Well, since slashdot took away my empeg BBS reading ability, I'll post here for a bit. Lets see, the complaints that I have seen so far are:
1. The cost. $1000 is too much.
Ok, you probably don't realise what that $1000 gets you. It allows you to listen to your entire music collection whenever you want with a few button presses. (The interface is very slick and easy to use. No need for "next next next x130 times" to get to a song). It also gets you a very hackable in dash Linux computer. Someone already has basic navigation software working on it, and others have added web servers and streaming support when it's on an ethernet connection. Oh, that last point is a good one. I can use the unit in my house, or at work as well. Thats saved me money compaired to getting a portable HDD player, or a home MP3 player. You also get awesome support. You botched a software experiment on the player, doing things way beyond playing MP3s? Well odds are, you would post to the BBS, and have the creators of the product replying to help out. And one last point, you don't have to own a CD burner and a constant source of media to get songs you like. Also, the software is upgradable. The empeg has the power to decode Mpeg4 video, so it's going to be a while before it can't decode an audio format. (Mpeg4 video is decoded decently on an iPaq, and that uses a slightly slower StrongARM)
2. It has no radio.
Check again... The Mark 1 had an integrated FM tuner, and the Mark 2 has an optional AM/FM tuner, on an interface that could be used down the road for additional formats. (XM, etc...) It's doubtful that will happen now, but only time will tell.
3. I could build it for less.
Sure, if you don't count the time needed to build a player that is useable in the house as well. Also the time needed to develop advanced software that dosen't require your complete attention.
4. No CD support.
For the rare need of a CD in the car, I just hook a portable player into the Aux in. If you want the niceness of the empeg, with a CD player, then you are going to probably pay $2000 or more, once Pioneer gets their unit out. Plus that will be locked into the dash.
5. It could get stolen easially.
Well, yes, slightly easier then most assuming your stupid enough to leave it in the car all the time. Removable face plates are no security feature. The empeg offers the best security, since you know it won't be stolen from your side.
6. It's a hassle to hook up to add music.
Not really. You connect it in house to an ethernet cable, or USB and can sync. Just a slight bit more hassle then portable players, since you also have to have power. But what portable player allows you to stream your music via ethernet? Besides, to me it's much easier then burning a ton of cds to try and match my mood.
7. It has no built in amp.
This is a legitimate complaint to some extent. But the market empeg was aiming at, most people would have their own amps anyhow.
8. It looks like crap.
Not really. The empeg actually looks like it belongs in my dash, compaired to the cheap plastic look of most car stereos. Plus, it dosen't have 15 billion tiny buttons all over the place. And when it powers up, the screen is awesome with it's size.
I have enjoyed my empeg (both Mark 1 and 2) quite a bit. It was well worth the money, and I look forward to the rest of the market catching up many years down the road. It was a geeky product, but it did everything I wanted and more.
Are you really that thick? It's called making identity theft harder.
Umm, as far as I knew, most of the people involved with that little mess on the 11th were here legally. So again, this wouldn't stop this from happening in the future.
I have not seen very many solutions yet that defeat the very low tech terrorism that was used. So many solutions are these high tech gizmos. A database here for everyone, a $300,000 security scanner there, and neither adding a bit of real security to keep the events of the 11th from happening again. A suicide terrorist cannot be stopped completly without developing an AI, and letting it cage the entire human race. Even then, he could at least pose a mental threat to anyone else near his cage.
Remember, most of the airport security in place before the 11th was there to make the normal people feel better. Thats all thats going to happen this time as well. Several more checks, several more hours wait, and no additional actual security.
``We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison,'' he said.
And this stops terrorism how? "Hi, I'm Joe Bob Terrorist". "Yep, he is, let him on the plane."
Oh well, I guess thinking is something that goes away after an incident like 9/11.
No offense Michael, but I disagree. I don't know how it is with file sharing systems on Linux, but Windows is glutted with the things.
Limewire supports and uses the gnutella network. The competition he was discussing was with the different gnutella programs, just like Eudora, Netscape Mail, Outlook and many others support the same standards, but provide different interfaces and features.
I do agree though that the peer to peer file sharing needs to be standardized. It's just as bad at the network file sharing protocals, like NFS, SMB, Appletalk, etc... I've seen EDonkey, Gnutella, Napster, and several others I can't remember. Some introduce nice ideas, but the overall community would be better off if that energy went into one standard. Why can't Gnutella be adapted to support EDonkeys fragemented download prcedure?
Oh well, it's yet another example of how the software industry can't learn from the mistakes of the hardware side. Standards have greatly improved the hardware market, imagine what will happen when almost the entire software market sees it this way.
Re:The mighty has fallen?
on
XBox Delayed
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· Score: 2
PS2 Christmas line-up is the strongest of all the consoles, and it also will be the cheapest.
The Gamecube is launching at $200. Last I checked, the PS2 was still at $300, so that price drop will bring it to the GC level. I saw somewhere several months ago that Sony was going to do two $50 price drops this year, but aparently that didn't happen for some reason.
Re:Has the X-Box EVER worked?
on
XBox Delayed
·
· Score: 2
Nope, there wasn't final X-Box machines at E3. They still were using the PC boxes, with one difference hardware wise. Some of the sound functions were being done via software instead of hardware.
I saw a few lockups (One game would cause it reliably in a section of a level), and one being carted away from repair.
Meanwhile, we were enjoying the Gamecube on final hardware.
The Jornada has a much better corporate appeal to it
Hmm. Last I knew Compaq has increased production on the iPaq quite a bit, and the shortages still exist in the retail chains. Why? So many businesses are buying thousands of iPaqs.
Personally I believe the iPaq will stick around as the PDA from the new company, while the Jornada stays around as the clamshell palmtop computer.
That is one of the nice things about the iPaq, it has flash memory. Thus you can either flash Merlin into ROM, or Linux.
Oh, speaking of iPaqs and Linux, someone on the handhelds.org hosted list just asked about installing Linux on a 32 meg Flash ROM, 128 meg RAM version 2.0 ROM iPaq. Hmm....
Making a worm to fix the worm is just going to create more problems. My main slowdown of service comes from all the ARP requests from the think scanning my neighboorhood.
Instead, (idea from another./ reader) make a CGI script called default.ida that fixes just that machine that tried to attack your server. Make sure it can deal with Code Red 1, otherwise once 2 is dead, 1 will be able to swing back easially to the unpatched servers. Also make sure it sends a bill to the company for "IT Consulting".
Why does a consumer machine need this when PCI 64 bit, or 66mhz hasn't gotten into the market? The 3 types of machines I ever see these slots on are servers, very high end workstations, and Apple systesm.
Right now, my MP3 archive is a bit over 90 CD-Rs. (More then 95% at either 192CBR or Lame VBR 1). I'm willing to slowly switch over to OGG once my 2 listening enviornments support it. That would be on a computer (taken care of), or on my empeg-car. As someone else noted, a decent ARM decoder needs to come out soon.
The one thing that keeps me away from the new iBook is the lack of a PCMCIA slot. Sure it has a built in modem, network, and 802.11b, but it dosen't have built in CDPD. Thats the main use of a PCMCIA slot for me. Plus it's nice to use CF adaptors, etc...
My current laptop is a Compaq Armada M700 that my work gave to me. It dosen't excel in any specific area, but is great all around. Compaq's professional line (Armada and Evo) might be worth a look. (And because of this one, I can't see myself easially going back to a plastic case)
I recently switched from mIRC and ICQ over to Trillian. I also get the added benefit of being able to talk to the few people I know on MSN and AIM. Plus, it works through the firewall at work, since each individual transport can get through. And with Trillian, theres no need to create yet another silly IM network. 4 are enough for me (AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo), so why create more? I can chat, chat in groups, and transfer files. What more do I need? I could care less if Jabber is all XML. I could care less that Oldigo(sp?) has some nifty feature. It's another network, with no purpose.
And to the comment above about Trillian being too much like an IRC client, turn off advanced mode to hide the huge interface window and get just the buddylist. It potentially may be renamed to IRC mode in the future to keep "advanced" people from turning it on and getting confused by the non IM client look.
This is a Type II PCMCIA card, and the PDA had a Type II CF slot. There are converters, but as it stands, the iPaq with PCMCIA sleeve is one of the few PDAs that can use this card.
MPEG4 movies are playable on the iPaq, and several people use this on a regular basis with Microdrives. It's all about optimized code, and not just the speed of the machine. (Now if MS would listen to that:-)
PacketVideo is a commercial product for streaming to handhelds, and it's MPEG 4 based.
This topic comes up on the empeg BBS quite a bit. Last I remember, the major hurdle is to get a non FPU decoder for the ARM platform. Beyond that, it should be possible.
And right now, the Rio-Car is on sale. $999 for the 10 gig model, well worth the money even if it is used for MP3s in the mean time.
What MMORPG has launched without problems? With games like this, you run into a few things:
The mass of players finds quirks and exploits them much better then the small beta teams. And no, Beta 4 wasn't huge.
Server load can never be predicted. And when your a fairly new company with this type of game, you can't afford masses of servers until after the game starts to get popular.
Everquest started like this, as did other games. Give them a break and let them fix things, instead of expecting perfection from this still new genere.
I was under the impression the GSCube is fairly new. If I remember right, the movie was initiallty started back on the rendering process back in 1997, at some really slow rate of a few frames a day. From there they added newer and more machine to help speed up the process to get a shorter render time.
~200 StrongARM, flash, and memory. Sounds close to the iPaq handheld, and the empeg-car. And the Netwinder I suppose as well. ArmLinux is definitly growing in it's uses.
The iPaq usually gets 12 hours of runtime per full charge. Since it's rechargable, I just drop it in the cradle at night along with my cell phone. Who cares if a Palm with 2 AAA batteries gets 20 hours of run time. I'm never going to use my iPaq more then 12 hours a day. Plus for trips, I can easially just bring the PCMCIA sleeve to add a second battery.
You can't press more than one button at a time. This makes gaming nearly impossible.
Well certain games. Hasn't bothered me too much, because most get around this by using the stylus and buttons (Like the NES emulator PocketNES).
The speaker "clicks" as the little amplifier turns on whenever it needs to make a sound; This is probably a WinCE thing, so hopefully the linux driver folks will make it configurable. This was fixed in the latest ROM for the device when running WinCE.
Dust inside the screen. Seems to happen to everyone - it happened to me, I'm just living with it. Same here, it's not too much of a deal. Compaq has done a few things to reduce this.
Weird expansion capabilities. You can add a Smart Media or Compact Flash slot, but the sleeve you need to get to do so makes the iPaq quite a bit bigger, and you can only have one sleeve at a time. This has it's advantages and disadvantages. I can use PCMCIA cards, but when I don't need to, I can slim down the device.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since slashdot took away my empeg BBS reading ability, I'll post here for a bit. Lets see, the complaints that I have seen so far are:
1. The cost. $1000 is too much.
Ok, you probably don't realise what that $1000 gets you. It allows you to listen to your entire music collection whenever you want with a few button presses. (The interface is very slick and easy to use. No need for "next next next x130 times" to get to a song). It also gets you a very hackable in dash Linux computer. Someone already has basic navigation software working on it, and others have added web servers and streaming support when it's on an ethernet connection. Oh, that last point is a good one. I can use the unit in my house, or at work as well. Thats saved me money compaired to getting a portable HDD player, or a home MP3 player. You also get awesome support. You botched a software experiment on the player, doing things way beyond playing MP3s? Well odds are, you would post to the BBS, and have the creators of the product replying to help out. And one last point, you don't have to own a CD burner and a constant source of media to get songs you like. Also, the software is upgradable. The empeg has the power to decode Mpeg4 video, so it's going to be a while before it can't decode an audio format. (Mpeg4 video is decoded decently on an iPaq, and that uses a slightly slower StrongARM)
2. It has no radio.
Check again... The Mark 1 had an integrated FM tuner, and the Mark 2 has an optional AM/FM tuner, on an interface that could be used down the road for additional formats. (XM, etc...) It's doubtful that will happen now, but only time will tell.
3. I could build it for less.
Sure, if you don't count the time needed to build a player that is useable in the house as well. Also the time needed to develop advanced software that dosen't require your complete attention.
4. No CD support.
For the rare need of a CD in the car, I just hook a portable player into the Aux in. If you want the niceness of the empeg, with a CD player, then you are going to probably pay $2000 or more, once Pioneer gets their unit out. Plus that will be locked into the dash.
5. It could get stolen easially.
Well, yes, slightly easier then most assuming your stupid enough to leave it in the car all the time. Removable face plates are no security feature. The empeg offers the best security, since you know it won't be stolen from your side.
6. It's a hassle to hook up to add music.
Not really. You connect it in house to an ethernet cable, or USB and can sync. Just a slight bit more hassle then portable players, since you also have to have power. But what portable player allows you to stream your music via ethernet? Besides, to me it's much easier then burning a ton of cds to try and match my mood.
7. It has no built in amp.
This is a legitimate complaint to some extent. But the market empeg was aiming at, most people would have their own amps anyhow.
8. It looks like crap.
Not really. The empeg actually looks like it belongs in my dash, compaired to the cheap plastic look of most car stereos. Plus, it dosen't have 15 billion tiny buttons all over the place. And when it powers up, the screen is awesome with it's size.
I have enjoyed my empeg (both Mark 1 and 2) quite a bit. It was well worth the money, and I look forward to the rest of the market catching up many years down the road. It was a geeky product, but it did everything I wanted and more.
Umm, as far as I knew, most of the people involved with that little mess on the 11th were here legally. So again, this wouldn't stop this from happening in the future.
I have not seen very many solutions yet that defeat the very low tech terrorism that was used. So many solutions are these high tech gizmos. A database here for everyone, a $300,000 security scanner there, and neither adding a bit of real security to keep the events of the 11th from happening again. A suicide terrorist cannot be stopped completly without developing an AI, and letting it cage the entire human race. Even then, he could at least pose a mental threat to anyone else near his cage.
Remember, most of the airport security in place before the 11th was there to make the normal people feel better. Thats all thats going to happen this time as well. Several more checks, several more hours wait, and no additional actual security.
And this stops terrorism how? "Hi, I'm Joe Bob Terrorist". "Yep, he is, let him on the plane."
Oh well, I guess thinking is something that goes away after an incident like 9/11.
Limewire supports and uses the gnutella network. The competition he was discussing was with the different gnutella programs, just like Eudora, Netscape Mail, Outlook and many others support the same standards, but provide different interfaces and features.
I do agree though that the peer to peer file sharing needs to be standardized. It's just as bad at the network file sharing protocals, like NFS, SMB, Appletalk, etc... I've seen EDonkey, Gnutella, Napster, and several others I can't remember. Some introduce nice ideas, but the overall community would be better off if that energy went into one standard. Why can't Gnutella be adapted to support EDonkeys fragemented download prcedure?
Oh well, it's yet another example of how the software industry can't learn from the mistakes of the hardware side. Standards have greatly improved the hardware market, imagine what will happen when almost the entire software market sees it this way.
The Gamecube is launching at $200. Last I checked, the PS2 was still at $300, so that price drop will bring it to the GC level. I saw somewhere several months ago that Sony was going to do two $50 price drops this year, but aparently that didn't happen for some reason.
Nope, there wasn't final X-Box machines at E3. They still were using the PC boxes, with one difference hardware wise. Some of the sound functions were being done via software instead of hardware.
I saw a few lockups (One game would cause it reliably in a section of a level), and one being carted away from repair.
Meanwhile, we were enjoying the Gamecube on final hardware.
Hmm. Last I knew Compaq has increased production on the iPaq quite a bit, and the shortages still exist in the retail chains. Why? So many businesses are buying thousands of iPaqs.
Personally I believe the iPaq will stick around as the PDA from the new company, while the Jornada stays around as the clamshell palmtop computer.
That is one of the nice things about the iPaq, it has flash memory. Thus you can either flash Merlin into ROM, or Linux.
Oh, speaking of iPaqs and Linux, someone on the handhelds.org hosted list just asked about installing Linux on a 32 meg Flash ROM, 128 meg RAM version 2.0 ROM iPaq. Hmm....
Making a worm to fix the worm is just going to create more problems. My main slowdown of service comes from all the ARP requests from the think scanning my neighboorhood.
./ reader) make a CGI script called default.ida that fixes just that machine that tried to attack your server. Make sure it can deal with Code Red 1, otherwise once 2 is dead, 1 will be able to swing back easially to the unpatched servers. Also make sure it sends a bill to the company for "IT Consulting".
Instead, (idea from another
Why does a consumer machine need this when PCI 64 bit, or 66mhz hasn't gotten into the market? The 3 types of machines I ever see these slots on are servers, very high end workstations, and Apple systesm.
Also, where does PCI-X fit into all this?
Not that I am aware of, sorry.
Right now, my MP3 archive is a bit over 90 CD-Rs. (More then 95% at either 192CBR or Lame VBR 1). I'm willing to slowly switch over to OGG once my 2 listening enviornments support it. That would be on a computer (taken care of), or on my empeg-car. As someone else noted, a decent ARM decoder needs to come out soon.
The one thing that keeps me away from the new iBook is the lack of a PCMCIA slot. Sure it has a built in modem, network, and 802.11b, but it dosen't have built in CDPD. Thats the main use of a PCMCIA slot for me. Plus it's nice to use CF adaptors, etc...
My current laptop is a Compaq Armada M700 that my work gave to me. It dosen't excel in any specific area, but is great all around. Compaq's professional line (Armada and Evo) might be worth a look. (And because of this one, I can't see myself easially going back to a plastic case)
I recently switched from mIRC and ICQ over to Trillian. I also get the added benefit of being able to talk to the few people I know on MSN and AIM. Plus, it works through the firewall at work, since each individual transport can get through. And with Trillian, theres no need to create yet another silly IM network. 4 are enough for me (AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo), so why create more? I can chat, chat in groups, and transfer files. What more do I need? I could care less if Jabber is all XML. I could care less that Oldigo(sp?) has some nifty feature. It's another network, with no purpose.
And to the comment above about Trillian being too much like an IRC client, turn off advanced mode to hide the huge interface window and get just the buddylist. It potentially may be renamed to IRC mode in the future to keep "advanced" people from turning it on and getting confused by the non IM client look.
It's an actual hard drive crammed into the card, just like their previous 2 gig Type II PCMCIA card, or the IBM CF MicroDrive.
This is a Type II PCMCIA card, and the PDA had a Type II CF slot. There are converters, but as it stands, the iPaq with PCMCIA sleeve is one of the few PDAs that can use this card.
MPEG4 movies are playable on the iPaq, and several people use this on a regular basis with Microdrives. It's all about optimized code, and not just the speed of the machine. (Now if MS would listen to that :-)
PacketVideo is a commercial product for streaming to handhelds, and it's MPEG 4 based.
According to my impressions from Brighthand, the Microdrive is included in the box, and not specificially the PDA, so it will take up the CF slot...
This topic comes up on the empeg BBS quite a bit. Last I remember, the major hurdle is to get a non FPU decoder for the ARM platform. Beyond that, it should be possible. And right now, the Rio-Car is on sale. $999 for the 10 gig model, well worth the money even if it is used for MP3s in the mean time.
The mass of players finds quirks and exploits them much better then the small beta teams. And no, Beta 4 wasn't huge.
Server load can never be predicted. And when your a fairly new company with this type of game, you can't afford masses of servers until after the game starts to get popular.
Everquest started like this, as did other games. Give them a break and let them fix things, instead of expecting perfection from this still new genere.
I was under the impression the GSCube is fairly new. If I remember right, the movie was initiallty started back on the rendering process back in 1997, at some really slow rate of a few frames a day. From there they added newer and more machine to help speed up the process to get a shorter render time.
PS1=$'\\[\\033[1;34m\\]\\h\\[\\033[31m\\] = = = - - -\\n\\[\\033[0m\\]\\!:\\u:\\w>'
Produces:
machinename = = = - - -
2218:username:~>
The 2218 is the number of commands, make sure to increase the history amount.
And the machine name is red, and the symbols after are blue.
~200 StrongARM, flash, and memory. Sounds close to the iPaq handheld, and the empeg-car. And the Netwinder I suppose as well. ArmLinux is definitly growing in it's uses.
The iPaq usually gets 12 hours of runtime per full charge. Since it's rechargable, I just drop it in the cradle at night along with my cell phone. Who cares if a Palm with 2 AAA batteries gets 20 hours of run time. I'm never going to use my iPaq more then 12 hours a day. Plus for trips, I can easially just bring the PCMCIA sleeve to add a second battery.
Well certain games. Hasn't bothered me too much, because most get around this by using the stylus and buttons (Like the NES emulator PocketNES).
The speaker "clicks" as the little amplifier turns on whenever it needs to make a sound; This is probably a WinCE thing, so hopefully the linux driver folks will make it configurable.
This was fixed in the latest ROM for the device when running WinCE.
Dust inside the screen. Seems to happen to everyone - it happened to me, I'm just living with it.
Same here, it's not too much of a deal. Compaq has done a few things to reduce this.
Weird expansion capabilities. You can add a Smart Media or Compact Flash slot, but the sleeve you need to get to do so makes the iPaq quite a bit bigger, and you can only have one sleeve at a time.
This has it's advantages and disadvantages. I can use PCMCIA cards, but when I don't need to, I can slim down the device.