Flamebait, but what the hell..
on
Portable GameCube
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I used to work for InterAct Accessories, Inc.
First off, let me tell you that Interact has a very close business relationship with IGN. IGN/Snowball now hosts their website. In turn GameShark provides them exclusive codes, and other perks. So I don't trust this review very well to begin with.
I no longer work for them now, but I can tell you this, InterAct products are not of good quality. In fact InterAct makes no actual products. They are outsourced from two major companies, one, STD based in China, and Datel based in the UK. Datel makes semi-decent products (eg, GameShark), but STD makes shit products. For example, STD produced a Lightgun for the Dreamcast, not only was the Lightgun made of poor housing materials, but the aim wasn't accurate. It would shoot about an inch to the upper left of where you actually were targetting. When Interact gave STD a call to ask what was up about the lightguns, STD's response was merely, "Sorry, we're not very good at making lightguns." I'm glad I didn't work in customer service, because they god a beating all the time. Nintendo 64 GameSharks will fry randomly. Interact really didn't bother pressure Datel to figure out why, and just kept making them.
Secondly, InterAct/Datel has violated the GPL multiple times. Anyone that's listening, the GameShark that was produced for the PC (another horrible product, and has been discontinued), includes an MP3 player. The MP3 player is not of their own creation, but merely a hacked up version of FreeAmp, which they sold and never released the source too. As you can see I have a lot of greif with this company, so my views are a bit slanted myself;) In conclusion, I wouldn't purchase this product, it's most likely produced by STD, and will probably break for you in the not so near future.
If you want to kill whats left of "dot coms" and online commerce, begin taxing it nationwide. I usually can find certain things online cheaper than in a store even with shipping figured in, however if you add tax it's going to be nearly the same, or more. So it'll just be worth going and getting it and having it "now", so yeah, they need to get their act together and instate the extension.
Lets not forget more than 5 years, a multimillion corporation and paid employees to only get half of what KDE has done with no corporation, and mostly free volunteer work.
3 simple words that describe Farscape. I don't think I've seen a Scifi show ever that is like Farscape. ST:TNG was good, but it was never as interesting as Farscape. I think it's partly because everyone can relate to John Crichton. Just a semi-regular guy who was in the space industry sucked into a wormhole and into the middle of another part of the universe. Completely stupidified by everything. It makes you think man what is he going to find out next. And it's the simple stuff, like the second episode of the series he finds out how the people he's with brush their teeth. There are plenty of unanswered questions, like why do Peace Keepers look so much like humans, why is Jool's DNA related to Crichton's, ton's of stuff. They haven't even really elborated on the characters in the show very much at all. Mostly basic stuff and a little extra here and there, there are worlds of ideas and topics they've yet to cover, and thats what makes this show so good and fresh in my opinion. Now I'll click Submit and check back for a fresh amount of flames because I said it was better than ST:TNG.
Funny, they don't seem to mention all the other Windows based Web Hosting or Internet companies going out of business, the Windows driven DSL companies going out of business, or RedHat, one of the largest supporters of Linux, actually turning a profit when all other companies including IBM were losing money. But yeah those obscure companies they mention that just so happened to use Open Source software in their business, yeah it's the software's fault, not bad management.
You know, if thats what makes someone happy, purchasing virtual items, then why shouldn't we let them purchase virtual items. I buy lots of Legos and I'm a big fish guy, I spend 1000's of dollars on these things a year. Lots of people think I'm stupid for it, but you know what, thats what I like in life, I enjoy it and it makes me happy, thats what its all about.
The only problem I see is the fact that you can win at something because you have lots of money. But you know what, isn't that what the real world is anyway? I think Microsoft used this tactic, and someone by the name of my favorite breakfast juice...
It's half right to say we should engineer software like we engineer physical aspects of our lives such as bridges, houses, skyrises, etc.
However.. Bridges, Houses, Skyrises, all are slow moving, slow changed things. House "technology" doesn't suddenly double every 18 months. Otherwise we'd be like the Jetsons with houses into the sky, and talking dogs. Bridges are engineered to last for a very long time, because they do a simple, easy function. They provide land where there is none to travel on.
Software and Hardware however does. If you talk to a lot of software engineers, professors, etc. They'll all usually say not to worry about performance, next years computers will run it twice as fast anyway. This is very true at Microsoft. And its partially correct. Why bother spending a ton of time trying to make something work fast, when during the time you took to make it work fast, chips have doubled in speed?
However I do beleive we need to up the standards because of other issues, not longevity, but security, and functionality. Sloppy code leads to sloppy security. Just install a fresh copy of Windows, you pick a version. Unless you patch it, there are already a handful of security issues. Last time I installed OpenBSD, I don't remember going "I have to hurry up and patch this, and this, and this otherwise I'll get hacked." It's because the OpenBSD development crew beleives in coding properly. They don't audit for security, they audit for proper usage. And thats what we should be striving for. Engineering our software applications, and using the tools to do so, the correct way.
Not Cox@home, but @home in generally. They probe servers for open services. It's rather simple to block, just deny all incoming from @home blocks, or deny all incoming period, and use a stateful firewall. I've got a ton of workstations here going through an OpenBSD machine running squid (I've got a business SDSL aswell, but @home is vastly faster =), so I proxy AIM, Web, FTP, etc. All the media intensive protocols.
Wine is not an emulator it doesn't emulate the x86-windows platform on Linux, Wine translates API calls from Windows into X, thus these results are incorrect.
Because the borders down the street from me has a nice collection of O'Reilly books, not to mention a bazillion other computer books, and I would have hated to have to boycott them.. Best computer bookstore ever. (In my area at least)
I'm glad the article noted that Chapter 11 does not mean you are going out of business. This is often confused. This merely means you are seeking protection from creditors to buy yourself time to re-organize and create a plan to pay back your debt, and become profitable.
In todays market, it's very hard to find funding for a tech business. We can all thank Dotcoms for that with their VC Funded Businesses based on Phantom products.
I personally think Loki will be able to pull through this. I just recently downloaded a bundle of Loki demos for Linux, very impressive. They all worked rather well and with little effort, the installer was a shell script with I think binaries encoded, haven't looked but it loaded a GTK based installer that automatically asked which demos I wanted, and downloaded them accordingly. I was very impressed. I hope their upper management has as much talent as their programmers. They'll surely pull through if this is the case. I think what would be a potentially successful model would be to create a Linux gaming "environment". Basically an environment that superceeds your normal distributions environment. Libraries, Programs, what ever required, then build all the games accordingly. This would help with a lot of cross-distribution incompatibilties and help promote gaming in Linux. Unfortunately Linux was not designed for gaming, and Linux does not own a large share of the desktop market (the market that plays the most games), so they face a very large challenge..
First, you can play Linux Quake 3 without buying another copy of Quake 3. ID provides Linux binaries free to download (or at least used too), all you need is the PC CD/data files.
Second, you obviously have no idea what "free software" means. Often confused, Free as in Freedom. Not as in cost. Surely because of freedom there is no cost of software most of the time, but this is not always true. The only people in the world that truely use Free Software because it costs free are the 17 year old demograph who have no money in the first place. Perhaps you fit into this category?
I've had my Handspring Visor suddenly up and reboot my machine the instant the metal contacts touch the hotsync cradle. I've called Handspring about it only to get a "We'll have to return your call" answer, with no return call of course.
Yeah thats cool except the cdrom/floppy drives are god aweful ugly.
Re:great features, too late
on
Netscape 6.1
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· Score: 2
5.5 beta 2 or something.
Re:great features, too late
on
Netscape 6.1
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· Score: 2, Interesting
IE Already exists for Solaris, in fact I'm running it right now on my Sun Ultra5... Which means Linux is probably around the corner. Whats a better way to compete with Linux than to create products for it? Futher pentrating the market.. Sigh..
YES!!! All I can say is, YES!!!!!. Now all we need is a 4th Back to the Future, which through rumors I hear may be coming.. unfortunately no M. J. Fox:(, and the rest of the Unbreakable trilogy and I will die a happy man.
Your excessive use of swear words only makes your statement more valid. In fact, seeing as you don't even know what "32" features.NET has (somehow you know its 32 though..), and you don't know anything about Mono, you still seem to have an accurate view on how it's going to "remotly" work. Futhermore, you seem to be under the impression.NET is easy to use.. Building and creating.NET applications will be no easier than building and creating Mono applications. The way easy of use comes about is how developers implement those 32 features you keep swearing about. A developer of.NET can just as easily make an application that a Mono developer makes complicated, and vise-versa.
You must also be under the impression that.NET itself is an application, this combined with your amazing ability to spell and use of swear words makes me want to beleive your opinion above that of any other on Slashdot. You sir, deserve a medal.
GPL is merely a license, and not a law. The government would have to find that all "free software" (free being freedom, not money) is illegal.. if I recall, wasn't the US the land of the free?
Unfortunately due to the/. effect I can't read the article.. But I've always had discussions with coworkers on this topic.. Linux has yet to be a user-friendly desktop. And it probably won't be for at least another year. Sure its the desktop of choice for geeks and techheads alike, but imagine installing a fresh copy of Debian on a Pentium, and giving it to your grandmother? Unless you've done a really good job of making sure everything is working, and you show her how to use things, where is she going to start?
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly. It these things that are preventing it from being a true workstation for the masses.
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much.. Once again, the average geek will like this, but most people don't care if they have a telnet server running, in fact its a huge security risk for the average home user.. Considering he'll probably be storing webpage passwords on his machine.. Then there is lack of a good Web Browser, although this will soon be a thing of the past, as I've been using Konqueror myself for months without a problem.. But Netscape bundled by default is horrible.. And then the one topic that is keeping it from being on every machine, is games.. Loki is doing a good job trying to fix that, but even I had trouble getting Quake 3 running properly with a PII 450 and a Voodoo3, It was slow as hell, despite talking with reps at Loki on which Mesa libraries to use and install, only to get a "Well we don't really know" answer.
Then the common answer for people that are struggling with Linux and always asking questions is "RTFM", well guess what, there are people out there that don't want to learn about a computer, but just use it. And futher more, I doubt this person has a book on GNOME, and people trying to learn GNOME aren't going to know GNOME has built in documentation, or what the f*ck is a manpage. I can say the same thing, I don't care about how my Microwave or Toaster works internally, but when I put in leftovers or bread, I expect them to be heated and toasted..
Thats the only thing I give Windows, I can install it for my parents, show them the icon for IE, put a few games on for my Dad, show him the icons, show my mom the "Word" icon, and how to print, and they're set, happy and have little problems.. I only need to teach them when blue screens pop up, or things lock up, press the reset button and start over... and don't get me started in printing in Linux.. sigh.
Wow.. Imagine the Porn Industry..
on
3D w/o Goggles
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· Score: 2
Screw games and desktop apps! This will take the Porn Industry to new levels! The possiblities are endless!
Is it me or are companies getting more stupid by the minute? There is no way these guys are going to win in court. Obviously they're not a very good or big company otherwise they wouldn't be sueing, and even more so I'm sure prior art on this can be found.. and since the prior art is being used by places such as Compaq and HP, it'll actually be brought to attention.. What is it with companies these days? Getting ahead with patents and laws is just low.. I'd like to see their business plan, I'd bet there is actually no real business tactic in it other than sueing companies for infringing on patents.. These companies rank with domain reselling companies in the "Claim legal rights to things someone else should have then sue or license out the ass for such rights"
Well for criminal cases yes, there are free attorneys provided by the state, but thats for criminal charges and things of that nature only.. Civil cases like this one you can't obtain a free lawyer from the government (unfortunately). And lawyers here are ungodly expensive, I was serious when I said put myself into debt for the greater part of the rest of my life, lawyer fees (especially if the case drags out) can top millions.. which is a strategy used by big corporations.. Instead of fighting for whats just, they fight until one side runs out of money.. its sad..
Slashdot Mirror
I used to work for InterAct Accessories, Inc.
;) In conclusion, I wouldn't purchase this product, it's most likely produced by STD, and will probably break for you in the not so near future.
First off, let me tell you that Interact has a very close business relationship with IGN. IGN/Snowball now hosts their website. In turn GameShark provides them exclusive codes, and other perks. So I don't trust this review very well to begin with.
I no longer work for them now, but I can tell you this, InterAct products are not of good quality. In fact InterAct makes no actual products. They are outsourced from two major companies, one, STD based in China, and Datel based in the UK. Datel makes semi-decent products (eg, GameShark), but STD makes shit products. For example, STD produced a Lightgun for the Dreamcast, not only was the Lightgun made of poor housing materials, but the aim wasn't accurate. It would shoot about an inch to the upper left of where you actually were targetting. When Interact gave STD a call to ask what was up about the lightguns, STD's response was merely, "Sorry, we're not very good at making lightguns." I'm glad I didn't work in customer service, because they god a beating all the time. Nintendo 64 GameSharks will fry randomly. Interact really didn't bother pressure Datel to figure out why, and just kept making them.
Secondly, InterAct/Datel has violated the GPL multiple times. Anyone that's listening, the GameShark that was produced for the PC (another horrible product, and has been discontinued), includes an MP3 player. The MP3 player is not of their own creation, but merely a hacked up version of FreeAmp, which they sold and never released the source too. As you can see I have a lot of greif with this company, so my views are a bit slanted myself
If you want to kill whats left of "dot coms" and online commerce, begin taxing it nationwide. I usually can find certain things online cheaper than in a store even with shipping figured in, however if you add tax it's going to be nearly the same, or more. So it'll just be worth going and getting it and having it "now", so yeah, they need to get their act together and instate the extension.
Lets not forget more than 5 years, a multimillion corporation and paid employees to only get half of what KDE has done with no corporation, and mostly free volunteer work.
Quick! Judge an entire show by one episode, I bet you're a hit with the ladies.
3 simple words that describe Farscape. I don't think I've seen a Scifi show ever that is like Farscape. ST:TNG was good, but it was never as interesting as Farscape. I think it's partly because everyone can relate to John Crichton. Just a semi-regular guy who was in the space industry sucked into a wormhole and into the middle of another part of the universe. Completely stupidified by everything. It makes you think man what is he going to find out next. And it's the simple stuff, like the second episode of the series he finds out how the people he's with brush their teeth. There are plenty of unanswered questions, like why do Peace Keepers look so much like humans, why is Jool's DNA related to Crichton's, ton's of stuff. They haven't even really elborated on the characters in the show very much at all. Mostly basic stuff and a little extra here and there, there are worlds of ideas and topics they've yet to cover, and thats what makes this show so good and fresh in my opinion. Now I'll click Submit and check back for a fresh amount of flames because I said it was better than ST:TNG.
Funny, they don't seem to mention all the other Windows based Web Hosting or Internet companies going out of business, the Windows driven DSL companies going out of business, or RedHat, one of the largest supporters of Linux, actually turning a profit when all other companies including IBM were losing money. But yeah those obscure companies they mention that just so happened to use Open Source software in their business, yeah it's the software's fault, not bad management.
You know, if thats what makes someone happy, purchasing virtual items, then why shouldn't we let them purchase virtual items. I buy lots of Legos and I'm a big fish guy, I spend 1000's of dollars on these things a year. Lots of people think I'm stupid for it, but you know what, thats what I like in life, I enjoy it and it makes me happy, thats what its all about.
The only problem I see is the fact that you can win at something because you have lots of money. But you know what, isn't that what the real world is anyway? I think Microsoft used this tactic, and someone by the name of my favorite breakfast juice...
It's half right to say we should engineer software like we engineer physical aspects of our lives such as bridges, houses, skyrises, etc.
However.. Bridges, Houses, Skyrises, all are slow moving, slow changed things. House "technology" doesn't suddenly double every 18 months. Otherwise we'd be like the Jetsons with houses into the sky, and talking dogs. Bridges are engineered to last for a very long time, because they do a simple, easy function. They provide land where there is none to travel on.
Software and Hardware however does. If you talk to a lot of software engineers, professors, etc. They'll all usually say not to worry about performance, next years computers will run it twice as fast anyway. This is very true at Microsoft. And its partially correct. Why bother spending a ton of time trying to make something work fast, when during the time you took to make it work fast, chips have doubled in speed?
However I do beleive we need to up the standards because of other issues, not longevity, but security, and functionality. Sloppy code leads to sloppy security. Just install a fresh copy of Windows, you pick a version. Unless you patch it, there are already a handful of security issues. Last time I installed OpenBSD, I don't remember going "I have to hurry up and patch this, and this, and this otherwise I'll get hacked." It's because the OpenBSD development crew beleives in coding properly. They don't audit for security, they audit for proper usage. And thats what we should be striving for. Engineering our software applications, and using the tools to do so, the correct way.
Not Cox@home, but @home in generally. They probe servers for open services. It's rather simple to block, just deny all incoming from @home blocks, or deny all incoming period, and use a stateful firewall. I've got a ton of workstations here going through an OpenBSD machine running squid (I've got a business SDSL aswell, but @home is vastly faster =), so I proxy AIM, Web, FTP, etc. All the media intensive protocols.
Wine is not an emulator it doesn't emulate the x86-windows platform on Linux, Wine translates API calls from Windows into X, thus these results are incorrect.
Because the borders down the street from me has a nice collection of O'Reilly books, not to mention a bazillion other computer books, and I would have hated to have to boycott them.. Best computer bookstore ever. (In my area at least)
Covad also provides Worldcom/UUNet as well.. Which I have a business connection on.. I'm starting to feel a little sick to my stomach =(
I'm glad the article noted that Chapter 11 does not mean you are going out of business. This is often confused. This merely means you are seeking protection from creditors to buy yourself time to re-organize and create a plan to pay back your debt, and become profitable.
In todays market, it's very hard to find funding for a tech business. We can all thank Dotcoms for that with their VC Funded Businesses based on Phantom products.
I personally think Loki will be able to pull through this. I just recently downloaded a bundle of Loki demos for Linux, very impressive. They all worked rather well and with little effort, the installer was a shell script with I think binaries encoded, haven't looked but it loaded a GTK based installer that automatically asked which demos I wanted, and downloaded them accordingly. I was very impressed. I hope their upper management has as much talent as their programmers. They'll surely pull through if this is the case. I think what would be a potentially successful model would be to create a Linux gaming "environment". Basically an environment that superceeds your normal distributions environment. Libraries, Programs, what ever required, then build all the games accordingly. This would help with a lot of cross-distribution incompatibilties and help promote gaming in Linux. Unfortunately Linux was not designed for gaming, and Linux does not own a large share of the desktop market (the market that plays the most games), so they face a very large challenge..
First, you can play Linux Quake 3 without buying another copy of Quake 3. ID provides Linux binaries free to download (or at least used too), all you need is the PC CD/data files.
Second, you obviously have no idea what "free software" means. Often confused, Free as in Freedom. Not as in cost. Surely because of freedom there is no cost of software most of the time, but this is not always true. The only people in the world that truely use Free Software because it costs free are the 17 year old demograph who have no money in the first place. Perhaps you fit into this category?
I've had my Handspring Visor suddenly up and reboot my machine the instant the metal contacts touch the hotsync cradle. I've called Handspring about it only to get a "We'll have to return your call" answer, with no return call of course.
Yeah thats cool except the cdrom/floppy drives are god aweful ugly.
5.5 beta 2 or something.
IE Already exists for Solaris, in fact I'm running it right now on my Sun Ultra5... Which means Linux is probably around the corner. Whats a better way to compete with Linux than to create products for it? Futher pentrating the market.. Sigh..
YES!!! All I can say is, YES!!!!!. Now all we need is a 4th Back to the Future, which through rumors I hear may be coming.. unfortunately no M. J. Fox :(, and the rest of the Unbreakable trilogy and I will die a happy man.
Your excessive use of swear words only makes your statement more valid. In fact, seeing as you don't even know what "32" features .NET has (somehow you know its 32 though..), and you don't know anything about Mono, you still seem to have an accurate view on how it's going to "remotly" work. Futhermore, you seem to be under the impression .NET is easy to use.. Building and creating .NET applications will be no easier than building and creating Mono applications. The way easy of use comes about is how developers implement those 32 features you keep swearing about. A developer of .NET can just as easily make an application that a Mono developer makes complicated, and vise-versa.
.NET itself is an application, this combined with your amazing ability to spell and use of swear words makes me want to beleive your opinion above that of any other on Slashdot. You sir, deserve a medal.
You must also be under the impression that
GPL is merely a license, and not a law. The government would have to find that all "free software" (free being freedom, not money) is illegal.. if I recall, wasn't the US the land of the free?
Unfortunately due to the /. effect I can't read the article.. But I've always had discussions with coworkers on this topic.. Linux has yet to be a user-friendly desktop. And it probably won't be for at least another year. Sure its the desktop of choice for geeks and techheads alike, but imagine installing a fresh copy of Debian on a Pentium, and giving it to your grandmother? Unless you've done a really good job of making sure everything is working, and you show her how to use things, where is she going to start?
.. and don't get me started in printing in Linux.. sigh.
Obviously she can't call the guys at GNOME for customer support, or the guys at KDE to ask why Konqueror isn't rending a webpage properly. It these things that are preventing it from being a true workstation for the masses.
Not only that, Linux tries to mix Server and Workstation too much.. Once again, the average geek will like this, but most people don't care if they have a telnet server running, in fact its a huge security risk for the average home user.. Considering he'll probably be storing webpage passwords on his machine.. Then there is lack of a good Web Browser, although this will soon be a thing of the past, as I've been using Konqueror myself for months without a problem.. But Netscape bundled by default is horrible.. And then the one topic that is keeping it from being on every machine, is games.. Loki is doing a good job trying to fix that, but even I had trouble getting Quake 3 running properly with a PII 450 and a Voodoo3, It was slow as hell, despite talking with reps at Loki on which Mesa libraries to use and install, only to get a "Well we don't really know" answer.
Then the common answer for people that are struggling with Linux and always asking questions is "RTFM", well guess what, there are people out there that don't want to learn about a computer, but just use it. And futher more, I doubt this person has a book on GNOME, and people trying to learn GNOME aren't going to know GNOME has built in documentation, or what the f*ck is a manpage. I can say the same thing, I don't care about how my Microwave or Toaster works internally, but when I put in leftovers or bread, I expect them to be heated and toasted..
Thats the only thing I give Windows, I can install it for my parents, show them the icon for IE, put a few games on for my Dad, show him the icons, show my mom the "Word" icon, and how to print, and they're set, happy and have little problems.. I only need to teach them when blue screens pop up, or things lock up, press the reset button and start over.
Screw games and desktop apps! This will take the Porn Industry to new levels! The possiblities are endless!
Is it me or are companies getting more stupid by the minute? There is no way these guys are going to win in court. Obviously they're not a very good or big company otherwise they wouldn't be sueing, and even more so I'm sure prior art on this can be found.. and since the prior art is being used by places such as Compaq and HP, it'll actually be brought to attention.. What is it with companies these days? Getting ahead with patents and laws is just low.. I'd like to see their business plan, I'd bet there is actually no real business tactic in it other than sueing companies for infringing on patents.. These companies rank with domain reselling companies in the "Claim legal rights to things someone else should have then sue or license out the ass for such rights"
Well for criminal cases yes, there are free attorneys provided by the state, but thats for criminal charges and things of that nature only.. Civil cases like this one you can't obtain a free lawyer from the government (unfortunately). And lawyers here are ungodly expensive, I was serious when I said put myself into debt for the greater part of the rest of my life, lawyer fees (especially if the case drags out) can top millions.. which is a strategy used by big corporations.. Instead of fighting for whats just, they fight until one side runs out of money.. its sad..