... and allofmp3.com supports ogg (which I don't care about anyway)...... and I can choose the bitrate of my mp3s - 128k - I can't hear the difference so why pay more for more bits - and 128k works great on my phone - which is the only portably mp3 player I haven't lost yet...... and no one in America is getting sued for paying to download from allofmp3.com...... and so what if it costs some poor russian hacker his knee caps, my last two programming gigs were outsourced to russian shops...
I was thinking just the other day that a system - say P2P based or whatever - that allowed students to upload their own personal recordings of lectures/classes would be a great idea. If you missed a class - sure would be nice to go to a site and download it from a recording one of your fellow students made. Etc.. Etc...
With the added benifit that people like me that dropped out to take obscene salaries during the.com boom and now are too freakin busy to go back to school and finish a degree could at least listen and learn a few things.
A new girlfriend insisted on installing MSN, AIM, and Yahoo Messanger on my home xp machine this weekend - I can't stand that shit. Now there's like four freaking toolbars and constant door slamming sounds emminating from my computer. Talk about a reason to switch to linux at home...
By default - you have to hit a button to take the call. I changed my setting options to take the call automatically after 5 seconds (to give me time to press ignore if I don't know the number).
I don't give my number out to anybody I don't want to have it. X-wife doesn't even know what state I'm in. And if she did ever get my cell number and call - I'd just tell her to fuck off until I pressed disconnect. No biggie.
The slow transfer thing does suck a little though. I wanted to load a big audio book I had just finished downloading right before I walked out the door for a ride home but I had to wait around a half-hour for it to finish transfering.
And even though it supports iTunes - it doesn't support everything iTunes on a PC supports - like if I buy audiobooks directly from audible.com they come down in their audible aa format which works on PC iTunes but not on the ROKR. The audible audio books form iTMS work though - its just the same book for a lot more money - and it works because iTMS gives you an ACC instead of the proprietery audible.com aa shit. I had a 100 or more bucks worth of audible.com books I was looking forward to listening to with a simple drag and drop - had to spend several hours to find a way to crack aa shit and convert it to mp3 (then had to convert all those to aac when I relized it wouldn't book mark the mp3 files). But anyway...
but from what I've seen, most Americans want a phone that works easilly and reliably as a phone more than anything else. Someday, a phone maker will become clueful about this fact, and they will sell them like hotcakes. I know I'll be in line for one.
The ROKR is that phone. For me. And it is selling like hotcakes. 8 local Cingular (reseller) stores in my area were sold completely out 2 weeks before Christmas. I found one at the regional Cingular headquarters - their last one. Yeah I read the reviews first and they all said it sucked, but I wanted it anyway. I couldn't be happier. The speakers (surround sound) on this phone are incredible. Not only are they great for listening to tunes on my ride to work in my car, on my desk at work throughout the day, and on my nighstand before bed at night - but they make speakerphone via cell high quality reality. All phones I have tried in the past sucked as far as speakerphone features - choppy quality, crappy speakers, etc... but not the ROKR.
Case and points:
1) Driving down the road listening to tunes played through the ROKR speakerphone - with it sitting in my cup holder - sounds good enough for me. Its loud enough. Quality is fine. I don't listen to lots of bass thumping shit - but when I do - I just plug the headphone jack into the aux in on my car stereo system. Either way - driving down the road - listening to tunes - and a call comes in: It doesn't ring - the music just stops - a few seconds later (if I have not picked up the phone and pressed ignore) I here or say "hello" and yada yada whatever take the call. I can just start talking. Don't have to take my hands off the wheel. And its absolutely incredible audio quality. The other end always says (cause I keep asking...) that it sounds great and they couldn't tell I was on a cell phone. When they hang up - my music (or audio books etc...) pick right back up where it left off. No touching needed. Sure their are existing systems and kits and crap to make other cell phones work like this in cars - but I drive a piece of shit 72 impala with a tape deck - for me to be able to it in my hooptie without spending an extra dime kicks ass.
2) Changing my spark plugs this weekend on 72 Impala. Oil from my elbows to my toes. Phone sitting on the radiator - playing some bluegrass through the built in surround sound speakers - pauses - I here "hello?" while I'm fighting with a socket wrench trying to get that last freaking plug out. I just start talking - its a girl form church who got my number from a friend and wants to go out this weeknd. Yeah. Cool. And I keep working on my car while I'm talking to her. Don't have to stop - drop the wrench - pickup (and grease up) a cell phone - etc... And when she says bye and hangs up - I'm back in my bluegrass groove without having to ever stop what I was physically doing at the time to touch the phone in any way. I thought that kicked ass.
3) At work - listening to some funky shit - coding away on something. My grandma calls my cell to ask me to drop her off some milk on the way home. I never have to take my hands off the keyboard, or my eyes off the debugger. Its a short call - but my point is I didn't have to interrupt what I was doing at the time to take it or to start my tunes back. Instead of annoyed - yep - I got the ooh-I'm-so-cool-this-phone-kicks-ass squemies.
I don't use the headphones that came with it with the built in mic. Can't stand shit in my ears. I don't walk around like that dude in that commercial grooving down the street when he takes that call and just starts taking into the mic built into the ROKR headphones. I thought it was so stupid when I saw it, it almost turned me of to getting a ROKR completely. They really missed the boat on advertising this phone correctly.
Yeah - its got its con's to. That just leaves room for future improvement. I don't like the 100 song limit - but so what. I get maybe one or two new albums a week from allofmp3.com -
Just confirming - tried it at work on another guys RAZR and it works fine. But not on my ROKR. And the screens and software are just about identical in everything else. I'm guessing more along the lines of memory now - the iTunes app is always running in the background so maybe that is reducing the available memory for other apps (like the browser in this case).
Really enjoying the ROKR so far - 100 song limit and all. Even the slow file transfers aren't that bad. My only dislike on real iPods is the lack of a speaker because I hate headphones. The ROKR lets me load up 4 or 5 new albums at a time (a couple bucks from allofmp3.com) - and then listen at my desk or on my nightstand as I go to sleep *without headphones or bulky speakers*. Which means I actually use it for listening to music - a lot. Anyway - sorry - getting off topic.
That's what I was thinking... I had a v557 and the ROKR software looks and works absolutely identical in every way (just with the addition of an iTunes app). I could open gmail directly in the browser (also same) on the v557 - but I can open neither gmail directly nor the m.gmail front end with the ROKR. I suspect something display related - as the ROKR screen is noticably bigger than the v557's was - guessing whatever keeps the ROKR from working w/ m.gmail is related to its screen layout code. But I'm not a mobile device applications developer, I just play one at work.
Its all about selling iPods in Wal-Mart. HP could get them on Wal-Mart shelves fast - so Apple "partnered".
Do you see any Apple powerbooks or ibooks in Wal-Mart? No - and soon you won't see iPods anymore. So the bulk of joe blow americans who buy all their crap and wally world will soon only have the choice of non-iPods mp3 players. Like creative's zen. Which supports wma (i.e. joe blow can use it with yahoo music and not have spend money buy iTunes songs). Which leads us back to Microsoft waging a DRM war.
Those are interesting beliefs, but after trying tons of google searches to come up with a source to support those beliefs (especially 1) - I got zilch.
I own my mailbox. I don't see how the US government could own the empty space inside of it but not the container itself. The US government doesn't own the postal system. I know their are federal laws protecting the postal system, but they're a specialized set of laws... or something like that.
uh.. ok - but postal mail is governed by a completely different law set... No company owns your mailbox. No company owns the envelopes that get stuck in your mailbox. No company owns the paper your personal mail is printed on.
Email is different. For the government to tell an ISP it can not read one of its customer's emails would be the same as the government telling any corporation that it could not read files on the servers that company owns.
I can see your point. But - from experience - it just doesn't work that way. System Admins have a whole lot more on their plate than a bunch of free time to sit around and read other people's email (like trolling on slashdot for instance...:)
And most the email admins I know fit more in the anti-goverment long haired dead head pot smoking hippie stereotype than the small dicked republican "super-patriot" islamic name snooping eighty year old neihbour stereotype.
A telephone doesn't "read" the analog signal coming in from the wire. A machine doesn't "read" email that it receives.
Once content is analyzed in some way, then your into the "reading" ballpark. Like tapping a line, or reading emails to yourself, or -arguably- passing the email content onto any program that then analyzes it (like a spam filter). Currently tapping a line is illegal, analyzing content in an email is not. If analyzing content in an email becomes a privacy violation, and an ISP gets sued (which spammers would do), then ISPs would drop spam filtering. That's the risk I see with this legislation.
I'm a sys admin for an ISP for the last eight years. Do I read customers' email? Yes. Every single email that comes into our servers is "read". Not personally - but by scripts and filters.
The real effect (if this is passed) would be that some spammer gets a bounce message from a spam filter, sues a major ISP for "reading his email" and wins, and then ISPs drop spam filtering to keep from getting sued for privacy violations.
... so you don't like the guy because his party would eventually legalize it and all your kids would grow up to get strung out on the heathen-devil-marijuana-weed...
Slashdot Mirror
And think of all the fish that would float up on the river - whoo hoo!
... and allofmp3.com supports ogg (which I don't care about anyway) ... ... and I can choose the bitrate of my mp3s - 128k - I can't hear the difference so why pay more for more bits - and 128k works great on my phone - which is the only portably mp3 player I haven't lost yet ... ... and no one in America is getting sued for paying to download from allofmp3.com ... ... and so what if it costs some poor russian hacker his knee caps, my last two programming gigs were outsourced to russian shops ...
I was thinking just the other day that a system - say P2P based or whatever - that allowed students to upload their own personal recordings of lectures/classes would be a great idea. If you missed a class - sure would be nice to go to a site and download it from a recording one of your fellow students made. Etc.. Etc...
.com boom and now are too freakin busy to go back to school and finish a degree could at least listen and learn a few things.
With the added benifit that people like me that dropped out to take obscene salaries during the
Finally - A browser that actually works on the ROKR - I haven't been able to hit gmail on a cell since upgrading phones - until now.
I always thought Opera for desktops should have been free, but this - I'd have gladly paid $30-$40 bucks for it.
A new girlfriend insisted on installing MSN, AIM, and Yahoo Messanger on my home xp machine this weekend - I can't stand that shit. Now there's like four freaking toolbars and constant door slamming sounds emminating from my computer. Talk about a reason to switch to linux at home...
By default - you have to hit a button to take the call. I changed my setting options to take the call automatically after 5 seconds (to give me time to press ignore if I don't know the number).
I don't give my number out to anybody I don't want to have it. X-wife doesn't even know what state I'm in. And if she did ever get my cell number and call - I'd just tell her to fuck off until I pressed disconnect. No biggie.
The slow transfer thing does suck a little though. I wanted to load a big audio book I had just finished downloading right before I walked out the door for a ride home but I had to wait around a half-hour for it to finish transfering.
And even though it supports iTunes - it doesn't support everything iTunes on a PC supports - like if I buy audiobooks directly from audible.com they come down in their audible aa format which works on PC iTunes but not on the ROKR. The audible audio books form iTMS work though - its just the same book for a lot more money - and it works because iTMS gives you an ACC instead of the proprietery audible.com aa shit. I had a 100 or more bucks worth of audible.com books I was looking forward to listening to with a simple drag and drop - had to spend several hours to find a way to crack aa shit and convert it to mp3 (then had to convert all those to aac when I relized it wouldn't book mark the mp3 files). But anyway...
All in all - I'm still thrilled with the ROKR.
The ROKR is that phone. For me. And it is selling like hotcakes. 8 local Cingular (reseller) stores in my area were sold completely out 2 weeks before Christmas. I found one at the regional Cingular headquarters - their last one. Yeah I read the reviews first and they all said it sucked, but I wanted it anyway. I couldn't be happier. The speakers (surround sound) on this phone are incredible. Not only are they great for listening to tunes on my ride to work in my car, on my desk at work throughout the day, and on my nighstand before bed at night - but they make speakerphone via cell high quality reality. All phones I have tried in the past sucked as far as speakerphone features - choppy quality, crappy speakers, etc... but not the ROKR.
Case and points:
1) Driving down the road listening to tunes played through the ROKR speakerphone - with it sitting in my cup holder - sounds good enough for me. Its loud enough. Quality is fine. I don't listen to lots of bass thumping shit - but when I do - I just plug the headphone jack into the aux in on my car stereo system. Either way - driving down the road - listening to tunes - and a call comes in: It doesn't ring - the music just stops - a few seconds later (if I have not picked up the phone and pressed ignore) I here or say "hello" and yada yada whatever take the call. I can just start talking. Don't have to take my hands off the wheel. And its absolutely incredible audio quality. The other end always says (cause I keep asking...) that it sounds great and they couldn't tell I was on a cell phone. When they hang up - my music (or audio books etc...) pick right back up where it left off. No touching needed. Sure their are existing systems and kits and crap to make other cell phones work like this in cars - but I drive a piece of shit 72 impala with a tape deck - for me to be able to it in my hooptie without spending an extra dime kicks ass.
2) Changing my spark plugs this weekend on 72 Impala. Oil from my elbows to my toes. Phone sitting on the radiator - playing some bluegrass through the built in surround sound speakers - pauses - I here "hello?" while I'm fighting with a socket wrench trying to get that last freaking plug out. I just start talking - its a girl form church who got my number from a friend and wants to go out this weeknd. Yeah. Cool. And I keep working on my car while I'm talking to her. Don't have to stop - drop the wrench - pickup (and grease up) a cell phone - etc... And when she says bye and hangs up - I'm back in my bluegrass groove without having to ever stop what I was physically doing at the time to touch the phone in any way. I thought that kicked ass.
3) At work - listening to some funky shit - coding away on something. My grandma calls my cell to ask me to drop her off some milk on the way home. I never have to take my hands off the keyboard, or my eyes off the debugger. Its a short call - but my point is I didn't have to interrupt what I was doing at the time to take it or to start my tunes back. Instead of annoyed - yep - I got the ooh-I'm-so-cool-this-phone-kicks-ass squemies.
I don't use the headphones that came with it with the built in mic. Can't stand shit in my ears. I don't walk around like that dude in that commercial grooving down the street when he takes that call and just starts taking into the mic built into the ROKR headphones. I thought it was so stupid when I saw it, it almost turned me of to getting a ROKR completely. They really missed the boat on advertising this phone correctly.
Yeah - its got its con's to. That just leaves room for future improvement. I don't like the 100 song limit - but so what. I get maybe one or two new albums a week from allofmp3.com -
Just confirming - tried it at work on another guys RAZR and it works fine. But not on my ROKR. And the screens and software are just about identical in everything else. I'm guessing more along the lines of memory now - the iTunes app is always running in the background so maybe that is reducing the available memory for other apps (like the browser in this case).
Really enjoying the ROKR so far - 100 song limit and all. Even the slow file transfers aren't that bad. My only dislike on real iPods is the lack of a speaker because I hate headphones. The ROKR lets me load up 4 or 5 new albums at a time (a couple bucks from allofmp3.com) - and then listen at my desk or on my nightstand as I go to sleep *without headphones or bulky speakers*. Which means I actually use it for listening to music - a lot. Anyway - sorry - getting off topic.
That's what I was thinking... I had a v557 and the ROKR software looks and works absolutely identical in every way (just with the addition of an iTunes app). I could open gmail directly in the browser (also same) on the v557 - but I can open neither gmail directly nor the m.gmail front end with the ROKR. I suspect something display related - as the ROKR screen is noticably bigger than the v557's was - guessing whatever keeps the ROKR from working w/ m.gmail is related to its screen layout code. But I'm not a mobile device applications developer, I just play one at work.
Tried it on the new ROKR iTunes phone and it doesn't work.
Gives the login window under a bunch of crap - but the login button doesn't work.
Looks the same as going to the normal gmail url. The login button doesn't work there either.
Now when they come out with 3d imaging wireless contacts (accecories available in prescription too) then things are really gonna change!
Is that it doesn't include a built in vaccume.
Will this affect my cheapskate ( allofmp3.com ) iPod habbit?
Go to allofmp3.com - its legal, its extremely cheap, it works great, and the russian mafia is not really into coke
Its all about selling iPods in Wal-Mart. HP could get them on Wal-Mart shelves fast - so Apple "partnered".
Do you see any Apple powerbooks or ibooks in Wal-Mart? No - and soon you won't see iPods anymore. So the bulk of joe blow americans who buy all their crap and wally world will soon only have the choice of non-iPods mp3 players. Like creative's zen. Which supports wma (i.e. joe blow can use it with yahoo music and not have spend money buy iTunes songs). Which leads us back to Microsoft waging a DRM war.
What gets me is the blatant rip off of Google's UI. This coming from Microsoft - the trademark happy lawsuit company.
They probably paid for the slashdot "news" story too. Sure would be nice if stories themselves could be mod'd down off the front page.
Fire away.
Those are interesting beliefs, but after trying tons of google searches to come up with a source to support those beliefs (especially 1) - I got zilch.
I own my mailbox. I don't see how the US government could own the empty space inside of it but not the container itself. The US government doesn't own the postal system. I know their are federal laws protecting the postal system, but they're a specialized set of laws... or something like that.
uh.. ok - but postal mail is governed by a completely different law set... No company owns your mailbox. No company owns the envelopes that get stuck in your mailbox. No company owns the paper your personal mail is printed on.
Email is different. For the government to tell an ISP it can not read one of its customer's emails would be the same as the government telling any corporation that it could not read files on the servers that company owns.
you might
if used better key words
like kind, diggidy, or dank
I can see your point. But - from experience - it just doesn't work that way. System Admins have a whole lot more on their plate than a bunch of free time to sit around and read other people's email (like trolling on slashdot for instance... :)
And most the email admins I know fit more in the anti-goverment long haired dead head pot smoking hippie stereotype than the small dicked republican "super-patriot" islamic name snooping eighty year old neihbour stereotype.
A telephone doesn't "read" the analog signal coming in from the wire. A machine doesn't "read" email that it receives.
Once content is analyzed in some way, then your into the "reading" ballpark. Like tapping a line, or reading emails to yourself, or -arguably- passing the email content onto any program that then analyzes it (like a spam filter). Currently tapping a line is illegal, analyzing content in an email is not. If analyzing content in an email becomes a privacy violation, and an ISP gets sued (which spammers would do), then ISPs would drop spam filtering. That's the risk I see with this legislation.
I'm a sys admin for an ISP for the last eight years. Do I read customers' email? Yes. Every single email that comes into our servers is "read". Not personally - but by scripts and filters.
The real effect (if this is passed) would be that some spammer gets a bounce message from a spam filter, sues a major ISP for "reading his email" and wins, and then ISPs drop spam filtering to keep from getting sued for privacy violations.
Here's what I got out of the article:
The Clinton DOJ trailed to(rightfully) nail Microsoft in an antitrust case.
The Bush DOJ was not interested in nailing Mircrosoft in an antitrust case.
My opinionated speculative unfound but probably correct conclusion - Microsoft bought its way out through campaign donations supporting Bush.
... so you don't like the guy because his party would eventually legalize it and all your kids would grow up to get strung out on the heathen-devil-marijuana-weed ...