Web appliances are wrong on so many counts.
1. They have been a marketing scheme. Rather than sell the devices at fair prices, the vendors have tried to sell the devices at or below cost in the hopes of making a bundle on overpriced, proprietary ISP contracts. Netpliance is the worst example in this arena.
Agreed. Except for 3com, whose Audrey could connect to any non-proprietary ISP. But they sold for $550. [Side note: you can get them now for <$100 on eBay]
1a. You can't sell them at a profit because they cost $400 or so to manufacture. What little-old-computer-phobic-lady is going to plunk down $600 or more for something that she doesn't really understand or know if she needs?
I agree wholeheartedly. Even I have questioned whether anyone "needs" one. You don't realize their utility until you have one. Not having to boot something to get a quick news/weather/email fix is really quite nice. Of course, computer-phobic people are more likely to just use a TV until they are just as easy to use as a TV. And quite frankly, most of them aren't. 3com got close with the Audrey, with its channels dial and all. But the initial setup experience is a bit more like setting up a high-end VCR, which is scary enough for computer-phobics.
2. The vendors try to peddle them to people that are put-off by computers. So how do they do this? By selling them in the computer sections of Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. Yeah, that's where I expect to find computer-phobic older people shopping.
Now this is right on the mark! What were they THINKING?!
3. The computer-illiterate audience to which Internet appliances appeal means that a vendor is looking at tremendously high support costs. Sure, they dumbed down the OS, but it's still a completely mysterious thing to many older users. "Your machine broke my telephone! People call me and get a busy signal I'm not talking to anyone..."
Probably true. But with as stupid as the front-line PC support people are, I think the PC support lines must get more than their share of similar questions.
4. Their proprietary OSs and browsers have just about guaranteed that they would perpetually be playing catch-up. Try running a copy of Netscape 1.0 and surf to some modern websites. It's basically useless. Sony was smart enough to recognize that, without active development, BeIA would be just as worthless in a few years. I think that it's unlikely that QNX (the other major player in the Internet Appliance OS market) is going to have the development budget to keep up with Apple, Realplayer, Macromedia, Microsoft, etc. when it comes to releasing browser plug-ins. Thus, many web pages will not work on these devices.
This is where I disagree. Let me use the Audrey again as an example, only because I have one and have played with it. I would say that it doesn't have to keep up with the IE plugins and such as long as it keeps up with the widespread standards. However, the built-in browser understands realaudio and Macromedia Flash, and well as javascript and CSS. It is amazing to see how well it renders a wide variety of pages. And this is the kicker: it automatically updated itself over the internet. Seamlessly. No users having to worry about upgrading their plugins, etc.
5. There is no growth path. None of the Internet appliance manufacturers have offered hard drives, word processing, spreadhsheet software, etc. for users that want to move beyond e-mail and the web. This makes many computer-savvy people hesitant to recommend these devices to family and friends.
Computer-savvy people (myself included) have trouble seeing the value in anything less flexible than a computer. But sometimes that's what people really need.
After playing with the Audrey, I started realizing that it would be perfect for certain people. For example, my grandmother. Right now she has a PC with AOL for email (and uses it all the time but has to ask for help when something unusual happens like a dialog box appears that she doesn't understand) and a Kodak PictureFrame that we send pictures to because she can never figure out how to view the ones we send in email. The Audrey could easily replace both and be easier for her to use. And cheaper to replace AOL and Storybox (Kodak's Pictureframe service) with a standards-based ISP.
Can you provide a spec for creating the "Channels"? And the location of the URLs/icons in the QNX image?
I'd like to use the Audrey as a home automation controller, and have my home web server serve up channels for "lights", "HVAC", "Audio", etc. It would seem such a waste not to be able to use the channel knob.
We dropped Perl for VB half way through a new web internet project with on a microsoft server. Performance reasons were the real issue with too many spawned processes using perl.
You're not comparing apples with apples here. You're comparing CGI with persistent interpreter. You can write CGI apps with VB and they'd be just as slow as Perl. On the other hand, you can use a persistent perl interpreter (mod_perl for Apache or PerlEx for IIS) and achieve speeds at least as fast as a VB dll. (OK, perl enthusiasts, I know mod_perl has benchmarked faster, but not so much as to be statistically significant)
This site, among many other large sites, can handle all its traffic quickly because of mod_perl.
I've been in two situations where we had two separate developers, a VB and a Perl developer, work on the exact same project in the interest of getting it done as quickly as possible. (Disclosure: I was the Perl developer:-)
Perl won, by a longshot. Both in time and in size. But I can't take complete credit. Thanks to CPAN, everything you've ever wanted to do has been made into a module. All you have to do is load the module, initiate some objects, call a few methods, and you're done! Not that I tell the VB developers that.:-)
Yep, if you actually want to be fucked up, the best remains AMS
Care to explain the obvious discrepancy between your comment and the fact that Fortune Magazine rated it as one of the best places to work? Their ranking is based on employee opinions, by the way.
First off, ask yourself - is there really a need for a large, graphical touchscreen for most applications?
Here's what I have in mind:
Total light control from a map of the house. This is far more intuitive than a big row of buttons labeled "hall light 1", "hall light 2", "Bedroom #2 light", etc.
A general-purpose info screen with weather, temperature, email status, perhaps even things like top news, etc. Like a specialized portal.
The ability to browse an audio library, choose an audio source, and choose the room(s) in which to play it. Preferably allowing more than one source at a time to be playing in different rooms. And control one of these. I haven't looked into it yet, probably needs some sort of massive multiplexer in the central data closet.
The ability to choose a video source (i.e. from the front porch camera) and display it on the panel.
Now, if I want to do the above, do I have any other alternative than a PC touchscreen?
Interesting. I was aware of ClearCube's product line, where they have rack-mount PCs and a patented method of putting KVM and audio over cat5 cable, but I didn't know about the cybex product.
[AOLserver praise snipped] Geez what ELSE could you ask for?
mod_perl?
mod_rewrite?
AOLserver may be great, but apache happens to be what I know. I use apache-specific features, and I'd need to figure out how to get them to work in AOLserver. Or run both, having AOLserver on a different host or port. All in all, I decided that the tradeoff (what I'd gain with aD versus what I'd lose in time, maintenance, or functionality) just wasn't worth it. YMMV.
The problem is that ACS is written in TCL which is easy enough to learn but with CPAN and PHP-PEAR others have already built reusable components so it seems Ars doesn't have
the advantage that it had before.
The biggest disadvantage (IMHO) is that it requires AOLServer. Using the apache web server is not an option. That squelched my interest in it real quick.
Pick a common name that is NOT a valid user on your system (perhaps Aaron, since that may be one of the first they try). Set up a filter that blocks the sender of any mail to that name.
They're after cold hard cash. If developers seek appreciation they ususally ask to be sent a postcard or a bottle of beer etc. This is just plain saying "We work for free but we're not gonna survive if you don't give us your dosh so pick up that wallet and support our commune. This is different from a few hackers trying to get kudos. This is a struggling business trying to sustain itself on an unrealistic business plan.
Wrong... they're not asking for money. Did you actually follow the link before posting your troll? They're giving you the opportunity to support the open-source project of your choice.
I just saw 8.0RC1 yesterday on the mirrors and burned the ISOs. Is there any difference between that and the final release? Since there is only a one-day difference, I can't imagine it would be much if anything.
Slashdot Mirror
How about BrainTurbulence :)
How about "GaAs Valley". Except that it already describes L.A.
1. They have been a marketing scheme. Rather than sell the devices at fair prices, the vendors have tried to sell the devices at or below cost in the hopes of making a bundle on overpriced, proprietary ISP contracts. Netpliance is the worst example in this arena.
Agreed. Except for 3com, whose Audrey could connect to any non-proprietary ISP. But they sold for $550. [Side note: you can get them now for <$100 on eBay]
1a. You can't sell them at a profit because they cost $400 or so to manufacture. What little-old-computer-phobic-lady is going to plunk down $600 or more for something that she doesn't really understand or know if she needs?
I agree wholeheartedly. Even I have questioned whether anyone "needs" one. You don't realize their utility until you have one. Not having to boot something to get a quick news/weather/email fix is really quite nice. Of course, computer-phobic people are more likely to just use a TV until they are just as easy to use as a TV. And quite frankly, most of them aren't. 3com got close with the Audrey, with its channels dial and all. But the initial setup experience is a bit more like setting up a high-end VCR, which is scary enough for computer-phobics.
2. The vendors try to peddle them to people that are put-off by computers. So how do they do this? By selling them in the computer sections of Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. Yeah, that's where I expect to find computer-phobic older people shopping.
Now this is right on the mark! What were they THINKING?!
3. The computer-illiterate audience to which Internet appliances appeal means that a vendor is looking at tremendously high support costs. Sure, they dumbed down the OS, but it's still a completely mysterious thing to many older users. "Your machine broke my telephone! People call me and get a busy signal I'm not talking to anyone..."
Probably true. But with as stupid as the front-line PC support people are, I think the PC support lines must get more than their share of similar questions.
4. Their proprietary OSs and browsers have just about guaranteed that they would perpetually be playing catch-up. Try running a copy of Netscape 1.0 and surf to some modern websites. It's basically useless. Sony was smart enough to recognize that, without active development, BeIA would be just as worthless in a few years. I think that it's unlikely that QNX (the other major player in the Internet Appliance OS market) is going to have the development budget to keep up with Apple, Realplayer, Macromedia, Microsoft, etc. when it comes to releasing browser plug-ins. Thus, many web pages will not work on these devices.This is where I disagree. Let me use the Audrey again as an example, only because I have one and have played with it. I would say that it doesn't have to keep up with the IE plugins and such as long as it keeps up with the widespread standards. However, the built-in browser understands realaudio and Macromedia Flash, and well as javascript and CSS. It is amazing to see how well it renders a wide variety of pages. And this is the kicker: it automatically updated itself over the internet. Seamlessly. No users having to worry about upgrading their plugins, etc.
5. There is no growth path. None of the Internet appliance manufacturers have offered hard drives, word processing, spreadhsheet software, etc. for users that want to move beyond e-mail and the web. This makes many computer-savvy people hesitant to recommend these devices to family and friends.
Computer-savvy people (myself included) have trouble seeing the value in anything less flexible than a computer. But sometimes that's what people really need.
After playing with the Audrey, I started realizing that it would be perfect for certain people. For example, my grandmother. Right now she has a PC with AOL for email (and uses it all the time but has to ask for help when something unusual happens like a dialog box appears that she doesn't understand) and a Kodak PictureFrame that we send pictures to because she can never figure out how to view the ones we send in email. The Audrey could easily replace both and be easier for her to use. And cheaper to replace AOL and Storybox (Kodak's Pictureframe service) with a standards-based ISP.
You're both right. MS picks up its hardball tactics from every other company that has ever successfully used them.
MS is also actively inventing new hardball tactics--why do you think their R&D budget is so big?
I'd like to use the Audrey as a home automation controller, and have my home web server serve up channels for "lights", "HVAC", "Audio", etc. It would seem such a waste not to be able to use the channel knob.
Getting rid of SAMBA... not a bad idea. While they're at it, they should get rid of COUNTRY and DISCO.
Of course, Media Metrix is treating every ad display as a page view, which really makes the statistics misleading.
I know... let's start a new series of books. Let's call it the "clamshell" series. We can have
Red Hat in a Clamshell
Mandrake in a Clamshell
Debian in a Clamshell
Slackware in a Clamshell
Turbolinux in a Clamshell
LinuxPPC in a Clamshell
Ooh, and on the covers we can feature different species of... plants.
You forgot the most important of all... :-)
No "I'm feeling Lucky" button!
Here's a source for AV racks, many different sizes, for decent prices: http://www.smarthome.com/racksys.html
Here's a couple:
http://www.my-siemens.com/MySiemens/CDA/Standard/http://hcpretail.honeywell.com/hcp_store/catalog/
There are many others under development.
http://www.galleo.com/http://www.palmaxtech.com/specswp.htm
http://www.fica.com/products/ia/Aqua3400/FICAqua3
http://www.frontpath.com/pro_home.htm
http://www.national.com/appinfo/solutions/0,2062,
http://www.national.com/appinfo/solutions/0,2062,
http://www.hntek.com/english/product_00201.html
http://www.transmetazone.com/articleview.cfm?arti
http://www.transmetazone.com/articleview.cfm?arti
http://elife2.acer.com.tw/webpad.htm
Iomega is so excited about this evolution of the Jaz drive. I think a more appropriate name would be Iomega Jiz.
You're not comparing apples with apples here. You're comparing CGI with persistent interpreter. You can write CGI apps with VB and they'd be just as slow as Perl. On the other hand, you can use a persistent perl interpreter (mod_perl for Apache or PerlEx for IIS) and achieve speeds at least as fast as a VB dll. (OK, perl enthusiasts, I know mod_perl has benchmarked faster, but not so much as to be statistically significant)
This site, among many other large sites, can handle all its traffic quickly because of mod_perl.
-bp
I've been in two situations where we had two separate developers, a VB and a Perl developer, work on the exact same project in the interest of getting it done as quickly as possible. (Disclosure: I was the Perl developer :-)
Perl won, by a longshot. Both in time and in size. But I can't take complete credit. Thanks to CPAN, everything you've ever wanted to do has been made into a module. All you have to do is load the module, initiate some objects, call a few methods, and you're done! Not that I tell the VB developers that. :-)
Care to explain the obvious discrepancy between your comment and the fact that Fortune Magazine rated it as one of the best places to work? Their ranking is based on employee opinions, by the way.
Just curious.
...they're gonna call it C##
Here's what I have in mind:
- Total light control from a map of the house. This is far more intuitive than a big row of buttons labeled "hall light 1", "hall light 2", "Bedroom #2 light", etc.
- A general-purpose info screen with weather, temperature, email status, perhaps even things like top news, etc. Like a specialized portal.
- The ability to browse an audio library, choose an audio source, and choose the room(s) in which to play it. Preferably allowing more than one source at a time to be playing in different rooms. And control one of these. I haven't looked into it yet, probably needs some sort of massive multiplexer in the central data closet.
- The ability to choose a video source (i.e. from the front porch camera) and display it on the panel.
Now, if I want to do the above, do I have any other alternative than a PC touchscreen?Yes, I was thinking about doing the X-Terminal thing. I could use Flash ROM to store a minimal OS and a browser.
Interesting. I was aware of ClearCube's product line, where they have rack-mount PCs and a patented method of putting KVM and audio over cat5 cable, but I didn't know about the cybex product.
Geez what ELSE could you ask for?
mod_perl? mod_rewrite?
AOLserver may be great, but apache happens to be what I know. I use apache-specific features, and I'd need to figure out how to get them to work in AOLserver. Or run both, having AOLserver on a different host or port. All in all, I decided that the tradeoff (what I'd gain with aD versus what I'd lose in time, maintenance, or functionality) just wasn't worth it. YMMV.
The biggest disadvantage (IMHO) is that it requires AOLServer. Using the apache web server is not an option. That squelched my interest in it real quick.
Pick a common name that is NOT a valid user on your system (perhaps Aaron, since that may be one of the first they try). Set up a filter that blocks the sender of any mail to that name.
Wrong... they're not asking for money. Did you actually follow the link before posting your troll? They're giving you the opportunity to support the open-source project of your choice.
I just saw 8.0RC1 yesterday on the mirrors and burned the ISOs. Is there any difference between that and the final release? Since there is only a one-day difference, I can't imagine it would be much if anything.