I frequently use my iPod Touch to access movies. It works pretty well although the interface is not what I expect from Apple. Slightly better than using a laptop in that it's very portable. Archos looks like it may be well suited to the task if you don't mind Android.
Roku works pretty well for streaming media. Just recently they've started allowing open access to creating your own channels. I have one that lets me access my videos and music on my NAS (has a web server built-in) or laptops. I've been toying with making a channel that gives me access to Hulu until they get around to making their own channel. If you are a programmer you can do alot with this little $80 box.
In my experience the one you want is the one that can read cryptic undocumented code and third party un-documentation. Math comes in handy sometimes but is frequently very domain driven and can be picked up as easily as picking up the rest of the data structures and algorithms needed for the task. Somebody that can figure out that when interfacing to a complex proprietary third party system the docs say to do X but really you need to do Y is more useful. Not that the two skill sets are exclusive.
I think it's less about competing than about the customer experience. Not as if they make money from their built-in apps whereas they do if a 'competitor' sells an app. Studies have shown that most consumers prefer fewer choices.
If anything I think they should block more from the App Store as it's got to much crap making it hard to find the good content. Not nearly as bad as Android but still a lot of noise in the system. At least they should have a feature to only show apps with a good rating by a considerable number of users.
They'd have to offer some reason to choose Opera over Safari. As Safari already does a good job of rendering pages it'd have to be features. Maybe better prediction of what I want in text fields.
If you only needed one desktop. Even the non-geek people I know tend to have four or five PCs in their house these days not even counting all the other computing devices floating around.
If you ran a one-to-one configuration it'd make little sense to use virtualization. Most people have a lot more than one computer these days though. And you don't need any Microsoft server products at all. You'd have to pay for your normal license for your OS at the most. Nobody in their right mind would run off a cloud service over home broadband. Gaming would be just fine I think as all the data that need be transferred is pure inputs and video/audio back - very easy to do over a LAN. Something like wireless display is certainly proof that gaming is viable. For one-to-one a laptop works better but for more than one user a single server quickly becomes cheaper and easier. A full PC, albeit cheap, still suffer the problems of a full PC.
It sounds as if your biggest issue is that Microsoft sucks and will do whatever they can do make it expensive to go to a good thin client setup. I still think it's no more expensive than any other way to buy a copy of Windows though.
The home is quickly reaching the point when people can't take care of their own computing needs. A computer for mom, a computer for dad, and one for each of the three kids, probably a couple smart phones mixed in, a game console or two, and soon smart televisions and other appliances will be common. (I just counted what I have online on my home network - 8 devices just this moment.) Managing that is a mess most people can't handle. Devices running light OSs that are managed and empowered from a local server will help just as it does in the workplace.
PCs are expensive and not reliable. It's much easier for there to be a server that runs all your (business or even home) desktops and centralize management and make the clients a lot cheaper. With a simple OS like Android, ChromeOS, or iPhone OS offering basic features directly and access to a hosted desktop when you need more you can make things cheaper, more flexible, and more reliable.
We use virtualization for our servers already and a few desktops and have been considering all desktops if we can find a cheap enough thinclient box. For a business it's really a big win because user desktops are easy to upgrade, revert in case of problems, backup, etc. 90% of the resources aren't constantly wasted, there aren't hundreds of dusty boxes waiting to break, if one terminal breaks the user can move to another without so much as a reboot, etc.
If the thinclients were affordable enough I can see home users making the switch too. A single server in the closet, for about the price of each PC they buy now, and for the price of each device they can have access anywhere and to whomever needs it. The kids can each have a cheap device that still lets them do everything they need. Files are easier to share and get backed up automatically. No noisy boxes in the bedrooms gathering dust. My Roku was $80. If it could share a desktop and games as well as on demand tv I think parents would be getting a great deal. If Ncomputing's package can be had for $30 and replace the existing CPU it might not even make the device cost more. VMWare is a bit pricey for home use but there are several opensource alternatives that could easily deliver for the home market.
This is more of a thinclient for running as a VM client. Much more interesting than simply running Windows I think. The real question is if the CPU costs $20 and $10 more in parts are needed then how much extra would it cost to make this into a stand-alone thinclient that can run as a VM client? $100 per seat would be a pretty good price for businesses.
Better yet, I'd love to see it built into monitors so you could plug network, keyboard, and mouse into the monitor with the actual computer being optional.
I wouldn't say that dressing like a slut makes a man rape a woman but there is something to be said about the wisdom of dressing like bait. At some level men are wired in hardware to respond. With enough pushing and not enough outlet most men would eventually lose control.
I think porn is an outlet though. I'd rather some sicko wack off than go molest a kid. I think that is part of the reason there are so many problems among Catholic priests. With no outlet for years eventually people lose their ability to reason clearly. Better to let them marry and have a healthy outlet for those needs.
Only an idiot would pay for porn because EVERYTHING is available on the Internet for free. If anything decriminalizing procession would kill the market for it. Brought into the open it'd be easier for cops to find and get rid of the bastards producing this crap.
I don't know if I buy that. I always hear that looking at porn of any kind makes men cheat on their wives, rape every girl they meet, and masturbate six times a day. I'd guess that the majority of men have looked at porn at some point and very few of them have became sex maniacs. If anything I'd say that limited access to porn keeps them from becoming sex maniacs. If I'm into bondage porn it doesn't mean that in twenty years I'll have women chained in my basement.
There is a right to create spoofs. So it probably doesn't count despite that being one of the lies constantly used to keep Steamboat Willie from ever coming out of copyright.
And it creates a lot of dubious laws that impact the rest of us. Because some perv rapes little girls they make it a crime to look at pictures of naked children. Next thing we know we're worried about if seeing an anime show is considered child porn. Or what if I take a photo of my child in the bath? Is that child porn? What if I'm 18 and marry my 16 yo sweetheart, with her parents permission, and we take a photo on our wedding night?
What an idiot. The iPad will do well for exactly the reason that it is an iPod Touch. It just has a bigger screen. That is why I spent $900 for a 64GB 3G version but won't spend the same for a full-blown PC tablet.
They gave me a taxpayer ID but it didn't help. Then they told me not to use it and keep filing as normal. I've considered a new SSN but IMO my SSN is like my name and I shouldn't have to change it because the IRS is retarded.
I reduced my withholding. They sent me a bill and threatened me.
One of the customer support agents I recently talked to said they have a problem with typos being flagged as identity theft too and forever causing trouble afterwards.
I think they should stop wasting resources hunting pervs that look at the stuff and spend time hunting the predators that actually produce the stuff. It gets especially silly when they want to arrest someone for looking at cartoon porn - who is the victim? Or my biggest gripes is that they are harassing kids for taking pictures of themselves and sharing them. So they are self-victimizing and we need to give them a felony and register them as a sex offender instead of just telling their parents? I had a girlfriend when I was a teenager and we did more than hold hands and *gasp* there were provocative photos sometimes. Guess I'd better turn myself in.
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I frequently use my iPod Touch to access movies. It works pretty well although the interface is not what I expect from Apple. Slightly better than using a laptop in that it's very portable. Archos looks like it may be well suited to the task if you don't mind Android.
Roku works pretty well for streaming media. Just recently they've started allowing open access to creating your own channels. I have one that lets me access my videos and music on my NAS (has a web server built-in) or laptops. I've been toying with making a channel that gives me access to Hulu until they get around to making their own channel. If you are a programmer you can do alot with this little $80 box.
In my experience the one you want is the one that can read cryptic undocumented code and third party un-documentation. Math comes in handy sometimes but is frequently very domain driven and can be picked up as easily as picking up the rest of the data structures and algorithms needed for the task. Somebody that can figure out that when interfacing to a complex proprietary third party system the docs say to do X but really you need to do Y is more useful. Not that the two skill sets are exclusive.
After you farm, or zoo, or mafia, together you just wanna get down in the barn together.
My wife is on my buddy list. Does that count? And no STDs.
I think it's less about competing than about the customer experience. Not as if they make money from their built-in apps whereas they do if a 'competitor' sells an app. Studies have shown that most consumers prefer fewer choices.
If anything I think they should block more from the App Store as it's got to much crap making it hard to find the good content. Not nearly as bad as Android but still a lot of noise in the system. At least they should have a feature to only show apps with a good rating by a considerable number of users.
They'd have to offer some reason to choose Opera over Safari. As Safari already does a good job of rendering pages it'd have to be features. Maybe better prediction of what I want in text fields.
If you only needed one desktop. Even the non-geek people I know tend to have four or five PCs in their house these days not even counting all the other computing devices floating around.
If you ran a one-to-one configuration it'd make little sense to use virtualization. Most people have a lot more than one computer these days though. And you don't need any Microsoft server products at all. You'd have to pay for your normal license for your OS at the most. Nobody in their right mind would run off a cloud service over home broadband. Gaming would be just fine I think as all the data that need be transferred is pure inputs and video/audio back - very easy to do over a LAN. Something like wireless display is certainly proof that gaming is viable. For one-to-one a laptop works better but for more than one user a single server quickly becomes cheaper and easier. A full PC, albeit cheap, still suffer the problems of a full PC.
It sounds as if your biggest issue is that Microsoft sucks and will do whatever they can do make it expensive to go to a good thin client setup. I still think it's no more expensive than any other way to buy a copy of Windows though.
The home is quickly reaching the point when people can't take care of their own computing needs. A computer for mom, a computer for dad, and one for each of the three kids, probably a couple smart phones mixed in, a game console or two, and soon smart televisions and other appliances will be common. (I just counted what I have online on my home network - 8 devices just this moment.) Managing that is a mess most people can't handle. Devices running light OSs that are managed and empowered from a local server will help just as it does in the workplace.
Less than you'd pay for a physical box running the same software. At least you're not paying for licenses for machines that sit idle most of the time.
PCs are expensive and not reliable. It's much easier for there to be a server that runs all your (business or even home) desktops and centralize management and make the clients a lot cheaper. With a simple OS like Android, ChromeOS, or iPhone OS offering basic features directly and access to a hosted desktop when you need more you can make things cheaper, more flexible, and more reliable.
We use virtualization for our servers already and a few desktops and have been considering all desktops if we can find a cheap enough thinclient box. For a business it's really a big win because user desktops are easy to upgrade, revert in case of problems, backup, etc. 90% of the resources aren't constantly wasted, there aren't hundreds of dusty boxes waiting to break, if one terminal breaks the user can move to another without so much as a reboot, etc.
If the thinclients were affordable enough I can see home users making the switch too. A single server in the closet, for about the price of each PC they buy now, and for the price of each device they can have access anywhere and to whomever needs it. The kids can each have a cheap device that still lets them do everything they need. Files are easier to share and get backed up automatically. No noisy boxes in the bedrooms gathering dust. My Roku was $80. If it could share a desktop and games as well as on demand tv I think parents would be getting a great deal. If Ncomputing's package can be had for $30 and replace the existing CPU it might not even make the device cost more. VMWare is a bit pricey for home use but there are several opensource alternatives that could easily deliver for the home market.
You can build a micro-itx pc for $30 now?
This is more of a thinclient for running as a VM client. Much more interesting than simply running Windows I think. The real question is if the CPU costs $20 and $10 more in parts are needed then how much extra would it cost to make this into a stand-alone thinclient that can run as a VM client? $100 per seat would be a pretty good price for businesses.
Better yet, I'd love to see it built into monitors so you could plug network, keyboard, and mouse into the monitor with the actual computer being optional.
I wouldn't say that dressing like a slut makes a man rape a woman but there is something to be said about the wisdom of dressing like bait. At some level men are wired in hardware to respond. With enough pushing and not enough outlet most men would eventually lose control.
I think porn is an outlet though. I'd rather some sicko wack off than go molest a kid. I think that is part of the reason there are so many problems among Catholic priests. With no outlet for years eventually people lose their ability to reason clearly. Better to let them marry and have a healthy outlet for those needs.
Only an idiot would pay for porn because EVERYTHING is available on the Internet for free. If anything decriminalizing procession would kill the market for it. Brought into the open it'd be easier for cops to find and get rid of the bastards producing this crap.
I don't know if I buy that. I always hear that looking at porn of any kind makes men cheat on their wives, rape every girl they meet, and masturbate six times a day. I'd guess that the majority of men have looked at porn at some point and very few of them have became sex maniacs. If anything I'd say that limited access to porn keeps them from becoming sex maniacs. If I'm into bondage porn it doesn't mean that in twenty years I'll have women chained in my basement.
There is a right to create spoofs. So it probably doesn't count despite that being one of the lies constantly used to keep Steamboat Willie from ever coming out of copyright.
And it creates a lot of dubious laws that impact the rest of us. Because some perv rapes little girls they make it a crime to look at pictures of naked children. Next thing we know we're worried about if seeing an anime show is considered child porn. Or what if I take a photo of my child in the bath? Is that child porn? What if I'm 18 and marry my 16 yo sweetheart, with her parents permission, and we take a photo on our wedding night?
Enough to make you consider a change of religion huh?
Sadly I've recently worked for a place still using Xenix as their main computing platform. I was a bit amused.
What an idiot. The iPad will do well for exactly the reason that it is an iPod Touch. It just has a bigger screen. That is why I spent $900 for a 64GB 3G version but won't spend the same for a full-blown PC tablet.
Then they should bust him on that. Being guilty of one thing and busted for another is a bad practice too I think.
They gave me a taxpayer ID but it didn't help. Then they told me not to use it and keep filing as normal. I've considered a new SSN but IMO my SSN is like my name and I shouldn't have to change it because the IRS is retarded.
I reduced my withholding. They sent me a bill and threatened me.
One of the customer support agents I recently talked to said they have a problem with typos being flagged as identity theft too and forever causing trouble afterwards.
I think they should stop wasting resources hunting pervs that look at the stuff and spend time hunting the predators that actually produce the stuff. It gets especially silly when they want to arrest someone for looking at cartoon porn - who is the victim? Or my biggest gripes is that they are harassing kids for taking pictures of themselves and sharing them. So they are self-victimizing and we need to give them a felony and register them as a sex offender instead of just telling their parents? I had a girlfriend when I was a teenager and we did more than hold hands and *gasp* there were provocative photos sometimes. Guess I'd better turn myself in.
Intelligent law that doesn't give in to "but it's for the children" bullshit. I'm moving to Canada.