Actually, it sounds like the Honda system is slightly more advanced than the Mercedes system, which just adjusts your speed to reflect the car in front of you. I don't think it applies the brakes.
I'm actually a Unix geek who loves making films as a hobby, so I cross over between the two activities. Of course this makes MacOS X an absolutely perfect platform for me - I can use the geeky Unix stuff/and/ the artsy film editing and production stuff all on the same beautifully crafted PowerBook.
I join the art crowd in enjoying the Mac because it's an aesthetic pleasure to use. Everything is designer-perfect, even what's on the screen. I'm typing this on the Linux box at work, and it's an aesthetic disaster compared to my PowerBook, even though I have the latest version of Red Hat with the upgraded fonts. It's not nearly as bad as it was, but it's a long way from MacOS X style.
So I'm very happy with my platform choice and am disinclined to change -- until and unless, of course, something substantially better comes along.
Well, before there was Fry's, there were (still are, actually) mom and pop style white box computer stores that sell/sold a tiny fraction of what Fry's does. You would go into one of them and buy the case fan they had.
Now, of course, you go to Fry's, as do I, because they have 10,000 different types of case fans, and you can pick the exact one you need. And the good experience of knowing that if you want something, however obscure, you can get it at Fry's drives you to go to Fry's without thinking.
But this can change in an instant. When Apple Stores started opening, I found out that I could get amazing, first-rate service for almost exactly the same price I was paying at Fry's. Sometimes it was actually cheaper (especially in software). So now I only go to Fry's for things I can't get at the Apple Store. Above a certain price, I'll check both and generally give the Apple Store a slight preference because I just like their service so much better. For Apple-brand stuff, I know all retailers are within a dollar or two of each other, so I just head straight for the Apple Store. (Mail order might give you a two percent discount and a lousy free printer; not worth the bother).
The point I'm making is that it's easy and rational to form a preference, and then not examine it until something new comes along. That is clearly the goal of companies like Fry's. But this does not eliminate competition, and when better alternatives come around, shifts do occur.
It's a pity there is such a huge buy-in with an operating system purchase that it's very difficult and expensive to switch. My operating system choice (MacOS X) determines my video editing program of choice (Final Cut Pro) and keeps me more or less locked in to my Photoshop, After Effects and Illustrator licenses - even though I could cross grade when updating, this would be difficult and time consuming.
I think Apple would have a much easier time gaining market share if this buy-in effect was not so strong. The buy-in effect, when used as ruthlessly as Microsoft has, is truly brutal.
If the primary purpose of his hire was to gain publicity, I'd say they've gotten their money's worth, and their atttitude was that he can therefore work on Linux all he wants.
I don't see anything bad or unethical about that, regardless of the stock price. The stock price, in this case, is affected mainly by the boom/bust situation in the tech market in general, which is not Linus' fault.
I like being able to scrub through the clip and actually see the image, a feature Windows Media Player lacks. In fact, anything involving moving the playhead works horribly.
So QuickTime beats Media Player easily, in my judgement, anyway.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of a single feature off the top of my head that requires browser integration with the OS.
I suppose ActiveDesktop does, but I don't remember ActiveDesktop as being particularly popular. In fact, I remember seeing IE crashes on the desktop numerous times, and thinking it was a real pain in the neck.
They might be referring to the use of the web browser as a file browser, but that doesn't require integration; you can simply offer that feature, and if people want to use it, they will.
I certainly don't see a giant upswell of people asking to use Safari as the finder, although they certainly could if they wanted to.
I'm looking forward to Apple's version of Office. Keynote is a PowerPoint destroyer; PowerPoint looks hideously amateurish in comparison. If the rest of their suite is half as good, Microsoft is going to face genuine competition in the office market for the first time in decades.
Windows Media Player is so bad it merited a Perversion Tracker Review. (Perversion Tracker is a site that primarily pokes fun of inept shareware applications).
Looks to me like Apple is beating Microsoft at its own game. Certainly the QuickTime player is a pleasure to use, and Windows Media Player is not.
I find Microsoft's comments about integration into the operating system to be bizarre. The reason other browsers have passed IE have nothing to do with their integration with the OS, or lack thereof; features like tabbed browsing, popup blockers or superior font rendering have absolutely nothing to do with tight OS integration.
In my opinion, the only way a browser should be integrated into the OS is in the help viewer, which can use the same rendering engine. I believe Apple is in the process of doing this with Safari, and I think it's a great idea. But it does nothing to prevent other companies from making a better browser, if they can do it.
Why waste this level of anger and sarcasm on what is, simply, a product announcement you are not interested in?
For those of us who use Final Cut Pro, we're going to be checking our budgets and finding the bucks for this outstanding new release. We're always keen on finding pretty much any kind of information we can.
For those who don't, well, you can feel free to ignore the article.
But rest assured, for the thousands of video professionals and advanced amateurs who love Final Cut, this is a very big deal indeed, and we're pleased to see Slashdot breaking the story.
The depth of feeling Final Cut users have is best illustrated by the one time the original authors of Final Cut visited the LA FCP users' group meeting. There was a standing ovation.
I broke my Sidekick by stepping on it accidentally, so I no longer use it. I didn't want to buy the monochrome version again because the screen is a bit hard for me to read. (The text is very small but clear, but there is horribly low contrast which I think the colour will fix).
Before I started having trouble with it, I found it extremely useful. When I had lunch, instead of bringing a book book for me to read, I could catch up on my favourite web sites. If you consider that I was chomping through expensive books like candy, you can see how the monthly fee is actually pretty cost-effective - especially if you want a cellphone anyway, but don't use it much.
If you get lost somewhere, you can use the Mapquest or Yahoo Maps through your Sidekick to reorient yourself. Or if someone's sent you an address or directions, you can put them into the SideKick and have them available while you're on the road. You can do this with a laptop computer too, but it's pretty clunky compared to the convenience of a pocket device.
The only downside, and the reason I'm not as enthusiastic about the sidekick as I was hoping, is that reception here in LA has gone from bad to horrible to non-existant. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't have been able to resist re-buying it even at $300.
As it is... well, let's hope they've done something to improve reception on the new unit.
Have they ever thought of trying to maintain their roads more efficiently, therefore eliminating the need for higher taxes?
And have they ever considered the obvious unpopularity of this proposal? People don't want to increase the gas tax for a reason. They're not going to be any more generous about accepting this.
The people who do this are not going to be re-elected -- and deservedly so.
Actually, it's all the Penis Enlargement offers. I'm actually pretty amazed at the number of approaches taken. There must be a lot of insecure men out there.
Trend Micro finally figured out the only way to filter 'em all out was to make 'P' illegal.
You are correct - I was in fact referring to the Pocket PC Phone Edition. Based on my admittedly limited experience, it's a genuinely; awful product.
I'm glad for your sake the MS Smartphone is better, but I can't say I really want the MS monopoly to take over the phone world. Fortunately, based on The Register's stories, it doesn't look like it will.
This is probably the best one, and squares with my experience with PocketPC phones.
If it's anything like the PocketPC phone I tried, it's horribly clunky and overtly complex. It's like a tiny Windows XP box, which can look cute at first, but it falls down flat for a small device.
When I visited T-Mobile to buy my Sidekick, I also checked out the Microsoft PocketPC phone they had there. I guess the phone under discussion is simply a newer version of it.
I will admit to being heavily anti-Microsoft, but I'm also very curious about technology, so I tried to approach the phone with as open a mind as I could muster.
It turns out that I didn't even need to muster my normal feelings about MS to hate the phone. I hated it on its merits. It is simply too clunky to use. It may have a lot of features, and I did love the nice big colour screen, but you have to put it into Phone Mode to dial, and it doesn't come up in Phone Mode, and there are all sorts of similar problems.
Maybe the MS Smartphone is different, but I doubt that it's different enough to be any good.
I suspect that's why companies are deserting it.
Incidentally, it's very common for a company that wants to dump a product to say "We're delaying the release until all the bugs are fixed" or something similar. That way they can dump it without totally burning their bridges with their (former) partner. So if I were a MS phone manager, I'd take little comfort in the "postpone" versus "reject" distinction I've seen mentioned in other comments. Most likely, the MS smartphone is dead with T-Mobile.
After all, have you ever seen a completely bug-free MS product?
D
PS Anyone know when the colour Sidekick is coming out? I broke mine, and I don't want to buy a new monochrome version if there's a colour one coming out. I found the monochrome display difficult to read due to too low contrast between the letters and background, and think colour would fix the problem.
Oddly enough, they also supply amazon.com web services, which is legal and makes most of this stuff dead easy.
You'd be nuts to screen scrape from Amazon. I know because I tried it, and breathed a BIG sigh of relief when I found out how to do what I needed not only legally, but easily too.
I checked eBay, and incredibly, the 5gb iPods are still going strong at almost $200. I was hoping to see a $100 model, which would have sent it into close-to-impulse-buy territory, but no such luck. (The model with $102-odd in bids was a broken unit!)
It looks like they are collectors' items, probably thanks to the rotating wheel.
But you have a point about durability and that would probably reconcile me to the non-rotating version.
The one million songs they've sold in the first week of the service is testimony to the power of Apple's marketing and the popularity of their service.
The possibility that they can't get many albums on the service speaks something for their ability to get lots of albums up, and nothing more. Of course this IS relevent to the continued success of the service, since inventory will determine how much people will want to buy.
The appeal of the service to Joe and Jane Appleuser is indisputable.
D
(A happy Apple Music Store customer - $22 spent so far)
I know you're being sarcastic, but I thought this was as good a place as any to note that they're nearly sold out at Fry's (only two units of the 15gb model still available).
I don't know about Apple Stores; I assume they have millions of the little guys.
I hate to admit it, but I prefer the rotating wheel of the old 5gb model over the non-rotating wheel of the new ones. More tactile feel and what-not.
I tried Kazaa for a while and discovered that if you want to have a good rating on it, it pretty much automatically uses up all your bandwidth, so everything else I did started to crawl. And at least for me, the bandwidth limitation features didn't seem to work well.
It's worth $1 a song to no longer have even a theoretical obligation to act as a download server.
I've spent $21 and counting on Apple's music service, and so far I think it's fantastic. The only problem is that I have to ration my spending or I'd be broke come the end of the month. Other than that, it's great.
I've videotaped public demonstrations here in Los Angeles (on both the pro and anti-war side) and had no problems with the police or others[*]. The police will film protesters for exactly the reasons cited previously.
It is a fact that even when the police are just doing their job, they look like the heavies. I've seen many cases of protesters deliberately trying to provoke the police, relying on the fact that the cops automatically look like villains.
D
[*] I have been mildly assaulted (hit with no injuries) a few times by anti-war people when I've mentioned my pro-war views during anti-war events, but that has nothing to do with my videotaping the events.
2 Slashdot will probably wait on the TPC benchmarks until they're done by someone independent of Microsoft.
3 Ballmer saying Windows is more innovative than Linux is not news. He's been saying that since he started feeling it was a threat.
4 I don't think Slashdotters are very interested in world-wide rollouts or advertising campaigns.
5 Surely the owners of this forum have a perfect right to have it show their biases. It's not at all bad compared to political forums, where Free Republic discourages Democrats and Democratic Underground deletes Republicans as soon as they are unmasked.
A large number of our local Wherehouse stores are closing. They're having a liquidation sale.
By the time I got there (about 24 hours after it started) virtually all the good stuff was gone, and the store was still filled with people looking through every CD for gems.
I still found $50 worth of music I wanted at 60% off.
If CD prices could go below US$9.99, I'd go mad buying them. $18.99, which is what I see for most CDs now, is absurd.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it sounds like the Honda system is slightly more advanced than the Mercedes system, which just adjusts your speed to reflect the car in front of you. I don't think it applies the brakes.
D
I'm actually a Unix geek who loves making films as a hobby, so I cross over between the two activities. Of course this makes MacOS X an absolutely perfect platform for me - I can use the geeky Unix stuff /and/ the artsy film editing and production stuff all on the same beautifully crafted PowerBook.
I join the art crowd in enjoying the Mac because it's an aesthetic pleasure to use. Everything is designer-perfect, even what's on the screen. I'm typing this on the Linux box at work, and it's an aesthetic disaster compared to my PowerBook, even though I have the latest version of Red Hat with the upgraded fonts. It's not nearly as bad as it was, but it's a long way from MacOS X style.
So I'm very happy with my platform choice and am disinclined to change -- until and unless, of course, something substantially better comes along.
But it has to be a LOT better.
D
Well, before there was Fry's, there were (still are, actually) mom and pop style white box computer stores that sell/sold a tiny fraction of what Fry's does. You would go into one of them and buy the case fan they had.
Now, of course, you go to Fry's, as do I, because they have 10,000 different types of case fans, and you can pick the exact one you need. And the good experience of knowing that if you want something, however obscure, you can get it at Fry's drives you to go to Fry's without thinking.
But this can change in an instant. When Apple Stores started opening, I found out that I could get amazing, first-rate service for almost exactly the same price I was paying at Fry's. Sometimes it was actually cheaper (especially in software). So now I only go to Fry's for things I can't get at the Apple Store. Above a certain price, I'll check both and generally give the Apple Store a slight preference because I just like their service so much better. For Apple-brand stuff, I know all retailers are within a dollar or two of each other, so I just head straight for the Apple Store. (Mail order might give you a two percent discount and a lousy free printer; not worth the bother).
The point I'm making is that it's easy and rational to form a preference, and then not examine it until something new comes along. That is clearly the goal of companies like Fry's. But this does not eliminate competition, and when better alternatives come around, shifts do occur.
It's a pity there is such a huge buy-in with an operating system purchase that it's very difficult and expensive to switch. My operating system choice (MacOS X) determines my video editing program of choice (Final Cut Pro) and keeps me more or less locked in to my Photoshop, After Effects and Illustrator licenses - even though I could cross grade when updating, this would be difficult and time consuming.
I think Apple would have a much easier time gaining market share if this buy-in effect was not so strong. The buy-in effect, when used as ruthlessly as Microsoft has, is truly brutal.
D
If the primary purpose of his hire was to gain publicity, I'd say they've gotten their money's worth, and their atttitude was that he can therefore work on Linux all he wants.
I don't see anything bad or unethical about that, regardless of the stock price. The stock price, in this case, is affected mainly by the boom/bust situation in the tech market in general, which is not Linus' fault.
D
is for knowledgeable technical people to converse and learn by discussing the news stories of the day.
I would say its remit has no connection whatsoever with Joe Sixpack. Certainly Joe would be totally bewildered by 99% of what goes on here.
I don't see anything wrong with that; Joe has his own publications and forums, and so do we.
D
I like being able to scrub through the clip and actually see the image, a feature Windows Media Player lacks. In fact, anything involving moving the playhead works horribly.
So QuickTime beats Media Player easily, in my judgement, anyway.
D
Maybe it's just me, but I can't think of a single feature off the top of my head that requires browser integration with the OS.
I suppose ActiveDesktop does, but I don't remember ActiveDesktop as being particularly popular. In fact, I remember seeing IE crashes on the desktop numerous times, and thinking it was a real pain in the neck.
They might be referring to the use of the web browser as a file browser, but that doesn't require integration; you can simply offer that feature, and if people want to use it, they will.
I certainly don't see a giant upswell of people asking to use Safari as the finder, although they certainly could if they wanted to.
Any other features you can think of?
D
Windows Media Player is so bad it merited a Perversion Tracker Review. (Perversion Tracker is a site that primarily pokes fun of inept shareware applications).
Looks to me like Apple is beating Microsoft at its own game. Certainly the QuickTime player is a pleasure to use, and Windows Media Player is not.
I find Microsoft's comments about integration into the operating system to be bizarre. The reason other browsers have passed IE have nothing to do with their integration with the OS, or lack thereof; features like tabbed browsing, popup blockers or superior font rendering have absolutely nothing to do with tight OS integration.
In my opinion, the only way a browser should be integrated into the OS is in the help viewer, which can use the same rendering engine. I believe Apple is in the process of doing this with Safari, and I think it's a great idea. But it does nothing to prevent other companies from making a better browser, if they can do it.
D
Why waste this level of anger and sarcasm on what is, simply, a product announcement you are not interested in?
For those of us who use Final Cut Pro, we're going to be checking our budgets and finding the bucks for this outstanding new release. We're always keen on finding pretty much any kind of information we can.
For those who don't, well, you can feel free to ignore the article.
But rest assured, for the thousands of video professionals and advanced amateurs who love Final Cut, this is a very big deal indeed, and we're pleased to see Slashdot breaking the story.
The depth of feeling Final Cut users have is best illustrated by the one time the original authors of Final Cut visited the LA FCP users' group meeting. There was a standing ovation.
People love Final Cut, including me.
Thus this story.
D
I broke my Sidekick by stepping on it accidentally, so I no longer use it. I didn't want to buy the monochrome version again because the screen is a bit hard for me to read. (The text is very small but clear, but there is horribly low contrast which I think the colour will fix).
... well, let's hope they've done something to improve reception on the new unit.
Before I started having trouble with it, I found it extremely useful. When I had lunch, instead of bringing a book book for me to read, I could catch up on my favourite web sites. If you consider that I was chomping through expensive books like candy, you can see how the monthly fee is actually pretty cost-effective - especially if you want a cellphone anyway, but don't use it much.
If you get lost somewhere, you can use the Mapquest or Yahoo Maps through your Sidekick to reorient yourself. Or if someone's sent you an address or directions, you can put them into the SideKick and have them available while you're on the road. You can do this with a laptop computer too, but it's pretty clunky compared to the convenience of a pocket device.
The only downside, and the reason I'm not as enthusiastic about the sidekick as I was hoping, is that reception here in LA has gone from bad to horrible to non-existant. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't have been able to resist re-buying it even at $300.
As it is
D
Have they ever thought of trying to maintain their roads more efficiently, therefore eliminating the need for higher taxes?
And have they ever considered the obvious unpopularity of this proposal? People don't want to increase the gas tax for a reason. They're not going to be any more generous about accepting this.
The people who do this are not going to be re-elected -- and deservedly so.
D
Actually, it's all the Penis Enlargement offers. I'm actually pretty amazed at the number of approaches taken. There must be a lot of insecure men out there.
:-)
Trend Micro finally figured out the only way to filter 'em all out was to make 'P' illegal.
Don't knock it, I'm sure it worked
D
You are correct - I was in fact referring to the Pocket PC Phone Edition. Based on my admittedly limited experience, it's a genuinely; awful product.
I'm glad for your sake the MS Smartphone is better, but I can't say I really want the MS monopoly to take over the phone world. Fortunately, based on The Register's stories, it doesn't look like it will.
D
If it's anything like the PocketPC phone I tried, it's horribly clunky and overtly complex. It's like a tiny Windows XP box, which can look cute at first, but it falls down flat for a small device.
D
When I visited T-Mobile to buy my Sidekick, I also checked out the Microsoft PocketPC phone they had there. I guess the phone under discussion is simply a newer version of it.
I will admit to being heavily anti-Microsoft, but I'm also very curious about technology, so I tried to approach the phone with as open a mind as I could muster.
It turns out that I didn't even need to muster my normal feelings about MS to hate the phone. I hated it on its merits. It is simply too clunky to use. It may have a lot of features, and I did love the nice big colour screen, but you have to put it into Phone Mode to dial, and it doesn't come up in Phone Mode, and there are all sorts of similar problems.
Maybe the MS Smartphone is different, but I doubt that it's different enough to be any good.
I suspect that's why companies are deserting it.
Incidentally, it's very common for a company that wants to dump a product to say "We're delaying the release until all the bugs are fixed" or something similar. That way they can dump it without totally burning their bridges with their (former) partner. So if I were a MS phone manager, I'd take little comfort in the "postpone" versus "reject" distinction I've seen mentioned in other comments. Most likely, the MS smartphone is dead with T-Mobile.
After all, have you ever seen a completely bug-free MS product?
D
PS Anyone know when the colour Sidekick is coming out? I broke mine, and I don't want to buy a new monochrome version if there's a colour one coming out. I found the monochrome display difficult to read due to too low contrast between the letters and background, and think colour would fix the problem.
You'd be nuts to screen scrape from Amazon. I know because I tried it, and breathed a BIG sigh of relief when I found out how to do what I needed not only legally, but easily too.
D
I checked eBay, and incredibly, the 5gb iPods are still going strong at almost $200. I was hoping to see a $100 model, which would have sent it into close-to-impulse-buy territory, but no such luck. (The model with $102-odd in bids was a broken unit!)
It looks like they are collectors' items, probably thanks to the rotating wheel.
But you have a point about durability and that would probably reconcile me to the non-rotating version.
D
The one million songs they've sold in the first week of the service is testimony to the power of Apple's marketing and the popularity of their service.
The possibility that they can't get many albums on the service speaks something for their ability to get lots of albums up, and nothing more. Of course this IS relevent to the continued success of the service, since inventory will determine how much people will want to buy.
The appeal of the service to Joe and Jane Appleuser is indisputable.
D
(A happy Apple Music Store customer - $22 spent so far)
I know you're being sarcastic, but I thought this was as good a place as any to note that they're nearly sold out at Fry's (only two units of the 15gb model still available).
I don't know about Apple Stores; I assume they have millions of the little guys.
I hate to admit it, but I prefer the rotating wheel of the old 5gb model over the non-rotating wheel of the new ones. More tactile feel and what-not.
Maybe I should buy one on eBay.
D
Well, the whole "professional" line of G4 desktops, certainly.
My PowerBook G4 was assembled in Taiwan (and seems none the worse for it).
The new iMacs are assembled in Taiwan too.
D
What I really like about this idea is that I'm the world's expert at losing cellphones, and if it's strapped around my wrist, I won't lose it.
I wonder if there's a way to make it big enough to have a readable screen for Internet access without making a mess out of my wrist's other functions.
D
I tried Kazaa for a while and discovered that if you want to have a good rating on it, it pretty much automatically uses up all your bandwidth, so everything else I did started to crawl. And at least for me, the bandwidth limitation features didn't seem to work well.
It's worth $1 a song to no longer have even a theoretical obligation to act as a download server.
I've spent $21 and counting on Apple's music service, and so far I think it's fantastic. The only problem is that I have to ration my spending or I'd be broke come the end of the month. Other than that, it's great.
D
I've videotaped public demonstrations here in Los Angeles (on both the pro and anti-war side) and had no problems with the police or others[*]. The police will film protesters for exactly the reasons cited previously.
It is a fact that even when the police are just doing their job, they look like the heavies. I've seen many cases of protesters deliberately trying to provoke the police, relying on the fact that the cops automatically look like villains.
D
[*] I have been mildly assaulted (hit with no injuries) a few times by anti-war people when I've mentioned my pro-war views during anti-war events, but that has nothing to do with my videotaping the events.
1 It is off-topic.
2 Slashdot will probably wait on the TPC benchmarks until they're done by someone independent of Microsoft.
3 Ballmer saying Windows is more innovative than Linux is not news. He's been saying that since he started feeling it was a threat.
4 I don't think Slashdotters are very interested in world-wide rollouts or advertising campaigns.
5 Surely the owners of this forum have a perfect right to have it show their biases. It's not at all bad compared to political forums, where Free Republic discourages Democrats and Democratic Underground deletes Republicans as soon as they are unmasked.
D
A large number of our local Wherehouse stores are closing. They're having a liquidation sale.
By the time I got there (about 24 hours after it started) virtually all the good stuff was gone, and the store was still filled with people looking through every CD for gems.
I still found $50 worth of music I wanted at 60% off.
If CD prices could go below US$9.99, I'd go mad buying them. $18.99, which is what I see for most CDs now, is absurd.
D