The main point of my post was "I don't need pda-funtionality in my mp3player, I'll rather have one that doesn't need special software to access."
But I also have no need of a pda. I used to use a Palm V. Mainly for adressbook and calendar, but also for the occasional game or connecting it to my phone to send mail while out. When I got my old phone a few years ago, it had a usable adressbook with 3 numbers, 1 adress, 1 email and a textfield per post, a todo-scheduler and a calendar. All syncable via ir against outlook. That's when I stopped carrying around my pda. Why carry around two devices with the same adressbook and calendar entries synced?
Since I got my new phone a month ago, I can do that and now also handle the last two via java-applications. It only has ~1.5MB for the apps, but that's more than enough for a simple email-client, a few games and a simple html-browser. Browsing on a 128*128 pixel 1" screen suck though... =) It's not one of those "pda-phones". All of those that I've tried suck. Usually by being to large to always carry around. (Try walking around with a P800 in your pocket... It's *way* to large for comfort.) As you say, integrated devices usually suck at everything. This is a phone, nothing else.
That's why I use my 20gig archos for moving files and listening to mp3's. I only carry it when I'm going to listen to musik though. It's too large otherwise. (Allmost like two 2.5" harddrives on top of each other.) So having a calendar, adressbook or games in it would have no meaning.
"games, calendar, contact lists, text note storage, alarm clock,"
Well... So does my phone, which I carry around with me alot more often than my mp3player, making it unnecessary for me to have those features in my player or carry a pda.
As long as all the other players require special software, beside the drivers, to copy mp3's to or from the unit, I'll just stick to my Archos for music. It might be a bit rough at the edges, but at least it lets me handle my files any way I want.
I'd say that thats more of a Shot'em up game. You fly a ship and shoot other ships. I meant a game where you are a *person*, like in Doom, but have no gravity. You'd go around bouncing off walls, changing direction by hitting other free-floating object, etc. Just like if you where in a real free-fall. And just think about the effect of fireing your gun! Zoom! You'd go zipping across the room, possibly tumbling madly. =) You'd probably have to think ahead and maybe grab hold of a wall or something before fireing. Would probably be a nightmare to learn the controls though... Or to design a working interface at all, except for full-body VR-suits.:/
But there you are in a vessel, able to use thrusters to controll your movement. I meant a game where you are a *person* without gravity. Unable to change your course unless you hit a wall or a pole or something. You would change speed and direction if you came in contact with another player or some other free-floating object and rocket away when fireing your weapon. =)
I bet that the US stands to gain alot from this war. Most probably, since there will be an American ruling the country after the war... Unless there's an election... Nah, probably not. Why give freedom and democracy to them... Anyway, most of the contracts for rebuilding what has been destroyed in the war will probably go to US companies, payed with money that Iraq will have to loan from, say, the US. The US oilcompanies will probably get *really* great deals when buying oil from Iraq. And then, when Iraq starts getting on its foots again, they'll repay the loans.
And exactly how this war would lessen the threat of terrorism towards the US is beyond me... Doesn't this actually give rise to *more* hatred towards the US? If most people thought of the US as "the good guys", it would lead to a lessened terrorthreat. Not the opposite.
But this is *very* off topic in a thread about using Enders Game as inspiration to train troops, so I'll stop now. =)
Hmm... On the other hand, I just gave up on OS X *because* I had to deal with Apple hardware to use it. I bought a Powerbook G4 a year ago because I was fed up with MS, Linux, BSD, etc, and had used OS X on my brothers mac and loved it. After trying to get used to the shitty keyboard, the lousy glidepoint and the lack of a trackpoint during this year, I've chosen to give up on Mac and go back to MS until they start making deacent hardware. I want a laptop as good as, say, an IBM Thinkpad (which is what I'm buying now) but capable of running OS X.
Well... He's buying the hardware from Apple, he's making it possible for people with tight funds to go Apple and he'll also boost the sales of OS X, since it isn't included. And maybe people like me, who would buy Apple if only their hardware wasn't so damn userunfriendly, can buy his hardware! I love OS X, but I hate Apples keyboards, mouses and glidepoints. Their computers really lack in the ergonomics department... In particular the laptops. If only they would add a good keyboard and the choice of a trackpoint to them... But I'm dreaming. No way that they'll actually make them usable, rather than nice to look at.
Hehe... Well, by twisting facts in propagandafilms you can make just about anything look good or bad. You could probably even do a pro-drugs "documentary" if you wanted to. =)
But it is with guns as it is with power... Those who want it are the ones who shouldn't have it.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But people with guns kill more people than people without guns.:)
I'll be quiet now, since this is going off topic. =)
I read the manual for the Kiss DP500 (It's availible as a pdf on their homepage)
What the computer software (windows only, yes) is intended for is to make a list, or library, of movies, pictures and music that you want to be able to play from your DP500. Then you start your DP, choose "Movies", you'll see you list, choose a movie, press play. You can't browse your network though... You have to add your files to the list before you can play them.:(
You know... USA... Land of the free... =) If your goverment continues to pass laws like these, and not to mention all that "patriot" garbage, you'll soon have to drop that slogan. Replace it with "USA, Land of the oppressed" or something. But maybe the EU could muster some troops and liberate you. =)
I'm not affected by the problem. But I think that it would be a tad bit irritating if a program that usually takes, say, 6 seconds to load instead took 60 seconds. For me, IExplorer takes about 1 - 2 seconds to start. If it instead took 10 - 20 seconds all of sudden, it would be annoying.
I agree with you that it is *not* a critical fault, but it could lead to quite some amount of stress if it's an application that you use alot.
Yeah... I actually took the time to read the article later.
Right in my face. =)
So now I only have to wait for it to appear in a shop near me. Or maybe I'll take the train to Kopenhagen (30 minutes travel) and buy one there. I saw that they where selling a cheaper OEM version of it in some stores in Denmark...
This version seem to have been on the market for quite some time, but with the old firmware the ethernetport hasn't been enabled and it couldn't play divx 3.11. Those are recent additions to the capabilities of the player.
A modded X-box is probably more expensive and it is not exactly the most quite piece of electronics in your home. Compared to a cd-player or dvd-player it's *really* loud! I have a ps2 and even though it's more quiet than the X-box, I constantly get irritated by the noise of the fan while playing. Home electronics should be fanless. Or at least have *really* quiet fans. But if you allready *own* a modded x-box, or are going to buy one, then it's probably insane to buy one of these players. =)
The main downside of all the players that've appeared on the market so far is the lack of ethernet and thus the inability to play movies and songs from a fileserver. When one of those appear, I'll buy it as soon as it gets availible in Europe. Meanwhile, I'll just continue to use a 15m svideo-cable to watch divx...
Yeah... But then you'd have a loud computer standing next to your tv and have a kludgy interface that probably would make you have a keyboard there too. Not to speak about boot time, shutdown time, fsck time, etc. It's the same as the difference between using your computer as a dvd player/cd player vs using a dedicated dvd player to watch your dvd's and play your music cd's in your livingroom.
I haven't read the article, but I'll wager that it doesn't have a ethernetport though... That would be the major problem with this player. That you have to burn all your movies to cd before watching it. I'd love to have one of these that was also capable of playing movies and mp3's over the network from my fileserver...:/ Think about it. Sit in your sofa, turn it on using your remote, 4 seconds later your browsing through your movie collection, 10 seconds after turning it on you start viewing your recently downloaded Hikaru no Go episode. =)
You probably could do something like that using a "Linux in BIOS-eeprom" installation (to get fast boot times) and autoload some kind of special software that let you use a remote to browse the local harddrive or mounted nfs or smb shares. But I'll bet that doing this would take more than a few hours *and* probably cost more than the Kiss player. There are only a few select mainboards that work with the eeprom loaded linux, so you'd probably have to buy some new hardware to build a machine like that. And it would probably not be fan-less or harddrive free either. (Thus not being quiet enough to run while listening to music)
Or you could get a X-box, chiping it and then install that mediaplayer thingie... But that's also expensive and loud. (The X-box makes a terrible racket compared to, say, a dvd-player)
Eum... Is this patch availible somewhere for other languages than English? I would need a Swedish version. =)
(I can't belive that MS hasn't stopped using different binaries for different languages yet. It's idiotic. They even *rename* systemfiles and folders between languages, making some poorly made programs incompatible with other languages than English...)
1. It's being reported in other places than/. I first read about it in the newspaper...
2. It's being reported on Microsofts own website. So maybe it's microsoft FUD? =)
3. The problem actually exists. (Thus is not FUD) It doesn't appear on *every* XP computer with SP1, but some actually load programs at 1/10 the speed that they did without SP1.
Even on/. some bad news about Microsoft turns out to be true. =)
I don't get that poke at the French... Are they evil in some way just because they, like most of the world, are against the US and UK invading Iraq? =/ And I happen to agree with an earlier post that said: If this is about getting democracy into Iraq, shouldn't the Iraqi people have a say in what is choosen? But democracy is probably *not* going to happen in Iraq for a long time, since the US probably will choose someone to rule there when/if they win the war.
And remember... It's the US and UK who are demolishing what's there right now. The Iraqi people shouldn't have to be grateful if the US pays for the rebuilding... They should have the right to *expect* that the US pays for the rebuilding without saying from which country to buy equipment from. (And sincerly, do you really expect them to want to support a country who just recently invaded them and blasted most of their existing infrastrukture to hell?)
And without a fee! Why would you want a fee for something that might give you more customers? Of course, if you are one of the operators with lousy service, you'll *loose* customers. =)
But wouldn't that be illegal to use in the US, under the DCMA? I or is that only circumventing encryption schemes? Hmm... Maybe they'll throw in some kind of encryption of the CPU speed, just to make it illegal to circumvent the lock. =)
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The main point of my post was "I don't need pda-funtionality in my mp3player, I'll rather have one that doesn't need special software to access."
But I also have no need of a pda.
I used to use a Palm V. Mainly for adressbook and calendar, but also for the occasional game or connecting it to my phone to send mail while out.
When I got my old phone a few years ago, it had a usable adressbook with 3 numbers, 1 adress, 1 email and a textfield per post, a todo-scheduler and a calendar. All syncable via ir against outlook.
That's when I stopped carrying around my pda.
Why carry around two devices with the same adressbook and calendar entries synced?
Since I got my new phone a month ago, I can do that and now also handle the last two via java-applications.
It only has ~1.5MB for the apps, but that's more than enough for a simple email-client, a few games and a simple html-browser. Browsing on a 128*128 pixel 1" screen suck though... =)
It's not one of those "pda-phones". All of those that I've tried suck. Usually by being to large to always carry around. (Try walking around with a P800 in your pocket... It's *way* to large for comfort.)
As you say, integrated devices usually suck at everything.
This is a phone, nothing else.
That's why I use my 20gig archos for moving files and listening to mp3's.
I only carry it when I'm going to listen to musik though. It's too large otherwise. (Allmost like two 2.5" harddrives on top of each other.)
So having a calendar, adressbook or games in it would have no meaning.
"games, calendar, contact lists, text note storage, alarm clock,"
Well... So does my phone, which I carry around with me alot more often than my mp3player, making it unnecessary for me to have those features in my player or carry a pda.
As long as all the other players require special software, beside the drivers, to copy mp3's to or from the unit, I'll just stick to my Archos for music.
It might be a bit rough at the edges, but at least it lets me handle my files any way I want.
I'd say that thats more of a Shot'em up game. :/
You fly a ship and shoot other ships.
I meant a game where you are a *person*, like in Doom, but have no gravity.
You'd go around bouncing off walls, changing direction by hitting other free-floating object, etc. Just like if you where in a real free-fall.
And just think about the effect of fireing your gun! Zoom! You'd go zipping across the room, possibly tumbling madly. =)
You'd probably have to think ahead and maybe grab hold of a wall or something before fireing.
Would probably be a nightmare to learn the controls though... Or to design a working interface at all, except for full-body VR-suits.
But there you are in a vessel, able to use thrusters to controll your movement.
I meant a game where you are a *person* without gravity. Unable to change your course unless you hit a wall or a pole or something.
You would change speed and direction if you came in contact with another player or some other free-floating object and rocket away when fireing your weapon. =)
I bet that the US stands to gain alot from this war.
Most probably, since there will be an American ruling the country after the war...
Unless there's an election... Nah, probably not.
Why give freedom and democracy to them...
Anyway, most of the contracts for rebuilding what has been destroyed in the war will probably go to US companies, payed with money that Iraq will have to loan from, say, the US.
The US oilcompanies will probably get *really* great deals when buying oil from Iraq.
And then, when Iraq starts getting on its foots again, they'll repay the loans.
And exactly how this war would lessen the threat of terrorism towards the US is beyond me...
Doesn't this actually give rise to *more* hatred towards the US?
If most people thought of the US as "the good guys", it would lead to a lessened terrorthreat.
Not the opposite.
But this is *very* off topic in a thread about using Enders Game as inspiration to train troops, so I'll stop now. =)
And when do we get the film, damnit?! =)
I've read the books, now I want the film.
Enders game, The movie.
And why not "Enders game, The game"? =)
Hmm... As long as it isn't a Doom clone.
On the other hand, imagine a first person shooter without gravity. =)
Hmm...
On the other hand, I just gave up on OS X *because* I had to deal with Apple hardware to use it.
I bought a Powerbook G4 a year ago because I was fed up with MS, Linux, BSD, etc, and had used OS X on my brothers mac and loved it.
After trying to get used to the shitty keyboard, the lousy glidepoint and the lack of a trackpoint during this year, I've chosen to give up on Mac and go back to MS until they start making deacent hardware.
I want a laptop as good as, say, an IBM Thinkpad (which is what I'm buying now) but capable of running OS X.
Considering what kind of patents that are passed these days, I wouldn't get too surprised if there actually *exists* patents like that. =)
Well... He's buying the hardware from Apple, he's making it possible for people with tight funds to go Apple and he'll also boost the sales of OS X, since it isn't included.
And maybe people like me, who would buy Apple if only their hardware wasn't so damn userunfriendly, can buy his hardware!
I love OS X, but I hate Apples keyboards, mouses and glidepoints.
Their computers really lack in the ergonomics department...
In particular the laptops. If only they would add a good keyboard and the choice of a trackpoint to them...
But I'm dreaming. No way that they'll actually make them usable, rather than nice to look at.
Hehe...
:)
Well, by twisting facts in propagandafilms you can make just about anything look good or bad.
You could probably even do a pro-drugs "documentary" if you wanted to. =)
But it is with guns as it is with power...
Those who want it are the ones who shouldn't have it.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
But people with guns kill more people than people without guns.
I'll be quiet now, since this is going off topic. =)
Hehe...
Seen "Bowling for Columbine"?
If not, it's a really great movie/documentary.
I read the manual for the Kiss DP500
:(
(It's availible as a pdf on their homepage)
What the computer software (windows only, yes) is intended for is to make a list, or library, of movies, pictures and music that you want to be able to play from your DP500.
Then you start your DP, choose "Movies", you'll see you list, choose a movie, press play.
You can't browse your network though... You have to add your files to the list before you can play them.
If all the geeks in the US moved to florida, for how long do you think there would still be nude women there? =)
You know... USA... Land of the free... =)
If your goverment continues to pass laws like these, and not to mention all that "patriot" garbage, you'll soon have to drop that slogan.
Replace it with "USA, Land of the oppressed" or something.
But maybe the EU could muster some troops and liberate you. =)
I'm not affected by the problem.
But I think that it would be a tad bit irritating if a program that usually takes, say, 6 seconds to load instead took 60 seconds.
For me, IExplorer takes about 1 - 2 seconds to start. If it instead took 10 - 20 seconds all of sudden, it would be annoying.
I agree with you that it is *not* a critical fault, but it could lead to quite some amount of stress if it's an application that you use alot.
Yeah... I actually took the time to read the article later.
Right in my face. =)
So now I only have to wait for it to appear in a shop near me. Or maybe I'll take the train to Kopenhagen (30 minutes travel) and buy one there.
I saw that they where selling a cheaper OEM version of it in some stores in Denmark...
This version seem to have been on the market for quite some time, but with the old firmware the ethernetport hasn't been enabled and it couldn't play divx 3.11.
Those are recent additions to the capabilities of the player.
A modded X-box is probably more expensive and it is not exactly the most quite piece of electronics in your home.
Compared to a cd-player or dvd-player it's *really* loud!
I have a ps2 and even though it's more quiet than the X-box, I constantly get irritated by the noise of the fan while playing.
Home electronics should be fanless. Or at least have *really* quiet fans.
But if you allready *own* a modded x-box, or are going to buy one, then it's probably insane to buy one of these players. =)
The main downside of all the players that've appeared on the market so far is the lack of ethernet and thus the inability to play movies and songs from a fileserver.
When one of those appear, I'll buy it as soon as it gets availible in Europe.
Meanwhile, I'll just continue to use a 15m svideo-cable to watch divx...
Yeah... But then you'd have a loud computer standing next to your tv and have a kludgy interface that probably would make you have a keyboard there too.
:/
Not to speak about boot time, shutdown time, fsck time, etc.
It's the same as the difference between using your computer as a dvd player/cd player vs using a dedicated dvd player to watch your dvd's and play your music cd's in your livingroom.
I haven't read the article, but I'll wager that it doesn't have a ethernetport though...
That would be the major problem with this player. That you have to burn all your movies to cd before watching it.
I'd love to have one of these that was also capable of playing movies and mp3's over the network from my fileserver...
Think about it.
Sit in your sofa, turn it on using your remote, 4 seconds later your browsing through your movie collection, 10 seconds after turning it on you start viewing your recently downloaded Hikaru no Go episode. =)
You probably could do something like that using a "Linux in BIOS-eeprom" installation (to get fast boot times) and autoload some kind of special software that let you use a remote to browse the local harddrive or mounted nfs or smb shares.
But I'll bet that doing this would take more than a few hours *and* probably cost more than the Kiss player.
There are only a few select mainboards that work with the eeprom loaded linux, so you'd probably have to buy some new hardware to build a machine like that.
And it would probably not be fan-less or harddrive free either. (Thus not being quiet enough to run while listening to music)
Or you could get a X-box, chiping it and then install that mediaplayer thingie...
But that's also expensive and loud. (The X-box makes a terrible racket compared to, say, a dvd-player)
Eum... Is this patch availible somewhere for other languages than English?
I would need a Swedish version. =)
(I can't belive that MS hasn't stopped using different binaries for different languages yet. It's idiotic. They even *rename* systemfiles and folders between languages, making some poorly made programs incompatible with other languages than English...)
Well... Actually, it's not /. FUD.
/.
/. some bad news about Microsoft turns out to be true. =)
1.
It's being reported in other places than
I first read about it in the newspaper...
2.
It's being reported on Microsofts own website.
So maybe it's microsoft FUD? =)
3.
The problem actually exists. (Thus is not FUD)
It doesn't appear on *every* XP computer with SP1, but some actually load programs at 1/10 the speed that they did without SP1.
Even on
I don't get that poke at the French...
Are they evil in some way just because they, like most of the world, are against the US and UK invading Iraq? =/
And I happen to agree with an earlier post that said: If this is about getting democracy into Iraq, shouldn't the Iraqi people have a say in what is choosen?
But democracy is probably *not* going to happen in Iraq for a long time, since the US probably will choose someone to rule there when/if they win the war.
And remember... It's the US and UK who are demolishing what's there right now.
The Iraqi people shouldn't have to be grateful if the US pays for the rebuilding... They should have the right to *expect* that the US pays for the rebuilding without saying from which country to buy equipment from.
(And sincerly, do you really expect them to want to support a country who just recently invaded them and blasted most of their existing infrastrukture to hell?)
And without a fee!
Why would you want a fee for something that might give you more customers?
Of course, if you are one of the operators with lousy service, you'll *loose* customers. =)
And isn't a patent on this technology *good*?
It would make it illegal, or at least expensive, for other cpu manufactures to use it. =)
But wouldn't that be illegal to use in the US, under the DCMA?
I or is that only circumventing encryption schemes?
Hmm... Maybe they'll throw in some kind of encryption of the CPU speed, just to make it illegal to circumvent the lock. =)