apple just announced the mac mini. $499! here's the pics: http://grizzlor.org/mini.jpg and http://webpages.charter.net/mattman7/mini.jpg (mirrors)
New member of Mac family Slot-load Combo optical drive. Play DVDs, burn CDs. Quiet. Tiny, FireWire, ethernet, USB 2.o, both DVI/VGA output. Very tiny. Height is half the size of an iPod mini. Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, Mouse.
Re:Star Wars should be higher.
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Top 50 DVDs
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no because he'll have them ready for you to buy on hd-dvd or blu-ray soon (and whatever else comes beyond that)... and by then he'll have changed it even more.
at some point the plot will become unrecognizable, introducing a backstory with jarjar being a jedi knight who taught yoda the powers of the force and has ewoks blatantly advertising the next star wars video game for the ps6...
Re:What do you base that on? Dolby Digital Mono ba
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Top 50 DVDs
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the dude (john lowry) that remastered citizen kane for dvd used an earlier version of the techniques used for the star wars set (it was the third film to use the technique whereas the SW set was well past the 70th film to receive treatment). he has since said in many interviews that he wishes he could do it over again as the earlier version of the technique he used made the movie too clean and removed too much film grain (giving it a slight video-like appearance). oh well, it's as good as we can get as the negative is long gone...
hmm... 800% better range, not sure how i feel about that. this is bad news for folks that don't know a thing about security or why they should have it turned on. also, it had better have a damn good implementation of wpa...
it is too bad that they killed the newton, but if you look at what jobs' goals were, it made sense. he was trying to kill anything that wasn't the absolute most critical project in the company to give a clear direction to where the company needed to go. i think jobs felt apple was distracted by things like the newton. and if jobs didn't feel anything for the newton, which he likely didn't partly for it being sculley's baby, he wouldn't likely have fought to keep the project alive.
he was trying to not just get the company out of red but to make them profitable. a risk like newton probably didn't seem to make sense to him unless he adopted it and made it 'insanely great'.
with emulators being developed for the current systems, it won't be long before you won't need a system to play the games... i would expect that to be especially true with the xbox (which i would assume to be the easiest to emulate as i would think you could run the x86 code native [like vmware] and emulate the rest of the system).
first of all, the gamecube is often given a good amount of shelfspace, but not as much as xbox. secondly, the cube stuff is usually tucked near the back of the store near the employee only door.
and shelf space goes to what retailers want customers to buy, not necessarily what customer want to buy. there is an important distinction there...
case in point, many moons ago i worked for a large electronics retailer who sold both directv and primestar (now very defunct). employees who sold primestar with a full year paid contract, you would get a spiff. so what did you want to sell you customer? i'd have much rather sold them a directv unit but i didn't make the spiff. my sales were better when i sold them what the company wanted me to sell the customer...
sidenote: fortunately primestar imploded and echostar (now known as dishnetwork) came into the marketplace. primestar sucked ass and i hated selling it even if i did get a spiff...
the thing i don't like about lcd's is that even the very best ones don't give very accurate color reproduction or contrast. this may not be as important to the average tv viewer, but if you are doing video editing or photoshopping it makes a difference. all too often i have to check against a crt to make sure i have good color and contrast...
it is getting better but from what i understand much of it has to do with the fluorescant light behind the panel which doesn't give as full of a spectrum of light as it should.
a long time ago my uncle told me about how some of his friends at bell labs used to shoot high power lasers into the sky to "paint" the clouds. of course nowadays folks do it for laser shows for outdoor concerts etc...
it seems to me that transmeta should have been focused on either embedded computer processors (set top boxes, handhelds, etc.) or on cluster server based processors or some such. either of those are in need of powerful but electricity sipping processors.
they should have put 110% of their efforts into 100% x86 compatibility and maximum performance without requiring too much of super specialized mobo that lots of extra manufacturing and parts cost. then they should have come out with a model board that others could follow and hopefully reduce the cost by oem'ing.
it seems to me that transmeta is/was too focused on playing engineer and not enough time on real world problems and real world business. had they figured out what their market was and stuck to it, maybe you might see a transmeta chip in a computer store near you instead of looking forward to buing their office furniture on ebay in a future liquidation of assets... there is still hope they'll figure it out.
that was my first thought too. heheh. i guess it will save a lot of money for the bean counters to budget. too bad we'll all be too uhh, dead to enjoy it. i guess.;p
yeah good luck with that linux box the first time your mom wants to install some knitting design program she bought at the store. or when she wants to view a video file her niece sent her. or when she is taking a class at the community college and needs to run some software they gave her. or when your dad wants to play around with a home design program. or when they buy a new printer or scanner and need to install it. yeah, good luck with that.
btw, i consider my mom a light computer user, yet the scenarios above are all real things that happened. she's pretty good with the computer, but i can't imagine trying to explain to her workarounds etc. for using the computer the way she wants to use it. most parents that i've talked to find it rather cumbersome to do most tasks with their computers. they aren't enthusiasts and the more roadblocks put in their way to do those things, the more likely they won't bother to use the computer. instead it sits as an expensive paperweight. ever wonder why that clock blinks 12:00?
now, i'm not saying that the emac will be a godsend to them. in fact, i think the cheap dell would be fine for them as long as you can go over some basic guidelines with them on safe usage. then setup auto-updating and a virus scanner. if you install eudora for their default email and opera or firefox for their default browser and uninstall OE. if they have cable modem or dsl, get them a cheapo router with nat. don't bother with the software firewall as it is a pain in the ass to use for most folks (however make sure xp's firewall is on and explain to them briefly about it's use).
the biggest cumbersome issue with the emac that i see is that you can't run windows software on it natively. aside from that, the emac would be fine for most folks (given some basic instructions on its use if they have windows experience).
boy, did i just defend windows? i think i feel dirty.
Re:Trillian is nice, but gaim has cross platform s
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Trillian 3.0 Released
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he says that he needs interoperability with trillian secureim (i assume he's msging with other folks using trillain), which that plugin doesn't seem to have from a quick check of their website...
i wholeheartedly agree. for example, i really liked that when a hard disk of mine started dieing a while back i was shipped a replacement while they placed a hold on my credit card until they received my dead drive.
the entire procedure was fast (they 2nd day'd the drive to me) and painless and allowed me to get the data off my dieing drive onto the new one w/o significant downtime. aside from not having the problem in the first place, that is what i consider good service and good backing on a warranty. why a company like sony couldn't do that, i don't know (perhaps they can but don't offer it as an option on the phone, anyone ask?).
i think many major electronics companies have lulled us into believing the lowest common denominator of service is acceptable...
Slashdot Mirror
good live coverage via irc here:o ad&name =News&file=article&sid=1285
http://www.apple-x.net/modules.php?op=modl
apple just announced the mac mini. $499! here's the pics: http://grizzlor.org/mini.jpg and http://webpages.charter.net/mattman7/mini.jpg (mirrors)
New member of Mac family Slot-load Combo optical drive. Play DVDs, burn CDs. Quiet. Tiny, FireWire, ethernet, USB 2.o, both DVI/VGA output. Very tiny. Height is half the size of an iPod mini. Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, Mouse.
no because he'll have them ready for you to buy on hd-dvd or blu-ray soon (and whatever else comes beyond that)... and by then he'll have changed it even more.
at some point the plot will become unrecognizable, introducing a backstory with jarjar being a jedi knight who taught yoda the powers of the force and has ewoks blatantly advertising the next star wars video game for the ps6...
the dude (john lowry) that remastered citizen kane for dvd used an earlier version of the techniques used for the star wars set (it was the third film to use the technique whereas the SW set was well past the 70th film to receive treatment). he has since said in many interviews that he wishes he could do it over again as the earlier version of the technique he used made the movie too clean and removed too much film grain (giving it a slight video-like appearance). oh well, it's as good as we can get as the negative is long gone...
hmm... 800% better range, not sure how i feel about that. this is bad news for folks that don't know a thing about security or why they should have it turned on. also, it had better have a damn good implementation of wpa...
so... what, you cook off the rocket engines? i'm not sure where you are going with this. ;p
yeah and it is available on the new microsoft iptv service. that is if it doesn't crash on you...
ma apple? ma fruit? hmm... needs work.
My handy prediction - if a single thing goes wrong during his speech it'll be on the net the same day.
;p
you're a real criswell aren't you?
it is too bad that they killed the newton, but if you look at what jobs' goals were, it made sense. he was trying to kill anything that wasn't the absolute most critical project in the company to give a clear direction to where the company needed to go. i think jobs felt apple was distracted by things like the newton. and if jobs didn't feel anything for the newton, which he likely didn't partly for it being sculley's baby, he wouldn't likely have fought to keep the project alive.
he was trying to not just get the company out of red but to make them profitable. a risk like newton probably didn't seem to make sense to him unless he adopted it and made it 'insanely great'.
with emulators being developed for the current systems, it won't be long before you won't need a system to play the games... i would expect that to be especially true with the xbox (which i would assume to be the easiest to emulate as i would think you could run the x86 code native [like vmware] and emulate the rest of the system).
first of all, the gamecube is often given a good amount of shelfspace, but not as much as xbox. secondly, the cube stuff is usually tucked near the back of the store near the employee only door.
and shelf space goes to what retailers want customers to buy, not necessarily what customer want to buy. there is an important distinction there...
case in point, many moons ago i worked for a large electronics retailer who sold both directv and primestar (now very defunct). employees who sold primestar with a full year paid contract, you would get a spiff. so what did you want to sell you customer? i'd have much rather sold them a directv unit but i didn't make the spiff. my sales were better when i sold them what the company wanted me to sell the customer...
sidenote: fortunately primestar imploded and echostar (now known as dishnetwork) came into the marketplace. primestar sucked ass and i hated selling it even if i did get a spiff...
i wrote an article a while back about this very issue on my website. imho, you are 100% correct. take a look...
the thing i don't like about lcd's is that even the very best ones don't give very accurate color reproduction or contrast. this may not be as important to the average tv viewer, but if you are doing video editing or photoshopping it makes a difference. all too often i have to check against a crt to make sure i have good color and contrast...
it is getting better but from what i understand much of it has to do with the fluorescant light behind the panel which doesn't give as full of a spectrum of light as it should.
a long time ago my uncle told me about how some of his friends at bell labs used to shoot high power lasers into the sky to "paint" the clouds. of course nowadays folks do it for laser shows for outdoor concerts etc...
it seems to me that transmeta should have been focused on either embedded computer processors (set top boxes, handhelds, etc.) or on cluster server based processors or some such. either of those are in need of powerful but electricity sipping processors.
they should have put 110% of their efforts into 100% x86 compatibility and maximum performance without requiring too much of super specialized mobo that lots of extra manufacturing and parts cost. then they should have come out with a model board that others could follow and hopefully reduce the cost by oem'ing.
it seems to me that transmeta is/was too focused on playing engineer and not enough time on real world problems and real world business. had they figured out what their market was and stuck to it, maybe you might see a transmeta chip in a computer store near you instead of looking forward to buing their office furniture on ebay in a future liquidation of assets... there is still hope they'll figure it out.
here's some linkage and here too...
while it is true that dt is very good, it is hardly user friendly when compared to the likes of google desktop search, etc...
and here's the link in the thread with the good news when he got a successful sustained connection (using shoutcast).
btw, here's a link to a biosheet on who wil had a beef with. jimdownslickssweatyballs.com. and this asshole is still running things 2 years later...
that was my first thought too. heheh. i guess it will save a lot of money for the bean counters to budget. too bad we'll all be too uhh, dead to enjoy it. i guess. ;p
yeah good luck with that linux box the first time your mom wants to install some knitting design program she bought at the store. or when she wants to view a video file her niece sent her. or when she is taking a class at the community college and needs to run some software they gave her. or when your dad wants to play around with a home design program. or when they buy a new printer or scanner and need to install it. yeah, good luck with that.
btw, i consider my mom a light computer user, yet the scenarios above are all real things that happened. she's pretty good with the computer, but i can't imagine trying to explain to her workarounds etc. for using the computer the way she wants to use it. most parents that i've talked to find it rather cumbersome to do most tasks with their computers. they aren't enthusiasts and the more roadblocks put in their way to do those things, the more likely they won't bother to use the computer. instead it sits as an expensive paperweight. ever wonder why that clock blinks 12:00?
now, i'm not saying that the emac will be a godsend to them. in fact, i think the cheap dell would be fine for them as long as you can go over some basic guidelines with them on safe usage. then setup auto-updating and a virus scanner. if you install eudora for their default email and opera or firefox for their default browser and uninstall OE. if they have cable modem or dsl, get them a cheapo router with nat. don't bother with the software firewall as it is a pain in the ass to use for most folks (however make sure xp's firewall is on and explain to them briefly about it's use).
the biggest cumbersome issue with the emac that i see is that you can't run windows software on it natively. aside from that, the emac would be fine for most folks (given some basic instructions on its use if they have windows experience).
boy, did i just defend windows? i think i feel dirty.
he says that he needs interoperability with trillian secureim (i assume he's msging with other folks using trillain), which that plugin doesn't seem to have from a quick check of their website...
i wholeheartedly agree. for example, i really liked that when a hard disk of mine started dieing a while back i was shipped a replacement while they placed a hold on my credit card until they received my dead drive.
the entire procedure was fast (they 2nd day'd the drive to me) and painless and allowed me to get the data off my dieing drive onto the new one w/o significant downtime. aside from not having the problem in the first place, that is what i consider good service and good backing on a warranty. why a company like sony couldn't do that, i don't know (perhaps they can but don't offer it as an option on the phone, anyone ask?).
i think many major electronics companies have lulled us into believing the lowest common denominator of service is acceptable...
it also sounds like a perfect opportunity for sega to design a very detailed create-a-player system if they haven't already...