for them to buy an iPod. This service is a direct competitor to Apple's iPod business.
Being able to access your collection from multiple devices from anywhere with an internet connection is the major draw of Google Music Beta. I'm still trying it out and deciding if it's awesome or just kinda cool, but so far I'm liking it.
I would love to see solar installations on every building. I'd install them on my roof if I could afford it currently. What, solar panels are uglier than asphalt shingles?
I find them rather nice looking. We have large tracts of windmills in sections of northeastern Oregon - in areas of flat grassland much like the area being discussed in this article. Driving by the windmills in Oregon, I think they're quite pretty. Maybe it's just the knowledge of how they help the environment that makes them look nice to me.
Granted, there are no installations of windmills anywhere near my house in the Portland area (this area doesn't have the sustained winds and lack of high trees that the northeast area of Oregon has), so maybe I'd feel different if they were in my backyard - but I'd like to think I'd be OK with it. I'd definitely be OK with putting wind farms off the coast of Oregon, which is being discussed, along with tidal power farms. Come on people, it's not like very much of this country is "untouched" any more. I love to get out in the wilderness and camp and canoe, but planes do fly over still. You really can't get away from civilization completely.
I'm all for preserving natural ecosystems, but they're not talking about building the windmills IN the Osage preserve, the objections are that the windmills are VISIBLE from the preserve. Come on - turn around and look the other direction if you don't like seeing the windmills. If we want to get off oil and coal, we need to get away from this NIMBY attitude.
I also don't see the problem with building windmills AND going for the gas and oil underneath. It's not like building a windmill forever ruins the land underneath. If you decide later to mine, just remove the windmill and mine.
Windows 7 was Released To Manufacturers (RTM) on July 22, 2009. Windows 8 is scheduled for sometime in 2012. So three years, which is actually a totally normal span of time for Microsoft to release a new OS. It took five years between XP and Vista, so if you're used to that, three years for a new MS OS seems like a really short time span. Windows 7 has seen a very rapid uptake, but the problem is that there are a LOT of Windows XP computers out there. And until those computers die, lots of people will likely use XP. Most consumers will never upgrade their OS, they just use whatever their old computer came with. However, every new computer is sold with Windows 7 these days, and people are generally happy with it. You're not seeing much of the XP downgrades like you did with Vista.
Windows 8 (or whatever MS decides to call it) will be a desktop replacement for Windows 7, and will ALSO be available in an ARM version (or versions) for tablets. You hear a lot about the new Windows 8 ARM version (and less about the desktop OS version) since an ARM version of Windows has never been widely available before now. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall and realized that desktop Windows just is too fat and bloated to run on the new tablets. I know this from experience - I have a Windows XP convertible tablet (I'm using it now) and while it works OK as a tablet with an input pen, hardly anyone at my work actually uses it in that configuration - desktop software just isn't designed to be used with a pen. And the battery life stinks compared to an ARM-based tablet. With dual batteries, the best we can expect from our tablets is about 6-7 hours. The iPad (and other ARM-based tablets) can get over 12-16 hours constant use.
In my opinion, you're going to see the OS stats change drastically from XP to 7 in the next year or so. Businesses for the most part gave Vista a pass - plus during the recent recession, a lot of businesses gave any kind of OS or hardware upgrades a pass. But XP is looking a little dated at this point, and a lot of them can no longer put off upgrades. Businesses are starting to upgrade - and it's to Windows 7 they are upgrading to. (Especially since MS no longer sells XP licenses or provides much support.) The fact that Windows 7 SP1 came out recently is a definite plus, since some businesses wait until the first Service Pack to jump into a new OS. At my work (a medical practice), all our new computers are getting Windows 7 64-bit, and we've had very few problems with it.
That rule applies everywhere, in my opinion. You're free to disregard it and live your life as a cynic, but I choose to live by a general rule of "give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove themselves unworthy."