not so much pricing of the unit, as the content
on
Hands-On With The Kindle
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· Score: 3, Interesting
a digital book should *NOT* be 10 dollars. i don't care if its a new book and only available as a hardcover for 18 bucks. i'm not spending 10 bucks for it. when the paperback is released, it still looks like the price of the e-book costs about the same, if not a little cheaper than the paperback. if they were selling new releases for like 2 bucks and paperback-released books for a buck (or just sell them all for 99 cents a piece), it would be a huge factor for people who buy a lot of books. it means they may eventually start saving money in the long run if they read that often. plus, it may entice people just to read more often in the first place or to even purchase books on impulse. they may not even read all the books they purchase if its at that price. i think they'd sell a lot more books and make more money due to having lower production costs. books are priced more than music. once the music/filesharing fiasco ends (which will probably be within this decade), books will be next. its a fringe market right now, but more and more books are becoming available online.
There's a difference between typos and misspelling things though. i think the study is pointing out that more unintentional typos are appearing in texts.
I say more power to them. It enables them to sell the game (cause if its rated AO, its effectively banned) and then for the people who want to actually access the AO content, they can do so. The game the person purchased is STILL rated M. They have to act of their own accord to change it. It's the equivalent of having a free download for AO content, 'cept it comes pre-downloaded and you have to do a lot more work to actually get it to work. If a rated-M game offered an AO-content add-on, should the rated-m game then have to change? Everyone knows the hidden content is rated AO. Its a VOLUNTARY DECISION to unlock it and access it. If you don't want that content, then be happy with your rated-M game. It doesn't undermine anything. In fact, its better. Hell, I think games should be able to come in a variety of rated-levels and just have an option on start up. If you want a rated-T version, select it and it will run the T game. Its a voluntary decision to unlock it. If you are offended by it, don't unlock it. It's the same mentality as, "if you don't like the show, change the channel." If you don't like it, don't do it. If you're offended by 1s and 0s, well, my friend, you're a moron. The only way those 1s and 0s become a nude woman is if you set it to do so.
A person can be naked until someone takes their clothes off. If a person comes and steals my clothes, should i be held accountable because that same person was offended i was naked?
i don't understand how people can be upset about content that is effectively unlocked from the game unless you go out of your way to unlock it. how can you get offended by something you went out of your way to get, knowing full well exactly what it was? and if you didn't unlock it, how the hell are you offended by something that you can't access? i swear that this entire country is being populated by babies. people are getting offended even when they're not the ones getting insulted. its as if people are going out of their way to be offended. ugh.
you're still putting a lot of faith in the one using the jamming device. the person may very well just leave it on (not sure how long they last or power usage, etc.). that right there destroys your first argument. the second argument is that cell phones have changed societies. landlines are becoming more and more rare. yes, in most establishments you can find them, but a lot of payphones are being shut down due to them no longer being as profitable. so, comparing now to the pre-cell phone age isn't a very good comparison. not everything else is equal. while your points are valid, it still puts all the control in the hands of the jammer, not the person making the emergency phone call.
i'm not sure what it is, but it very well may be pretty good. i do have to admit, sometimes ending interactive cut-scenes are pretty cool. anyone who played Final Fantasy VII can attest to that.
where the player pretty much is in control, but only in a way that pigeon holes them into one set of actions, such as only being able to move in one direction and all other controls are disabled or even forcing all controls to do the same thing. the only real control the user normally has is the equivalent of controlling the speed of the game. some games give a little bit more freedom, but their overall destination is usually the same, such as every door in a room is closed except for one, etc. personally i find it a matter of opinion which one is better. i figure it really depends on if you play for story, the interaction, or gameplay. sometimes i find it almost rewarding to see a beautifully rendered cut-scene (that until now has been unparalleled compared to actual gameplay). some games have cutscenes that are too long for all but the most die-hard story-lovers (xenosaga comes to mind). its hard to say one method is better than another. some get annoyed by the cut-scenes where you have to participate but you can't do anything go in one direction because its just viewed as pointless and some just think, "why couldn't they make this part a cut-scene?"
you're running a service of making money. as long as you treat your customers as if they're always right, they will return. everyone keeps on looking at the money lost on a specific sale. a return customer will more often then not make you more money than a single sale.
ok, I guess I wasn't clear enough. Even if they're wrong, they're "right." If you treat every customer like a criminal, you will lose money. If you treat them all as if they are always right, you will get return customers. I said in a response to another post that the Home Depot near me will accept ANY return (thats not what they state to the public, but thats what they tell their employees), even if they don't sell the product. They look at scams as a cost of business. By not causing hassles, they have more efficient business AND happier customers who buy more. Obviously you gotta watch out for repeat returners of goods they don't sell, but in the long run, they make more money.
The purpose of a business is to make more money, not prove that they're right and the customer is wrong.
"the customer is always right" IS a mantra. it's also a very good one. I recognize that there are plenty of people who scam the system. Businesses have to start looking at that as a cost of business, not a loss. How often have we all gotten pissed that the RIAA treats all of its customers as criminals? If they didn't do so, I bet people would be a lot more willing to purchase from them. If you piss off good, paying customers, you *will* lose money. The Home Depot in my area knows exactly what its doing. It will accept *any* return, even if they don't sell that item in the store, let alone if you remembered the receipt. They figure the happier the customer is, the more they'll spend. It's good business ethics. It's also common sense. Yet, it seems greedy companies are always looking to make a quick buck wherever they can. If they used this mantra, worse case scenario, that guy just scammed them for a few hundred dollar hard drive. NOW they very well could have lost thousands of dollars in business around the country. So again, CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. if you want return customers, thats the way you gotta do it.
only if the purchased product was a returned package. if i return a brand new purchase, then i'd expect them not to believe me. but the product had been returned previously. if the product is the first run return, then no, you shouldn't accept it. if its second, run, accept it. the average loss due to scamming compared with the average loss due to a customer not returning is most likely smaller. the scammer cannot continually pull the same trick (or at least that often) to cause any sort of real impact. a consumer who was unjustly accused can spread the word that Best Buy are the devils and to no longer purchase from them. This is a perfect example. If they just took the scams as a cost of business as opposed to trying to maximize their profits wherever they could, they wouldn't be facing this problem.
The total loss of income from this whole debacle will probably cost more than a hard drive.
I bought a wireless mouse/keyboard combo (LogiTech brand) that was a returned product (i didn't even notice it was a returned product until customer service was inspecting it). I opened it up and it had the wrong brand keyboard/mouse in there. some third party i had never heard of. at first they were refusing to replace it. they kept saying they can't accept the return because its the incorrect product inside. i said, thats all well and good, but i'm not leaving til i either get the same product or a refund. they were unwilling to help and i kept complaining saying i'm not going to lose approx. $50 because one of their employees was too lazy to check their returns. the customer should never pay for an employee's mistake. this is one of those cases where people forget that the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. why are they always right? because a majority of the time, they are. You *always* give the customer benefit of the doubt. If you don't, most of the time you're turning away honest customers who will no longer shop with you and you therefore lose a lot more money as opposed to the cost of that one product. sometimes you'll scammers, but the only reason they thrive is due to lazy employees who don't check to ensure the contents are correct. it shouldn't matter if it looks unopened or not. they should always check (unless its blister packaging... thats *much* more difficult to fake). eventually they gave me a replacement product because it was way too complex of a scenario to just get a keyboard and mouse. plus there were a bunch of people on the customer service line and it was completely obvious that everyone can hear me complain that they were essentially charging me $50 because they hire lazy employees.
it's not meant as a web-browser. it's meant to run a single web-application. there's a big difference between any ol' website and a web application. an example is Gmail or Facebook. Things that actually run an application, not something that goes back and forth between different pages.
when i say "changing gameplay," i don't mean the way you play that specific game. i mean the way you play ANY game. it uses the exact same method as the previous generation. the method of play is still exactly the same. i'm talking about the basic principle. the approach is virtually always the same, because that specific approach was the focus when they designed those 2 specific next-gen consoles. microsoft released an xbox with better graphics and the ability to download things (patches, new games, video), and a better way to play with other people online. they did NOT change how you play. similar argument against the ps3 (which, btw, i own and still hope wins out in the end, though its a dismal future right now), though they do at least have motion sensing. however, the way environment given to design controls, its really difficult to really utilize that motion sensing. they added motion sensing onto the previous control system. the wii REDESIGNED the control system from the bottom up. button pushing is required, but for the most part, motion-sensing was a major component.
i own a wii & ps3. i hope to purchase a 360 when i have the money. in my opinion, they're all next-gen, but the wii is the most revolutionary one.
the PS3 is set-up to have a lot of potential. it was released early to help push blu-ray. its unfortunate, but from that standpoint, not having the ps3 out there really would have hurt blu-ray. their hand was forced. as they continually update it, more and more features are being added that didn't exist in any previous generation console. while some of them may exist in the xbox360 or the wii, just the same, they didn't exist in the previous generation of consoles. its setup more as a entertainment system as opposed to games only, which, is just another direction next-gen can take.
though, honestly, i don't think he's referring to next-gen in these terms. he's talking about gameplay. as much as you want to say the live services are going into new realms, when you get down to it, its only changing the way you interact with the other players. the gameplay theory is the same. if you played a game on the xbox, you're going to have a very similar learning curve on 360 games as you did on the xbox. however, the whole theory used to develop the Wii was completely different. you could be a master on all other consoles, but be no better than a beginner on the wii.
the gameplay on the PS3 & x360 is *not* that revolutionary. yea, the ps3 uses motion-sensing, but barely. you're talking about added features, which Wright isn't talking about. All of those things are just bells & whistles. The Wii is different. The gameplay is completely different. The way you socialize may be different on the 360. But that's not really next-generation. It may change the way you communicate or plan attacks, but again, its just modifications on a pre-existing framework.
but, really, what it comes down to is semantics. I mean, look at the different generation iPods, yea, there were some leaps, but sometimes it was just an improvement in hard disk space and tweaks to the interface. the way people use the term "next-gen" is in terms of the competition available. the wii's competition has been deemed to be the ps3 and the xbox360. technically, it's competing with the ps2 and xbox as well, but its main competitors, the ones that everyone keeps an eye on, are the ps3 & x360. each generation is just the group of the current competitors of that era so to speak.
So, while he does raise a VERY good point, its really just a different use of the term next-gen. its the next generation of each console (sony's, ms's, & nintendo's). while the wii is revolutionary, it doesn't mean you *can't* call the other consoles next-gen. technologically speaking, they are quite revolutionary (ie: ps3's cell processor) in their own regards, but the basic concept behind them hasn't changed.
yes, but i'm fairly certain that this doesn't require the extra resources required by the browser. i may be wrong, but i'm fairly certain it runs with a lot less resources because its not that its hiding the web browswer... it just doesn't have the web browser there. so it has faster startup, less resources, etc.
this isn't how it works. there's no extra coding on the server side. its all client-side. any web application that can run in a web browser can run under Prism.
The sibling post by the Anonymous Coward is more on the mark. Its nothing like Active Desktop. Basically, when you run the program, you input an Address, a name, and a select a shortcut location (start menu, quick launch, or desktop). You run that new shortcut and it executes the web-app in its own window without all the browser features. Its basically like removing all the toolbars and menu bars and just having the web-page area take up all available area. For people who run web applications and leave them running, thereby making the available browser functions useless (ie, if you keep gmail open, you probably don't use the menu bars that often or the toolbar either since all the controls are inside the page), this is kind of useful. I was quite surprised as to how much more room I got once the "browser" was removed.
I didn't find the album worth paying for, however I still purchased it for ~$10 (5 pounds). I did it more so to support the idea as opposed to really enjoying the music. I found it to be great background music while doing other things, but not really worth actively listening to. Of course this is just my opinion, so please don't kill me. I'm just stating that it's worth going through the trouble of paying a few bucks just to support the idea so others will do it. Hell, if you like the idea of what they're doing, but hate their music, I still think its worth your effort to pay a few bucks just to inspire other artists to do the same. On Trent Reznor's (of Nine Inch Nails) website, he said in the future he'll be participating directly with the audience now instead of working with record labels because he's now finally free of any record contracts as well.
If you don't like the music, just look at it as making a donation to the cause of destroying the RIAA.
I had issues with the site while using Firefox. I had to use IE (unfortunately) to purchase it. Every time I used Firefox, i'd never be able to make it to cart, let alone actually confirming the order. It'd always randomly screw up at some different point. IE, it seemed to work every time. I'm hoping its a coding issue that uses some MS pseudo-standard as opposed to an issue with Firefox. The prior seems more likely.
there are plenty of other phones that surf the web and aren't the iPhone. Verizon Wireless's XV6700 or AT&T's 8525 (i think they're both pretty much the same phone) do a pretty good job and offer WiFi. They use Windows Mobile, so its Pocket IE, but its still good nonetheless.
they aren't one-shot comics. reading today's comic is like opening a comic book to a random page and saying, "i don't know whats going on." obviously you wouldn't. why should an online comic have every single comic be a standalone comic? plus, the comic not being on the front page makes sense. if you just arrived and don't know whats going on, its best that you don't see a random shot. its like turning on a movie in the middle of the movie. this lets you start from the beginning without having anything given away. Plus, its literally one click to see Today's Comic. I'd rather a more organized homepage as opposed to every single bit of detail on the homepage. That's why its a website and not a webpage. It'd be quite messy if everybody put everything all on the homepage.
If you want a comic based in the World of Warcraft world (well, ok, loosely based in the WoW world), I suggest http://www.lfgcomic.com/. Its a humorous comic called Looking For Group. Its pretty damn good. It gets its characters from WoW more than it does the world or plotline. I suggest reading it from the beginning, the story arcs are pretty damn good.
Re:i think the best cutscene option would be this.
on
Gaming Usability 101
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· Score: 1
in a single player game, its not really that important to stop cheating. i mean, its not hurting anyone. plus, the user is apparently having more fun than they would without cheating (otherwise, they wouldn't do it). who cares if it could be abused. there are plenty of games that have cheat codes put into them purposely because sometimes its fun to be invincible. or sometimes they understand that maybe someone can't get past a certain point and therefore gives them a free pass so to speak. the only time cheating is really important in stopping is in anything that has an online component or competitive component. if they want to save before every punch, let them. to me that sounds like one of those scenarios you don't really have to worry about being abused too much.
Slashdot Mirror
a digital book should *NOT* be 10 dollars. i don't care if its a new book and only available as a hardcover for 18 bucks. i'm not spending 10 bucks for it. when the paperback is released, it still looks like the price of the e-book costs about the same, if not a little cheaper than the paperback. if they were selling new releases for like 2 bucks and paperback-released books for a buck (or just sell them all for 99 cents a piece), it would be a huge factor for people who buy a lot of books. it means they may eventually start saving money in the long run if they read that often. plus, it may entice people just to read more often in the first place or to even purchase books on impulse. they may not even read all the books they purchase if its at that price. i think they'd sell a lot more books and make more money due to having lower production costs. books are priced more than music. once the music/filesharing fiasco ends (which will probably be within this decade), books will be next. its a fringe market right now, but more and more books are becoming available online.
There's a difference between typos and misspelling things though. i think the study is pointing out that more unintentional typos are appearing in texts.
I say more power to them. It enables them to sell the game (cause if its rated AO, its effectively banned) and then for the people who want to actually access the AO content, they can do so. The game the person purchased is STILL rated M. They have to act of their own accord to change it. It's the equivalent of having a free download for AO content, 'cept it comes pre-downloaded and you have to do a lot more work to actually get it to work. If a rated-M game offered an AO-content add-on, should the rated-m game then have to change? Everyone knows the hidden content is rated AO. Its a VOLUNTARY DECISION to unlock it and access it. If you don't want that content, then be happy with your rated-M game. It doesn't undermine anything. In fact, its better. Hell, I think games should be able to come in a variety of rated-levels and just have an option on start up. If you want a rated-T version, select it and it will run the T game. Its a voluntary decision to unlock it. If you are offended by it, don't unlock it. It's the same mentality as, "if you don't like the show, change the channel." If you don't like it, don't do it. If you're offended by 1s and 0s, well, my friend, you're a moron. The only way those 1s and 0s become a nude woman is if you set it to do so.
A person can be naked until someone takes their clothes off. If a person comes and steals my clothes, should i be held accountable because that same person was offended i was naked?
i don't understand how people can be upset about content that is effectively unlocked from the game unless you go out of your way to unlock it. how can you get offended by something you went out of your way to get, knowing full well exactly what it was? and if you didn't unlock it, how the hell are you offended by something that you can't access? i swear that this entire country is being populated by babies. people are getting offended even when they're not the ones getting insulted. its as if people are going out of their way to be offended. ugh.
you're still putting a lot of faith in the one using the jamming device. the person may very well just leave it on (not sure how long they last or power usage, etc.). that right there destroys your first argument. the second argument is that cell phones have changed societies. landlines are becoming more and more rare. yes, in most establishments you can find them, but a lot of payphones are being shut down due to them no longer being as profitable. so, comparing now to the pre-cell phone age isn't a very good comparison. not everything else is equal. while your points are valid, it still puts all the control in the hands of the jammer, not the person making the emergency phone call.
i'm not sure what it is, but it very well may be pretty good. i do have to admit, sometimes ending interactive cut-scenes are pretty cool. anyone who played Final Fantasy VII can attest to that.
where the player pretty much is in control, but only in a way that pigeon holes them into one set of actions, such as only being able to move in one direction and all other controls are disabled or even forcing all controls to do the same thing. the only real control the user normally has is the equivalent of controlling the speed of the game. some games give a little bit more freedom, but their overall destination is usually the same, such as every door in a room is closed except for one, etc. personally i find it a matter of opinion which one is better. i figure it really depends on if you play for story, the interaction, or gameplay. sometimes i find it almost rewarding to see a beautifully rendered cut-scene (that until now has been unparalleled compared to actual gameplay). some games have cutscenes that are too long for all but the most die-hard story-lovers (xenosaga comes to mind). its hard to say one method is better than another. some get annoyed by the cut-scenes where you have to participate but you can't do anything go in one direction because its just viewed as pointless and some just think, "why couldn't they make this part a cut-scene?"
you're running a service of making money. as long as you treat your customers as if they're always right, they will return. everyone keeps on looking at the money lost on a specific sale. a return customer will more often then not make you more money than a single sale.
ok, I guess I wasn't clear enough. Even if they're wrong, they're "right." If you treat every customer like a criminal, you will lose money. If you treat them all as if they are always right, you will get return customers. I said in a response to another post that the Home Depot near me will accept ANY return (thats not what they state to the public, but thats what they tell their employees), even if they don't sell the product. They look at scams as a cost of business. By not causing hassles, they have more efficient business AND happier customers who buy more. Obviously you gotta watch out for repeat returners of goods they don't sell, but in the long run, they make more money.
The purpose of a business is to make more money, not prove that they're right and the customer is wrong.
"the customer is always right" IS a mantra. it's also a very good one. I recognize that there are plenty of people who scam the system. Businesses have to start looking at that as a cost of business, not a loss. How often have we all gotten pissed that the RIAA treats all of its customers as criminals? If they didn't do so, I bet people would be a lot more willing to purchase from them. If you piss off good, paying customers, you *will* lose money. The Home Depot in my area knows exactly what its doing. It will accept *any* return, even if they don't sell that item in the store, let alone if you remembered the receipt. They figure the happier the customer is, the more they'll spend. It's good business ethics. It's also common sense. Yet, it seems greedy companies are always looking to make a quick buck wherever they can. If they used this mantra, worse case scenario, that guy just scammed them for a few hundred dollar hard drive. NOW they very well could have lost thousands of dollars in business around the country. So again, CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. if you want return customers, thats the way you gotta do it.
only if the purchased product was a returned package. if i return a brand new purchase, then i'd expect them not to believe me. but the product had been returned previously. if the product is the first run return, then no, you shouldn't accept it. if its second, run, accept it. the average loss due to scamming compared with the average loss due to a customer not returning is most likely smaller. the scammer cannot continually pull the same trick (or at least that often) to cause any sort of real impact. a consumer who was unjustly accused can spread the word that Best Buy are the devils and to no longer purchase from them. This is a perfect example. If they just took the scams as a cost of business as opposed to trying to maximize their profits wherever they could, they wouldn't be facing this problem.
The total loss of income from this whole debacle will probably cost more than a hard drive.
I bought a wireless mouse/keyboard combo (LogiTech brand) that was a returned product (i didn't even notice it was a returned product until customer service was inspecting it). I opened it up and it had the wrong brand keyboard/mouse in there. some third party i had never heard of. at first they were refusing to replace it. they kept saying they can't accept the return because its the incorrect product inside. i said, thats all well and good, but i'm not leaving til i either get the same product or a refund. they were unwilling to help and i kept complaining saying i'm not going to lose approx. $50 because one of their employees was too lazy to check their returns. the customer should never pay for an employee's mistake. this is one of those cases where people forget that the CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. why are they always right? because a majority of the time, they are. You *always* give the customer benefit of the doubt. If you don't, most of the time you're turning away honest customers who will no longer shop with you and you therefore lose a lot more money as opposed to the cost of that one product. sometimes you'll scammers, but the only reason they thrive is due to lazy employees who don't check to ensure the contents are correct. it shouldn't matter if it looks unopened or not. they should always check (unless its blister packaging... thats *much* more difficult to fake). eventually they gave me a replacement product because it was way too complex of a scenario to just get a keyboard and mouse. plus there were a bunch of people on the customer service line and it was completely obvious that everyone can hear me complain that they were essentially charging me $50 because they hire lazy employees.
it's not meant as a web-browser. it's meant to run a single web-application. there's a big difference between any ol' website and a web application. an example is Gmail or Facebook. Things that actually run an application, not something that goes back and forth between different pages.
when i say "changing gameplay," i don't mean the way you play that specific game. i mean the way you play ANY game. it uses the exact same method as the previous generation. the method of play is still exactly the same. i'm talking about the basic principle. the approach is virtually always the same, because that specific approach was the focus when they designed those 2 specific next-gen consoles. microsoft released an xbox with better graphics and the ability to download things (patches, new games, video), and a better way to play with other people online. they did NOT change how you play. similar argument against the ps3 (which, btw, i own and still hope wins out in the end, though its a dismal future right now), though they do at least have motion sensing. however, the way environment given to design controls, its really difficult to really utilize that motion sensing. they added motion sensing onto the previous control system. the wii REDESIGNED the control system from the bottom up. button pushing is required, but for the most part, motion-sensing was a major component.
i own a wii & ps3. i hope to purchase a 360 when i have the money. in my opinion, they're all next-gen, but the wii is the most revolutionary one.
the PS3 is set-up to have a lot of potential. it was released early to help push blu-ray. its unfortunate, but from that standpoint, not having the ps3 out there really would have hurt blu-ray. their hand was forced. as they continually update it, more and more features are being added that didn't exist in any previous generation console. while some of them may exist in the xbox360 or the wii, just the same, they didn't exist in the previous generation of consoles. its setup more as a entertainment system as opposed to games only, which, is just another direction next-gen can take.
though, honestly, i don't think he's referring to next-gen in these terms. he's talking about gameplay. as much as you want to say the live services are going into new realms, when you get down to it, its only changing the way you interact with the other players. the gameplay theory is the same. if you played a game on the xbox, you're going to have a very similar learning curve on 360 games as you did on the xbox. however, the whole theory used to develop the Wii was completely different. you could be a master on all other consoles, but be no better than a beginner on the wii.
the gameplay on the PS3 & x360 is *not* that revolutionary. yea, the ps3 uses motion-sensing, but barely. you're talking about added features, which Wright isn't talking about. All of those things are just bells & whistles. The Wii is different. The gameplay is completely different. The way you socialize may be different on the 360. But that's not really next-generation. It may change the way you communicate or plan attacks, but again, its just modifications on a pre-existing framework.
At least, thats my opinion.
but, really, what it comes down to is semantics. I mean, look at the different generation iPods, yea, there were some leaps, but sometimes it was just an improvement in hard disk space and tweaks to the interface. the way people use the term "next-gen" is in terms of the competition available. the wii's competition has been deemed to be the ps3 and the xbox360. technically, it's competing with the ps2 and xbox as well, but its main competitors, the ones that everyone keeps an eye on, are the ps3 & x360. each generation is just the group of the current competitors of that era so to speak.
So, while he does raise a VERY good point, its really just a different use of the term next-gen. its the next generation of each console (sony's, ms's, & nintendo's). while the wii is revolutionary, it doesn't mean you *can't* call the other consoles next-gen. technologically speaking, they are quite revolutionary (ie: ps3's cell processor) in their own regards, but the basic concept behind them hasn't changed.
yes, but i'm fairly certain that this doesn't require the extra resources required by the browser. i may be wrong, but i'm fairly certain it runs with a lot less resources because its not that its hiding the web browswer... it just doesn't have the web browser there. so it has faster startup, less resources, etc.
this isn't how it works. there's no extra coding on the server side. its all client-side. any web application that can run in a web browser can run under Prism.
The sibling post by the Anonymous Coward is more on the mark. Its nothing like Active Desktop. Basically, when you run the program, you input an Address, a name, and a select a shortcut location (start menu, quick launch, or desktop). You run that new shortcut and it executes the web-app in its own window without all the browser features. Its basically like removing all the toolbars and menu bars and just having the web-page area take up all available area. For people who run web applications and leave them running, thereby making the available browser functions useless (ie, if you keep gmail open, you probably don't use the menu bars that often or the toolbar either since all the controls are inside the page), this is kind of useful. I was quite surprised as to how much more room I got once the "browser" was removed.
I didn't find the album worth paying for, however I still purchased it for ~$10 (5 pounds). I did it more so to support the idea as opposed to really enjoying the music. I found it to be great background music while doing other things, but not really worth actively listening to. Of course this is just my opinion, so please don't kill me. I'm just stating that it's worth going through the trouble of paying a few bucks just to support the idea so others will do it. Hell, if you like the idea of what they're doing, but hate their music, I still think its worth your effort to pay a few bucks just to inspire other artists to do the same. On Trent Reznor's (of Nine Inch Nails) website, he said in the future he'll be participating directly with the audience now instead of working with record labels because he's now finally free of any record contracts as well.
If you don't like the music, just look at it as making a donation to the cause of destroying the RIAA.
I had issues with the site while using Firefox. I had to use IE (unfortunately) to purchase it. Every time I used Firefox, i'd never be able to make it to cart, let alone actually confirming the order. It'd always randomly screw up at some different point. IE, it seemed to work every time. I'm hoping its a coding issue that uses some MS pseudo-standard as opposed to an issue with Firefox. The prior seems more likely.
there are plenty of other phones that surf the web and aren't the iPhone. Verizon Wireless's XV6700 or AT&T's 8525 (i think they're both pretty much the same phone) do a pretty good job and offer WiFi. They use Windows Mobile, so its Pocket IE, but its still good nonetheless.
they aren't one-shot comics. reading today's comic is like opening a comic book to a random page and saying, "i don't know whats going on." obviously you wouldn't. why should an online comic have every single comic be a standalone comic? plus, the comic not being on the front page makes sense. if you just arrived and don't know whats going on, its best that you don't see a random shot. its like turning on a movie in the middle of the movie. this lets you start from the beginning without having anything given away. Plus, its literally one click to see Today's Comic. I'd rather a more organized homepage as opposed to every single bit of detail on the homepage. That's why its a website and not a webpage. It'd be quite messy if everybody put everything all on the homepage.
If you want a comic based in the World of Warcraft world (well, ok, loosely based in the WoW world), I suggest http://www.lfgcomic.com/. Its a humorous comic called Looking For Group. Its pretty damn good. It gets its characters from WoW more than it does the world or plotline. I suggest reading it from the beginning, the story arcs are pretty damn good.
in a single player game, its not really that important to stop cheating. i mean, its not hurting anyone. plus, the user is apparently having more fun than they would without cheating (otherwise, they wouldn't do it). who cares if it could be abused. there are plenty of games that have cheat codes put into them purposely because sometimes its fun to be invincible. or sometimes they understand that maybe someone can't get past a certain point and therefore gives them a free pass so to speak. the only time cheating is really important in stopping is in anything that has an online component or competitive component. if they want to save before every punch, let them. to me that sounds like one of those scenarios you don't really have to worry about being abused too much.