I agree - I think virgin is a pretty good brand - we have had a slew of ads over their credit cards and their obvious design choice with the corner missing, and the range of colours- i quite like them (esp the pink;P)
but this player is sooooo ugly ugly it looks like a stunted pre-paid samsung mobile phone or something.. ewww!
even if you dont like the ipod white or scratchy silver, it still looks far more solid and, for lack of a better term, classy - not plasticy and cheap like the virgin player
You will not be able to move people who have wilfully locked themselves into one vendor. These people have subjugated themselves to MS and now must be willing to be lead around by MS.
the problem is, sometimes you have no choice but to be locked it - in our lab we have a dual-xeon or some such workstation that is used for modelling shite, however, the modelling software runs about 10 times faster under windows than the linux version. its ridiculous to use the linux version when it takes *so* much longer (a lot of the models run for days as it is)
we would love to use linux instead but have to run under xp - we arent wilfully locked at all, and i think u will find a lot of other businesses are the same - they just cant get what they need on another platform
i think we should push to have the software improved on the linux platform (or make out desire known for a version if they didnt make it) but why would the software company bother if only a few people wanted it? they could offer windows for free with the software for probably less cost...
considering the apple airport express website *specifically* says "AirPort Express can extend the range only of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express wireless network." its really not surprising it didnt like your netgear router
"Sure, Apple says the Express will only do bridging with AirPort Base Stations. That's because WDS is not a standardized part of the 802.11g spec. " (not to mention as posted somewhere in this discussion netgear has some spec-meeting issues)
never the less, it seems it is possible (again from the article)
"We can report that it will work with the Linksys WRT54G 802.11g router. The procedure for getting it working involves using the open source firmware and is fairly straightforward. But it's not for the faint of heart: keep in mind that if you do update using the open source firmware, you will find your router outside the tender embrace of Linksys customer support."
i do think its a good idea to have a list of (ideally) cheaper routers that work with AE - but I still think ill save up for a perdy apple base station instead.
PS - again, from the ars article, you should note that there are some security issues
"One note: when using the AirPort Express as a WDS, you are limited to either using 128-bit WEP or turning off security altogether. This was not mentioned on the AirPort Express pages on apple.com, although it is addressed in the manual. WPA is generally not supported over bridged connections on WiFi products due to the fact that WPA encrypts the MAC addresses which WDS relies on for communication. Keep this limitation in mind when using the Express as a bridge."
what about the all bar 4 countries where iTMS doesnt exist (for all intensive purposes)?
buying cds is a perfectly good alternative to iTMS! why should ipod music not have a "physical" (as in the cd it came on) origin? its not exactly backward to have a cd of your music and then put it on your ipod!
it'd be nice if australia's copyright laws allowed "fair use" (its illegal to rip your cds to mp3... but really...) so theoretically there is no way to get tunes onto your ipod (unless they are non copyrighted works...) (there is no non-wma online music store here)
but if u can rip cds - its a hell of a choice compared to itms! unless u are a hermit? u can get cds delivered too...
I never have used Mozilla, but then I cannot stand anything that is too "bundled"
for me, email and web browsing should be as far apart as possible. when they get together you get nasty little offspring like html emails, need i say more!
Word is the only MS app I'm hanging onto, and I have no use for Excel.
being in a scientific field I find that Excel is worth the MS-infection on my machine. It really is a superior spreadsheet program (anyone ever tried appleworks? what a joke! its a wordprocessor with boxes). I use MS word occasionally for typing up letters (and opening email attachments!) but for reports I use latex (via TeXshop) so appleworks word probably would do for me if I only bought excel (but its cheaper to get the lot)
as far as keynote goes, I think it was such a great improvement over powerpoint at the time, but the non-existent development since then is going to leave it way behind - I know a lot of people use it and love it, but if they dont fix the printing/pdf options and add some extra stuff it will die - powerpoint already has copied all the great stuff keynote offers (well, i assume it has, except maybe "cube" transistions) and noone who hasnt yet switched ever will. its sad. (i also love the drag and drop pdf capability but i think this is more an aqua thing than a keynote thing..?)
open office has never appealed to me (i installed it once... ) because i already paid for the excel package. like i said, i hardly use word processing and I have keynote, open office seems too clunky for the effort
unless they have broken it recently, I had apple's X11 working fine under jaguar, and it was a very simple install
most of the issues with fink were pre-"apple X11" where you had a few choices for X, but I assume most people now just use the apple x11 as it is the easiest to install and deal wtih
the only semi-decent semi-analytical press coverage i have been exposed to only covers the australian side and our compliance with current american laws
i get a similar time out of mine too (though i think its worse than when i first bought it)
though i dont have problems carrying my charger around since its so weenie anyway! and keeps my hands warm:P
the only prob with the charger is if the power point is too low to the desk/ground u need to use the long power cable rather than the no-cable plug (which means a little more luggage)
dont forget if you *do* want to carry the charger its hardly any extra weight either! so tiny and cute!
if you can find a laptop other than an apple that *doesnt* have a brick charger u are doing well! most people dont seem to realise lugging around a laptop often means the charger as well
and the apple charger is *the best* little hand warmer on cold winter nights!!
I have Soundtracks for example that have various artists; and I do *not* want iTunes breaking these into artist folders, when they are sound tracks, or other compilations.
if you tick "compilation" in the info/id3 pane in itunes, it creates a artist directory called "compilations" and puts the album, then the tracks in there (the file names do not have the artist tho... iirc)
"compilations" also comes up as an artist in the browse section
*however* (and this annoys me muchly) this is not replicated on the ipod - the ipod ignores "compilations" altogether and u get a billion artists in the artist browse list
to get around this i give compilations "compilation" as the artist and name the song "artist - song name" and soundtracks have "soundtrack" as the artist
its a bit crap but u only have to do this for the ipod, not if all u use is itunes
Not to burst your bubble but have you compared the square miles of The United States of America to that of the UK?
have you compared the US to australia? we have very good coverage in all major cities and extended cdma coverage in the bush - ok so it doesnt cover the whole continent but people dont live over the whole continent like they do in the us (in the us protion of nth america). with the # of people in the US it *does* seem backward that better services arent in place.
Pods are popular but guess what? Most people over 50 don't own them and would never purchase one-the same folks that comprise 2/3rds of the GDP and don't want to be on the Internet.
do you have any basis for this argument? I know a *lot* of over 50s who are on the internet, and quite a few who have ipods! my dad spends hours ripping his cds in itunes to build up his music library
but unless Telcos are challenged with losing customer bases at alarming rates to outside competitors they don't move to improve services for customers. It just doesn't make sense to them to give new services if customers aren't canceling accounts.
now this i agree with - here in little old oz we have the major player telstra, and their mobile (and home!) plans get worse and worse, but people keep coming back and signing up new plans to get the phones, while dropping the features (like offpeak rates, per second billing, free chat, reduced sms etc)
some of the other mobile providers have better services but crap coverage and delays between carriers (nothing like getting sms's 3 days late!) - so the migration is slow
coming back to the mobile phone feature issue though, i think people *will* buy mobile phones with more features, but only because they get them for free with a new plan when their "old" (usually i think phones with flash cards are the way to go, but they will never surpass the ipod because they will never do *everything* well - like pictures for example - who cares??? i have a few photos of friends so their faces come up when it rings but its so low quality its just a gimik. i will never want to look at photos on my phone, and the interface will never be as good as the ipod for music (the more i use my new nokia the more i wish i could get rid of half the menu options!)
Why shouldn't people be able to play music files that they have purchased, on a piece of hardware that they've purchased? The files are Real, the hardware is Apple. Why isn't that "cool"?
Because they bought hardware and software that is incompatible. It's not that far out - you buy a x86 PC and you buy OS X but you can't run one on the other.
You can buy a DVD player from the store in Aus (region 4) and a DVD online from the US (region 1) and it wont play - you made the *choice* to buy incompatible parts!
you can buy a sony digital camera and complain your SD memory card wont fit - but you made the choice to buy each bit
If you want to buy music online and have it work on the hardware *you chose* to buy, you have to buy music files that are compatible - get over it!
if you cant get the song you want - order the cd! if you are in the US its ridiculously easy to buy stuff on line and have it delivered. spoilt with choice!
I have never had a problem running GNUcash - how is it iffy? I used to use quicken but I'm very happy with gnucash (i only look after my personal finances though)
I had some dependency issues during install (dependecies for packages required by gnucash not gnucash itself) but that was the only prob
i always thought this was a good argument until i realised if i have to keep teaching windows, why not just teach linux to begin with?
the thing is - if people can barely use windows at home (which they already may "use" at work) why not just put them onto linux and make them learn that from scratch instead?
the interface for all mail clients and web browsers are essentially the same, and if i'm the one setting up the computer to begin with anyway the install is not an issue
the main reason, however, that I haven't pushed my dad onto linux is that there are some programs he simply cant do without - the main program being quicken. i personally use gnucash under os x but my accounts are far less critical than his, and i have more time and willingness to make sure everything enters correctly etc (not that ive ever had a problem but i dont use all the features)
that reminds me of that hilarious video that went around about hmm... 8 years ago with the fat guy who had his keyboard unplugged and went syko and bashed up the computer
it reminded me of my computing teacher so was worth extra laughs;P
if you use usb overdrive x you can map each mouse button for individual programs - i have a 5 button belkin mouse and have a variety of functions mapped to the 3 extra buttons in different applications (check mail, copy, paste, close window, change tabs etc - its fantastic)
this doesnt fix your gripe with the mozilla bug, but it wont mess up middle clicking for any other apps
another example of the fabulousness of gallium nitride (GaN) and its cousins in the III-nitride semiconductor material system
gallium/aluminium/indium nitride (and their alloys) are the semiconductors that bring to you the blue/violet lasers being used to read/write the blu-ray discs
the wavelength of blue light is smaller than of red (red lasers are currently used for dvd/cd drives) and hence it has a finer resolution - that means, more data on the same size disc
only a few years ago gallium nitride technology was in its infancy - now, largely thanx to the hard work of Shuji Nakamura blue LEDs and lasers are making it into home electronics around the world! it really is an amazing to feat to have overcome the difficulties of developing this material into the fantastic devices today (see Shuji's book "The Blue Laser Diode: GaN Based Light Emitters and Lasers", 1997, for background into their development)
sure, most of us care little about how the technology gets to us, and bitch about the implementation - but let us think for a moment on the fact that we have it at all (and sure its expensive but a lot more money has gone into getting it to us)!
ok, so i'm a gan researcher and a little biased:P but at the end of the day as a geek i think blu-ray dvds are very very cool and i want to have them in my house;)
Slashdot Mirror
and i cant say ive ever been there!
:( but the (good) resellers work well on the same principle
i just assume everything they sell will be at full+ price and overly hyped
at least the apple store model works because *noone else* can sell their products cheaper anyway, so you know you wont get ripped off
granted, there arent any apple stores here
I agree - I think virgin is a pretty good brand - we have had a slew of ads over their credit cards and their obvious design choice with the corner missing, and the range of colours- i quite like them (esp the pink ;P)
but this player is sooooo ugly ugly it looks like a stunted pre-paid samsung mobile phone or something.. ewww!
even if you dont like the ipod white or scratchy silver, it still looks far more solid and, for lack of a better term, classy - not plasticy and cheap like the virgin player
the problem is, sometimes you have no choice but to be locked it - in our lab we have a dual-xeon or some such workstation that is used for modelling shite, however, the modelling software runs about 10 times faster under windows than the linux version. its ridiculous to use the linux version when it takes *so* much longer (a lot of the models run for days as it is)
we would love to use linux instead but have to run under xp - we arent wilfully locked at all, and i think u will find a lot of other businesses are the same - they just cant get what they need on another platform
i think we should push to have the software improved on the linux platform (or make out desire known for a version if they didnt make it) but why would the software company bother if only a few people wanted it? they could offer windows for free with the software for probably less cost...
considering the apple airport express website *specifically* says "AirPort Express can extend the range only of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express wireless network." its really not surprising it didnt like your netgear router
ok so maybe you want it to work anyway. if you had read this previous slashdot article you would have had some idea why - from the article
"Sure, Apple says the Express will only do bridging with AirPort Base Stations. That's because WDS is not a standardized part of the 802.11g spec. " (not to mention as posted somewhere in this discussion netgear has some spec-meeting issues)
never the less, it seems it is possible (again from the article)
"We can report that it will work with the Linksys WRT54G 802.11g router. The procedure for getting it working involves using the open source firmware and is fairly straightforward. But it's not for the faint of heart: keep in mind that if you do update using the open source firmware, you will find your router outside the tender embrace of Linksys customer support."
i do think its a good idea to have a list of (ideally) cheaper routers that work with AE - but I still think ill save up for a perdy apple base station instead.
PS - again, from the ars article, you should note that there are some security issues
"One note: when using the AirPort Express as a WDS, you are limited to either using 128-bit WEP or turning off security altogether. This was not mentioned on the AirPort Express pages on apple.com, although it is addressed in the manual. WPA is generally not supported over bridged connections on WiFi products due to the fact that WPA encrypts the MAC addresses which WDS relies on for communication. Keep this limitation in mind when using the Express as a bridge."
what about the all bar 4 countries where iTMS doesnt exist (for all intensive purposes)?
buying cds is a perfectly good alternative to iTMS! why should ipod music not have a "physical" (as in the cd it came on) origin? its not exactly backward to have a cd of your music and then put it on your ipod!
it'd be nice if australia's copyright laws allowed "fair use" (its illegal to rip your cds to mp3... but really...) so theoretically there is no way to get tunes onto your ipod (unless they are non copyrighted works...) (there is no non-wma online music store here)
but if u can rip cds - its a hell of a choice compared to itms! unless u are a hermit? u can get cds delivered too...
oh yikes!
thats so rude, BAD APPLE!
but then, panther is lovely so you should think about upgrading anyway...
I never have used Mozilla, but then I cannot stand anything that is too "bundled"
for me, email and web browsing should be as far apart as possible. when they get together you get nasty little offspring like html emails, need i say more!
being in a scientific field I find that Excel is worth the MS-infection on my machine. It really is a superior spreadsheet program (anyone ever tried appleworks? what a joke! its a wordprocessor with boxes). I use MS word occasionally for typing up letters (and opening email attachments!) but for reports I use latex (via TeXshop) so appleworks word probably would do for me if I only bought excel (but its cheaper to get the lot)
as far as keynote goes, I think it was such a great improvement over powerpoint at the time, but the non-existent development since then is going to leave it way behind - I know a lot of people use it and love it, but if they dont fix the printing/pdf options and add some extra stuff it will die - powerpoint already has copied all the great stuff keynote offers (well, i assume it has, except maybe "cube" transistions) and noone who hasnt yet switched ever will. its sad. (i also love the drag and drop pdf capability but i think this is more an aqua thing than a keynote thing..?)
open office has never appealed to me (i installed it once... ) because i already paid for the excel package. like i said, i hardly use word processing and I have keynote, open office seems too clunky for the effort
unless they have broken it recently, I had apple's X11 working fine under jaguar, and it was a very simple install
most of the issues with fink were pre-"apple X11" where you had a few choices for X, but I assume most people now just use the apple x11 as it is the easiest to install and deal wtih
IANAL but I heard that you can forge your spouse's signature and even if they didnt give permission its legit
i always wondered if this is true...
my update pane says 22.9mb, not the 43 (+5.3 for the security update)
will this happen?
the only semi-decent semi-analytical press coverage i have been exposed to only covers the australian side and our compliance with current american laws
*are* _any_ aussie laws going back the other way?
i get a similar time out of mine too (though i think its worse than when i first bought it)
:P
though i dont have problems carrying my charger around since its so weenie anyway! and keeps my hands warm
the only prob with the charger is if the power point is too low to the desk/ground u need to use the long power cable rather than the no-cable plug (which means a little more luggage)
dont forget if you *do* want to carry the charger its hardly any extra weight either! so tiny and cute!
if you can find a laptop other than an apple that *doesnt* have a brick charger u are doing well! most people dont seem to realise lugging around a laptop often means the charger as well
and the apple charger is *the best* little hand warmer on cold winter nights!!
if you tick "compilation" in the info/id3 pane in itunes, it creates a artist directory called "compilations" and puts the album, then the tracks in there (the file names do not have the artist tho... iirc)
"compilations" also comes up as an artist in the browse section
*however* (and this annoys me muchly) this is not replicated on the ipod - the ipod ignores "compilations" altogether and u get a billion artists in the artist browse list
to get around this i give compilations "compilation" as the artist and name the song "artist - song name" and soundtracks have "soundtrack" as the artist
its a bit crap but u only have to do this for the ipod, not if all u use is itunes
have you compared the US to australia? we have very good coverage in all major cities and extended cdma coverage in the bush - ok so it doesnt cover the whole continent but people dont live over the whole continent like they do in the us (in the us protion of nth america). with the # of people in the US it *does* seem backward that better services arent in place.
Pods are popular but guess what? Most people over 50 don't own them and would never purchase one-the same folks that comprise 2/3rds of the GDP and don't want to be on the Internet.
do you have any basis for this argument? I know a *lot* of over 50s who are on the internet, and quite a few who have ipods! my dad spends hours ripping his cds in itunes to build up his music library
but unless Telcos are challenged with losing customer bases at alarming rates to outside competitors they don't move to improve services for customers. It just doesn't make sense to them to give new services if customers aren't canceling accounts.
now this i agree with - here in little old oz we have the major player telstra, and their mobile (and home!) plans get worse and worse, but people keep coming back and signing up new plans to get the phones, while dropping the features (like offpeak rates, per second billing, free chat, reduced sms etc)
some of the other mobile providers have better services but crap coverage and delays between carriers (nothing like getting sms's 3 days late!) - so the migration is slow
coming back to the mobile phone feature issue though, i think people *will* buy mobile phones with more features, but only because they get them for free with a new plan when their "old" (usually i think phones with flash cards are the way to go, but they will never surpass the ipod because they will never do *everything* well - like pictures for example - who cares??? i have a few photos of friends so their faces come up when it rings but its so low quality its just a gimik. i will never want to look at photos on my phone, and the interface will never be as good as the ipod for music (the more i use my new nokia the more i wish i could get rid of half the menu options!)
Why shouldn't people be able to play music files that they have purchased, on a piece of hardware that they've purchased? The files are Real, the hardware is Apple. Why isn't that "cool"?
Because they bought hardware and software that is incompatible. It's not that far out - you buy a x86 PC and you buy OS X but you can't run one on the other.
You can buy a DVD player from the store in Aus (region 4) and a DVD online from the US (region 1) and it wont play - you made the *choice* to buy incompatible parts!
you can buy a sony digital camera and complain your SD memory card wont fit - but you made the choice to buy each bit
If you want to buy music online and have it work on the hardware *you chose* to buy, you have to buy music files that are compatible - get over it!
if you cant get the song you want - order the cd! if you are in the US its ridiculously easy to buy stuff on line and have it delivered. spoilt with choice!
I have never had a problem running GNUcash - how is it iffy? I used to use quicken but I'm very happy with gnucash (i only look after my personal finances though)
I had some dependency issues during install (dependecies for packages required by gnucash not gnucash itself) but that was the only prob
Perhaps the earth has succumed to our insistence in calling the north physical pole the north magnetic pole?
there is no (magnetic) spoon?
i always thought this was a good argument until i realised if i have to keep teaching windows, why not just teach linux to begin with?
the thing is - if people can barely use windows at home (which they already may "use" at work) why not just put them onto linux and make them learn that from scratch instead?
the interface for all mail clients and web browsers are essentially the same, and if i'm the one setting up the computer to begin with anyway the install is not an issue
the main reason, however, that I haven't pushed my dad onto linux is that there are some programs he simply cant do without - the main program being quicken. i personally use gnucash under os x but my accounts are far less critical than his, and i have more time and willingness to make sure everything enters correctly etc (not that ive ever had a problem but i dont use all the features)
that reminds me of that hilarious video that went around about hmm... 8 years ago with the fat guy who had his keyboard unplugged and went syko and bashed up the computer
;P
it reminded me of my computing teacher so was worth extra laughs
thats why i only drink DI water...
if you use usb overdrive x you can map each mouse button for individual programs - i have a 5 button belkin mouse and have a variety of functions mapped to the 3 extra buttons in different applications (check mail, copy, paste, close window, change tabs etc - its fantastic)
this doesnt fix your gripe with the mozilla bug, but it wont mess up middle clicking for any other apps
another example of the fabulousness of gallium nitride (GaN) and its cousins in the III-nitride semiconductor material system
:P but at the end of the day as a geek i think blu-ray dvds are very very cool and i want to have them in my house ;)
gallium/aluminium/indium nitride (and their alloys) are the semiconductors that bring to you the blue/violet lasers being used to read/write the blu-ray discs
the wavelength of blue light is smaller than of red (red lasers are currently used for dvd/cd drives) and hence it has a finer resolution - that means, more data on the same size disc
only a few years ago gallium nitride technology was in its infancy - now, largely thanx to the hard work of Shuji Nakamura blue LEDs and lasers are making it into home electronics around the world! it really is an amazing to feat to have overcome the difficulties of developing this material into the fantastic devices today (see Shuji's book "The Blue Laser Diode: GaN Based Light Emitters and Lasers", 1997, for background into their development)
sure, most of us care little about how the technology gets to us, and bitch about the implementation - but let us think for a moment on the fact that we have it at all (and sure its expensive but a lot more money has gone into getting it to us)!
ok, so i'm a gan researcher and a little biased
i really wouldn't want to walk around while my harddrive was spinning, nastyness is bound to ensure
;P
do people really throw their laptops around while they (the laptops) are running?
as for the music scenario, get an ipod already