After reading way too many responses on this topic, I have to make some comments on this subject.
English became dominant in two phases:
1. The first phase was the spread of the British Empire from the 17th to 20th Centuries. By 1900, the British Empire included the majority of the African continent, India, and Australia/New Zealand. The British also maintained a strong presence in China also. The phrase "The Sun never sets on the British Empire" wasn't a boast--it was reality. Don't forget, it was the major British presence in North America that resulted in Canada and the USA speaking English as their primary languages.
2. The rapid growth of the USA as a world military and economic power from 1898 on. Given that the USA since 1898 has become THE prominent country in terms of science and business, note that most of today's scientific research and business developments are done in ENGLISH (as noted by the most important scientific and business research papers of the last 85 years). It's not a small wonder why the Internet did much of its early growth as a ENGLISH-based system.
The problem with some languages like Chinese and Japanese is that typing out characters on a computer is extremely cumbersome, given that Chinese has 5,000+ characters and Japanese normally has 1,980 Chinese-derived kanji characters in addition to the hiregana and katakana characters. I've seen Japanese-standard computer keyboards and frankly, typing in Japanese text takes much practice, to say the least.
This is not a problem in Germanic and Romance languages since they use the 26-character Latin-derived alphabet (plus a few additional keys for accented vowels and special-case consanants) and Slavic languages, since that uses the Cyrillic alphabet (which has close to the same number of characters as the Latin alphabet).
Because English is now the "lingua franca" of business and science in 2000, most of the world wants to speak English, if only as a second language. What is interesting about the French Academy is that in many cases they have to change French to reflect technological changes.
"But I think M$ would more likely ship an OEM version with many features disabled, to activate features visit M$ site, choose features you want activated (pay-per-feature), then pay with a credit card, or upgrade to the full version (enable all features) for a substantial additional fee, say $50 consumer and $100 or more for commercial."
I really doubt that's a good idea. Mostly because most computer users would be confused by all the installation and payment options.
I think a "plain vanilla" and "loaded version" makes a lot more sense from both a marketing and technical standpoint.
What I find interesting about this filing that all this is going to have a limited impact on the status quo. I can take an educated guess on the following that will happen.
1. Microsoft will provide uniform pricing for their OEM products, and of course, we'll have both "loaded" and "plain vanilla" versions of Windows 98/ME/2000 for OEM's to load. Microsoft may deeply cut the price of Windows 98/ME/2000, so about a year from now, Windows ME will cost $29.95 for "plain vanilla" version and $39.95 for "loaded version"; Windows 2000 Professional (or its successor) will cost $79.95 for the "plain vanilla" version and $89.95 for the "loaded" version. And will be sold as a separate cost item for all system sales.
2. The applications company may be particularly bad news for Sun and Corel. Given that the vast majority of the world's business data files outside of very large databases are stored in Microsoft Office format, you can tell what kind of impact a Linux version of MS Office will do to the Linux market. Sun and Corel will be wondering why their office suite sales have gone down the proverbial toilet....
In short, we may have more "choice," but most computer users are so used to Microsoft products anyway that I expect its dominance--even when the company is split in two--to continue for quite a while. In fact, I won't be surprised that about three years from now the two split companies will have a combined market capitalization of US$1 trillion or more, mostly because BOTH companies will continue to be profitable, which is sadly not true of most Linux companies right now.
I think the CPU ID idea used on the Pentium III CPU died real quickly because Microsoft never really supported the idea in Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000. Given that's 85% of the operating system market, when Microsoft doesn't support the CPU ID#, nobody else is going to support it.
Bach's music was kind of unique because he was writing during the Baroque period, a time when music began its transition from being played in private residences to larger public performances.
He certainly was the master of the counterpoint, that's to be sure. It's small wonder why the two-part and three-part Inventions Bach wrote some so great on modern electronic keyboards.;)
I think the album of "strange Moog country music" was SONIC SEASONINGS.
The reason I LOVED SWITCHED-ON BACH was that you could HEAR many notes with greater clarity than you did with traditional instruments. Brandenbug Concerto No. 3 was particularly amazing--listening to the synthesizer version and then listening to the version done by a traditional orchestra was like putting a muffler on your ear the second time around. The third movement of this Concerto just blew me away at just how Carlos breathed new life into an old piece of classical music.
In fact, IMHO Bach's music is perhaps one of the very few composers whose music could be adapted to almost any musical instrument. Well, that's not such a stretch given what I said earlier about Bach writing music for practically every important musical instrument in his lifetime.
What I find interesting about all the comments about Bob Moog's synthesizers here is that only ONE person mentioned Wendy (neé Walter) Carlos' major breakthrough album, SWITCHED-ON BACH.
Remember, up until SWITCHED-ON BACH, electronic musical instruments were regarded more as curiosities and things to create "avant-garde" music. When SWITCHED-ON BACH was released in late 1968, it was a HUGE, HUGE breakthrough for synthesizers in general. For one thing, it incredibly refreshing to hear the music of Johann Sebestian Bach in such an innovative manner. You could hear with great clarity how Bach mastered the use of the counterpoint in music.
This album was (IMHO) proof that Bach is perhaps the greatest music composer of all time, because Bach composed superb music for everything from clavicord, harpsicord, string quartets, small orchestras, big orchestras with a choir, pipe organs and even the early pianos.
If Microsoft was to be broken up, I would have strongly favored a breakup along product lines in a horizontal breakup, NOT create a bunch of "Baby Bills" with identical product lines in a vertical breakup, something I seriously feared the DoJ might just try to do.
The reason is very simple: this keeps product development advancing at a predictible pace. Because Windows will still continue to advance under a single standard, we don't run the risk of competing standards for future Windows improvements and the major risk of compatibility problems.
One of the reasons why Linux hasn't advanced more rapidly in popularity is the fact you have a lot of competing standards for Linux above the kernel level. That does explain why most of the large computer companies that do preload Linux (e.g., Dell, Compaq, IBM, etc.) use Red Hat Linux 6.1 (and soon 6.2), since Red Hat Linux has become more or less the "de facto" standard for Linux; IT managers want to standardize on ONE commercial distribution of Linux for compatibility reasons.
Personally, at the rate things are improving on digital cameras, the days of 35 mm print film could begin its fast wane as early as the middle of 2001.
There are three reasons for this:
1. CCD manufacturers are already starting to develop CCD sensors with 5-6 megapixels. That is almost the same as ISO 100 35 mm print film. I expect to see the first consumer cameras with 5-6 megapixel CCD's by the middle of 2001.
2. Digital cameras are now increasingly designed so it could use IBM's very tiny "MicroDrive" hard drive. That means by the middle of 2001 digital cameras will have as much as 700 MB of storage space for digital images. And don't forget that Compact Flash memory are also increasing in size, too; 256 MB Compact Flash cards might be common by the middle of 2001.
3. Inkjet printers have improved dramatically in the way they print color in the last 24 months. Today's better Canon, Epson, and HP inkjet printers can print high-resolution color pictures with 1200x700 dots/inch and higher resolutions, which makes them pretty much indistinguishable from color prints you get from most photo processors.
In fact, I see 35 mm cameras increasingly sold only to people that use very high resolution print film (ISO 25, 50 and 64) or slide film. Most everyone else by 2005 that would normally use 35 mm print film will have switched to digital cameras.
Mind you, for larger formats such as 6 x 4.5 and 6 x 7, they will continue to be around because they offer the extremely high resolution necessary for advertising and museum-quality art work.
I have news for you. The SSE instruction set on the Pentium III CPU is quite a bit different than the 3DNow! instruction set on the Athlon CPU. If you write the app to take advantage of SSE it won't work on an Athlon CPU.
Isn't Adobe supposed to release a Photoshop filter that works in conjunction with the 3DNow! extensions soon? Quake III Arena runs fast on the Athlon because I believe part of its code will recognize the 3DNow! extensions on the Athlon CPU and use them to accelerate certain redraw functions. I believe that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 doesn't support 3DNow! currently, but that may change soon.
What's interesting is that the most popular CAD/CAM program out there (AutoCAD) is still mostly dependent on the FPU to accelerate its performance. In that case, the Athlon's superior FPU unit will definitely be useful here.
The Athlon's speed advantage compared to a Pentium IIIE CPU at the same clock speed is in two parts:
1. The Athlon has a 128 KB L1 cache. The Pentium IIIE only has a 32 KB L1 cache.
2. The Athlon has a totally new FPU core that processes FPU and MMX instructions faster per CPU clock cycle than the Pentium IIIE (which still uses the FPU core originally developed for the Pentium Pro from 1995).
Once the Athlon CPU picks up the integrated L2 cache running at CPU speed, I expect performance gain to be even bigger.
In regards to Pentium IIIE versus Athlon CPU--the CPU that you choose really depends the application you're running.
Most new games and multimedia applications usually take advantage of the SSE multimedia extensions on the PIII CPU, so if you're running a games like Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, Flight Simulator 2000, etc. you want to get a PIIIE CPU.
An Athlon CPU is a good choice if your game or multimedia application takes advantage of the 3DNow! multimedia extensions of the Athlon CPU, or if you are running applications that need sheer FPU processing power (e.g., CAD/CAM programs).
It'll be very interesting to see what AMD does with the "Thunderbird" CPU due in about a month's time. If they can keep the Athlon CPU core and match it with CPU speed cache, then it will be one VERY fast CPU indeed.
While I do agree that the Palm handhelds doesn't have ALL the functionality of a DayTimer book, the thing is that many people who USE DayTimer books don't use the full potential functionality of it.
In that case, a Palm handheld works REAL well, to say the least. The Palm V series are definitely worth getting, especially with its very compact size. Especially now that Palm has reduced the price of the Palm Vx to only US$399.
3. TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, and Turner Classic Movies.
4. Time-Warner Cable, which owns 20% of the cable sytems in the USA.
Have you noticed that all the assets I mentioned above are immediately recognizable to any cable and DBS satellite TV subscriber? NOW you know what I have serious concerns about concentration of media power with the AOL Time-Warner merger.
I hope you had a chance to read the listing of assets that the combined AOL and Time-Warner group will have in the Columbia Journalism Review.
I looked at that list and just the cable TV channel assets alone represents most of the high-profile channels on cable TV (the HBO channels, the Cinemax channels, TVKO pay-per-view, the CNN news channels, TBS Superstation, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies). We are talking AT LEAST _15_ channels of high-profile programming on digital cable and satellite TV!
Like I said originally some time ago: while everyone here on Slashdot is zealously bashing Microsoft they are a bit mum and confused at what the AOL Time Warner conglomerate could easily do to stifle expression of free speech.
Having tried the Palm Vx, all I can say is that if you're looking for a complete replacement for that DayTimer book with direct access to contact manager programs, look no further. In fact, that's what most people use Palm devices for.
But try to do things like surfing the Internet and it gets a bit awkward. The Palm VII is an interesting idea but it forces you to read web pages in a form that is extremely reduced and a bit difficult to navigate.
My only big concern about the new PocketPC devices is that they are still somewhat expensive (about US$500). They should release a backlit monochrome LCD version for around $299--and that will become a viable competitor for Palm devices.
Actually, the Handspring Visor's expandability is great, but finding one is a bit difficult.:-(
I personally think that the article written in C|Net is proof that the AOL merger with Time-Warner is going to have MUCH more serious side effects than any power that Microsoft wields in the software market.
The reason is simple: control by a few people a _very_ large fraction of our mass media outlets. Between all the AOL divisions and Time-Warner assets, they can effectively have a very large say in what we read in general interest periodicals, on we see on television (over-air broadcast, cable AND direct satellite), what we see in the movie theaters, what we hear with records, and soon what we read on the Internet. This is media control that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst at the beginning of the 20th Century could NOT begin to dream about, and the fictional Elliot Carver from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES is no longer a far-fetched character. To say it has harmful effects on the expression of free speech is a major understatement, to say the least.
At least with Microsoft Windows 98/2000, you can run alternate web browsers from Netscape and Opera Software, use streaming-media programs from Real Networks and Apple, and even use alternate office productivity suites from Corel, Lotus/IBM and Sun/StarOffice.
AOL will eventually give obvious preferential treatment to Time-Warner mass media output to AOL users, and this is VERY bad for its competition.
Having used the Zoom Telephonics 56Kx 2949L modem for about 18 months, I get 50666 to 53333 bps connect speeds most of the time.:-)
The best thing about an external modem is you can see the status lights of the modem operation--like connect speeds, data transfer, error correction, etc. And being an external modem, it doesn't steal CPU cycles when operating, either.
By the way, if you want to connect a digital camera or a Palm device, use a USB port instead--the transfer rate is FAR faster than a serial port.
Re:Oh no, not another Winmodem...
on
WinDSL Coming?
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· Score: 2
Given that I already HAVE a Zoom Telephonics 56Kx (Model 2949L) external V.90 modem, I often ask the computer dealer (I'm in the process of looking for a new computer) if I can delete the PCI V.90 modem they normally provide with the computer.
So far, Dell and Micron PC have said yes; Gateway for some strange reason said no.
I do agree that "Winmodems" are terrible. They steal CPU cycles and can cause system slowdowns, especially when accessing pages that take a fairly long time to download.
I myself am extremely skeptical of the idea of an ADSL modem that depends on CPU cycles for it to run properly.
Even if you can get to run under Linux, stealing CPU cycles to run this thing might cause no end of system slowdowns even WITH a fast CPU.
The fact we now have external ADSL modems from several vendors that connect to the USB port shows that the whole idea from Motorola is silly.
By the way, I've played with PCI card analog modems and frankly, they steal too many CPU cycles and sometimes cause major system slowdowns. That's why my computer at home has an _external_ modem (a Zoom 56Kx Model 2949L).
All you need to do is look at the current street prices for RAM.
I can get PC-100 SDRAM for about US$100-$110 per 128 MB DIMM; PC-133 SDRAM for about US$130-$145 per 128 MB DIMM; and 800 MHz RDRAM for about US$700 per 128 MB RIMM.
No wonder people aren't so interested in RDRAM. If my guess of US$180-$195 for a DDR-SDRAM 128 MB DIMM is true, then NOBODY is going to buy RDRAM in the long run.
The question right now is when will we see.PNG file display and printing support in the major commercial web browsers?
It's likely that Netscape 6.0 (the final release version) will have it, and I think Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows 95/98/NT4/2000 may have it also. IE 5.01 will display.PNG files correctly, but printing is another matter (Microsoft is aware of this matter (there is a KnowledgeBase article about this); they may issue a patch or library file update to fully support.PNG files).
I'm a bit surprised that the article on C|Net News.com didn't mention that the format used by many people to post graphics on web pages is NOT.GIF. There's a reason for this:.GIF files tend to download slowly compared to other graphics file types.
When I see pictures and photographs posted on web sites, they're usually in JPEG format. After all, illustration programs and photo-editing programs can output to.JPG format, and nobody has patents on JPEG format, either.
As for PNG graphics, the issue up till now is that older web browsers will not display them. Fortunately, Netscape Communicator 4.05 and later, Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, and the upcoming Opera 4.0 will display PNG graphics files with no problems.
I think that the reason why George Lucas has decided to do a DVD version of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace is simple: there are now enough DVD players and DVD-ROM drives out there to justify the sales that can recoup the investment necessary to master this movie onto DVD (and make a nice, handsome profit).
With standalone players dropping under US$200 in price, DVD-ROM drives showing up on new computers AND new laptops in a big way, and this fall massive sales of Sony PlayStation 2's that can play DVD movies, not to mention lots of computer geeks wanting to see the movie just for its stunning technical details, I expect DVD sales of TPM to be at least 1 to 2 million copies in a matter of days.
In fact, now that it appears that Sony will most likely ship the US version of PlayStation 2 on September 9, 2000, wouldn't it be a heck of a tie-in for PS2 owners to get a discount coupon to buy the TPM DVD at the same time?
Slashdot Mirror
After reading way too many responses on this topic, I have to make some comments on this subject.
English became dominant in two phases:
1. The first phase was the spread of the British Empire from the 17th to 20th Centuries. By 1900, the British Empire included the majority of the African continent, India, and Australia/New Zealand. The British also maintained a strong presence in China also. The phrase "The Sun never sets on the British Empire" wasn't a boast--it was reality. Don't forget, it was the major British presence in North America that resulted in Canada and the USA speaking English as their primary languages.
2. The rapid growth of the USA as a world military and economic power from 1898 on. Given that the USA since 1898 has become THE prominent country in terms of science and business, note that most of today's scientific research and business developments are done in ENGLISH (as noted by the most important scientific and business research papers of the last 85 years). It's not a small wonder why the Internet did much of its early growth as a ENGLISH-based system.
The problem with some languages like Chinese and Japanese is that typing out characters on a computer is extremely cumbersome, given that Chinese has 5,000+ characters and Japanese normally has 1,980 Chinese-derived kanji characters in addition to the hiregana and katakana characters. I've seen Japanese-standard computer keyboards and frankly, typing in Japanese text takes much practice, to say the least.
This is not a problem in Germanic and Romance languages since they use the 26-character Latin-derived alphabet (plus a few additional keys for accented vowels and special-case consanants) and Slavic languages, since that uses the Cyrillic alphabet (which has close to the same number of characters as the Latin alphabet).
Because English is now the "lingua franca" of business and science in 2000, most of the world wants to speak English, if only as a second language. What is interesting about the French Academy is that in many cases they have to change French to reflect technological changes.
Markar wrote:
"But I think M$ would more likely ship an OEM version with many features disabled, to activate features visit M$ site, choose features you want activated (pay-per-feature), then pay with a credit card, or upgrade to the full version (enable all features) for a substantial additional fee, say $50 consumer and $100 or more for commercial."
I really doubt that's a good idea. Mostly because most computer users would be confused by all the installation and payment options.
I think a "plain vanilla" and "loaded version" makes a lot more sense from both a marketing and technical standpoint.
What I find interesting about this filing that all this is going to have a limited impact on the status quo. I can take an educated guess on the following that will happen.
1. Microsoft will provide uniform pricing for their OEM products, and of course, we'll have both "loaded" and "plain vanilla" versions of Windows 98/ME/2000 for OEM's to load. Microsoft may deeply cut the price of Windows 98/ME/2000, so about a year from now, Windows ME will cost $29.95 for "plain vanilla" version and $39.95 for "loaded version"; Windows 2000 Professional (or its successor) will cost $79.95 for the "plain vanilla" version and $89.95 for the "loaded" version. And will be sold as a separate cost item for all system sales.
2. The applications company may be particularly bad news for Sun and Corel. Given that the vast majority of the world's business data files outside of very large databases are stored in Microsoft Office format, you can tell what kind of impact a Linux version of MS Office will do to the Linux market. Sun and Corel will be wondering why their office suite sales have gone down the proverbial toilet....
In short, we may have more "choice," but most computer users are so used to Microsoft products anyway that I expect its dominance--even when the company is split in two--to continue for quite a while. In fact, I won't be surprised that about three years from now the two split companies will have a combined market capitalization of US$1 trillion or more, mostly because BOTH companies will continue to be profitable, which is sadly not true of most Linux companies right now.
Folks,
I think the CPU ID idea used on the Pentium III CPU died real quickly because Microsoft never really supported the idea in Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows 2000. Given that's 85% of the operating system market, when Microsoft doesn't support the CPU ID#, nobody else is going to support it.
Bach's music was kind of unique because he was writing during the Baroque period, a time when music began its transition from being played in private residences to larger public performances.
;)
He certainly was the master of the counterpoint, that's to be sure. It's small wonder why the two-part and three-part Inventions Bach wrote some so great on modern electronic keyboards.
I think the album of "strange Moog country music" was SONIC SEASONINGS.
The reason I LOVED SWITCHED-ON BACH was that you could HEAR many notes with greater clarity than you did with traditional instruments. Brandenbug Concerto No. 3 was particularly amazing--listening to the synthesizer version and then listening to the version done by a traditional orchestra was like putting a muffler on your ear the second time around. The third movement of this Concerto just blew me away at just how Carlos breathed new life into an old piece of classical music.
In fact, IMHO Bach's music is perhaps one of the very few composers whose music could be adapted to almost any musical instrument. Well, that's not such a stretch given what I said earlier about Bach writing music for practically every important musical instrument in his lifetime.
What I find interesting about all the comments about Bob Moog's synthesizers here is that only ONE person mentioned Wendy (neé Walter) Carlos' major breakthrough album, SWITCHED-ON BACH.
Remember, up until SWITCHED-ON BACH, electronic musical instruments were regarded more as curiosities and things to create "avant-garde" music. When SWITCHED-ON BACH was released in late 1968, it was a HUGE, HUGE breakthrough for synthesizers in general. For one thing, it incredibly refreshing to hear the music of Johann Sebestian Bach in such an innovative manner. You could hear with great clarity how Bach mastered the use of the counterpoint in music.
This album was (IMHO) proof that Bach is perhaps the greatest music composer of all time, because Bach composed superb music for everything from clavicord, harpsicord, string quartets, small orchestras, big orchestras with a choir, pipe organs and even the early pianos.
Folks,
Gawd, somebody at the DoJ has some sense!
If Microsoft was to be broken up, I would have strongly favored a breakup along product lines in a horizontal breakup, NOT create a bunch of "Baby Bills" with identical product lines in a vertical breakup, something I seriously feared the DoJ might just try to do.
The reason is very simple: this keeps product development advancing at a predictible pace. Because Windows will still continue to advance under a single standard, we don't run the risk of competing standards for future Windows improvements and the major risk of compatibility problems.
One of the reasons why Linux hasn't advanced more rapidly in popularity is the fact you have a lot of competing standards for Linux above the kernel level. That does explain why most of the large computer companies that do preload Linux (e.g., Dell, Compaq, IBM, etc.) use Red Hat Linux 6.1 (and soon 6.2), since Red Hat Linux has become more or less the "de facto" standard for Linux; IT managers want to standardize on ONE commercial distribution of Linux for compatibility reasons.
Personally, at the rate things are improving on digital cameras, the days of 35 mm print film could begin its fast wane as early as the middle of 2001.
There are three reasons for this:
1. CCD manufacturers are already starting to develop CCD sensors with 5-6 megapixels. That is almost the same as ISO 100 35 mm print film. I expect to see the first consumer cameras with 5-6 megapixel CCD's by the middle of 2001.
2. Digital cameras are now increasingly designed so it could use IBM's very tiny "MicroDrive" hard drive. That means by the middle of 2001 digital cameras will have as much as 700 MB of storage space for digital images. And don't forget that Compact Flash memory are also increasing in size, too; 256 MB Compact Flash cards might be common by the middle of 2001.
3. Inkjet printers have improved dramatically in the way they print color in the last 24 months. Today's better Canon, Epson, and HP inkjet printers can print high-resolution color pictures with 1200x700 dots/inch and higher resolutions, which makes them pretty much indistinguishable from color prints you get from most photo processors.
In fact, I see 35 mm cameras increasingly sold only to people that use very high resolution print film (ISO 25, 50 and 64) or slide film. Most everyone else by 2005 that would normally use 35 mm print film will have switched to digital cameras.
Mind you, for larger formats such as 6 x 4.5 and 6 x 7, they will continue to be around because they offer the extremely high resolution necessary for advertising and museum-quality art work.
Hold it right there!
I have news for you. The SSE instruction set on the Pentium III CPU is quite a bit different than the 3DNow! instruction set on the Athlon CPU. If you write the app to take advantage of SSE it won't work on an Athlon CPU.
Isn't Adobe supposed to release a Photoshop filter that works in conjunction with the 3DNow! extensions soon? Quake III Arena runs fast on the Athlon because I believe part of its code will recognize the 3DNow! extensions on the Athlon CPU and use them to accelerate certain redraw functions. I believe that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 doesn't support 3DNow! currently, but that may change soon.
What's interesting is that the most popular CAD/CAM program out there (AutoCAD) is still mostly dependent on the FPU to accelerate its performance. In that case, the Athlon's superior FPU unit will definitely be useful here.
The Athlon's speed advantage compared to a Pentium IIIE CPU at the same clock speed is in two parts:
1. The Athlon has a 128 KB L1 cache. The Pentium IIIE only has a 32 KB L1 cache.
2. The Athlon has a totally new FPU core that processes FPU and MMX instructions faster per CPU clock cycle than the Pentium IIIE (which still uses the FPU core originally developed for the Pentium Pro from 1995).
Once the Athlon CPU picks up the integrated L2 cache running at CPU speed, I expect performance gain to be even bigger.
In regards to Pentium IIIE versus Athlon CPU--the CPU that you choose really depends the application you're running.
Most new games and multimedia applications usually take advantage of the SSE multimedia extensions on the PIII CPU, so if you're running a games like Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, Flight Simulator 2000, etc. you want to get a PIIIE CPU.
An Athlon CPU is a good choice if your game or multimedia application takes advantage of the 3DNow! multimedia extensions of the Athlon CPU, or if you are running applications that need sheer FPU processing power (e.g., CAD/CAM programs).
It'll be very interesting to see what AMD does with the "Thunderbird" CPU due in about a month's time. If they can keep the Athlon CPU core and match it with CPU speed cache, then it will be one VERY fast CPU indeed.
While I do agree that the Palm handhelds doesn't have ALL the functionality of a DayTimer book, the thing is that many people who USE DayTimer books don't use the full potential functionality of it.
In that case, a Palm handheld works REAL well, to say the least. The Palm V series are definitely worth getting, especially with its very compact size. Especially now that Palm has reduced the price of the Palm Vx to only US$399.
However, Disney's influence on cable TV is about 1/3 that of Time-Warner.
Look at Time-Warner's cable TV assets:
1. CNN news channels (CNN, CNN Headline News, CNNfn and CNN/SI).
2. HBO channels (HBO, HBO multichannel, HBO en Espanol, Cinemax, Cinemax multichannel).
3. TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, and Turner Classic Movies.
4. Time-Warner Cable, which owns 20% of the cable sytems in the USA.
Have you noticed that all the assets I mentioned above are immediately recognizable to any cable and DBS satellite TV subscriber? NOW you know what I have serious concerns about concentration of media power with the AOL Time-Warner merger.
I hope you had a chance to read the listing of assets that the combined AOL and Time-Warner group will have in the Columbia Journalism Review.
I looked at that list and just the cable TV channel assets alone represents most of the high-profile channels on cable TV (the HBO channels, the Cinemax channels, TVKO pay-per-view, the CNN news channels, TBS Superstation, TNT, and Turner Classic Movies). We are talking AT LEAST _15_ channels of high-profile programming on digital cable and satellite TV!
Like I said originally some time ago: while everyone here on Slashdot is zealously bashing Microsoft they are a bit mum and confused at what the AOL Time Warner conglomerate could easily do to stifle expression of free speech.
Having tried the Palm Vx, all I can say is that if you're looking for a complete replacement for that DayTimer book with direct access to contact manager programs, look no further. In fact, that's what most people use Palm devices for.
:-(
But try to do things like surfing the Internet and it gets a bit awkward. The Palm VII is an interesting idea but it forces you to read web pages in a form that is extremely reduced and a bit difficult to navigate.
My only big concern about the new PocketPC devices is that they are still somewhat expensive (about US$500). They should release a backlit monochrome LCD version for around $299--and that will become a viable competitor for Palm devices.
Actually, the Handspring Visor's expandability is great, but finding one is a bit difficult.
Folks,
I personally think that the article written in C|Net is proof that the AOL merger with Time-Warner is going to have MUCH more serious side effects than any power that Microsoft wields in the software market.
The reason is simple: control by a few people a _very_ large fraction of our mass media outlets. Between all the AOL divisions and Time-Warner assets, they can effectively have a very large say in what we read in general interest periodicals, on we see on television (over-air broadcast, cable AND direct satellite), what we see in the movie theaters, what we hear with records, and soon what we read on the Internet. This is media control that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst at the beginning of the 20th Century could NOT begin to dream about, and the fictional Elliot Carver from the James Bond movie TOMORROW NEVER DIES is no longer a far-fetched character. To say it has harmful effects on the expression of free speech is a major understatement, to say the least.
At least with Microsoft Windows 98/2000, you can run alternate web browsers from Netscape and Opera Software, use streaming-media programs from Real Networks and Apple, and even use alternate office productivity suites from Corel, Lotus/IBM and Sun/StarOffice.
AOL will eventually give obvious preferential treatment to Time-Warner mass media output to AOL users, and this is VERY bad for its competition.
Having used the Zoom Telephonics 56Kx 2949L modem for about 18 months, I get 50666 to 53333 bps connect speeds most of the time. :-)
The best thing about an external modem is you can see the status lights of the modem operation--like connect speeds, data transfer, error correction, etc. And being an external modem, it doesn't steal CPU cycles when operating, either.
By the way, if you want to connect a digital camera or a Palm device, use a USB port instead--the transfer rate is FAR faster than a serial port.
Given that I already HAVE a Zoom Telephonics 56Kx (Model 2949L) external V.90 modem, I often ask the computer dealer (I'm in the process of looking for a new computer) if I can delete the PCI V.90 modem they normally provide with the computer.
So far, Dell and Micron PC have said yes; Gateway for some strange reason said no.
I do agree that "Winmodems" are terrible. They steal CPU cycles and can cause system slowdowns, especially when accessing pages that take a fairly long time to download.
I myself am extremely skeptical of the idea of an ADSL modem that depends on CPU cycles for it to run properly.
Even if you can get to run under Linux, stealing CPU cycles to run this thing might cause no end of system slowdowns even WITH a fast CPU.
The fact we now have external ADSL modems from several vendors that connect to the USB port shows that the whole idea from Motorola is silly.
By the way, I've played with PCI card analog modems and frankly, they steal too many CPU cycles and sometimes cause major system slowdowns. That's why my computer at home has an _external_ modem (a Zoom 56Kx Model 2949L).
All you need to do is look at the current street prices for RAM.
I can get PC-100 SDRAM for about US$100-$110 per 128 MB DIMM; PC-133 SDRAM for about US$130-$145 per 128 MB DIMM; and 800 MHz RDRAM for about US$700 per 128 MB RIMM.
No wonder people aren't so interested in RDRAM. If my guess of US$180-$195 for a DDR-SDRAM 128 MB DIMM is true, then NOBODY is going to buy RDRAM in the long run.
The question right now is when will we see .PNG file display and printing support in the major commercial web browsers?
.PNG files correctly, but printing is another matter (Microsoft is aware of this matter (there is a KnowledgeBase article about this); they may issue a patch or library file update to fully support .PNG files).
It's likely that Netscape 6.0 (the final release version) will have it, and I think Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows 95/98/NT4/2000 may have it also. IE 5.01 will display
I'm a bit surprised that the article on C|Net News.com didn't mention that the format used by many people to post graphics on web pages is NOT .GIF. There's a reason for this: .GIF files tend to download slowly compared to other graphics file types.
.JPG format, and nobody has patents on JPEG format, either.
When I see pictures and photographs posted on web sites, they're usually in JPEG format. After all, illustration programs and photo-editing programs can output to
As for PNG graphics, the issue up till now is that older web browsers will not display them. Fortunately, Netscape Communicator 4.05 and later, Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, and the upcoming Opera 4.0 will display PNG graphics files with no problems.
I think that the reason why George Lucas has decided to do a DVD version of Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace is simple: there are now enough DVD players and DVD-ROM drives out there to justify the sales that can recoup the investment necessary to master this movie onto DVD (and make a nice, handsome profit).
With standalone players dropping under US$200 in price, DVD-ROM drives showing up on new computers AND new laptops in a big way, and this fall massive sales of Sony PlayStation 2's that can play DVD movies, not to mention lots of computer geeks wanting to see the movie just for its stunning technical details, I expect DVD sales of TPM to be at least 1 to 2 million copies in a matter of days.
In fact, now that it appears that Sony will most likely ship the US version of PlayStation 2 on September 9, 2000, wouldn't it be a heck of a tie-in for PS2 owners to get a discount coupon to buy the TPM DVD at the same time?