Although the ASM and FRU numbers give you a rough estimate, Lenovo is telling us this is not a reliable way to flag the battery, since some of the recalled FRU's do not have Sony cells.
This is straght from Lenovo: Along with the part number, every battery has a unique identifier known as the 11S bar code. This bar code is key to identifying if the battery is affected by the recall. If you believe you have one or more of these affected batteries, please visit the recall web site at http://www.lenovo.com/batteryprogram
The 11s Code is hard coded inside the battery, so I would think there would be no problem extracting it. Then go to the above web site, copy/paste the code, and it will tell you if it's affected or not.
Also, it would be nice if one could use WMP to rip CDs without crippling DRM.
You can rip CD's in WMP10 without DRM. In Fact, DRM is turned off by Default.
go to Tools -> Options -> Rip Music to see the settings. It also Does MP3.
I've never used WMP for ripping but I know the college students use it on their PC's all the time, and when their hard drive crashes we simply copy the music over to their new drive with no problem.
As for WMP11, On the Vista RC1 machine I'm testing here, it looks like their adopting the same default settings as 10: WMA, 128KB's, DRM OFF. They also finally support ripping to wav files as well, so now you can convert to your favorite alternate format in a lossless state. The full ripping support is WMA 48-192, WMA Pro 32-192, WMA (VBR) 40-355, WMA (Mathematically Lossless) 470-940, MP3 128-320, and Wav. Of course ths could change by final build, but this is how it's currently setup.
You're in a Wal-Mart on Dec 24th. On one side it's the blue team protecting a Nintendo Wii in the electronics dept. On the other side, it's the Red team with a 10th Anniversary Tickle Me Elmo in the Toy Isle. In the middle is the Sporting Goods dept full of Remington's, Leathermans, Louisville sluggers and other vaious brand name, potentially leathal objects. First team to get the Wii, the TMX and escape to the checkout counter wins. Bonus points if you Collect all 5 Coca Cola Santa 24 can packs scattered through the store.
Re-sampling and film cleanup is one thing. Frankly, if that's all they were doing, then I don't think anyone would be against that.
Most of my problem with what they are doing here is the Remastering. When I start hearing digitized ships, planets, effects, even remastered voices, that starts to sound scary to me. I can understand if the models and the like look horrendous is HD. but since they never Broadcast in HD, we don't know how they would look. The original effects may be OK looking (albeit Outdated, but it is a 40 year old show after all) in HD.
The real test will be the Tribble Episode. I don't want to see any DS9 crew members inserted anywhere in that episode, Cameo or otherwise, just to make the DS9 Episode tie in better with the original episode it was based on. I'm not sure if Paramount can avoid that temptation with a fully digital copy of the episode sitting on a hard drive just waiting to be exploited.
If it's based on IE rendering, that doesn't give me great confidence that this browser is not caching anything on disk.
Personally, I'll stick with the off by one web browser for any local private browsing. It may not be a great web rendering browser, but it's totally contained with it's own rendering engine, will fit on a floppy disk, and everything is stored in RAM and is deleted once the browser closes.
I'll second this. you can also use the built in backup utility in XP on a hard disk without much of a problem, or do a full disk backup using ghost. Most of the commercial external hard drives comes with backup software specifically for the drive, not to mention that it pays for itself if you like doing frequent backups instead of Burning DVD's constantly.
I've also used Windows OneCare's backup, which is nice but not a full backup solution and not free. on the plus side, it works automatically with DVD's and keeps track of changed and added files and will incrementally add changes to a DVD or external hard drive. It also uses standard zip files to store the backups, so they are accessible without having to start a restore process every time.
From what I've read from the patent, it sounds like it's some sort of moderation system for a website (social networks. Like myspace and MS's own Live Spaces site). Basically, it rewards productive users of a site while punishing trolls and spammers.
Although the patent is questionable, (it sounds similar to the Slashdot Karma System to me) it doesn't sound like something that will be used for net neutrality.
The idea is sound, it's the hardware thats the problem.
MS is trying to start a market based on hardware that will basicially doom it. PDA's work because their designed to run for long periods of time using almost no battery life. The Hardware industry just isn't equipped to produce a x86 based device that can even remotely compete with a PDA's power curve.
Eventually, you'll see better screens, hybrid or even flash hard drives and more efficient processors that can make this market more viable if not desirable, especially if they can get in that price range they want, but these current generation models won't be able to compete against a full blown laptop any time soon.
I think a lot of the wait has to do with people waiting for the second revision of the 360 to come out. Just about everyone I talk to says they wont buy a 360 because they overheat. As soon as a newer revision comes out that alleviates that issue, you might see some more sales come in. I'm also guessing that people are trading in their old systems for the newer smaller revised ps2 since older ps2's were notorious for having drive issues, and the newer size gives them a lot more room on their entertainment center.
Also keep in mind that the ps2 suffered the same fate against the ps1 when it first came out. eventually the ps2 started to overtake ps1 sales as soon as the first price drop hit. The 360 will probably have a sales surge on it's first price drop as well.
It is possible for MS to start shipping 360s with HD-DVD (or Blu-Ray if they wanted to) built in if that's what the market decides is necessary, you know. Of course, they wouldn't be able to put games on the new format unless they wanted to say "screw you" to the previous 360 owners
Not really, especially if you can upgrade current Xbox360's with the HD-DVD drive to play those games. I don't suggest MS do it this year or 2007, but even if you had to buy the HD-DVD attachment at $200 2-3 years from now to play certain games, (most likely less by 2008-9. Prices on HD-DVD drives should be below $100 by then unless the unlikely event that the format goes under) It's still alot better than having to pay for the HD drive up front at it's inital release value. This is especially true when it's a good bet that no game within the next 2 years will use that extra Bluray space for anything other than "HI Def FMV". So even if an XBOX360HD hits the shelves with the HD-DVD drive built in sometime in 2008, as long as there's a reasonably priced upgrade path for the original 360, it shouldn't be a big problem.
This is another example of why I like the idea of user Replacable optical drives in consoles. In the last generation, the Optical drives were the weakest link in the consoles. Having a user replacable one would solve this problem outright. If your DVD-ROM dies in your PS3 or 360, replace it either under warranty by just removing and sending the drive, or get a new one at gamestop for $100 or less. It sure beats buying an entire console every year or so, especially if your a heavy console gamer like most of my friends are.
...make me Glad my Villian in "City of Villians" is Jackie Thompson.
Why Jackie you ask, because the name is just different enough to avoid litigation, and since he is a assassin with martial art moves that he learned from playing "Ninja Gaiden" for 12 hours("Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu" wouldn't fit in his bio since it rambles much like the man it spoofs), the name just suits him better too.
In this particular test, the site I used, (it's one of those Warez Crackz, ETC-Z sites you find out there) although it had some spyware associated with it, it also had serious IE exploits. (at the time of the test, it was using that 0-Day Vulnerability that MS took forever to patch) It had droppers that would install trojan downloaders, a keylogger and a rootkit. It also had coolwwwsearch and 1800solutions on the site was well as some other xxx related spyware. It also had some other exploits that couldn't work correctly since IE was patched. It would even try to infect Firefox if java was installed.
Most AV apps do suck at handling spyware, but in this particular test the activeX downloads were declined. The other scripts that were trying to backdoor apps through IE security exploits without user consent were the ones I was more concerned with, since they would be doing the most damage if they executed, and Antivir handled these the best among the three.
If you want absolute protection, I found Windows Onecare with Windows Defender to be the best protection period. I went as far as setting the internet zone to the lowest protection level as well as adding this malicious site to the trusted sites list in IE and it handled everything that this site threw at it without any changes to the system. Usually, the AV app would pick it up, but if it did get around the antivirus, Windows Defender handled all of the registry changes it tried to make, and the firewall wouldn't let it communicate back to the server. although Onecare's interface needs a lot more "power user" settings, and it eats ram like crazy, it was a fast and solid scanner thats really hard to beat, and would recommend it as a commercial use scanner.
Hmm. I should have used Web browser exploits there instead of Net attack.
None of these scanners perform any kind of firewall or net shielding, they just handle realtime and procedural malware scanning. Out of the three, Antivir performed the best against a site that was actively using IE exploits to try to infect the VM with spyware, keyloggers and the like.
A while back, I did some testing of my own using the three above scanners. The test was done using a virtual PC VM that could be rolled back and reset, that way all three were tested with an exact PC image and system. Then they were subjected to an IE attack from a known malicious site (which I wont mention since I don't want you infecting your PC)
AVG was dead last, and could not stop even simple web attacks from propagating, even with the highest settings, although it was the least intrusive and fastest of the three, and didn't nag you to upgrade or anything.
Second was Avast. it stopped a lot of the malicious code, but some still got through and started to drop spyware into the system. It supposedly has guards similar to Windows defender, but didn't seem to do anything to stop the unknown propagations from occurring even on maximum settings.
Antivir was the best out of the three, catching most of the viruses at it's default setting, and all of the malware at it's maximum (it has definitions for questionable programs like VNC, Jokes and the like, but it's turned off by default) It's biggest problem is that it is the naggiest AV of the three, which constantly asking you to upgrade to the paid version. It also has a tendency to be very sensitive to programs that do virus like behavior at maximum settings, so expect some false positives from time to time.
The problem isn't the PC cost per se. At this point, you can Build a PC for less than $200. it's the software that's the big cost.
What they should be doing is something along the lines of the Xbox 360 micro-payments model. Basically, give away starter edition for free, and then sell prepaid cards if you want to upgrade it to home edition.
They can also have a system built into it where you can also buy software A la cart using the prepaid cards either over time or all at once. You can make it so you basically, pick out the program you want, and then use the cards to buy it or pay for it over time using the cards. Then as soon as the program is paid off, you can choose something new to purchase, add cards to the service when you can to spend at a later date, or stop purchasing cards and wait until something new comes out.
Think about it from this perspective: Bestbuy is selling an HD-DVD player for $500. The PS3 will be $500
Yes that's true, IF the PS3 was released right now. It's being released in 3-6 months from now. All it takes is a 399 HD-DVD player and that price is moot.
Why would I buy the standalone HD-DVD when I can buy the PS3, which plays Blu-Ray movies AND PS3/2/1 games for the same price?
Not Everyone wants a Movie player that can also play Madden and Katamari. Also. Sony has been reletively tight lipped about compatibility of the older systems. I'm sure they have the programmers that can make a good emulation system for the PS3, but don't be surprised when they pull something similar to the 360. The only reason the PS2 did PS1 so well is because they built a Full blown Hardware based PS1 in the PS2. They're not doing that with the PS3.
LOTS of die-hard Playstation fans are going to buy the system, no matter what the cost, and that's going to flood the market with Blu-Ray players
Yes, There will be a ton of PS3's out there. But First off, on the day of PS3 launches, your going to have an already established base of HD-DVD players out there at a cheaper price, and the 360 HD drive out there for $200 if you really want High Def movie viewing through your 360 for whatever reason. If you wan't Bluray, it's either a Sony PS3 at $500-600 or a Sony Bluray player at $1000 since no other company will dare make a bluray player and try to compete against the PS3 at a price $200-$400 cheaper than they can physicially build the thing at, meanwhile, you'll have HD-DVD players out there from multiple manufactures competing against each other driving the price down on HD-DVD players way below the PS3 price point.
Your average Movie consumer could care less what the PS3 can do unless they actually do gaming. All they want is something that plays movies, and if HD-DVD will give them their Hi-Def fix at almost half the cost of similar Bluray equipment, that's where the market will gravitate towards.
Not to mention that Blu-Ray is a better format... (25 GB vs 15 GB per layer)
Sony did one hell of a job promoting space as the big reason for Bluray, but in reality, it doesn't mean anything other than you have the option to run longer length movies at higher bitrates. Why is it a moot point? Because the new formats support much higher compression movie files than DVD. look at the UMD movie format. (another Sony Format) It had 1.8GB of space but can supposedly equal a 480i DVD (4-8GB) in video size, length and quality. How does it do this? it supports MPEG4 which has much higher compression than MPEG2 at the same quality level. Bitrate wise, you can only go so high before you can't tell the difference, so the only real advantage bluray brings to the table is less disk swapping when you watch Titanic or LOTR, and the jury is out if you would even need to swap disks on the HD-DVD medium for any of these movies. Simply put, Bluray may be great for storing computer files, but the size difference isn't going to make a big difference quality wise to your movie viewing experience.
I posted this yesterday, but anyway I though of something when they were taking about how cheap the PS3 was since Bluray was implemented, and it's doesn't look good for Bluray. Basically, the PS3 is going to kill off Bluray, and I'll tell you why.
Lets say you're a manufacture of equipment and are choosing which player to make. The HD-DVD player is easier to build and cheaper, while the Bluray player is more expensive but has more storage and possibly better quality video. Now, when you look at your bottom line you can sell an HD-DVD player for $500-$700 but your Bluray player will sell around $800-$1000.
Now, here comes Sony with their BluRay equipped $500-$600 PS3. You know that you'll be selling your Bluray player at a loss if you sell it any less than $800 and you know anyone that wants a Bluray player will just get a PS3 since it's cheaper. You also know you can't compete against it with Bluray but can easily compete with an HD-DVD player and even the XBOX 360 plus HD-DVD will be in that $500-$700 competitive range your player will be in.
As a manufacture looking out for your Shareholders, what are you going to build?
Basically, the PS3 will be the only Bluray player in the market because it will drive the market away from it and toward the cheaper HD-DVD. That is until Bluray drops in price, and by then, the format war will be over and HD-DVD will be the winner.
As for Japan, if it says Sony, it sells regardless of what it is. Those Aibo robot dogs were a great example since they were selling those for $1000+ and still couldn't make them fast enough.
Actually I though of something when they were taking about how cheap the PS3, and it's doesn't look good for Bluray. Basically, the PS3 is going to kill off Bluray, and I'll tell you why.
Lets say you're a manufacture of equipment and are choosing which player to make. The HD-DVD player is easier to build and cheaper, while the Bluray player is more expensive but has more storage and possibly better quality video. Now, when you look at your bottom line you can sell an HD-DVD player for $500-$700 but your Bluray player will sell around $800-$1000.
Now, here comes Sony with their BluRay equipped $500-$600 PS3. You know that you'll be selling your Bluray player at a loss if you sell it any less than $800 and you know anyone that wants a Bluray player will just get a PS3 since it's cheaper. You also know you can't compete against it with Bluray but can easily compete with an HD-DVD player and even the XBOX 360 plus HD-DVD will be in that $500-$700 competitive range your player will be in.
As a manufacture looking out for your Shareholders, what are you going to build?
Basically, the PS3 will be the only Bluray player in the market because it will drive the market away from it and toward the cheaper HD-DVD. That is until Bluray drops in price, and by then, the format war will be over and HD-DVD will be the winner.
From what I can gather, they want to charge for QOS.
For example, Google pays for it's bandwith by most likely the gig. there already spending a ton of money on bandwidth. (probably in the millions) This makes their primary ISP happy, because their getting a ton of money from Google.
Now, for the sake of argument, lets say their ISP is AT&T. AT&T is getting all of the money that Google pays them, but Verizon over here isn't getting any Google money, because Google doesn't use Verizon as their main provider. Now some of that Google traffic is most likely going to Verizon though AT&T, and since Verizon isn't getting money there, they want to charge Google to send their traffic over Verizon's network.
Now this is where it gets fun. Lets say Google is paying 1 Million for bandwidth. With QOS, now not only do they have to pay that, but they now have to pay Verizon 100k to allow them to route their traffic, and then Qwest is going to chime in with it's 100k bill, and on and on until Google's bandwith charge basicially doubles, triples or more. Also, the high tiers will start charging each other to route traffic, and thats when the internet will start to fragment because some companies might get in a spat and cut each other off, kinda like what happened last year with one of the high end providers.
Now keep in mind, that there is no middle or high network provider that exists that doesn't charge by the gig or some similar scheme so one way or the other, those High and Middle end providers are paying to receive Google traffic through their low end clients. The only tier that gets unlimited usage is the low end, or most likely you. What these guys are saying is that it's either this QOS thing, or the low end will start paying by the gb instead of by the month.
A couple weeks ago when Revolution was renamed to Wii, I said that it looked like Nintendo was trying to make the revolution fail.
After E3, I think Sony's trying out this "Make your Console Fail" strategy that Nintendo was Using, and Nintendo finally realized that the "fail" strategy won't work out for them.
This E3, Nintendo puts up an excellent display of what the Wii will do and Sony just sits back and rips off everybody else. Meanwhile MS is so worried about it's stock portfolio it's talking more about market share and sales like the audience is the board of directors instead of focusing on the future of the 360. They should have jumped all over this motion sensitive controller craze since they experimented with the freestyle pro back in 99 but totally ignored it.
Slashdot Mirror
Although the ASM and FRU numbers give you a rough estimate, Lenovo is telling us this is not a reliable way to flag the battery, since some of the recalled FRU's do not have Sony cells.
This is straght from Lenovo:
Along with the part number, every battery has a unique identifier known as the 11S bar code. This bar code is key to identifying if the battery is affected by the recall. If you believe you have one or more of these affected batteries, please visit the recall web site at http://www.lenovo.com/batteryprogram
The 11s Code is hard coded inside the battery, so I would think there would be no problem extracting it. Then go to the above web site, copy/paste the code, and it will tell you if it's affected or not.
all other security vendors won't be able to run properly.
Trend Micro runs on Vista
Computer associates runs on Vista
Avast runs on Vista
AVG Runs on Vista
Mcafee runs on vista
Hell, Symantec runs on vista
Also, it would be nice if one could use WMP to rip CDs without crippling DRM.
You can rip CD's in WMP10 without DRM. In Fact, DRM is turned off by Default.
go to Tools -> Options -> Rip Music to see the settings. It also Does MP3.
I've never used WMP for ripping but I know the college students use it on their PC's all the time, and when their hard drive crashes we simply copy the music over to their new drive with no problem.
As for WMP11, On the Vista RC1 machine I'm testing here, it looks like their adopting the same default settings as 10: WMA, 128KB's, DRM OFF. They also finally support ripping to wav files as well, so now you can convert to your favorite alternate format in a lossless state. The full ripping support is WMA 48-192, WMA Pro 32-192, WMA (VBR) 40-355, WMA (Mathematically Lossless) 470-940, MP3 128-320, and Wav. Of course ths could change by final build, but this is how it's currently setup.
I can see it now.
You're in a Wal-Mart on Dec 24th. On one side it's the blue team protecting a Nintendo Wii in the electronics dept. On the other side, it's the Red team with a 10th Anniversary Tickle Me Elmo in the Toy Isle. In the middle is the Sporting Goods dept full of Remington's, Leathermans, Louisville sluggers and other vaious brand name, potentially leathal objects. First team to get the Wii, the TMX and escape to the checkout counter wins. Bonus points if you Collect all 5 Coca Cola Santa 24 can packs scattered through the store.
Hell i'd play it. Especially for free.
Re-sampling and film cleanup is one thing. Frankly, if that's all they were doing, then I don't think anyone would be against that.
Most of my problem with what they are doing here is the Remastering. When I start hearing digitized ships, planets, effects, even remastered voices, that starts to sound scary to me. I can understand if the models and the like look horrendous is HD. but since they never Broadcast in HD, we don't know how they would look. The original effects may be OK looking (albeit Outdated, but it is a 40 year old show after all) in HD.
The real test will be the Tribble Episode. I don't want to see any DS9 crew members inserted anywhere in that episode, Cameo or otherwise, just to make the DS9 Episode tie in better with the original episode it was based on. I'm not sure if Paramount can avoid that temptation with a fully digital copy of the episode sitting on a hard drive just waiting to be exploited.
Whoa! You can patent a Business model! Hot Damn!!
I guess I should patent my idea of "Method of High Speed Beef and Bread Preparation, Processing and Procurement" and go after a certain clown I know!
(Sarcasm lever high on this post folks)
If it's based on IE rendering, that doesn't give me great confidence that this browser is not caching anything on disk.
Personally, I'll stick with the off by one web browser for any local private browsing. It may not be a great web rendering browser, but it's totally contained with it's own rendering engine, will fit on a floppy disk, and everything is stored in RAM and is deleted once the browser closes.
I'll second this. you can also use the built in backup utility in XP on a hard disk without much of a problem, or do a full disk backup using ghost. Most of the commercial external hard drives comes with backup software specifically for the drive, not to mention that it pays for itself if you like doing frequent backups instead of Burning DVD's constantly.
I've also used Windows OneCare's backup, which is nice but not a full backup solution and not free. on the plus side, it works automatically with DVD's and keeps track of changed and added files and will incrementally add changes to a DVD or external hard drive. It also uses standard zip files to store the backups, so they are accessible without having to start a restore process every time.
From what I've read from the patent, it sounds like it's some sort of moderation system for a website (social networks. Like myspace and MS's own Live Spaces site). Basically, it rewards productive users of a site while punishing trolls and spammers.
Although the patent is questionable, (it sounds similar to the Slashdot Karma System to me) it doesn't sound like something that will be used for net neutrality.
How much would one of these refrigerator drives hold today if they used the cutting edge write strategies we use today?
The idea is sound, it's the hardware thats the problem.
MS is trying to start a market based on hardware that will basicially doom it. PDA's work because their designed to run for long periods of time using almost no battery life. The Hardware industry just isn't equipped to produce a x86 based device that can even remotely compete with a PDA's power curve.
Eventually, you'll see better screens, hybrid or even flash hard drives and more efficient processors that can make this market more viable if not desirable, especially if they can get in that price range they want, but these current generation models won't be able to compete against a full blown laptop any time soon.
I think a lot of the wait has to do with people waiting for the second revision of the 360 to come out. Just about everyone I talk to says they wont buy a 360 because they overheat. As soon as a newer revision comes out that alleviates that issue, you might see some more sales come in. I'm also guessing that people are trading in their old systems for the newer smaller revised ps2 since older ps2's were notorious for having drive issues, and the newer size gives them a lot more room on their entertainment center.
Also keep in mind that the ps2 suffered the same fate against the ps1 when it first came out. eventually the ps2 started to overtake ps1 sales as soon as the first price drop hit. The 360 will probably have a sales surge on it's first price drop as well.
It is possible for MS to start shipping 360s with HD-DVD (or Blu-Ray if they wanted to) built in if that's what the market decides is necessary, you know. Of course, they wouldn't be able to put games on the new format unless they wanted to say "screw you" to the previous 360 owners
Not really, especially if you can upgrade current Xbox360's with the HD-DVD drive to play those games. I don't suggest MS do it this year or 2007, but even if you had to buy the HD-DVD attachment at $200 2-3 years from now to play certain games, (most likely less by 2008-9. Prices on HD-DVD drives should be below $100 by then unless the unlikely event that the format goes under) It's still alot better than having to pay for the HD drive up front at it's inital release value. This is especially true when it's a good bet that no game within the next 2 years will use that extra Bluray space for anything other than "HI Def FMV". So even if an XBOX360HD hits the shelves with the HD-DVD drive built in sometime in 2008, as long as there's a reasonably priced upgrade path for the original 360, it shouldn't be a big problem.
This is another example of why I like the idea of user Replacable optical drives in consoles. In the last generation, the Optical drives were the weakest link in the consoles. Having a user replacable one would solve this problem outright. If your DVD-ROM dies in your PS3 or 360, replace it either under warranty by just removing and sending the drive, or get a new one at gamestop for $100 or less. It sure beats buying an entire console every year or so, especially if your a heavy console gamer like most of my friends are.
...make me Glad my Villian in "City of Villians" is Jackie Thompson.
Why Jackie you ask, because the name is just different enough to avoid litigation, and since he is a assassin with martial art moves that he learned from playing "Ninja Gaiden" for 12 hours("Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu" wouldn't fit in his bio since it rambles much like the man it spoofs), the name just suits him better too.
No. they would never do that...
They'd make it a Mod for America's Army.
Does the elevator control panel show a Sad Elevator Icon when it stops working?
In this particular test, the site I used, (it's one of those Warez Crackz, ETC-Z sites you find out there) although it had some spyware associated with it, it also had serious IE exploits. (at the time of the test, it was using that 0-Day Vulnerability that MS took forever to patch) It had droppers that would install trojan downloaders, a keylogger and a rootkit. It also had coolwwwsearch and 1800solutions on the site was well as some other xxx related spyware. It also had some other exploits that couldn't work correctly since IE was patched. It would even try to infect Firefox if java was installed.
Most AV apps do suck at handling spyware, but in this particular test the activeX downloads were declined. The other scripts that were trying to backdoor apps through IE security exploits without user consent were the ones I was more concerned with, since they would be doing the most damage if they executed, and Antivir handled these the best among the three.
If you want absolute protection, I found Windows Onecare with Windows Defender to be the best protection period. I went as far as setting the internet zone to the lowest protection level as well as adding this malicious site to the trusted sites list in IE and it handled everything that this site threw at it without any changes to the system. Usually, the AV app would pick it up, but if it did get around the antivirus, Windows Defender handled all of the registry changes it tried to make, and the firewall wouldn't let it communicate back to the server. although Onecare's interface needs a lot more "power user" settings, and it eats ram like crazy, it was a fast and solid scanner thats really hard to beat, and would recommend it as a commercial use scanner.
Hmm. I should have used Web browser exploits there instead of Net attack.
None of these scanners perform any kind of firewall or net shielding, they just handle realtime and procedural malware scanning. Out of the three, Antivir performed the best against a site that was actively using IE exploits to try to infect the VM with spyware, keyloggers and the like.
A while back, I did some testing of my own using the three above scanners. The test was done using a virtual PC VM that could be rolled back and reset, that way all three were tested with an exact PC image and system. Then they were subjected to an IE attack from a known malicious site (which I wont mention since I don't want you infecting your PC)
AVG was dead last, and could not stop even simple web attacks from propagating, even with the highest settings, although it was the least intrusive and fastest of the three, and didn't nag you to upgrade or anything.
Second was Avast. it stopped a lot of the malicious code, but some still got through and started to drop spyware into the system. It supposedly has guards similar to Windows defender, but didn't seem to do anything to stop the unknown propagations from occurring even on maximum settings.
Antivir was the best out of the three, catching most of the viruses at it's default setting, and all of the malware at it's maximum (it has definitions for questionable programs like VNC, Jokes and the like, but it's turned off by default) It's biggest problem is that it is the naggiest AV of the three, which constantly asking you to upgrade to the paid version. It also has a tendency to be very sensitive to programs that do virus like behavior at maximum settings, so expect some false positives from time to time.
The problem isn't the PC cost per se. At this point, you can Build a PC for less than $200. it's the software that's the big cost.
What they should be doing is something along the lines of the Xbox 360 micro-payments model. Basically, give away starter edition for free, and then sell prepaid cards if you want to upgrade it to home edition.
They can also have a system built into it where you can also buy software A la cart using the prepaid cards either over time or all at once. You can make it so you basically, pick out the program you want, and then use the cards to buy it or pay for it over time using the cards. Then as soon as the program is paid off, you can choose something new to purchase, add cards to the service when you can to spend at a later date, or stop purchasing cards and wait until something new comes out.
Think about it from this perspective: Bestbuy is selling an HD-DVD player for $500. The PS3 will be $500
Yes that's true, IF the PS3 was released right now. It's being released in 3-6 months from now. All it takes is a 399 HD-DVD player and that price is moot.
Why would I buy the standalone HD-DVD when I can buy the PS3, which plays Blu-Ray movies AND PS3/2/1 games for the same price?
Not Everyone wants a Movie player that can also play Madden and Katamari.
Also. Sony has been reletively tight lipped about compatibility of the older systems. I'm sure they have the programmers that can make a good emulation system for the PS3, but don't be surprised when they pull something similar to the 360. The only reason the PS2 did PS1 so well is because they built a Full blown Hardware based PS1 in the PS2. They're not doing that with the PS3.
LOTS of die-hard Playstation fans are going to buy the system, no matter what the cost, and that's going to flood the market with Blu-Ray players
Yes, There will be a ton of PS3's out there. But First off, on the day of PS3 launches, your going to have an already established base of HD-DVD players out there at a cheaper price, and the 360 HD drive out there for $200 if you really want High Def movie viewing through your 360 for whatever reason. If you wan't Bluray, it's either a Sony PS3 at $500-600 or a Sony Bluray player at $1000 since no other company will dare make a bluray player and try to compete against the PS3 at a price $200-$400 cheaper than they can physicially build the thing at, meanwhile, you'll have HD-DVD players out there from multiple manufactures competing against each other driving the price down on HD-DVD players way below the PS3 price point.
Your average Movie consumer could care less what the PS3 can do unless they actually do gaming. All they want is something that plays movies, and if HD-DVD will give them their Hi-Def fix at almost half the cost of similar Bluray equipment, that's where the market will gravitate towards.
Not to mention that Blu-Ray is a better format... (25 GB vs 15 GB per layer)
Sony did one hell of a job promoting space as the big reason for Bluray, but in reality, it doesn't mean anything other than you have the option to run longer length movies at higher bitrates. Why is it a moot point? Because the new formats support much higher compression movie files than DVD. look at the UMD movie format. (another Sony Format) It had 1.8GB of space but can supposedly equal a 480i DVD (4-8GB) in video size, length and quality. How does it do this? it supports MPEG4 which has much higher compression than MPEG2 at the same quality level. Bitrate wise, you can only go so high before you can't tell the difference, so the only real advantage bluray brings to the table is less disk swapping when you watch Titanic or LOTR, and the jury is out if you would even need to swap disks on the HD-DVD medium for any of these movies. Simply put, Bluray may be great for storing computer files, but the size difference isn't going to make a big difference quality wise to your movie viewing experience.
I posted this yesterday, but anyway I though of something when they were taking about how cheap the PS3 was since Bluray was implemented, and it's doesn't look good for Bluray. Basically, the PS3 is going to kill off Bluray, and I'll tell you why.
Lets say you're a manufacture of equipment and are choosing which player to make. The HD-DVD player is easier to build and cheaper, while the Bluray player is more expensive but has more storage and possibly better quality video. Now, when you look at your bottom line you can sell an HD-DVD player for $500-$700 but your Bluray player will sell around $800-$1000.
Now, here comes Sony with their BluRay equipped $500-$600 PS3. You know that you'll be selling your Bluray player at a loss if you sell it any less than $800 and you know anyone that wants a Bluray player will just get a PS3 since it's cheaper. You also know you can't compete against it with Bluray but can easily compete with an HD-DVD player and even the XBOX 360 plus HD-DVD will be in that $500-$700 competitive range your player will be in.
As a manufacture looking out for your Shareholders, what are you going to build?
Basically, the PS3 will be the only Bluray player in the market because it will drive the market away from it and toward the cheaper HD-DVD. That is until Bluray drops in price, and by then, the format war will be over and HD-DVD will be the winner.
As for Japan, if it says Sony, it sells regardless of what it is. Those Aibo robot dogs were a great example since they were selling those for $1000+ and still couldn't make them fast enough.
Actually I though of something when they were taking about how cheap the PS3, and it's doesn't look good for Bluray. Basically, the PS3 is going to kill off Bluray, and I'll tell you why.
Lets say you're a manufacture of equipment and are choosing which player to make. The HD-DVD player is easier to build and cheaper, while the Bluray player is more expensive but has more storage and possibly better quality video. Now, when you look at your bottom line you can sell an HD-DVD player for $500-$700 but your Bluray player will sell around $800-$1000.
Now, here comes Sony with their BluRay equipped $500-$600 PS3. You know that you'll be selling your Bluray player at a loss if you sell it any less than $800 and you know anyone that wants a Bluray player will just get a PS3 since it's cheaper. You also know you can't compete against it with Bluray but can easily compete with an HD-DVD player and even the XBOX 360 plus HD-DVD will be in that $500-$700 competitive range your player will be in.
As a manufacture looking out for your Shareholders, what are you going to build?
Basically, the PS3 will be the only Bluray player in the market because it will drive the market away from it and toward the cheaper HD-DVD. That is until Bluray drops in price, and by then, the format war will be over and HD-DVD will be the winner.
From what I can gather, they want to charge for QOS.
For example, Google pays for it's bandwith by most likely the gig. there already spending a ton of money on bandwidth. (probably in the millions) This makes their primary ISP happy, because their getting a ton of money from Google.
Now, for the sake of argument, lets say their ISP is AT&T. AT&T is getting all of the money that Google pays them, but Verizon over here isn't getting any Google money, because Google doesn't use Verizon as their main provider. Now some of that Google traffic is most likely going to Verizon though AT&T, and since Verizon isn't getting money there, they want to charge Google to send their traffic over Verizon's network.
Now this is where it gets fun. Lets say Google is paying 1 Million for bandwidth. With QOS, now not only do they have to pay that, but they now have to pay Verizon 100k to allow them to route their traffic, and then Qwest is going to chime in with it's 100k bill, and on and on until Google's bandwith charge basicially doubles, triples or more. Also, the high tiers will start charging each other to route traffic, and thats when the internet will start to fragment because some companies might get in a spat and cut each other off, kinda like what happened last year with one of the high end providers.
Now keep in mind, that there is no middle or high network provider that exists that doesn't charge by the gig or some similar scheme so one way or the other, those High and Middle end providers are paying to receive Google traffic through their low end clients. The only tier that gets unlimited usage is the low end, or most likely you. What these guys are saying is that it's either this QOS thing, or the low end will start paying by the gb instead of by the month.
A couple weeks ago when Revolution was renamed to Wii, I said that it looked like Nintendo was trying to make the revolution fail.
After E3, I think Sony's trying out this "Make your Console Fail" strategy that Nintendo was Using, and Nintendo finally realized that the "fail" strategy won't work out for them.
This E3, Nintendo puts up an excellent display of what the Wii will do and Sony just sits back and rips off everybody else. Meanwhile MS is so worried about it's stock portfolio it's talking more about market share and sales like the audience is the board of directors instead of focusing on the future of the 360. They should have jumped all over this motion sensitive controller craze since they experimented with the freestyle pro back in 99 but totally ignored it.