I watch a fair bit of video on mobile devices while travelling (trains/flying). My girlfriend watches a lot on her iPod touch, mostly TV comedy series (Flight of the Conchords, Gavin and Stacey etc.) Provided you have good eyesight, most video is perfectly watchable on a ~3" screen.
That's all ripped to MP4 from DVD though, I'm not sure about broadcast TV to mobiles.
Indeed, too many developers take the dialog box approach to usability - in this case, surely the correct solution is just to scale the resolution dialog so that it always fits on the screen? There's no reason for that dialog to be so large.
Prolog (or Prolog-based languages) see a lot of use in planning applications - Constraint Logic Programming etc. Things like optimal scheduling for allocating aircraft to gates at an airport.
Because many ISPs have usage limits, especially the cheaper options. The kind of non-technical person who doesn't secure their WiFi is quite likely to have a lower usage cap, because they don't use it so much.
Agreed, in terms of design, quality and maintenance I've found US roads to be very poor. But with that many thousands of miles to maintain, it's inevitable they're going to cut corners.
Does the upconverting really make any difference? I've never seen the output of an upconverting player, but I don't understand how upconverting in the player can look much better than upconverting in the TV.
I'm seriously thinking about writing a bot that would send an "I'm feeling lucky" result from Google based Now that's a good idea. Although I'd probably have to add in a link to how use Visual Studio's find function. Apparently some people don't know how to press ctrl-F.
I definitely recognise myself in the article's description: I generally write 2 or 3 versions of an email before finally sending it and I really don't get on with IM-style communication.
The problem I find with IM at work is that some people use it instead of doing their own research. I frequently get IM'd work questions that could have been solved with 1 google search or 30 seconds with the source tree and grep. Instead, because it's so easy, they interrupt me.
No, I'm with you. I'm a 28 year old, multiple mobile phone owning, mobile email/internet obsessive software developer and I don't 'get' Twitter from the descriptions here.
It feels like 2000/2001 again, arguing with techie friends working for startup web companies that were clearly doomed to fail.
WM6 official ROM. Push still requires a the client to maintain a connection, how often it needs to reconnect depends on the network, client and server:
Push email on my HTC Hermes cuts the battery life by 50-75% (depending on my location). WM6 added an option so you can explicitly quit applications when you press the "X" instead of just putting the process in the background because of problems with limited RAM.
IMHO, the truth of this lies somewhere between the two camps. Background processes have a lot of problems on phones. They stop the phone being a simple "pick up and use" device, because the user has to worry about which apps they leave running. Somebody using a phone doesn't want to have to think about memory usage, they're probably barely aware of what RAM even is. They affect reliability, performance and battery life.
Almost all apps on PalmOS run in the same way - they save state and exit when you switch to another app. By optimising application startup speed, they give the illusion of multi-tasking. Anyone who's used a Symbian UIQ phone knows how slow application startup is on a lot of smartphones. IIRC, there are some phones that allow background tasks until you start the web browser, at which point all other non-system tasks are killed to save memory.
That said, multi-tasking has some very important uses - background polling for messages etc. The solution is probably a system framework with which applications can register small helper programs to perform specific tasks. The framework can then ensure they don't use too much CPU or RAM and optimise their network access to reduce the amount of time the radio is on.
Plus ~$200 for Windows. Plus a day setting it all up, downloading drivers and updates. That puts you nearer $1,000 (depending on how you value your free time).
I think the more interesting comparison is between a normal PC (Intel graphics, low end CPU etc.) and a gaming machine. It's probably something like $200-300, round about the cost of a current gen console.
That is a very short-sighted point of view. Firstly, are you not curious about what's going on in the rest of the world? Elections in Russia, riots in Burma, pollution in China, Tibetan oppression - these are interesting stories, never mind the fact that they affect the lives of millions of other humans.
Secondly, the world news that you would ignore today can have a huge effect in future (I'm sure you can think of at least one example of that).
Thirdly, knowledge of news from around the world gives you context to judge your own society and make voting decisions. The rest of the world is like a giant laboratory where they're trying out alternative ways of running things, why ignore it?
I spent a couple of weeks on a business trip in the US in January - the saturation coverage of the presidential primaries was over the top IMHO. It's not like it's even an election, it's a pre-election. I noticed that there was virtually no mention of (for example) the massive violence going on in Kenya at the time over their elections.
I can't find any exact figures now, but the console market is many times the size of the PC market these days. I've seen interviews with people from companies like Epic saying "the PC market is basically World of Warcraft and the Sims", hence their increased focus on console platforms.
When I looked at moving to SA, they were very keen to get experienced IT-related people to immigrate. Be warned, it's not exactly the safest place in the world to live.
If you scale a Flash interface designed for a 1280x1024 screen down to an iphone screen will the text be legible? Will the user be able to press the buttons/menus etc? Just scaling the interface so it's the right number of pixels across isn't enough.
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I watch a fair bit of video on mobile devices while travelling (trains/flying). My girlfriend watches a lot on her iPod touch, mostly TV comedy series (Flight of the Conchords, Gavin and Stacey etc.) Provided you have good eyesight, most video is perfectly watchable on a ~3" screen.
That's all ripped to MP4 from DVD though, I'm not sure about broadcast TV to mobiles.
Indeed, too many developers take the dialog box approach to usability - in this case, surely the correct solution is just to scale the resolution dialog so that it always fits on the screen? There's no reason for that dialog to be so large.
Prolog (or Prolog-based languages) see a lot of use in planning applications - Constraint Logic Programming etc. Things like optimal scheduling for allocating aircraft to gates at an airport.
Because many ISPs have usage limits, especially the cheaper options. The kind of non-technical person who doesn't secure their WiFi is quite likely to have a lower usage cap, because they don't use it so much.
Same here (terraced house in a small city in the UK), I can see 11 networks from my office and they're all encrypted.
Considering how close I've been to my ISP bandwidth cap this month, I'd be seriously pissed off if someone used my connection without permission.
Agreed, in terms of design, quality and maintenance I've found US roads to be very poor. But with that many thousands of miles to maintain, it's inevitable they're going to cut corners.
Does the upconverting really make any difference? I've never seen the output of an upconverting player, but I don't understand how upconverting in the player can look much better than upconverting in the TV.
I definitely recognise myself in the article's description: I generally write 2 or 3 versions of an email before finally sending it and I really don't get on with IM-style communication.
The problem I find with IM at work is that some people use it instead of doing their own research. I frequently get IM'd work questions that could have been solved with 1 google search or 30 seconds with the source tree and grep. Instead, because it's so easy, they interrupt me.
No, I'm with you. I'm a 28 year old, multiple mobile phone owning, mobile email/internet obsessive software developer and I don't 'get' Twitter from the descriptions here.
It feels like 2000/2001 again, arguing with techie friends working for startup web companies that were clearly doomed to fail.
Is that it? Sounds about as pointless as I suspected.
I just connected my Touch again and it didn't popup. Last time I connected it I clicked "No", not "Remind me Later" (there are 3 options, not 2).
WM6 official ROM. Push still requires a the client to maintain a connection, how often it needs to reconnect depends on the network, client and server:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators/mobile/deploy/deployexchange2007/160e94df-acca-4ae7-b759-90838c83da2d.mspx?mfr=true
Push email on my HTC Hermes cuts the battery life by 50-75% (depending on my location). WM6 added an option so you can explicitly quit applications when you press the "X" instead of just putting the process in the background because of problems with limited RAM.
Keep seeing ads? Does clicking the "No" button bottom left in iTunes not stop them popping up again? i haven't synced my Touch since I did that.
IMHO, the truth of this lies somewhere between the two camps. Background processes have a lot of problems on phones. They stop the phone being a simple "pick up and use" device, because the user has to worry about which apps they leave running. Somebody using a phone doesn't want to have to think about memory usage, they're probably barely aware of what RAM even is. They affect reliability, performance and battery life.
Almost all apps on PalmOS run in the same way - they save state and exit when you switch to another app. By optimising application startup speed, they give the illusion of multi-tasking. Anyone who's used a Symbian UIQ phone knows how slow application startup is on a lot of smartphones. IIRC, there are some phones that allow background tasks until you start the web browser, at which point all other non-system tasks are killed to save memory.
That said, multi-tasking has some very important uses - background polling for messages etc. The solution is probably a system framework with which applications can register small helper programs to perform specific tasks. The framework can then ensure they don't use too much CPU or RAM and optimise their network access to reduce the amount of time the radio is on.
Proof that nobody reads EULA, not even the people that write them?
More likely, some tired programmer just copied the string resource across from another project without checking it.
Where is this "European Commonwealth"? Sounds more interesting than the boring old European Union I live in, with our city-wide WiFi mesh networks.
Plus ~$200 for Windows. Plus a day setting it all up, downloading drivers and updates. That puts you nearer $1,000 (depending on how you value your free time).
I think the more interesting comparison is between a normal PC (Intel graphics, low end CPU etc.) and a gaming machine. It's probably something like $200-300, round about the cost of a current gen console.
I was thinking the same thing, I drive a fairly fuel-efficient car (~50mpg US) which does 0-60 in 14s, it's perfectly fine for city and motorway.
How often do drivers actually use the full acceleration of the car, anyway?
That is a very short-sighted point of view. Firstly, are you not curious about what's going on in the rest of the world? Elections in Russia, riots in Burma, pollution in China, Tibetan oppression - these are interesting stories, never mind the fact that they affect the lives of millions of other humans.
Secondly, the world news that you would ignore today can have a huge effect in future (I'm sure you can think of at least one example of that).
Thirdly, knowledge of news from around the world gives you context to judge your own society and make voting decisions. The rest of the world is like a giant laboratory where they're trying out alternative ways of running things, why ignore it?
I spent a couple of weeks on a business trip in the US in January - the saturation coverage of the presidential primaries was over the top IMHO. It's not like it's even an election, it's a pre-election. I noticed that there was virtually no mention of (for example) the massive violence going on in Kenya at the time over their elections.
I can't find any exact figures now, but the console market is many times the size of the PC market these days. I've seen interviews with people from companies like Epic saying "the PC market is basically World of Warcraft and the Sims", hence their increased focus on console platforms.
When I looked at moving to SA, they were very keen to get experienced IT-related people to immigrate. Be warned, it's not exactly the safest place in the world to live.
If you scale a Flash interface designed for a 1280x1024 screen down to an iphone screen will the text be legible? Will the user be able to press the buttons/menus etc? Just scaling the interface so it's the right number of pixels across isn't enough.