I drive my car and have a basic understanding of how it works. When I want it fixed, however, I take it to an expert. I don't dig around under the hood except for basic stuff (checking fluid levels).
The average consumer behaves similarly with respect to her/his PDA. They don't dig around under the hood installing new stuff. They certainly don't design and implement new parts (software) of their own and then install them.
This is why Palm/WinCE will continue to survive. They mostly work out of the box. Users don't get as much customizability as they may desire (certainly I don't). But it basically works.
As a coder, my next PDA is definitely going to run Linux. I'm the mechanic in this case, and can change the system as I see fit. This is not, however, a sustainable business model for most PDA companies.
I own a Nissan, and monitor a couple of online communities.
In those communities, concensus is: Nissan's paint sucks. Hail hacks it, minor road debris hacks it. In my experience, my car has more chips after two years of ownership (bought new) than several previous cars I owned.
Are they using ray guns to protect their low investment in paint?
Hail that damages the sheet metal is pretty big. Paint-only-damaging hail is smaller. Any way round it, I think their ray-gun is a hack.
Real's approach has always been to have their latest & "greatest" software running on your PC. ("greatest" software is less well tested).
So I run RealPlayer8 Basic when I need to. Their fix is to have me replace it with RealPlayer10 Gold? I don't wanna.
I also don't like having to upgrade to a newer set of local softwares simply because the "file format" has changed. There aren't that many advances in formats/compression over time, and it seems to me that: new formats are released more frequently than necessary, thus "requiring upgrades" to new readers of said formats.
(A) Patch the buggy apps you still support; don't make us install new (less well tested) software so often;
(B) Don't tie the desire to distribute your latest code to [often] unnecessary media format changes.
"I Sam thee to Dayton! (It's worse than Cleveland.)"
They don't currently have a RealOS(tm), so why is acquiring/building a real OS considered a change in OS strategy?
When I say they don't have an OS right now, I mean:
- It doesn't do preemptive multitasking, so multiple tasks don't run simultaneously very well. It requires tasks to voluntarily yield, much like MacOS's before OS X. (Palm software people are old Apple software people anyway...) The Palms I've used also did very little in the way of letting multiple tasks run simultaneously. Usually the "top" app is all that's happening (possibly ignoring some interrupt driven background I/O).
- It doesn't have process memory space protection, AFAIK. Without multiple tasks actually running at the same time, this is less of an issue. Palms do, however, "crash" and need to be rebooted sometimes. Certainly this happens more often than on ucLinux PDAs...
If they're making those things possible (and PalmOS 6 is claimed to be "better at multitasking," so it sounds like they are), then it may be worthy of actually calling it an Operating System.
I've had DirecTV in the Pacific Northwest area, and it has never gone out on me (unless I forgot to pay the bill, in which case it was back on immediately after making a payment with their automated telephone system).
I know we don't get storms of the same ferocity as, say, the lower eastern seaboard, but we do get our share of bigguns in the winter. Oh yeah, and it rains nine months a year here.
So the bit about it "going out" is just wrong.
The only minor complaint I have is this: channel switching is slower than cable, and noticeable. This is due to buffer/lag time while your decoder waits for bits from the bird. Unavoidable.
P.S.: I like the OSD and browsable channel guide. There are so many channels now that waiting for the cable "schedule channel" to roll over to the station you want can take ten minutes or more! With DirecTV, you can page (or directly goto by entering station number) to the channel whose schedule you wish to see.
Why don't they automate the mission control tech a bit more, rather than using:
(a) voice intercom (radio style) communication, where the mission commanders "poll" the heads of all the various departments, awaiting voice response before moving on? Human response is *so* slow w.r.t. real time events affecting the space craft.
(b) printed procedure books? Just prior to awaiting the 1st images (after petal opening) I heard the mission command say "we're at page 12 and beyond in The Procedure..." If pagination is necessary, this implies printed procedural docs.
Why not do this interaction "online?"
(a) voice comm may still be useful, but why not use IM for a group of people to "chat." Is the voice feed for the media?
(b) why not "follow the procedure" with some online, multi-user app that checks off the steps done on some browser sort of app? The engineering specs have to be changing up to the last minute; why commit to paper something that becomes obsolete once you press Print?
I know they're displaying the received images live on an X station (on a cool big screen). So clearly they are taking advantage of recent technology.
Just, PLEASE, why the voice comm and printed procedures?
Thanks for listening. Good luck, Opportunity and team.
Altavista has always had the capability to specify that separate search items exist together in a document ("AND"), but that they occur in close proximity.
I can say:
"Knoppix distro" review
to Google, and I get results related to Knoppix, some of them indeed reviews OF Knoppix. I also, however, get useless hits that may mention Knoppix, but review something else further down in the document. I do not get hits restricted to Koppix reviews.
If I do this with Altavista, I get hits much closer to what I want:
Will the distro support de100c (also de200c's) that were discontinued and fire-saled by HP about a year ago?
These are cool units that look like a consumer "stackable" A/V unit, have video out, IR with remote control, networking, internal hard disk, etc. They were intended for storing digital audio, but enterprising folks have tried running Linux video apps.
How would this distro fare?
see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/de100c for more info.
(I read posts attached to this at/. article at threshold=3, and didn't see this asked yet. If I missed it or duped the notion, flame away. Otherwise...)
-----
So what about the DRM restrictions that may be present in this device, or may later become "magically" enabled?
Scenario:
You use your Hughes DirecTiVo for several months, and very much enjoy the ability to:
(1) time shift viewing of shows to the time of your liking.
(2) during such viewing, skip over advertising you don't want to see.
(3) keep recorded programs and later view them as many times as you like.
Pretty much standard analog VCR stuff, but at higher picture quality, and with the advantage of random access to play points within the content.
Then one day, you go back to that Friends episode you recorded and intend to keep (and have re-played a few times already), and... *bam* a dialog pops up saying "you've already viewed this 10 times, please insert a quarter to play again!"
Hmm.
Or, you've been recording automatically at night, time-shifting your playback until the next morning, playing at that time and skipping ads.
One morning you play the first scene, reach for the "skip" button at the first predictable advertising break, and, *NewFeature* the skip button doesn't work. Interestingly, the unit has also inserted into the video stream new ads you know were't there upon the initial recording (because you watched it live last night) -- stuff possibly like -- Hey! TiVo notices yer Bi! Congrats! Would you like to see our selection of one-click purchaseable products which may be amenable to you at this time? Just press BUY on your remote to have XYZ shipped to you right away!
Meander over to the Preferences menu, youthinks, yet find no way to turn these *NewFeatures* off.
Or^2, another morning, you go to time shift and play that new RealSex episode you recorded late last night from HBO. Another new dialog pops, which says something like, "this nudity containing program" cannot be replayed at this time of day (not the kids' bedtime you see). Please play again later.
So timeshifting at times of my choosing is now not permitted during certain Times Of My Choosing. Hmm, that's not timeshifting...
-----
If I can in fact record HD video off broadcast to a large random access device for future playback and cataloging (according to my own wishes, I paid for it), then this is good. But what happens when all these intrusive behaviors begin to appear?
Has anyone (not bound by an NDA) (or who is a lawyer) read the beta licenses that are likely to be shipped with these new devices?
I will pay Fair and Balanced prices for access to and control of media I choose to purchase. I do wish to purchase it and control my own use of it without intervention.
If I can control the H.HD.D.T.V, it will be really cool.
If *TheMan* makes my bought device do stuff I ain't wantin it to do, or changes its behaviors en route, it is significantly less cool.
Slashdot Mirror
PIT can simply write (or download root kits and assemble) virii/worms based on commonly known platform vulnerabilities such as this.
Then, they can loose such nasties in the gate area to gather valuable privacy and financial data of oblivious surfers.
Or, they could bump the passenger egress airport fee by a buck...
The average consumer behaves similarly with respect to her/his PDA. They don't dig around under the hood installing new stuff. They certainly don't design and implement new parts (software) of their own and then install them.
This is why Palm/WinCE will continue to survive. They mostly work out of the box. Users don't get as much customizability as they may desire (certainly I don't). But it basically works.
As a coder, my next PDA is definitely going to run Linux. I'm the mechanic in this case, and can change the system as I see fit. This is not, however, a sustainable business model for most PDA companies.
I own a Nissan, and monitor a couple of online communities.
In those communities, concensus is: Nissan's paint sucks. Hail hacks it, minor road debris hacks it. In my experience, my car has more chips after two years of ownership (bought new) than several previous cars I owned.
Are they using ray guns to protect their low investment in paint?
Hail that damages the sheet metal is pretty big. Paint-only-damaging hail is smaller. Any way round it, I think their ray-gun is a hack.
... a dildo with embedded web server, and running Linux. Then he can telnet to his vibrator...
Real's approach has always been to have their latest & "greatest" software running on your PC. ("greatest" software is less well tested).
So I run RealPlayer8 Basic when I need to. Their fix is to have me replace it with RealPlayer10 Gold? I don't wanna.
I also don't like having to upgrade to a newer set of local softwares simply because the "file format" has changed. There aren't that many advances in formats/compression over time, and it seems to me that: new formats are released more frequently than necessary, thus "requiring upgrades" to new readers of said formats.
(A) Patch the buggy apps you still support; don't make us install new (less well tested) software so often;
(B) Don't tie the desire to distribute your latest code to [often] unnecessary media format changes.
"I Sam thee to Dayton! (It's worse than Cleveland.)"
I don't intend this to be a troll.
They don't currently have a RealOS(tm), so why is acquiring/building a real OS considered a change in OS strategy?
When I say they don't have an OS right now, I mean:
- It doesn't do preemptive multitasking, so multiple tasks don't run simultaneously very well. It requires tasks to voluntarily yield, much like MacOS's before OS X. (Palm software people are old Apple software people anyway...) The Palms I've used also did very little in the way of letting multiple tasks run simultaneously. Usually the "top" app is all that's happening (possibly ignoring some interrupt driven background I/O).
- It doesn't have process memory space protection, AFAIK. Without multiple tasks actually running at the same time, this is less of an issue. Palms do, however, "crash" and need to be rebooted sometimes. Certainly this happens more often than on ucLinux PDAs...
If they're making those things possible (and PalmOS 6 is claimed to be "better at multitasking," so it sounds like they are), then it may be worthy of actually calling it an Operating System.
What happens once all your ports are knocked up? Do you get more ports later on?
Yeah, so I typo'd "timeline" even after previewing. Still, check the link.
Please don't re-do work already done. Consider the following.
Here's a useful history in PDF format (current as of early 2004):
http://www.levenez.com/unix/unix_letter.pdf
Several other formats of the document are available at the same site.
They're at 200,000 articles and will celebrate large when half a million are present.
So how does this compare to a commerical offering? How many articles are there, say, in the Encyclopedia Brittanica?
Large numbers are usually impressive on sight; without context they mean little.
I've had DirecTV in the Pacific Northwest area, and it has never gone out on me (unless I forgot to pay the bill, in which case it was back on immediately after making a payment with their automated telephone system).
I know we don't get storms of the same ferocity as, say, the lower eastern seaboard, but we do get our share of bigguns in the winter. Oh yeah, and it rains nine months a year here.
So the bit about it "going out" is just wrong.
The only minor complaint I have is this: channel switching is slower than cable, and noticeable. This is due to buffer/lag time while your decoder waits for bits from the bird. Unavoidable.
P.S.: I like the OSD and browsable channel guide. There are so many channels now that waiting for the cable "schedule channel" to roll over to the station you want can take ten minutes or more! With DirecTV, you can page (or directly goto by entering station number) to the channel whose schedule you wish to see.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/opinion/02SAFI.h tml?pagewanted=print
Playing with the typos a bit more, I try:
gooble.com -- no DNS resolution
boogle.com -- comes up with a Google-like search box (which activates Google) surrounded by a picture and a quote.
What is this thing? A 'motd' (and picture of the day) run by Google?
...that thing is HUGE!
(Considering that it's being held by the huge and mighty hand of Lou Ferrigno.)
... on any attachments, unless they are expecting them from a friend/colleague?
After years of these worms, and constant advisement not to click on something you don't know, why do people still do it?
Interesting, the queen no longer rules the world.
Bill Gates does rule the world.
And she is knighting him?
Congrats Jusin and colleagues!
Shouldn't you be _working_ right now?
First, congrats for landing Opportunity.
Why don't they automate the mission control tech a bit more, rather than using:
(a) voice intercom (radio style) communication, where the mission commanders "poll" the heads of all the various departments, awaiting voice response before moving on? Human response is *so* slow w.r.t. real time events affecting the space craft.
(b) printed procedure books? Just prior to awaiting the 1st images (after petal opening) I heard the mission command say "we're at page 12 and beyond in The Procedure..." If pagination is necessary, this implies printed procedural docs.
Why not do this interaction "online?"
(a) voice comm may still be useful, but why not use IM for a group of people to "chat." Is the voice feed for the media?
(b) why not "follow the procedure" with some online, multi-user app that checks off the steps done on some browser sort of app? The engineering specs have to be changing up to the last minute; why commit to paper something that becomes obsolete once you press Print?
I know they're displaying the received images live on an X station (on a cool big screen). So clearly they are taking advantage of recent technology.
Just, PLEASE, why the voice comm and printed procedures?
Thanks for listening. Good luck, Opportunity and team.
(Small Office / Mobile Office)
Each device should be spec'ed with its estimate of MTBR (mean time between reboots).
I feel pain every time I watch the Local News Anchor. Does this count as the same thing?
Altavista has always had the capability to specify that separate search items exist together in a document ("AND"), but that they occur in close proximity.
I can say:
"Knoppix distro" review
to Google, and I get results related to Knoppix, some of them indeed reviews OF Knoppix. I also, however, get useless hits that may mention Knoppix, but review something else further down in the document. I do not get hits restricted to Koppix reviews.
If I do this with Altavista, I get hits much closer to what I want:
"Knoppix distro" NEAR review
Will the distro support de100c (also de200c's) that were discontinued and fire-saled by HP about a year ago?
These are cool units that look like a consumer "stackable" A/V unit, have video out, IR with remote control, networking, internal hard disk, etc. They were intended for storing digital audio, but enterprising folks have tried running Linux video apps.
How would this distro fare?
see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/de100c for more info.
Has anyone mirrored this elsewhere, so my DNS client doesn't request spymuseum.org from my ISP?
I guess I'm that paranoid...
(I read posts attached to this at /. article at threshold=3, and didn't see this asked yet. If I missed it or duped the notion, flame away. Otherwise...)
-----
So what about the DRM restrictions that may be present in this device, or may later become "magically" enabled?
Scenario:
You use your Hughes DirecTiVo for several months, and very much enjoy the ability to:
(1) time shift viewing of shows to the time of your liking.
(2) during such viewing, skip over advertising you don't want to see.
(3) keep recorded programs and later view them as many times as you like.
Pretty much standard analog VCR stuff, but at higher picture quality, and with the advantage of random access to play points within the content.
Then one day, you go back to that Friends episode you recorded and intend to keep (and have re-played a few times already), and... *bam* a dialog pops up saying "you've already viewed this 10 times, please insert a quarter to play again!"
Hmm.
Or, you've been recording automatically at night, time-shifting your playback until the next morning, playing at that time and skipping ads.
One morning you play the first scene, reach for the "skip" button at the first predictable advertising break, and, *NewFeature* the skip button doesn't work. Interestingly, the unit has also inserted into the video stream new ads you know were't there upon the initial recording (because you watched it live last night) -- stuff possibly like -- Hey! TiVo notices yer Bi! Congrats! Would you like to see our selection of one-click purchaseable products which may be amenable to you at this time? Just press BUY on your remote to have XYZ shipped to you right away!
Meander over to the Preferences menu, youthinks, yet find no way to turn these *NewFeatures* off.
Or^2, another morning, you go to time shift and play that new RealSex episode you recorded late last night from HBO. Another new dialog pops, which says something like, "this nudity containing program" cannot be replayed at this time of day (not the kids' bedtime you see). Please play again later.
So timeshifting at times of my choosing is now not permitted during certain Times Of My Choosing. Hmm, that's not timeshifting...
-----
If I can in fact record HD video off broadcast to a large random access device for future playback and cataloging (according to my own wishes, I paid for it), then this is good. But what happens when all these intrusive behaviors begin to appear?
Has anyone (not bound by an NDA) (or who is a lawyer) read the beta licenses that are likely to be shipped with these new devices?
I will pay Fair and Balanced prices for access to and control of media I choose to purchase. I do wish to purchase it and control my own use of it without intervention.
If I can control the H.HD.D.T.V, it will be really cool.
If *TheMan* makes my bought device do stuff I ain't wantin it to do, or changes its behaviors en route, it is significantly less cool.