Its relatively straight forward except for 1 thing, the only Tivos that are available on the market as new machines are VERY difficult to do software hacks on. Also the transfer you speak of is VERY slow because the tivo is stuck with the job of converting the tystream to mpeg before the transfer and it isn't very good at it. Last I read it took multiple hours to extract/transfer a single hour of video. There was also the problem that the extraction software available does a poor job of assembling the video with the audio and they don't always stay in synch.
That said you miss my point entirely, I want that functionality to be part of the Tivo UI even if the drive is external and connected to the USB ports or something.
This would be fine if the tivo would signal the recorder to start/stop so I didn't record 30 minutes of show and 1 1/2 hours of random junk.
Also it would be nice to do save to vcr in batches. I think both features have been requested repeatedly in the tivo community forum and tivo has yet to implement them.
Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker?
on
Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What I think would work really well for me is to have it set up where I could use the tivo as normal and when I wanted to archive some content I could dump it to DVD.
Tivo will most likely not be the first company to do this, they are working very hard to remain friendly to the cable and sattelite companies to avoid any possible legal issues. It sort of sucks in some ways but I can understand why they do it.
You have a point, and that point basically shows why "free" software can't survive without commercial software in the world as well. Many of the people that contribute to OSS projects are either training for or making money at a job at a commercial close source company, if they didn't have that income or hope of income they would probably not be working with computers.
If you throw in a correction for Cost of Goods (food/housing/utilities) you might find that the average salary in india is way different even that your "correct" estimate. Its sort of apples to oranges because they are somewhat isolated markets.
I don't know about your area, but in our area AOL is not the cheapest DSL (or broadband in general for that matter) provider, I don't understand why you can't change providers, unless AOL is the only one that reaches you, which would kind of suck.
That said I'm not supporting AOL's change, just saying that the only power a consumer has is to take away thier business.
Its preferable to having your teeth rattled out on some of the poorly kept highways we have. I'm all for tight sporty suspension and handling but sometimes its nice to feel like you are floating on air. There is just something about heavy cars with silky suspension and high profile inflatable tires that makes driving feel like you are sitting on your couch at home. You can't find that in the smaller, lighter, more sporty cars.
#1 get DSL from one of AOL's competitors (or hell get cable modem.)
#2 get a cheap hosting account from one of the plethora of web/email hosts on the web. One of my favorites is http://www.mp3qhosting.net and they only charge me about $10 a month (I think there rates are up from that now but still not that expensive).
The key is hit AOL where it hurts, in the pocketbook. Sure the first couple hundred people won't cause them to think twice, but if there really is a problem with thier actions enough people will quit that they will change there business model. If not who cares because you are getting service from someplace that serves your needs.
I don't think thats true. Once you buy it you should be able to do what you want with it (so long as you aren't breaking a law like vandalism or something crazy like that). Would you like it if book manufacturers prevented you from using thier book to prop up a broke chair.
Why would they have to release source for a linux application that they write? Sure if they derive from another GPL application they would have to release, but I am pretty sure they would to a port that didn't derive from anything and could stay closed.
Having it closed sort of sucks because other competing players can't use the codecs. I think MS is just trying to make WMP9 video formats the defacto industry standard.
I think a big problem with hiring full time employees is that once you have them its very hard to get rid of them. If you make a mistake and hire someone that isn't working out its a pain to drop them. If you hire into a position that suddenly becomes non-vital you are stuck with the dead weight.
What upsets me is the people that are contracting whine without thinking that they signed up for that. The signed up to be a worker that patches a hole and when the hole is gone so are they.
What I totally agree with them on is that they should be treated well and as valuable contributors because from what I've seen 99% of them are. They do the job you give them to the best of thier ability and bring with them a pool of knowledge thats probably as large as many of the FTE's on your team.
Yeah thats always been my big argument against wide area networks. You end up with a fixed amount of bandwidth over a given area. With wired networks if you need more bandwidth there is usually room for another wire, but rarely is there more room on the air for more data.
I think the key (and they might have this as part of the protocol given that I haven't read the article) is to have a large number of very small area connections that are wired together. That way you split the 70mbit/s connection with far fewer people. That said I think it would totally awesome if we could deploy hotspots to a neighbor hood that hit maybe 100 people and then have one fiber connecting to it on the backend. I don't know that it would be cheaper than putting a DSL concentrator or cable loop in that same neighborhood though.
I think where people get mixed up is in the fact that with a wired network you have to find the wire to tap the network where as with wireless the signal is just out there to grab and look at.
So as far as things go the wire protocols are probably less secure but far more obscure.
In fact you can only play back movies remotely on another machine with your personal key (or account ID or something of the sort). This means all the machines in question have to be registered to tivo on the same account.
That said I bet its only a few months until the protocol is broken (like replayTV) and you are able to stream movies to an unprotected client.
Re:We can have a PC not based on twenty year old t
on
Legacy-Free PCs
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· Score: 1
That said there isn't a good reason (that I can think of) to try and sell people the legacy technology. If we were able to get rid of some of the legacy ports (and the legacy hardware in the chipsets and bios to support it) we would probably have computers that ran better. There would be less conflicts in the hardware and less configuration nightmares. If you have an old device that runs on a serial port get a USB -> Serial convertor and still use it.
I am one of the last people that wants to upgrade something that works well, but many of the legacy ports really don't and life would be better if they weren't on my computer (and even better yet if they weren't on my parents computers).
Yes, its 100% illegal. The H1-B visa is a temporary visa that was created to allow high tech companies import workers when no US worker can fill the same job and no US worker would be layed off to allow that position. If the company is laying people off they are breaking the law surrounding the H1-B visa. I am not sure what the punishement is but I think that the foreign worker should have thier visa revoked because the conditions of the visa were broken. Every single american that wants a job in the computer industry in america should really know how this visa works and desire that it be followed.
The disadvantage is that if US workers want too much salary the company may move outside the US but I don't think that is reason to change how the visa system works. I've been very concerned for quite a while that the US companies import foreign workers, and then train them on building our technology. Its a surprise to me that more overseas companies haven't produced competing products at much lower prices.
What the company does owe is the government of this country. They are under legal obligation to follow certain rules (one of them being to hire a US worker instead of an H1-B worker if a US worker is available for the job) that they agreed to in order to get the benifit of operating thier business in this country.
I'd still rather put in an optical isolator and avoid any direct connection to my computer. Then use some cheap TTL logic gates to turn the LED's on and off. The disadvantage being that the device needs its own power supply but the advantage being that a problem in the circuit couldn't fry your computer.
I am sort of sad that they seem to be moving thier focus to brand new computer parts instead of the older hard to find stuff. I guess they have to go for profit and all that jazz.
The MAC lab at my college was EXTREMELY popular. 90% of the business and english students wanted to use that lab because they had Mac's at home or had learned on Mac's in high school. Unfortunately since only 1/3 of the schools computers were upgraded each year and somehow the scheduling wasn't very even the macs were nearly 6 years old heh.
I don't know about a hydrogen based economy, but we will have hydrogen powered cars in 6 to 10 years from the sounds of it. Bush and the US automakers are investing heavily in that area. Even the army is exploring hydrogen powered vehicles. Hopefully it is successful once it rolls out:)
There is a question of whether the time they spend on the radio telescopes and such (which are an extremely limited resource for the human race) could better be spent elswhere. I honestly don't have an opinion one way or another right now, I'd love to find a communication from aliens but on the other hand if we could learn some amazing fact about the universe that would push our society or even just our technology forward that would be really cool too.
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That said you miss my point entirely, I want that functionality to be part of the Tivo UI even if the drive is external and connected to the USB ports or something.
Also it would be nice to do save to vcr in batches. I think both features have been requested repeatedly in the tivo community forum and tivo has yet to implement them.
Tivo will most likely not be the first company to do this, they are working very hard to remain friendly to the cable and sattelite companies to avoid any possible legal issues. It sort of sucks in some ways but I can understand why they do it.
You have a point, and that point basically shows why "free" software can't survive without commercial software in the world as well. Many of the people that contribute to OSS projects are either training for or making money at a job at a commercial close source company, if they didn't have that income or hope of income they would probably not be working with computers.
If you throw in a correction for Cost of Goods (food/housing/utilities) you might find that the average salary in india is way different even that your "correct" estimate. Its sort of apples to oranges because they are somewhat isolated markets.
That said I'm not supporting AOL's change, just saying that the only power a consumer has is to take away thier business.
Its preferable to having your teeth rattled out on some of the poorly kept highways we have. I'm all for tight sporty suspension and handling but sometimes its nice to feel like you are floating on air. There is just something about heavy cars with silky suspension and high profile inflatable tires that makes driving feel like you are sitting on your couch at home. You can't find that in the smaller, lighter, more sporty cars.
Here are the two steps to combat this problem.
#1 get DSL from one of AOL's competitors (or hell get cable modem.)
#2 get a cheap hosting account from one of the plethora of web/email hosts on the web. One of my favorites is http://www.mp3qhosting.net and they only charge me about $10 a month (I think there rates are up from that now but still not that expensive).
The key is hit AOL where it hurts, in the pocketbook. Sure the first couple hundred people won't cause them to think twice, but if there really is a problem with thier actions enough people will quit that they will change there business model. If not who cares because you are getting service from someplace that serves your needs.
I don't think thats true. Once you buy it you should be able to do what you want with it (so long as you aren't breaking a law like vandalism or something crazy like that). Would you like it if book manufacturers prevented you from using thier book to prop up a broke chair.
Having it closed sort of sucks because other competing players can't use the codecs. I think MS is just trying to make WMP9 video formats the defacto industry standard.
What upsets me is the people that are contracting whine without thinking that they signed up for that. The signed up to be a worker that patches a hole and when the hole is gone so are they.
What I totally agree with them on is that they should be treated well and as valuable contributors because from what I've seen 99% of them are. They do the job you give them to the best of thier ability and bring with them a pool of knowledge thats probably as large as many of the FTE's on your team.
I think the key (and they might have this as part of the protocol given that I haven't read the article) is to have a large number of very small area connections that are wired together. That way you split the 70mbit/s connection with far fewer people. That said I think it would totally awesome if we could deploy hotspots to a neighbor hood that hit maybe 100 people and then have one fiber connecting to it on the backend. I don't know that it would be cheaper than putting a DSL concentrator or cable loop in that same neighborhood though.
So as far as things go the wire protocols are probably less secure but far more obscure.
That said I bet its only a few months until the protocol is broken (like replayTV) and you are able to stream movies to an unprotected client.
I am one of the last people that wants to upgrade something that works well, but many of the legacy ports really don't and life would be better if they weren't on my computer (and even better yet if they weren't on my parents computers).
The disadvantage is that if US workers want too much salary the company may move outside the US but I don't think that is reason to change how the visa system works. I've been very concerned for quite a while that the US companies import foreign workers, and then train them on building our technology. Its a surprise to me that more overseas companies haven't produced competing products at much lower prices.
What the company does owe is the government of this country. They are under legal obligation to follow certain rules (one of them being to hire a US worker instead of an H1-B worker if a US worker is available for the job) that they agreed to in order to get the benifit of operating thier business in this country.
Sales volume is what I was interested in. I might be wrong in my initial assumption though :) Would be interesting to know.
Did the imac beat the C64's sales record for a single model? If so thats a pretty high mark to have attained.
Speaking of that, how long did the AT form factor last? How long will ATX last? hmmm
I'd still rather put in an optical isolator and avoid any direct connection to my computer. Then use some cheap TTL logic gates to turn the LED's on and off. The disadvantage being that the device needs its own power supply but the advantage being that a problem in the circuit couldn't fry your computer.
I am sort of sad that they seem to be moving thier focus to brand new computer parts instead of the older hard to find stuff. I guess they have to go for profit and all that jazz.
The MAC lab at my college was EXTREMELY popular. 90% of the business and english students wanted to use that lab because they had Mac's at home or had learned on Mac's in high school. Unfortunately since only 1/3 of the schools computers were upgraded each year and somehow the scheduling wasn't very even the macs were nearly 6 years old heh.
I don't know about a hydrogen based economy, but we will have hydrogen powered cars in 6 to 10 years from the sounds of it. Bush and the US automakers are investing heavily in that area. Even the army is exploring hydrogen powered vehicles. Hopefully it is successful once it rolls out :)
There is a question of whether the time they spend on the radio telescopes and such (which are an extremely limited resource for the human race) could better be spent elswhere. I honestly don't have an opinion one way or another right now, I'd love to find a communication from aliens but on the other hand if we could learn some amazing fact about the universe that would push our society or even just our technology forward that would be really cool too.