It's this fucking iPhone keyboard. I know, I know. I should have previewed. I don't care what anybody says about the iPhone keyboard. My personal phone has a QWERTY keyboard with real buttons and I am much faster and more accurate on that thing. If only it could browse/. without shitting a brick.
You've hit the nail on the head here. One of my users received a particularly well crafted email from "me" today asking her to download a patch for Adobe products. It even included what looked to be a forwarded conversation from our CEO. Had she not co e to me asking a question about the instructions, she could very well have infected her machine. Nevermi d that the link was to a.to domain. Typical users don't look for warning signs like that.
Actually, my U-Verse DVR will allow me to remove channels from view in the default line up. In fact, the installer very helpfully showed me where to go in the menu to access this feature. It was a very pleasant surprise coming to U-Verse from previous providers who simply provided the ability to construct a favorite channel list.
Yes, I know what the elemental symbols are. I just couldn't remember if that was the makeup for thermite or something else entirely. Thanks for playing.
Total anecdote here (which is why I'm posting without Karma Bonus), but you reminded me of the first time I came home to visit over Thanksgiving during my freshman year of college. My mom, who wrote code for a living, was interested in the kind of things we'd been doing in my Intro to C class. So, I dialed up to the internet, ssh'd into the RS6000's at school, and launched a simple ATM simulator that I had just written for class. She sits down and the first thing she does is hit Withdrawal and punch in a negative number. I learned a valuable lesson about input validation that night. While I'd checked for everything else (check against balance, checked for integer values), I never thought to check for negative numbers.:/
The inhabitants of EU are less than the 5% of the population. Where's the profit? Even that 1% of that 5% having the means and the desire to buy a product is still a respectable number.
That's a good point, but maybe not an apt comparison. And perhaps in the interests in brevity, I didn't fully elucidate my point. We're talking about an emerging technology requiring significant R&D. 5% of the population may be targeted later, but not initially. That 5% of the population isn't going to be where you will recoup your investment initially. Maybe I should have appended the words "right now" to my initial statement, but that is neither here nor there.
I'd really be interested to know what the typical usage metrics are on cell phone customers these days. I actually just backed my personal phone down to 450 minutes/month since I haven't used more than that in the past year or more. My texting, on the other hand has gone up considerably in the past year. That's an extra $40/month that Verizon is no longer getting from me. I can't help but wonder how many other people have done the same now that texting is becoming more mainstream.
Also keep in mind, this app also means unlimited free text, their #1 more profitable revenue stream...
I'm pretty sure that's a moot point. On most carriers the required data package for a smart phone (IE, a phone that will run a Google Voice app) costs much more than their basic text plans anyway. In the long run your monthly bill will be cheaper if you go with a basic phone with voice+unlimited text than any plan based around a smart phone.
While I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, I've actually had some minor success with broadcasting over Justin.TV.
Last summer one of our intern groups was giving a presentation to an NPO client. Unfortunately, most of the board was out of the country. So, as a last minute solution, I grabbed a web cam, a laptop, and set up in the auditorium. The quality was mediocre at best, but with more time, I'm sure I could have tweaked the lighting and the exposure controls for the webcam to get an even better picture. Additionally, Justin.TV allowed some nominal real-time interaction in the form of the chat room attached to the broadcast.
Was it an ideal solution? No. But did it get the job done? Yes. The viewers overseas were quite happy to have the opportunity to see the presentation.
I can see this being a very useful tool in the future. We currently use an internally developed tool to allow our users to upload and share large files. Unfortunately, as with anything, we've run into a few external user issues with them running an older version of Flash or their virus scanner interfering with the file download. Of course, the external user likes to blame us in these cases. What the Google brand can do for us is provide us a standard. It's a brand that people trust, and one that we can point to as a trusted standard. Now, if an external user has issues, we can say "Hey. It's Google. I don't know what you're doing wrong."
Looks like I get to start playing the testing game soon.
You may already be using them, but have you considered a set of noise canceling earphones? I bought a pair for wearing while mowing the lawn and was extremely impressed. Unfortunately, the plug doesn't fit properly in the jack of my iPod, so I stopped using them when my old Creative MP3 player died and I joined the iRevolution. Back to ear plugs I went.
Actually, the Sleuth channel seems to be even worse at this than many others. They were recently showing a lot of James Bond movies, so I recorded several on my DVR. The volume during the movie actually seems lower than normal (I have to crank up the volume a couple of notches higher than most channels), but the volume during the commercials is insanely loud.
I guess I can look at the silver lining here. More than once these ear splitting commercials have woken me up when I fell asleep watching a movie. At least I got up and went to bed then instead of sleeping on the couch and winding up with a crick in my neck.
If anything, though, I catch even less of the commercials than I normally would as each commercial break is met with a frantic search for the remote so I can fast forward through them.
Remember, you're talking about the average user who goes out and buys a cheap RCA surround sound system for their house or who thinks that the stereo in their car is actually good. To most people out there LOUD == good. Try convincing them that the Shure's sound better.
Actually, I've run into the same problem before. If it looks like this mouse might start to gain traction in the FPS community, I'll have to consider it yet. Right now I don't see any TF2 configs, but I'm hoping for one. I did buy some frag pedals from Thinkgeek, but they aren't as useful as I'd hoped. I just end up leaning backwards in my chair instead of actually activating the button with my foot.:/
Colonize? I think you mean conquer, and enslave the troglodites populations to mine dilithium for our fast than light ships. Hopefully we'll be able to genetically modify navigators for them. Or find some handsome young captains to fly around and defeat gods./me Still mourns for Adonis
Maybe I'm just old, but these days I play most games for the story. If I don't want a story, then I go play TF2 or some other multi-player shooter or break out the NES for some old school platformer action. In general, though, I tend to prefer the immersive experience that comes with good story telling. I like to feel like I'm playing in an interactive movie of some sort.
Oh, I'm not picking on them there. Well, maybe a little bit. They all drink the Apple kool-aid to an extent. That said, I'm willing to concede that the Macs are still a great choice for the art department. While Windows PCs have caught up with the Macs in some areas in the past decade or so, I still think Macs are the way to go for graphic design if for no other reason than that's what our art department is used to. OSX is a slick operating system (BASH shell with mass market software support? Yes please.) and I probably use my own Mac just as often as I use my PC here. Macs and Windows PCs each have their own pluses and minuses. In the end, though, the primary reason we buy Macs for them is because that's what makes them happy.
It's under consideration. Unfortunately, the biggest issue I have with iMacs is that our troubleshooting/recovery process is limited with a closed system like the iMac. With the G5 towers we have currently, if I have a serious hardware failure, I can always pull the drive and put it in a spare G5 in order to get the user back up and running in about 2 minutes. I can't do that with an iMac. Additionally, there's the expandability factor. Our G5's are still being used past a normal life cycle simply because we have been able to upgrade the hard drives and the memory as we've gone along in order to meet current software requirements. Again, I can't do that with iMacs. I just need to do a TCO study to see which will be more cost effective in the long run.
While I would imagine that the parent poster was half joking, I would imagine that you could point a remote control (Apple mind you -- this thing does appear to have an IR receiver on the front) and make this do some fun stuff. Mind you, if you're wanting an Apple PVR, there's always the Apple TV combined with a PVR solution on a back-end Mac.
I'm actually somewhat surprised that Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV to work as a DVR by now. I would imagine that there's too much competition in the market since a DVR is already a part of most premium and mid-range cable/satellite provider solutions. I'm pretty sure that analog cable subscribers these days can be broken up into 3 groups: 1) those too poor or too cheap to pay for a higher package (me right out of college), 2) those too technologically incompetent to operate or care about a DVR (my grandmother), or 3) those geeks who, for one reason or another, just simply want to roll their own solution.:)
Have you gone inside of a mini? I have. I can't imagine any of the pretentious types that would buy this sort of machine would appreciate the experience.
The pretentious types that would buy this sort of machine won't ever go into it anyway. They'll take it to their nearest Apple certified technician at the first sign of trouble. Whether or not he'll be able to recover the data on the software RAID or simply reinstall OSX Server over the old data is another matter entirely. (In my experience it's a 50/50 shot whether they'll reinstall the OS without backing up the data first.)
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It's this fucking iPhone keyboard. I know, I know. I should have previewed. I don't care what anybody says about the iPhone keyboard. My personal phone has a QWERTY keyboard with real buttons and I am much faster and more accurate on that thing. If only it could browse /. without shitting a brick.
You've hit the nail on the head here. One of my users received a particularly well crafted email from "me" today asking her to download a patch for Adobe products. It even included what looked to be a forwarded conversation from our CEO. Had she not co .to domain. Typical users don't look for warning signs like that.
e to me asking a question about the instructions, she could very well have infected her machine. Nevermi d that the link was to a
Actually, my U-Verse DVR will allow me to remove channels from view in the default line up. In fact, the installer very helpfully showed me where to go in the menu to access this feature. It was a very pleasant surprise coming to U-Verse from previous providers who simply provided the ability to construct a favorite channel list.
Yes, I know what the elemental symbols are. I just couldn't remember if that was the makeup for thermite or something else entirely. Thanks for playing.
Fe2O3+2Al
Thermite?
Total anecdote here (which is why I'm posting without Karma Bonus), but you reminded me of the first time I came home to visit over Thanksgiving during my freshman year of college. My mom, who wrote code for a living, was interested in the kind of things we'd been doing in my Intro to C class. So, I dialed up to the internet, ssh'd into the RS6000's at school, and launched a simple ATM simulator that I had just written for class. She sits down and the first thing she does is hit Withdrawal and punch in a negative number. I learned a valuable lesson about input validation that night. While I'd checked for everything else (check against balance, checked for integer values), I never thought to check for negative numbers. :/
The inhabitants of EU are less than the 5% of the population. Where's the profit? Even that 1% of that 5% having the means and the desire to buy a product is still a respectable number.
That's a good point, but maybe not an apt comparison. And perhaps in the interests in brevity, I didn't fully elucidate my point. We're talking about an emerging technology requiring significant R&D. 5% of the population may be targeted later, but not initially. That 5% of the population isn't going to be where you will recoup your investment initially. Maybe I should have appended the words "right now" to my initial statement, but that is neither here nor there.
Easy. You just price it high enough to be profitable, and hope the market (however small) will bear it.
Point taken.
Now, how about something for the 5% of us with Amblyopia?
You're 5% of the population. Where's the profit in catering to you?
I'd really be interested to know what the typical usage metrics are on cell phone customers these days. I actually just backed my personal phone down to 450 minutes/month since I haven't used more than that in the past year or more. My texting, on the other hand has gone up considerably in the past year. That's an extra $40/month that Verizon is no longer getting from me. I can't help but wonder how many other people have done the same now that texting is becoming more mainstream.
Flash may be dead, but Adobe certainly is not. Their Creative Suite is still king, and PDF is probably the most common real world document format.
Also keep in mind, this app also means unlimited free text, their #1 more profitable revenue stream...
I'm pretty sure that's a moot point. On most carriers the required data package for a smart phone (IE, a phone that will run a Google Voice app) costs much more than their basic text plans anyway. In the long run your monthly bill will be cheaper if you go with a basic phone with voice+unlimited text than any plan based around a smart phone.
While I'm not sure if it's quite what you're looking for, I've actually had some minor success with broadcasting over Justin.TV.
Last summer one of our intern groups was giving a presentation to an NPO client. Unfortunately, most of the board was out of the country. So, as a last minute solution, I grabbed a web cam, a laptop, and set up in the auditorium. The quality was mediocre at best, but with more time, I'm sure I could have tweaked the lighting and the exposure controls for the webcam to get an even better picture. Additionally, Justin.TV allowed some nominal real-time interaction in the form of the chat room attached to the broadcast.
Was it an ideal solution? No. But did it get the job done? Yes. The viewers overseas were quite happy to have the opportunity to see the presentation.
I can see this being a very useful tool in the future. We currently use an internally developed tool to allow our users to upload and share large files. Unfortunately, as with anything, we've run into a few external user issues with them running an older version of Flash or their virus scanner interfering with the file download. Of course, the external user likes to blame us in these cases. What the Google brand can do for us is provide us a standard. It's a brand that people trust, and one that we can point to as a trusted standard. Now, if an external user has issues, we can say "Hey. It's Google. I don't know what you're doing wrong."
Looks like I get to start playing the testing game soon.
You may already be using them, but have you considered a set of noise canceling earphones? I bought a pair for wearing while mowing the lawn and was extremely impressed. Unfortunately, the plug doesn't fit properly in the jack of my iPod, so I stopped using them when my old Creative MP3 player died and I joined the iRevolution. Back to ear plugs I went.
Actually, the Sleuth channel seems to be even worse at this than many others. They were recently showing a lot of James Bond movies, so I recorded several on my DVR. The volume during the movie actually seems lower than normal (I have to crank up the volume a couple of notches higher than most channels), but the volume during the commercials is insanely loud.
I guess I can look at the silver lining here. More than once these ear splitting commercials have woken me up when I fell asleep watching a movie. At least I got up and went to bed then instead of sleeping on the couch and winding up with a crick in my neck.
If anything, though, I catch even less of the commercials than I normally would as each commercial break is met with a frantic search for the remote so I can fast forward through them.
Remember, you're talking about the average user who goes out and buys a cheap RCA surround sound system for their house or who thinks that the stereo in their car is actually good. To most people out there LOUD == good. Try convincing them that the Shure's sound better.
Looks like a bunch of people here are bash.org fans...
Actually, I've run into the same problem before. If it looks like this mouse might start to gain traction in the FPS community, I'll have to consider it yet. Right now I don't see any TF2 configs, but I'm hoping for one. I did buy some frag pedals from Thinkgeek, but they aren't as useful as I'd hoped. I just end up leaning backwards in my chair instead of actually activating the button with my foot. :/
Colonize? I think you mean conquer, and enslave the troglodites populations to mine dilithium for our fast than light ships. Hopefully we'll be able to genetically modify navigators for them. Or find some handsome young captains to fly around and defeat gods. /me Still mourns for Adonis
Maybe I'm just old, but these days I play most games for the story. If I don't want a story, then I go play TF2 or some other multi-player shooter or break out the NES for some old school platformer action. In general, though, I tend to prefer the immersive experience that comes with good story telling. I like to feel like I'm playing in an interactive movie of some sort.
Oh, I'm not picking on them there. Well, maybe a little bit. They all drink the Apple kool-aid to an extent. That said, I'm willing to concede that the Macs are still a great choice for the art department. While Windows PCs have caught up with the Macs in some areas in the past decade or so, I still think Macs are the way to go for graphic design if for no other reason than that's what our art department is used to. OSX is a slick operating system (BASH shell with mass market software support? Yes please.) and I probably use my own Mac just as often as I use my PC here. Macs and Windows PCs each have their own pluses and minuses. In the end, though, the primary reason we buy Macs for them is because that's what makes them happy.
It's under consideration. Unfortunately, the biggest issue I have with iMacs is that our troubleshooting/recovery process is limited with a closed system like the iMac. With the G5 towers we have currently, if I have a serious hardware failure, I can always pull the drive and put it in a spare G5 in order to get the user back up and running in about 2 minutes. I can't do that with an iMac. Additionally, there's the expandability factor. Our G5's are still being used past a normal life cycle simply because we have been able to upgrade the hard drives and the memory as we've gone along in order to meet current software requirements. Again, I can't do that with iMacs. I just need to do a TCO study to see which will be more cost effective in the long run.
While I would imagine that the parent poster was half joking, I would imagine that you could point a remote control (Apple mind you -- this thing does appear to have an IR receiver on the front) and make this do some fun stuff. Mind you, if you're wanting an Apple PVR, there's always the Apple TV combined with a PVR solution on a back-end Mac.
I'm actually somewhat surprised that Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV to work as a DVR by now. I would imagine that there's too much competition in the market since a DVR is already a part of most premium and mid-range cable/satellite provider solutions. I'm pretty sure that analog cable subscribers these days can be broken up into 3 groups: 1) those too poor or too cheap to pay for a higher package (me right out of college), 2) those too technologically incompetent to operate or care about a DVR (my grandmother), or 3) those geeks who, for one reason or another, just simply want to roll their own solution. :)
Have you gone inside of a mini? I have. I can't imagine
any of the pretentious types that would buy this sort of
machine would appreciate the experience.
The pretentious types that would buy this sort of machine won't ever go into it anyway. They'll take it to their nearest Apple certified technician at the first sign of trouble. Whether or not he'll be able to recover the data on the software RAID or simply reinstall OSX Server over the old data is another matter entirely. (In my experience it's a 50/50 shot whether they'll reinstall the OS without backing up the data first.)