Not only was Sony's software horrible, so was the software supplied by all the other mp3 manufacturers. Anyone remember the process for loading mp3's onto a Rio300? There was no such thing as 'drag-and-drop' on the Rio. It was like three steps and none of them were intuitive. It was like they established requirements and outsourced the entire thing to some command-line people.
In Google Docs, a dialogue prompts you to download the PDF to your local computer to either be opened by a helper application or saved to your hard drive.
If you're using Linux or Windows, I would go with Boxee. It does all of the Hulu/Netflix/Pandora/ESPN360/etc. content, and has finally become genuinely stable enough for everyday use, even for my mildly non-technical wife, who has to keep TV rolling for 2 kids on demand.
Actually, Netflix does not work at all under linux, including via Boxee. That's a function of Netflix's choice of Sliverlight as its DRM lock-in. Moonlight still isn't there....
I finally gave up with Ubuntu and migrated my Boxee system to WinXP. It's a single-processor Amd Athlon 3200 XP, which typically renders video fine. In XP, Hulu and Netflix run poorly through Boxee with consistent choppiness. Running Hulu and Netflix through a web browser on the system works fine.
I really like Boxee and will likely upgrade to a multi-core processor as people using that architecture aren't encountering the same performance issues.
People should know that anything purchased with a VISA card automatically is covered with an extended one year warranty from the expiration of the manufacturer's warranty. Here is the info on the VISA warranty extension.
If that link doesn't work, just do a google search for "VISA extend Warranty".
They also have a purchase protection program that covers anything you buy with a VISA card for 90 days replacement if you lose, break or the product is stolen. I broke the glass on my iPhone within 2 months of purchase and they bought me a new iPhone with little paperwork troubles at all.
The business model is flawed from square-one. This is going to sink into bankruptcy very, very quickly. The overhead is pretty significant and profit is required rapidly to keep it afloat. The problem is that there is very little incentive for anyone to sign up. They are competing with consoles AND pc games, yet they only offer pc games. People that are inclined to play PC games already have hardware that can handle it. Those who are not inclined, are on consoles. If their hardware isn't state-of-the-art, they play older games and save for newer hardware. $14.95 a month is so steep, it is only really the type of subscription fee that could be paid by someone who has enough money to buy a computer serious enough to play contemporary games.
This will join cue-cat, divx, and broadcast.com in the tomb of ideas that suckered investors yet were non-movers in the marketplace.
I wonder how often the cameras need to be updated. They certainly don't need to do annual model replacements, updated cameras rarely change significantly. I bet a five year old SLR that's been certified will do the job just fine, keep using them until there's concern about something breaking.
The problem is that NASA astronauts are regarded as royalty within the program. Some come through who are photography nuts and they'll piss and moan if they don't have whatever state-of-the-art that's available. The administration resists their demands on this kind of stuff, but the astronauts are smart and can craft compelling arguments that force the issue.
I don't believe the same exact camera is used on multiple missions. I believe the same model is used until it's updated with an approved new camera.
Just to be clear here. I'm not formally involved in this field, but I not believe that research using fetal stem cells is illegal. The only restriction I know of is that federal funded research can only use certain pre-existing strains of cells.
You might think this was spearheaded by christian lobbying groups. Nope. They were pawns and puppets of pharma. This was a field showing great promise. If federal dollars developed tools and procedures to use stem cells, that technology would exist in the public domain. The right-to-lifers' perspective was amplified to hide the real agenda-- keep stem cell therapy research in the exclusive hands of the private pharma corporations. The resulting proprietary treatments will be far more expensive and lucrative than if the federal government had made the breakthroughs in this science.
Last night I was visiting with a friend who has worked at NASA for 11 years. He is concerned for his job, etc. Among the things we discussed was astronaut photography. Sometimes an astronaut comes through the program and demands an update to the cameras they're approved to bring into space. The administration is very resistant to these upgrades because of the testing that is involved to approve a new device to bring into space. Something as simple as a dslr camera requires millions of dollars in testing to ensure that the device won't cause problems in vacuum or in zero g, etc. It even goes so far that NASA produces its own battery charger for the camera instead of using the commercial charger that ships with the model.
Lake Travis in Austin, Texas has a beach called "Hippie Hollow" that's nude and operated by Travis County.
Additionally, the city of Austin has no law prohibiting females from being topless in public, which is frequently practiced at Barton Springs and on Sixth Street during Mardis Gras.
I like it because I have an office network and need business files to be encrypted, but accessible by other employees. File Vault is a single-user system unless your server is Mac OS X (ours is linux) and the files are stored in a user directory on that server. That opens up the problem that the login for the server then unlocks all the encrypted files.
Using Mac OS X disk utility, I've created several encrypted disk images on the server that users can mount over the network while having to give a password, etc. The server never knows anything about the encryption, etc It also enables a granular security policy to allow access to certain volumes to certain users.
Problems are that the disk images don't expand like File Vault apparently does. Also, doesn't use Time Machine effectively. (entire disk image would get backed up each time rather than only modified files). Other problem is that if the server becomes inaccessible, the client machines will write files to a temp location on the hard drive and the client user won't know they're not being saved to the encrypted disk image. Can present a security risk to those files being readable at a later date.
A lot of Bing Maps runs on Silverlight - so that might be part of the problem. If you can run Silverlight (Mac and Windows can - don't know about Linux) then you can get some pretty impressive features.
Also - a lot of Bing Maps is beta or just freshly out of Beta. I'm using their API on web sites where I am asked to integrate a map as it just really works better IMHO.
The current iteration of silverlight is not supported on PPC Mac OS X. Nor is it supported on any handheld phones. Especially not the iPhone. Google maps has native integration on the iPhone and works on PPC Mac OS X and linux.
Sure, it might be simpler to code Bing maps on your projects. But look out for when the client calls asking why it doesn't show up on her iPhone.
I can see that your posts are well-thought out and considered. I'm not cultist or astroturfer. I'm a guy who uses his iPhone extensively to browse the web because it fits better while standing or reclining than a laptop. But I wish it were bigger.
The situation is that there are times when less is more. This is one of those occasions where trade-offs yield a more valuable user experience to me. The iPad establishes a framework- an environment. In this environment, there aren't all the bells and whistles of a full-blown computer. But, you don't have to deal with all the baggage those bells and whistles bring along (see other posts in this thread for a detailed waybill of said baggage).
This is why the iPhone has succeeded so well when Windows Mobile had an incredible head start. The iPhone OS didn't struggle to run on every phone and support a variety of screen sizes. It didn't try to fulfill every request of end-users who have their own pet gee-gaw they want to see implemented. Instead, it established a standard for functionality and enabled developers to build their apps for it. The result has been a lush ecosystem of free and cheap software that is empowering users to do all kinds of crazy things that never were proposed when Windows Mobile was the dominant smartphone OS.
The great thing here is that Google is in the game and they're innovating like crazy. If multitasking is a deal-breaker, then there are several awesome Android phones available. And that pressure is exactly what benefits Apple consumers because it keeps the prices reasonable and the features coming at a steady pace. Without competition, you would see high prices and innovation turn into stagnation.
Can the iPad display 8 questions in HTML without having to spread them across 6 pages festooned with advertisements? Perhaps the object of the author's criticism is a more efficient content delivery platform than his employer's website.
Play video files on a comfortable screen while I'm doing cardio at the gym.
Browse web in non-sitting positions.
Read digital books.
Play casual games on comfortable-sized touch screen.
The people like me who will buy the iPad are not looking for a device that is a computer. They're looking for a media access device that doesn't carry the drawbacks of a computer. If you still can't comprehend the iPad, you need to look at the Kindle DX and complain about how little that does and it's just ten bucks less than an iPad.
Ten bucks? All the popular games at Target are $14.99 and up. I'm talking all the trivial pursuits, Apples to Apples, Scene It, Scattergories, PassPhrase, Boggle, etc.
And NONE of those board games have a single player option. The iPhone / iPad versions do, and they usually have the ability to connect you with strangers of selective skill levels. Built-in dictionaries are especially helpful for word games, too.
I bought Scrabble on the iPhone for $3.99. Can't get the actual board game at a store for that cheap. While it's a shitty port from some other platform, it's great practice for people who want to get better without having to always hassle people to play with you.
Not to be a dick here, but you apparently are new to the world of mp3 players to say this:
"The ITunes itself is perhaps the most annoying and restrictive commercial software I have ever used."
Before I had an iPod, there was the Rio 500. To have experienced the nightmare required to move mp3 files onto that device would make anyone salivate at the convenience provided by iTunes. It was like a 3 step process and the interface was butt-ugly. iTunes introduced drag-and-drop, and surprisingly, supported the Rio500 and many other third-party mp3 players.
I think I had a 64 mb memory card for that player. Pretty big storage for the time.
Would like to get one of these discount quadcore AMD processors, don't know which is the best option for a Hackintosh, though. Any recommendations? My current hackintosh is Intel-based and I don't know how tricky it might be to configure a working AMD--based hackintosh. Links appreciated.
Not saying that it wasn't an issue, just that it was the system builder you bought it from that caused the problem, not Windows.
I think you have hit the nail on the head explaining the GP's issue. Ever since Apple migrated to intel hardware, they've joined the group of system builders you're referring to. In the case of the GP, he has found a system builder who has done a good job collecting hardware and drivers to bundle together: Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only was Sony's software horrible, so was the software supplied by all the other mp3 manufacturers. Anyone remember the process for loading mp3's onto a Rio300? There was no such thing as 'drag-and-drop' on the Rio. It was like three steps and none of them were intuitive. It was like they established requirements and outsourced the entire thing to some command-line people.
Seth
GP could also have included as non-threatening products Google supported / bought:
Seth
The joke here is step number 4-
4) Click on the 'print' link
In Google Docs, a dialogue prompts you to download the PDF to your local computer to either be opened by a helper application or saved to your hard drive.
Seth
Yeah, I'm looking to replace my Boxee system with a quad core AMD processor that Fry's is offering bundled with mobo and nvidia graphics for $49. Seth
Actually, Netflix does not work at all under linux, including via Boxee. That's a function of Netflix's choice of Sliverlight as its DRM lock-in. Moonlight still isn't there....
Hulu has been a major cat-and-mouse game with Boxee, and on Linux, the game hasn't been going well for Boxee. Most shows won't play through the first commercial break.
I finally gave up with Ubuntu and migrated my Boxee system to WinXP. It's a single-processor Amd Athlon 3200 XP, which typically renders video fine. In XP, Hulu and Netflix run poorly through Boxee with consistent choppiness. Running Hulu and Netflix through a web browser on the system works fine.
I really like Boxee and will likely upgrade to a multi-core processor as people using that architecture aren't encountering the same performance issues.
Seth
Summary should have mentioned this is a John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover collaboration.
Seth
Waiting for someone to crack this new hello world code and post it on bittorrent. Any links appreciated.
Seth
People should know that anything purchased with a VISA card automatically is covered with an extended one year warranty from the expiration of the manufacturer's warranty. Here is the info on the VISA warranty extension.
If that link doesn't work, just do a google search for "VISA extend Warranty".
They also have a purchase protection program that covers anything you buy with a VISA card for 90 days replacement if you lose, break or the product is stolen. I broke the glass on my iPhone within 2 months of purchase and they bought me a new iPhone with little paperwork troubles at all.
Seth
The business model is flawed from square-one. This is going to sink into bankruptcy very, very quickly. The overhead is pretty significant and profit is required rapidly to keep it afloat. The problem is that there is very little incentive for anyone to sign up. They are competing with consoles AND pc games, yet they only offer pc games. People that are inclined to play PC games already have hardware that can handle it. Those who are not inclined, are on consoles. If their hardware isn't state-of-the-art, they play older games and save for newer hardware. $14.95 a month is so steep, it is only really the type of subscription fee that could be paid by someone who has enough money to buy a computer serious enough to play contemporary games.
This will join cue-cat, divx, and broadcast.com in the tomb of ideas that suckered investors yet were non-movers in the marketplace.
Seth
The problem is that NASA astronauts are regarded as royalty within the program. Some come through who are photography nuts and they'll piss and moan if they don't have whatever state-of-the-art that's available. The administration resists their demands on this kind of stuff, but the astronauts are smart and can craft compelling arguments that force the issue.
I don't believe the same exact camera is used on multiple missions. I believe the same model is used until it's updated with an approved new camera.
Seth
Just to be clear here. I'm not formally involved in this field, but I not believe that research using fetal stem cells is illegal. The only restriction I know of is that federal funded research can only use certain pre-existing strains of cells.
You might think this was spearheaded by christian lobbying groups. Nope. They were pawns and puppets of pharma. This was a field showing great promise. If federal dollars developed tools and procedures to use stem cells, that technology would exist in the public domain. The right-to-lifers' perspective was amplified to hide the real agenda-- keep stem cell therapy research in the exclusive hands of the private pharma corporations. The resulting proprietary treatments will be far more expensive and lucrative than if the federal government had made the breakthroughs in this science.
Seth
Last night I was visiting with a friend who has worked at NASA for 11 years. He is concerned for his job, etc. Among the things we discussed was astronaut photography. Sometimes an astronaut comes through the program and demands an update to the cameras they're approved to bring into space. The administration is very resistant to these upgrades because of the testing that is involved to approve a new device to bring into space. Something as simple as a dslr camera requires millions of dollars in testing to ensure that the device won't cause problems in vacuum or in zero g, etc. It even goes so far that NASA produces its own battery charger for the camera instead of using the commercial charger that ships with the model.
Seth
Which could also translate to, "Layoffs were averted by our acquisition by a deep-pocketed major player."
Seth
Agreed. Journalism 101 teaches that no story exists unless their are two sources. Otherwise, it goes on the Opinion page.
Seth
Lake Travis in Austin, Texas has a beach called "Hippie Hollow" that's nude and operated by Travis County.
Additionally, the city of Austin has no law prohibiting females from being topless in public, which is frequently practiced at Barton Springs and on Sixth Street during Mardis Gras.
Seth
And another Mac OS X solution is to create encrypted disk images using Apple's Disk Utility application (comes with the OS).
I like it because I have an office network and need business files to be encrypted, but accessible by other employees. File Vault is a single-user system unless your server is Mac OS X (ours is linux) and the files are stored in a user directory on that server. That opens up the problem that the login for the server then unlocks all the encrypted files.
Using Mac OS X disk utility, I've created several encrypted disk images on the server that users can mount over the network while having to give a password, etc. The server never knows anything about the encryption, etc It also enables a granular security policy to allow access to certain volumes to certain users.
Problems are that the disk images don't expand like File Vault apparently does. Also, doesn't use Time Machine effectively. (entire disk image would get backed up each time rather than only modified files). Other problem is that if the server becomes inaccessible, the client machines will write files to a temp location on the hard drive and the client user won't know they're not being saved to the encrypted disk image. Can present a security risk to those files being readable at a later date.
Seth
The current iteration of silverlight is not supported on PPC Mac OS X. Nor is it supported on any handheld phones. Especially not the iPhone. Google maps has native integration on the iPhone and works on PPC Mac OS X and linux.
Sure, it might be simpler to code Bing maps on your projects. But look out for when the client calls asking why it doesn't show up on her iPhone.
Seth
Hanky,
I can see that your posts are well-thought out and considered. I'm not cultist or astroturfer. I'm a guy who uses his iPhone extensively to browse the web because it fits better while standing or reclining than a laptop. But I wish it were bigger.
The situation is that there are times when less is more. This is one of those occasions where trade-offs yield a more valuable user experience to me. The iPad establishes a framework- an environment. In this environment, there aren't all the bells and whistles of a full-blown computer. But, you don't have to deal with all the baggage those bells and whistles bring along (see other posts in this thread for a detailed waybill of said baggage).
This is why the iPhone has succeeded so well when Windows Mobile had an incredible head start. The iPhone OS didn't struggle to run on every phone and support a variety of screen sizes. It didn't try to fulfill every request of end-users who have their own pet gee-gaw they want to see implemented. Instead, it established a standard for functionality and enabled developers to build their apps for it. The result has been a lush ecosystem of free and cheap software that is empowering users to do all kinds of crazy things that never were proposed when Windows Mobile was the dominant smartphone OS.
The great thing here is that Google is in the game and they're innovating like crazy. If multitasking is a deal-breaker, then there are several awesome Android phones available. And that pressure is exactly what benefits Apple consumers because it keeps the prices reasonable and the features coming at a steady pace. Without competition, you would see high prices and innovation turn into stagnation.
Seth
Seth
Can the iPad display 8 questions in HTML without having to spread them across 6 pages festooned with advertisements? Perhaps the object of the author's criticism is a more efficient content delivery platform than his employer's website.
Seth
The people like me who will buy the iPad are not looking for a device that is a computer. They're looking for a media access device that doesn't carry the drawbacks of a computer. If you still can't comprehend the iPad, you need to look at the Kindle DX and complain about how little that does and it's just ten bucks less than an iPad.
Seth
Ten bucks? All the popular games at Target are $14.99 and up. I'm talking all the trivial pursuits, Apples to Apples, Scene It, Scattergories, PassPhrase, Boggle, etc.
And NONE of those board games have a single player option. The iPhone / iPad versions do, and they usually have the ability to connect you with strangers of selective skill levels. Built-in dictionaries are especially helpful for word games, too.
I bought Scrabble on the iPhone for $3.99. Can't get the actual board game at a store for that cheap. While it's a shitty port from some other platform, it's great practice for people who want to get better without having to always hassle people to play with you.
Seth
Before I had an iPod, there was the Rio 500. To have experienced the nightmare required to move mp3 files onto that device would make anyone salivate at the convenience provided by iTunes. It was like a 3 step process and the interface was butt-ugly. iTunes introduced drag-and-drop, and surprisingly, supported the Rio500 and many other third-party mp3 players.
I think I had a 64 mb memory card for that player. Pretty big storage for the time.
Seth
Would like to get one of these discount quadcore AMD processors, don't know which is the best option for a Hackintosh, though. Any recommendations? My current hackintosh is Intel-based and I don't know how tricky it might be to configure a working AMD--based hackintosh. Links appreciated.
Seth
I think you have hit the nail on the head explaining the GP's issue. Ever since Apple migrated to intel hardware, they've joined the group of system builders you're referring to. In the case of the GP, he has found a system builder who has done a good job collecting hardware and drivers to bundle together: Apple.
Seth