If a MMORPG just had a monthly fee, and a freely distributable/downloadable ISO, their increased sales would more than make up for the loss in revenue associated with ditching a retail box. There should also be a free 7 day trial that automatically converts to a paid account after 7 days. They should use crack dealer marketing: give them a free taste and get them hooked. The Safari free trial is a classic example in my case. After bad experiences with ebooks in the past, I didn't even consider trying Safari when it first came out. 2 months ago I saw a free trial offer, now I plan on keeping my Safari account for a long time to come.
6 months ago everything you heard from MS was about tablet PC's and how they were going revolutionize everyone's computing experience. Maybe MS figured out that not everyone wants to use a stylus with their computer or has a need to work standing up? I wouldn't mind having stylus functionality on my ultraportable laptop screen but the idea that tablets are going to create a whole new mainstream sector of computing is far fetched.
State College, PA had a tiny riot a few years ago in a section of the town that features a dense cluster of apartment buildings catering to students, referred to by some as "Beaver Canyon."
Now, nearly five years after this event with almost no major incidents, the city council approved sticking cameras all over this area. There will be no cameras near residential areas for locals, just cameras for students. The police chief has designated the areas as a problem section and now he will have the legal right to monitor the place with a bunch of cameras.
Using the same mentality other cities could monitor their problem areas and keep a close eye on what the minority population is up to. Personally, I would like to rent a house next to the police chief and stick up 10 AXIS cams covering every inch of his house.
I think the #1 threat to small business in general is complacency. There are lots of small businesses that I see go under. Mostly from the introduction of large chain stores, but I'm sure some took a dent from the Internet, but almost all of them did not do anything visibly different from the previous year when the new competition was nonexistent.
Seattle, The Bay area, and many other cities have community driven, completely free, no sign-up, public AP's using donated bandwidth. I'm sure there are many others too..
Here in State College, PA I usually eat at a locally owned coffee and bagel shop called Irvings or a large regional grocery chain called Wegmans. Both places offer free wifi, the local Starbucks doesn't even offer wifi and if it did you would need to pay ~$6/hr.. If two places are of equal quality, but one offers free access, where would you go?
Why would there be a need to "sign up", if you want to roll out public wifi, put it up and let people know its it up. This may be just for the pilot. but there should be no need for sign ups or authentication systems when they do roll this out. Public wifi has many security risks, running ethereal on a public ap is very scary. Instead of trying to lock it up, just inform people what they need to do to keep their info safe.
You are correct, I don't use itunes or my powerbook on a regular basis, so I ad admit my ignorance when it comes to the nuances of iTunes. I was apple to drag an m4p file to toast with no problems..
Every CD I own (~500) is ripped to 320 kpbs lame mp3 with the CD serving as a backup copy. Maintain your CD's is something that the user has control of, most people have no control over their hard drive crashing. Apparently you can back up to a data CD, but for instance if I bought all my music from Apple I would have to burn 50 data CD's of m4p files to keep it backed up.
If you are paranoid about your hard drive crashing and your songs getting lost, guess what, you can burn a cd of your Apple bought songs.
And do what spent hours reencoding them in to digital files? If it is a mix cd, the cd signature won't register with the CDDB so I will have to manually enter the track information, plus rencoding the track will introduce the possibility for distortion and quality loss.
I've seen a lot of posts that describe Apple's approach to DRM as sensible, which is what I thought too until you look at backups. Guess what happens if you hard drive crashes? You loose all your music! Even though Apple is well aware of what tracks you've purchased, you must pay to re-download any music.
DRM is not sensible if ties you to one vendor or platform. You can only play purchased files on Apple computers and Apple players, unless you want to burn CD's. This is only a sensible approach if you live in a world where all your computing products and mp3 devices are made by Apple, for most of us this is not the case.
The arguement against OGG for compatibility can be used against ACC too. The only player that is compatible with the new service is the ipod, the ipod is perfectly capable of playing OGG, so there is no reason why Apple couldn't use OGG from a customer perspective. The real reason why they didn't use OGG is because it didn't have a DRM layer built in.
If you change your threshold -1 on the comments display, that should show all the comments. If you want to moderate for yourself, get a user account and mod away..
Re:maintaining the shape of the original waveform
on
AAC vs. OGG vs. MP3
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· Score: 1
What comments have I removed? There are plenty of crtical comments on that thread.
Re:maintaining the shape of the original waveform
on
AAC vs. OGG vs. MP3
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· Score: 1
Coming from a moron like yourself, I will take that as a complement:)
Re:maintaining the shape of the original waveform
on
AAC vs. OGG vs. MP3
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· Score: 1
That is the whole point of the graph, the changes in the compressed waveform dictate SOUND changes. If you can't understand that, I suggest you look at the article once again.
Re:maintaining the shape of the original waveform
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AAC vs. OGG vs. MP3
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· Score: 0
Perceived quality is useless as a benchmark, the whole point of a lossy compression format is to replicate the orginal uncompressed format in the truest manner while keeping file size to a minimum.
That is the first sound test that's ever been done on our website. While I do like the quality advantages of OGG, I'm forced to use 320 kbps Mp3's for audiotron compatibility.
Considering apple.slashdot.org has an article every time Steve Jobs scratches his balls, the probability is very high that there would be an article discussing a RTCW port.
I doubt we will ever see this technique used by ISP's, at least in the states, because there is simply too much competition. ISP's already have a tough enough time attracting customers, the last thing they want is a reliable $50/month going out the door. Routers are becoming too ubiquitous to start changing pricing policies to squeeze an extra buck out of consumers that already pay too much for broadband.
Slashdot Mirror
If a MMORPG just had a monthly fee, and a freely distributable/downloadable ISO, their increased sales would more than make up for the loss in revenue associated with ditching a retail box. There should also be a free 7 day trial that automatically converts to a paid account after 7 days. They should use crack dealer marketing: give them a free taste and get them hooked. The Safari free trial is a classic example in my case. After bad experiences with ebooks in the past, I didn't even consider trying Safari when it first came out. 2 months ago I saw a free trial offer, now I plan on keeping my Safari account for a long time to come.
6 months ago everything you heard from MS was about tablet PC's and how they were going revolutionize everyone's computing experience. Maybe MS figured out that not everyone wants to use a stylus with their computer or has a need to work standing up? I wouldn't mind having stylus functionality on my ultraportable laptop screen but the idea that tablets are going to create a whole new mainstream sector of computing is far fetched.
that only open source software can provide on a UNIX platform (VNC, OpenSSH, etc..)
VNC and OpenSSH are available for windows so they might not be convincing. Try using ROI and TCO as persuaders.
Now, nearly five years after this event with almost no major incidents, the city council approved sticking cameras all over this area. There will be no cameras near residential areas for locals, just cameras for students. The police chief has designated the areas as a problem section and now he will have the legal right to monitor the place with a bunch of cameras.
Using the same mentality other cities could monitor their problem areas and keep a close eye on what the minority population is up to. Personally, I would like to rent a house next to the police chief and stick up 10 AXIS cams covering every inch of his house.
I think the #1 threat to small business in general is complacency. There are lots of small businesses that I see go under. Mostly from the introduction of large chain stores, but I'm sure some took a dent from the Internet, but almost all of them did not do anything visibly different from the previous year when the new competition was nonexistent.
Here in State College, PA I usually eat at a locally owned coffee and bagel shop called Irvings or a large regional grocery chain called Wegmans. Both places offer free wifi, the local Starbucks doesn't even offer wifi and if it did you would need to pay ~$6/hr.. If two places are of equal quality, but one offers free access, where would you go?
Why would there be a need to "sign up", if you want to roll out public wifi, put it up and let people know its it up. This may be just for the pilot. but there should be no need for sign ups or authentication systems when they do roll this out. Public wifi has many security risks, running ethereal on a public ap is very scary. Instead of trying to lock it up, just inform people what they need to do to keep their info safe.
You are correct, I don't use itunes or my powerbook on a regular basis, so I ad admit my ignorance when it comes to the nuances of iTunes. I was apple to drag an m4p file to toast with no problems..
Every CD I own (~500) is ripped to 320 kpbs lame mp3 with the CD serving as a backup copy. Maintain your CD's is something that the user has control of, most people have no control over their hard drive crashing. Apparently you can back up to a data CD, but for instance if I bought all my music from Apple I would have to burn 50 data CD's of m4p files to keep it backed up.
the silliest schmuck
Gee you mac boys take things personally, I guess Steve Jobs gives reach arounds?
And do what spent hours reencoding them in to digital files? If it is a mix cd, the cd signature won't register with the CDDB so I will have to manually enter the track information, plus rencoding the track will introduce the possibility for distortion and quality loss.
DRM is not sensible if ties you to one vendor or platform. You can only play purchased files on Apple computers and Apple players, unless you want to burn CD's. This is only a sensible approach if you live in a world where all your computing products and mp3 devices are made by Apple, for most of us this is not the case.
The arguement against OGG for compatibility can be used against ACC too. The only player that is compatible with the new service is the ipod, the ipod is perfectly capable of playing OGG, so there is no reason why Apple couldn't use OGG from a customer perspective. The real reason why they didn't use OGG is because it didn't have a DRM layer built in.
If you change your threshold -1 on the comments display, that should show all the comments. If you want to moderate for yourself, get a user account and mod away..
What comments have I removed? There are plenty of crtical comments on that thread.
Coming from a moron like yourself, I will take that as a complement :)
That is the whole point of the graph, the changes in the compressed waveform dictate SOUND changes. If you can't understand that, I suggest you look at the article once again.
Perceived quality is useless as a benchmark, the whole point of a lossy compression format is to replicate the orginal uncompressed format in the truest manner while keeping file size to a minimum.
Since my server is apparently dead, I put up an image mirror here.
We compared all the lossy formats to a wav ripped straight from the CD.
That is the first sound test that's ever been done on our website. While I do like the quality advantages of OGG, I'm forced to use 320 kbps Mp3's for audiotron compatibility.
What do you think this is, fark?
"Tim Oreilly tries to promote next conference.."
Considering apple.slashdot.org has an article every time Steve Jobs scratches his balls, the probability is very high that there would be an article discussing a RTCW port.
I doubt we will ever see this technique used by ISP's, at least in the states, because there is simply too much competition. ISP's already have a tough enough time attracting customers, the last thing they want is a reliable $50/month going out the door. Routers are becoming too ubiquitous to start changing pricing policies to squeeze an extra buck out of consumers that already pay too much for broadband.