Still shows the weird L-shapes over here. Not to mention parts of the D2 threshold setting thing that's usually on the left of the screen being stuck in your post...
Perfectly true - The last graphics card I bought was purchased solely because it offered acceptable performance while also consuming the least power in idle compared to other cards in the same price range. I assumed this was normal these days, what with many CPU/GPU/Laptop/Pre-built-PC reviews having a section on power consumption...
It's pretty different over here in Germany. We don't have a campus, but the local technical university (RWTH Aachen) provides internet access to most of the student appartment complexes (there's quite a few of 'em) and WiFi access points all over the city (basically if you're downtown, you can get a signal at least 50% of the time). Quite a few ports are blocked (pretty much everything non-standard), but you don't have to install any software and it's hella fast (IIRC the university has its own connection right into a backbone - or something like that - I just remember making a hell of a:o face when I realized my download speeds from Rapidshare were being capped by the 100mbit ethernet connection...).
Now, there's a _lot_ of students on that network. Everyone working or studying at the university has access. All you need to do is connect to the WiFi network (authentication via certificate and PEAP) via any old wireless client (hell, even my WM6.1 phone works)... I'd estimate that the whole network has 10k+ users - now how do they manage to do all this without using client scanning software? I'm sure there's a lot of malware-infected systems on the network, but the network seems to be secure enough to handle it. Maybe it's just a question of competent IT staff?
I'm not exactly up-to-date on the technical side of securing a network, but as far as I can tell, it's possible without the massive intrusion upon users' privacy that's described in the summary...
I don't know about it being the best, but from my limited experience (then again, I'm still using VS2005 - dunno about newer versions) it's got everything I need.
On an unrelated note - anyone else's Slashdot views going all wonky? Mine looks like this:
I thought a quad-band phone would work in pretty much any country (with a functioning GSM and/or 3G network, of course), and that it was more of a question of unbelievably high roaming charges. I dunno about Japan, but Europe is no problem. Most Southeast-Asian countries have perfectly normal GSM networks too.
...for every netbook sold so far. The demo page gives me a slideshow, in what looks like the same quality as YouTube's H.264 videos in non-HD mode. The YouTube videos run (barely) OK, by the way.
Why is streaming video so taxing? Ripping those same slideshow videos off of the website and playing them back with VLC or MPC delivers absolutely smooth video with minimal CPU time used (compared to the pegged 100% in-browser). Why is online video so processing-heavy that hardware still sold a year ago (which has no problem with 720p H.264 - without hardware acceleration) can't play it?
So just because you were a relatively smart kid that didn't scare easily, the same applies to all the other children out there?
I gotta say (just going on my own experience as a child a few years ago here), most kids are stupid. Teachers and workers in the education system are often neglectful and stupid, or possibly just overworked (too many kids to keep track of, etc.). If I have kids some day, I'll want to know where they are at all times until they're able to take care of themselves (which is somewhere around the age of 12) - and if they're not with someone I can absolutely trust (which, when it comes to children, would probably be about 3 people in the world, including my parents...), that means GPS or something similar.
And what about the battery life? The fact that the Netbook probably weighs twice as much? The free WWAN connection you get with the Kindle? Seamless integration with Amazon's eBook store? How about booting up the laptop (or even waking it from sleep), entering your password and opening the eBook every time you want to read a paragraph or two on the bus? As a matter of fact, don't you think most people would look at you pretty strangely if you pulled out a netbook on a bus?:p
Sure, you can use a netbook as an eBook reader (I do, at least for large PDFs and other crap my smartphone can't handle), but it's always a bit of a hack. If you're only planning on reading in places where you'd have your netbook out anyway, I guess it's not a problem - but for people who like to read in the back of a taxi or in the john or on the bus, pulling out a netbook every time is just plain annoying.
Having owned both a Pentium M (1.6GHz Dothan) and an Atom N270 (EeePC 1000H, typing from it right now), I can safely say that this thing is _far_ slower (meaning order-of-magnitude slower).
Even Slashdot's "Interactive Discussion System" brings the Atom to its knees, as well as Flash Video or AJAX-heavy pages. It's a pretty piss-poor excuse for a CPU, to tell the truth...
But that's exactly the distinction that Apple's trying to make - their PCs are Macs. The configurations they offer, the ergonomics, the design - it all sets them apart from other PCs (whether or not they're worth the price premium is another story).
Macs are PCs, yes, but other PCs are not Macs:)...
What you're saying is like "Hey, nitrogen and hydrogen are both built out of protons, electrons and neutrons. They're the same thing!"
I should probably add that the reason the iTunes store curently annoys me is their AAC format - if you're going to offer only lossy downloads, at least do it in a format that nobody has to transcode to a different lossy format. As if Alt Preset Standard would have been too much to ask for...
Wouldn't the correct response be to use a different _store_, and not a different player?
Hell, I'm only buying 256+kbps MP3s from 7Digital and Amazon until Apple gets off their ass and offers lossless music on iTunes. The rest gets ripped in FLAC, right off a CD...
Then again, if you _need_ syncing capabilities (i.e. are too lazy to drag & drop new songs onto your PMP), you probably deserve to be locked into Apple's scheme...
"only if you live in a country with horriblly wimpy power circuits;)"
I was just wondering this myself - what if you need more power for something? Are there usually two circuits to a room in the US? Or do you have three-phase sockets in every room?
In fact, forget computers, what about musicians? My "practice PA" is about 2kW already (doesn't run at max power, of course, but I'd assume it's relatively inefficient, so maybe 1kW at the volume we need), and each stage light is 500W... A few guitar and bass amps at ~50W power usage each. So basically in the US we'd be able to run a single light? That would suck...
So because they only fingerprint criminals in your country, fingerprinting someone anywhere else is "treating them like a criminal"?
Sure, it's a hassle, but the only reason I'd feel like a criminal while being fingerprinted would be from watching too much bad TV (being as the only people who get fingerprinted on TV shows or in movies are criminals:P)...
A gaming rig that does what a PS3 can do isn't all too expensive. Say 700 Euros (probably $700 US over there) including a 200 Euro TFT...
If all you need for your computing needs is a netbook, sure, going with a console isn't such a bad idea. But if you're going to be spending $500 on a new PC anyway, you might as well stuff in $50 more for a decent graphics card and game on that...
For instance, I've never gotten into console gaming because I don't need to - I've always had decent PC hardware for reasons other than gaming (video encoding, real-time audio apps), so PC gaming was the logical way to go. If you don't need a powerful PC for stuff like that, a console might not be such a bad idea.
"I've become an information junky (and not the good kind* - the crappy kind, like what kind of new geek toys there are, and the crap that's here on Slashdot)..."
I've become somewhat addicted to my newsreader (not to mention Slashdot comments), and it's really been cutting into my studies.
Seriously, my girlfriend kicks me out of bed when she leaves in the morning, then I get a cup of coffee and start reading. Some time or other I'll pack up my netbook and go to a lecture... bam, laptop's on the desk, newsreader open. So I leave the laptop at home, oh, wait, Google Reader works on my smartphone - crap.
I know I could get much more productive stuff done (or at least some reading related to my chosen field of studies) during this time, but I just can't stop. I've become an information junky (and not the good kind - the crappy kind, like what kind of new geek toys there are, and the crap that's here on Slashdot)... This sort of behaviour goes on until about 1 or 2 in the morning. Drives my girlfriend crazy, too.
I dunno, is it an addiction? Or just the same thing as reading the newspaper every day, just a bit more excessive?
I really gotta get off here. It's 9:24AM on a Saturday, the sun's shining outside, and I'm laying in bed writing up a post to complete strangers who don't care about what I have to say anyway. That's it, time for some fresh air... *opens window and goes back to reading*.
I'm using Outlook 2007 too, but not by choice - it's the only software that syncs to a Windows Mobile device properly...
I find Thunderbird to be a lot faster, even when it comes to stuff that should be bottlenecked server-side (IMAP folder refresh, checking for new mail... this stuff is nearly instant in Thunderbird, while Outlook actually makes you wait a few seconds).
Not to mention it's unacceptable for a view change from the inbox to the calendar to take 5+ seconds, just because there's more than 10 appointments or so in the week view. It's a freakin e-mail and PIM program - why should it need any more than a 400MHz PII and 128MB of RAM?
Slashdot Mirror
Still shows the weird L-shapes over here. Not to mention parts of the D2 threshold setting thing that's usually on the left of the screen being stuck in your post...
Perfectly true - The last graphics card I bought was purchased solely because it offered acceptable performance while also consuming the least power in idle compared to other cards in the same price range. I assumed this was normal these days, what with many CPU/GPU/Laptop/Pre-built-PC reviews having a section on power consumption...
It's pretty different over here in Germany. We don't have a campus, but the local technical university (RWTH Aachen) provides internet access to most of the student appartment complexes (there's quite a few of 'em) and WiFi access points all over the city (basically if you're downtown, you can get a signal at least 50% of the time). Quite a few ports are blocked (pretty much everything non-standard), but you don't have to install any software and it's hella fast (IIRC the university has its own connection right into a backbone - or something like that - I just remember making a hell of a :o face when I realized my download speeds from Rapidshare were being capped by the 100mbit ethernet connection...).
Now, there's a _lot_ of students on that network. Everyone working or studying at the university has access. All you need to do is connect to the WiFi network (authentication via certificate and PEAP) via any old wireless client (hell, even my WM6.1 phone works)... I'd estimate that the whole network has 10k+ users - now how do they manage to do all this without using client scanning software? I'm sure there's a lot of malware-infected systems on the network, but the network seems to be secure enough to handle it. Maybe it's just a question of competent IT staff?
I'm not exactly up-to-date on the technical side of securing a network, but as far as I can tell, it's possible without the massive intrusion upon users' privacy that's described in the summary...
I don't know about it being the best, but from my limited experience (then again, I'm still using VS2005 - dunno about newer versions) it's got everything I need.
On an unrelated note - anyone else's Slashdot views going all wonky? Mine looks like this:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn108/bemymonkey/slashdot.gif
Bhahahah. I haven't felt this at home since I discovered that other collection of idiots, Harmony Central Amp Forum...
I thought a quad-band phone would work in pretty much any country (with a functioning GSM and/or 3G network, of course), and that it was more of a question of unbelievably high roaming charges. I dunno about Japan, but Europe is no problem. Most Southeast-Asian countries have perfectly normal GSM networks too.
...for every netbook sold so far. The demo page gives me a slideshow, in what looks like the same quality as YouTube's H.264 videos in non-HD mode. The YouTube videos run (barely) OK, by the way.
Why is streaming video so taxing? Ripping those same slideshow videos off of the website and playing them back with VLC or MPC delivers absolutely smooth video with minimal CPU time used (compared to the pegged 100% in-browser). Why is online video so processing-heavy that hardware still sold a year ago (which has no problem with 720p H.264 - without hardware acceleration) can't play it?
But if the kid _does_ get on the wrong bus, GPS tells you where the hell to pick him/her up...
So just because you were a relatively smart kid that didn't scare easily, the same applies to all the other children out there?
I gotta say (just going on my own experience as a child a few years ago here), most kids are stupid. Teachers and workers in the education system are often neglectful and stupid, or possibly just overworked (too many kids to keep track of, etc.). If I have kids some day, I'll want to know where they are at all times until they're able to take care of themselves (which is somewhere around the age of 12) - and if they're not with someone I can absolutely trust (which, when it comes to children, would probably be about 3 people in the world, including my parents...), that means GPS or something similar.
And what about the battery life? The fact that the Netbook probably weighs twice as much? The free WWAN connection you get with the Kindle? Seamless integration with Amazon's eBook store? How about booting up the laptop (or even waking it from sleep), entering your password and opening the eBook every time you want to read a paragraph or two on the bus? As a matter of fact, don't you think most people would look at you pretty strangely if you pulled out a netbook on a bus? :p
Sure, you can use a netbook as an eBook reader (I do, at least for large PDFs and other crap my smartphone can't handle), but it's always a bit of a hack. If you're only planning on reading in places where you'd have your netbook out anyway, I guess it's not a problem - but for people who like to read in the back of a taxi or in the john or on the bus, pulling out a netbook every time is just plain annoying.
Having owned both a Pentium M (1.6GHz Dothan) and an Atom N270 (EeePC 1000H, typing from it right now), I can safely say that this thing is _far_ slower (meaning order-of-magnitude slower).
Even Slashdot's "Interactive Discussion System" brings the Atom to its knees, as well as Flash Video or AJAX-heavy pages. It's a pretty piss-poor excuse for a CPU, to tell the truth...
It's mostly the same over here in Germany...
But that's exactly the distinction that Apple's trying to make - their PCs are Macs. The configurations they offer, the ergonomics, the design - it all sets them apart from other PCs (whether or not they're worth the price premium is another story).
Macs are PCs, yes, but other PCs are not Macs :)...
What you're saying is like "Hey, nitrogen and hydrogen are both built out of protons, electrons and neutrons. They're the same thing!"
"Why do their adverts compare macs to windows then?"
Hmmm, don't they usually compare them to PCs?
PC!=Windows.
Well, the G1 _does_ have a keyboard. :)
Just wonder how annoying it must be to play Doom on it :D
Do they do that for other phones, such as Windows Mobile based ones?
I should probably add that the reason the iTunes store curently annoys me is their AAC format - if you're going to offer only lossy downloads, at least do it in a format that nobody has to transcode to a different lossy format. As if Alt Preset Standard would have been too much to ask for...
Wouldn't the correct response be to use a different _store_, and not a different player?
Hell, I'm only buying 256+kbps MP3s from 7Digital and Amazon until Apple gets off their ass and offers lossless music on iTunes. The rest gets ripped in FLAC, right off a CD...
Then again, if you _need_ syncing capabilities (i.e. are too lazy to drag & drop new songs onto your PMP), you probably deserve to be locked into Apple's scheme...
"only if you live in a country with horriblly wimpy power circuits ;)"
I was just wondering this myself - what if you need more power for something? Are there usually two circuits to a room in the US? Or do you have three-phase sockets in every room?
In fact, forget computers, what about musicians? My "practice PA" is about 2kW already (doesn't run at max power, of course, but I'd assume it's relatively inefficient, so maybe 1kW at the volume we need), and each stage light is 500W... A few guitar and bass amps at ~50W power usage each. So basically in the US we'd be able to run a single light? That would suck...
So because they only fingerprint criminals in your country, fingerprinting someone anywhere else is "treating them like a criminal"?
Sure, it's a hassle, but the only reason I'd feel like a criminal while being fingerprinted would be from watching too much bad TV (being as the only people who get fingerprinted on TV shows or in movies are criminals :P)...
A gaming rig that does what a PS3 can do isn't all too expensive. Say 700 Euros (probably $700 US over there) including a 200 Euro TFT...
If all you need for your computing needs is a netbook, sure, going with a console isn't such a bad idea. But if you're going to be spending $500 on a new PC anyway, you might as well stuff in $50 more for a decent graphics card and game on that...
For instance, I've never gotten into console gaming because I don't need to - I've always had decent PC hardware for reasons other than gaming (video encoding, real-time audio apps), so PC gaming was the logical way to go. If you don't need a powerful PC for stuff like that, a console might not be such a bad idea.
I'm guessing most people on Slashdot have an internet connection... they just don't feel the need to brag about it. Learn to recognize humor ;)
As for your government agencies "man dating", I don't even want to know what that's about... :p
"I've become an information junky (and not the good kind* - the crappy kind, like what kind of new geek toys there are, and the crap that's here on Slashdot)..."
*kind of information
Uh, actually... *raises hand*.
I've become somewhat addicted to my newsreader (not to mention Slashdot comments), and it's really been cutting into my studies.
Seriously, my girlfriend kicks me out of bed when she leaves in the morning, then I get a cup of coffee and start reading. Some time or other I'll pack up my netbook and go to a lecture... bam, laptop's on the desk, newsreader open. So I leave the laptop at home, oh, wait, Google Reader works on my smartphone - crap.
I know I could get much more productive stuff done (or at least some reading related to my chosen field of studies) during this time, but I just can't stop. I've become an information junky (and not the good kind - the crappy kind, like what kind of new geek toys there are, and the crap that's here on Slashdot)... This sort of behaviour goes on until about 1 or 2 in the morning. Drives my girlfriend crazy, too.
I dunno, is it an addiction? Or just the same thing as reading the newspaper every day, just a bit more excessive?
I really gotta get off here. It's 9:24AM on a Saturday, the sun's shining outside, and I'm laying in bed writing up a post to complete strangers who don't care about what I have to say anyway. That's it, time for some fresh air... *opens window and goes back to reading*.
I'm using Outlook 2007 too, but not by choice - it's the only software that syncs to a Windows Mobile device properly...
I find Thunderbird to be a lot faster, even when it comes to stuff that should be bottlenecked server-side (IMAP folder refresh, checking for new mail... this stuff is nearly instant in Thunderbird, while Outlook actually makes you wait a few seconds).
Not to mention it's unacceptable for a view change from the inbox to the calendar to take 5+ seconds, just because there's more than 10 appointments or so in the week view. It's a freakin e-mail and PIM program - why should it need any more than a 400MHz PII and 128MB of RAM?