I don't know how good their selection was but if they're anything like Best Buy they probably failed there too (I don't need 3000 square feet of CDs; this is a bloody electronics shop, not a record shop!). Other B&Ms will all go the same way unless they wise up and start using their differentiators to win business.
My local Best Buy actually sells paperback books. Not technical manuals, but regular old fiction and non-fiction books. Two rows worth next to the refrigerators.
The "iphone" frankly has a poor feature set, and oh yes -- it is not a flip phone. The japanese love their flip phones from everything I've read.
Isn't this also the case in the US? I seem to recall Nokia having to produce more phones in the flip form factor due to the American preference. Must be the Star Trek Communicator influence... or Americans just can't be bothered with keypad locks or are concerned that the screen will be damaged.
Wow... I had no idea windows mobile apps were so expensive! I just got a touch recently and have about 20 apps installed on it, all but three of which were free. The three I bought were $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99. The most expensive app I saw while browsing was an incredible VNC client that does everything plus makes breakfast, for $24.99. over 1/2 the apps in the above list are more expensive than that.
Does MS get some insane cut on the apps or what? Why are they so incredibly more expensive?
They receive no such cut, WM is an open platform. Besides, any decent Smartphone comes with most of the above apps already pre-installed. Just about every device maker now installs a "real" web browser too. Even comes with a Flash plug-in.
Being an original iPhone adopter from the U.S. I'd say it's strength isn't in its features, but in its usability. As stated 1000 times, the iPhone interface, much like the MacOS interface, is beyond any of its competitors, at least in the U.S. Intuitive, smooth, with good feedback (though not tactile -- and I've taken to sighing when I hear the tappity-tap of a blackberry user in a theater or classroom compared to the silent keyboard of the iPhone).
Its likely because prior to the iPhone, smart phones in the US were a niche product used by business folk and tech heads. Also the "walled garden" ecosystem is pretty well established in the cell phone industry here (BREW & Verizon Wireless) and generally accepted as the norm. Outside of the US, folks were already accustomed to open devices being able to load custom software, multitask, send and receive MMS messages and *gasp* cut and paste text between applications. Try finding a "crippled" phone like the infamous Verizon version of the Motorola v710 in Europe and Japan. They likely view the iPhone in a similar light.
I don't think any OS has completely solve the problem of user feedback.
Agreed. It only going to get worse on touch screen devices. I have already noticed the haptic feedback (vibration in this case) not always activating on my Windows Mobile phone when I tap an icon or control.
Seriously, this is the #1 annoyance for me when roaming in stupid user land... if you click something, and your computer slows down or freezes up... don't click it again until the first request resolves.
It doesn't help that Windows doesn't really give the user any feedback that they successfully double-clicked the icon. Mac OS X gives that feedback with an animation of the icon enlarging.
To my dismay, they didn't add the Classic style Start Menu back in.... yet. I can't be the only one complaining that it went missing. At least give the option of the XP style Start Menu. The way the Vista style "Programs" menu with the scrolling remains clunky, slow and cumbersome.
Yes, I have already submitted feedback regarding its removal. Oddly the Classic theme remains in 7, I thought MS was killing that one off finally. I guess the sys admins won out on that one. Too bad you loose all the nice Aero Glass features with it (Alt+tab and taskbar window thumbnails).
I've always wondered how so many machines were getting hit with the Vundo trojan even though the user was only browsing "safe" websites in Firefox. Its likely because many of the major ad providers are running "poisoned" ads. Ad-block Plus is surprisingly effective against this one attack vector.
I think the i860 (or i960?) powers the HP Laserjet 4MP sitting on my desk right now. I remember taking one of these printers apart and seeing that oddball intel chip and wondering "What the heck is that?"
You may want to consider StyleTap then. A full PalmOS 5 emulator for Windows Mobile and Symbian. They seem interested in porting it to the Palm Pre and iPhone as well.
http://www.styletap.com/
My Samsung Omnia SCH-i910 came with a breakout cable that allows a headset and two other devices using the Samsung plug to be connected to the phone (charger, USB cable, video out adapter).
You may be interested in the Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1 then. Its smaller, has a built in keyboard and can be spec'ed with the same optional hardware. I had one for evaluation at work and it was pretty slick.
The downside this all illustrates, beyond any doubt, is that ICANN does not and can not work in its present format.
And that wasn't apparent during the whole Registerfly debacle? They really had no clue what to do if a registrar failed, kinda pathetic when such administrative matters were the whole reason the agency was created. Meanwhile they still have their lavish meetings all over the place, which I'm sure aren't cheap affairs. Gotta love those "profitable" non-profits that never seem to actually do something, how American.
If you happen to have Verizon Fios or any other FTTH, this doesn't apply as fiber doesn't carry electric like copper does. They install a UPS for the fiber network terminal so you have phone service while the power is out (Internet and TV is turned off to save juice). The battery lasts about 8 hours.
Too bad the local cable company has started to encrypt all their QAM streams (outside the legally required OTA channels). No more watching your neighbor's on demand programming either.
OS/2 1.3 lived on for many years in ATM machines. Unlike Windows 3.1x, it was considered the most rock solid 16 bit OS out there. What did a majority of the machines get replaced with?... oh Windows.
There really isn't a universal system here, unless both parties happen to have an account at the same bank. Even then it isn't straight forward. The best I can do is something like Paypal *shiver*.
Well the check part is anyway. The only time I write a check is to family members that can't be bothered with electronic transactions. I sometimes get checks for holiday gifts of money as well. Other then that, the checkbook sits and collects dust. Most of my transactions are cash (for small amounts) and credit/debit.
Whats interesting is that my particular credit card simply doesn't offer RFID or Smartcard functions even though the same issuing bank offers cards with the functions. I literally would have to open up a new credit card account that includes that feature.
The first Wii my parents bought was a dud. Powered up to a blank screen or garbage video. Even with Nintendo's high level of QC, a few bad eggs slip into the channel. We rolled the dice and returned the unit (since there were none to exchange with), my aunt and uncle 4 states over found one at a store a week later and shipped it up to us. The other problem is finding the popular games. I lucked out finding Mario Kart Wii. Good luck finding Wii Fit though.
Reminds me of every time I took a Scantron test in school. Every class we always used to double-check the graded tests for errors because the teacher didn't trust the machine. Even with today's machines, there are grading errors from time to time.
They can. Anyone can vote via a paper absentee ballot without an excuse in the state. Heck, there are even commercials from the county clerk encouraging you to do it.
During the whole Diebold mess I had this strange feeling my local shiny new e-voting machines were flawed. I miss the old mechanical voting machines with the big red handle that open and closed the curtain. At least I knew the votes were being counted somewhat correctly.
Don't forget SCSI. Just about every removable media drive was commonly available in classic parallel SCSI. (except for LS-120, but EIDE is common enough) At the computer shop I used to work at we had a media machine. Had a Zip, Jaz, EZFlyer, Syquest Sparq, LS-120, 5.25", Bernoulli, and some tape drive. I think we had a Floptical drive somewhere, along with a big old classic Syquest drive for their 44/88MB carts.
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I don't know how good their selection was but if they're anything like Best Buy they probably failed there too (I don't need 3000 square feet of CDs; this is a bloody electronics shop, not a record shop!). Other B&Ms will all go the same way unless they wise up and start using their differentiators to win business.
My local Best Buy actually sells paperback books. Not technical manuals, but regular old fiction and non-fiction books. Two rows worth next to the refrigerators.
15,000 apps, great statistic, but if 14,500 of them are tosh, and the other 500 are hard to find, or not even written...
Or require a jailbreaked iPhone since they are "prohibited" by Apple.
The "iphone" frankly has a poor feature set, and oh yes -- it is not a flip phone. The japanese love their flip phones from everything I've read.
Isn't this also the case in the US? I seem to recall Nokia having to produce more phones in the flip form factor due to the American preference. Must be the Star Trek Communicator influence... or Americans just can't be bothered with keypad locks or are concerned that the screen will be damaged.
Wow... I had no idea windows mobile apps were so expensive! I just got a touch recently and have about 20 apps installed on it, all but three of which were free. The three I bought were $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99. The most expensive app I saw while browsing was an incredible VNC client that does everything plus makes breakfast, for $24.99. over 1/2 the apps in the above list are more expensive than that.
Does MS get some insane cut on the apps or what? Why are they so incredibly more expensive?
They receive no such cut, WM is an open platform. Besides, any decent Smartphone comes with most of the above apps already pre-installed. Just about every device maker now installs a "real" web browser too. Even comes with a Flash plug-in.
Being an original iPhone adopter from the U.S. I'd say it's strength isn't in its features, but in its usability. As stated 1000 times, the iPhone interface, much like the MacOS interface, is beyond any of its competitors, at least in the U.S. Intuitive, smooth, with good feedback (though not tactile -- and I've taken to sighing when I hear the tappity-tap of a blackberry user in a theater or classroom compared to the silent keyboard of the iPhone).
Its likely because prior to the iPhone, smart phones in the US were a niche product used by business folk and tech heads. Also the "walled garden" ecosystem is pretty well established in the cell phone industry here (BREW & Verizon Wireless) and generally accepted as the norm. Outside of the US, folks were already accustomed to open devices being able to load custom software, multitask, send and receive MMS messages and *gasp* cut and paste text between applications. Try finding a "crippled" phone like the infamous Verizon version of the Motorola v710 in Europe and Japan. They likely view the iPhone in a similar light.
I don't think any OS has completely solve the problem of user feedback.
Agreed. It only going to get worse on touch screen devices. I have already noticed the haptic feedback (vibration in this case) not always activating on my Windows Mobile phone when I tap an icon or control.
Seriously, this is the #1 annoyance for me when roaming in stupid user land... if you click something, and your computer slows down or freezes up... don't click it again until the first request resolves.
It doesn't help that Windows doesn't really give the user any feedback that they successfully double-clicked the icon. Mac OS X gives that feedback with an animation of the icon enlarging.
To my dismay, they didn't add the Classic style Start Menu back in.... yet. I can't be the only one complaining that it went missing. At least give the option of the XP style Start Menu. The way the Vista style "Programs" menu with the scrolling remains clunky, slow and cumbersome.
Yes, I have already submitted feedback regarding its removal. Oddly the Classic theme remains in 7, I thought MS was killing that one off finally. I guess the sys admins won out on that one. Too bad you loose all the nice Aero Glass features with it (Alt+tab and taskbar window thumbnails).
I've always wondered how so many machines were getting hit with the Vundo trojan even though the user was only browsing "safe" websites in Firefox. Its likely because many of the major ad providers are running "poisoned" ads. Ad-block Plus is surprisingly effective against this one attack vector.
I think the i860 (or i960?) powers the HP Laserjet 4MP sitting on my desk right now. I remember taking one of these printers apart and seeing that oddball intel chip and wondering "What the heck is that?"
Skulltrail lives on in the Apple Mac Pro.
You may want to consider StyleTap then. A full PalmOS 5 emulator for Windows Mobile and Symbian. They seem interested in porting it to the Palm Pre and iPhone as well. http://www.styletap.com/
My Samsung Omnia SCH-i910 came with a breakout cable that allows a headset and two other devices using the Samsung plug to be connected to the phone (charger, USB cable, video out adapter).
You may be interested in the Panasonic Toughbook CF-U1 then. Its smaller, has a built in keyboard and can be spec'ed with the same optional hardware. I had one for evaluation at work and it was pretty slick.
http://www.panasonic.com/business/Toughbook/ultra-mobile-rugged-toughbook-u1-umpc.asp
The downside this all illustrates, beyond any doubt, is that ICANN does not and can not work in its present format.
And that wasn't apparent during the whole Registerfly debacle? They really had no clue what to do if a registrar failed, kinda pathetic when such administrative matters were the whole reason the agency was created. Meanwhile they still have their lavish meetings all over the place, which I'm sure aren't cheap affairs. Gotta love those "profitable" non-profits that never seem to actually do something, how American.
If you happen to have Verizon Fios or any other FTTH, this doesn't apply as fiber doesn't carry electric like copper does. They install a UPS for the fiber network terminal so you have phone service while the power is out (Internet and TV is turned off to save juice). The battery lasts about 8 hours.
Too bad the local cable company has started to encrypt all their QAM streams (outside the legally required OTA channels). No more watching your neighbor's on demand programming either.
Didn't XP have a minimum requirement of 64MB? Well, you did need 128MB to actually do something with the OS.
OS/2 1.3 lived on for many years in ATM machines. Unlike Windows 3.1x, it was considered the most rock solid 16 bit OS out there. What did a majority of the machines get replaced with?... oh Windows.
There really isn't a universal system here, unless both parties happen to have an account at the same bank. Even then it isn't straight forward. The best I can do is something like Paypal *shiver*.
Well the check part is anyway. The only time I write a check is to family members that can't be bothered with electronic transactions. I sometimes get checks for holiday gifts of money as well. Other then that, the checkbook sits and collects dust. Most of my transactions are cash (for small amounts) and credit/debit.
Whats interesting is that my particular credit card simply doesn't offer RFID or Smartcard functions even though the same issuing bank offers cards with the functions. I literally would have to open up a new credit card account that includes that feature.
The first Wii my parents bought was a dud. Powered up to a blank screen or garbage video. Even with Nintendo's high level of QC, a few bad eggs slip into the channel. We rolled the dice and returned the unit (since there were none to exchange with), my aunt and uncle 4 states over found one at a store a week later and shipped it up to us. The other problem is finding the popular games. I lucked out finding Mario Kart Wii. Good luck finding Wii Fit though.
Reminds me of every time I took a Scantron test in school. Every class we always used to double-check the graded tests for errors because the teacher didn't trust the machine. Even with today's machines, there are grading errors from time to time.
They can. Anyone can vote via a paper absentee ballot without an excuse in the state. Heck, there are even commercials from the county clerk encouraging you to do it.
During the whole Diebold mess I had this strange feeling my local shiny new e-voting machines were flawed. I miss the old mechanical voting machines with the big red handle that open and closed the curtain. At least I knew the votes were being counted somewhat correctly.
Don't forget SCSI. Just about every removable media drive was commonly available in classic parallel SCSI. (except for LS-120, but EIDE is common enough) At the computer shop I used to work at we had a media machine. Had a Zip, Jaz, EZFlyer, Syquest Sparq, LS-120, 5.25", Bernoulli, and some tape drive. I think we had a Floptical drive somewhere, along with a big old classic Syquest drive for their 44/88MB carts.