oh as for "god" fuck that idea, I'll capitalize that "proper" noun when the dude impresses me properly.
Wow. I didn't say anything about that, as I don't care. I highlighted that section for your improper use of brackets for a parenthetical comment. The content of the comment held no interest to me in terms of pointing out grammatical errors. "God" vs. "god" doesn't really matter, as for all I knew you could've been referencing one of the Greek gods rather than the Christian God.
Of course when I went to high school, teachers only accepted work in plain old "dead tree" format. And were not talking about the 60s or 70s, but the 90s. Sure at home I might have had Wordpad [god bless...] at my disposal, but the teacher wouldn't except work in that format, so I'd have to print it off at home or school.
Your English teacher didn't do a very good job.
"Were" is the past plural of "to be". "We're" is the contraction of "we are", which is what you were looking for.
Parenthetical comments are set off by parentheses (thus "parenthetical"), not brackets.
"Except", when used as a verb, means "to exclude". "To accept" means "to take or receive". Unless you meant that your teachers wouldn't exclude work in that format, you meant to uses "accept". Using except here actually negates your argument by saying that the teachers would accept work in Wordpad (RTF) format.
The thing about free speech, as protected by the US Constitution, is that it only protects you against the government (not private or public businesses) and it doesn't guarantee you a forum. If the US government chose to censor your blog, that's against the constitution. If Google decided that they don't want your blog on their Blogger service, that's completely within their rights to do and is not a violation of free speech. Without knowing why Google decided to remove your blog (did the Israeli government really pressure them?), there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
That said, you can still say what you want. You just need to find another forum. Find a web hoster that's sympathetic to your cause (meaning they won't drop you) and host your blog there.
If you see a crappy Windows port on OS X it's sticks out like a sore thumb and the Mac community usually cringes and looks for something else. This is because the Mac has a long tradition of user interface consistency.
While other developers may still suck, Microsoft got it right with Office on OS X. If Microsoft can do that, surely Apple can get iTunes and Quicktime right on Windows.
On Windows nearly every program on your computer is off doing it's own thing. There are very few tried and true Windows interface or application standards. Even Microsoft has no consistency between products. From WMP's custom skin, to IE7's completely off the wall browser interface, to Office 2007's completely unusual interface that not only has its own theme but its own interface paradigm. That really only scratches the surface of the patchwork nature of a Windows environment.
Office 2007 aside (the Ribbon is just "different"), the controls within the interfaces always act the same, even if they're not in standard locations. There is no shift-ctrl-right-click buttons in WMP, the menu in IE7 pops up and acts just like a normal menu even if it is hidden by default, and even Office 2007's Ribbon buttons act like normal toolbar buttons when you click on them even though they're in an odd container. Personally, I don't care that Apple's media apps have the brushed aluminum skin (media players have always been different like that). What I care about is that the controls in the app work as expected on the OS its running. Simple things are missing or just plain weird, like missing a lot of keyboard controls or having specific actions on different buttons if different modifiers are held down during a click.
But, to get back on topic, I live in Europe and I have never seen a Zune. I now wonder wether they will introduce the 'old' Zune here at the end of 2007, as a link underneath TFA states, or don't bother with that and start with the new one right away. It's about time we get some real competition for the iPod here.
Re-reading the article, it doesn't sound like the "old Zune" is going away. Instead, they're going to do three things:
Introduce a new flash-based player, like the iPod Mini/Nano (probably not in the same league as the Shuffle),
Ship the 2.0 firmware with undisclosed new features on the current Zune hardware (similar to the "fat" iPod selling alongside the mini/nano/shuffle), possibly with a drive size increase, and
Provide the 2.0 firmware to existing Zune owners
If indeed the "fat" Zune gets a drive size bump, that's probably what you'll see showing up across the pond. If it doesn't and it's just a firmware update, the Zune packages should be the same as here (just different colors). And I'd expect the flash-based Zune would sell in all markets that get the fat Zune.
Close enough. My house's wireless router adequately covers my attached garage. It might be more difficult for someone living in an apartment, or a condo with detached parking. For most homeowners with wireless routers, I'd be surprised if their garage didn't have wireless coverage.
They can't make Zune a winner because rented and dissapearing music just aren't cool.
On the other hand, "rented" music allows you to sample a much wider variety of music than if you had to pay for it all. $15 will buy you 15 songs on iTunes forever, or it will buy you an "infinite" (limited by what's available on the Zune Marketplace) amount of music for one month. If you like the music, you can always buy it. Personally, the music subscription is what swayed me toward Zune rather than iPod. Well, that and I can't stand Apple's software on Windows. If you're going to make a Windows app, make a damn Windows app. Don't port an OS X app over to Windows, because not only is the look and feel all wrong but the functionality of "standard" controls is different as well. I don't expecto to have to ctrl-click or shift-click on a button in Windows to make some action happen, but that's exactly how the iTunes software works. Microsoft got it right with Office on OS X, building an interface and behaviors specific to OS X. Why can't Apple reciprocate and make proper Windows apps?
Even less cool is the idea that billboards will be able to "squirt" adverts onto your player or what your player might tell them in return.
So turn off the wireless when you're not actively looking for or sharing with other Zune players. As a bonus, you'll get a longer battery life with wireless off.
Hm. Well, if the _new_ one is coming out, why bother buying the old one, right? New one will be way better.
From the article linked by the article, the Microsoft rep flat-out says that the new firmware will be pushed to old Zunes. Since there's no information about hardware updates other than the Shuffle-like Zune, if you're in the market for one there's no reason not to buy now. Then again, there may be a price drop on old versions, or there may be a new version with a bigger hard drive.
I'm still baffled as to why anyone would *want* to sync their mp3 player over wifi, given that you have to plug it in to charge it anyway.
Until they get wireless power into mp3 players, wireless syncing seems like a somewhat pointless feature, to be included for buzzword-compliance only.
Think of a car application, where you have the Zune basically hardwired into your car audio. As such, it'd have power already, but you'd still have to remove it from the car in order to add new music. Being able to wirelessly sync would allow you to run the Zune app on a PC in your house and sync songs out to your car without having to take the Zune out of your car at all.
I just purchased the Halo 3 Zune, and have an appointment next week to get my car set up with an AUX input solution (Porsche's stupid MOST bus Becker head units don't have AUX inputs available as standard or an option). So of course they have to announce Zune 2.0 coming "before holiday season", which most likely means "August".
Hopefully the Zune 2.0 firmware will be pushed to current Zunes.
AT BEST, this only encourages a non-currently-existent European manufacture to make cameras in the EU since they will end up with a 4.9% cost advantage. Which of course that cost advantage disappears fast when you factor in Europe's high cost of labor and other taxes.
Or it'll encourage non-European camera manufacturers to open up fabs in Europe, similar to how Honda, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes opened up car manufacturing plants in the US to avoid import taxes on popular models (most Accords are made in the US, for example). This actually makes Honda and Toyota cars more "American" than the big 2.5, who outsource most of their manufacturing to Canada and Mexico (yay NAFTA!).
With enough automation, the cost of labor in differing markets is negligible. The only remaining quesiton is whether the cost of land and more stringent pollution control in developed countries is cheaper than the import tariff. If so, the companies will open up new plants. If not, they'll pass the tariff prices on to the consumer.
On the other hand the Curious incident of the dog in the night, whilst also a children's book would probably appeal to most of the readers of/. being about a kid with Aspergers syndrome
Why? Are you saying that Slashdot is filled with people with Asperger's Syndrome? That's highly unlikely. There are plenty of people here who wish they had Asperger's, even going so far as to self-diagnose. The truth of the matter is that while Asperger's is real, it's nowhere near as common as internet message boards would have you believe. It is a good scapegoat for people who never learned how to interact socially with other people.
1. Cost. Laptops cost almost twice what comparable desktop systems cost. This gap could close when flat displays become cheaper and production numbers increase considerably.
Maybe in a direct apples-to-apples comparison. "Equivalent" laptops are barely more expensive than desktops, where "equivalent" is more about mapping the laptop to a demographic rather than comparing raw numbers -- economy laptop/desktop, entertainment laptop/desktop, workstation laptop/desktop, etc. Of course the laptops are going to have slower CPUs, slower and smaller hard drives, slower GPUs, and so on. That's just the way it is.
2. Upgrades. Upgrading a laptop means currently that you have to throw out the old one and buy a new one. This, too, could be seen as a minor problem, with the Joe Average User buying a new computer every few years rather than doing midlife upgrades and laptops that come across as "barebones" with interchangeable parts.
How is that different than what the Joe Average User does today? They might do a mid-life memory upgrade, but that's about it. And that's quite possible on a laptop.
3. Vendor lock-in. Even if upgrading is possible, you often need very specific Dell/IBM/Toshiba-only parts that fit only in this brand of laptop, often also only in this series (anyone who ever wanted to up their ram in the IBM notebooks knows what I'm talking about). This is unlikely to change, since companies DO want you to be locked in. I highly doubt they'll agree to a standard.
Stop buying from companies that lock you in. I have a ~2 year old Dell Inspiron that I've upgraded with off-the-shelf parts from Fry's. I did the RAM (increased to 2GB) and hard drive (7200rpm 100GB replacing a 5400rpm 80GB), but I could've also upgraded the CPU with an off-the-shelf part (Fry's carries laptop CPUs). The GPU is upgradeable as well, though I would have to find a specific form factor that's no longer available direct from Dell and would cost me $400+ on ebay. If I wanted, I could even upgrade my wireless card (standard mini-PCI internal card) if I wanted to get 802.11n support (my card supports b/g/a already so I don't see any need to upgrade).
6. Defects. When a part of the notebook fails, you have to send it in for repairs. No user serviceable parts inside (with most models at least). When the graphics card in the desktop fails, rip it out and replace it.
Again, that really depends on the manufacturer of your notebook. Using my Dell as an example, there are multiple places online that sell various different parts (everything from new screens to the plastic bezel surroundings), and Dell has online instructions on how to completely disassemble and reassemble the laptop. I've personally replaced the keyboard on my laptop, and considered replacing the screen with a higher resolution model. If I needed to, I could build almost an entirely new laptop from those replacement parts and instructions, since just about everything is available (I think only the bottom case portion of the laptop is not easily available).
The list goes on. While notebook use will certainly increase over the next years (points 1 and 2 can pretty easily be taken care of, and will), I do not see them as the all powerful replacement of desktops. They might have their place in work environments, especially when mobility is an issue, but in the private sector (and especially amongst hardcore gamers, video/audio junkies and graphics artists) the desktop will most likely survive.
Duh? There are plenty of things desktops are much better at than laptops. Unfortunately for desktop users, laptops have been getting better at many things, to the point where Average Joe User may as well buy a laptop instead of a desktop since the prices are relatively comparable, the performance is more than enough for browsing, email, video, word processing, and light gamin
Red Octane made the guitar. It was wired because they didn't want to pay the $20 per unit fee for MS's wireless technology.
It was wired because they couldn't pay Microsoft anything to use the wireless technology. Microsoft began licensing that only very recently (approximately around the same time that Guitar Hero III announced it would have a wireless guitar). I'm sure Red Octane would've loved to have made a wireless guitar for GH2, but it was simply impossible at the time.
After all this time, it is surprising to me that the PS3 sales are only a little more than double the 360 sales. Yes, the 360 had a jump on the market but it is still a lot closer than I would have expected. People say that M$ should give up on that market -- maybe Sony should think along the same lines?
Microsoft has much different goals and expectations in Japan than Sony does. While Japan is still a huge video game market, and Microsoft would love to do well there, they realize that it's a very difficult market to enter as a non-Japanese company. As such, sales expectations are quite low. Sony, on the other hand, is a Japanese company and the Japanese market is supposed to be their cash cow. Only holding a 2x lead over Microsoft in Japan is terrible.
Microsoft could give up on the Japanese market now that they've gotten many Japanese developers on their side (Capcom, Konami, SEGA, etc), but I doubt they will in fear of losing those same developers. Sony simply can't give up on the Japanese market, because that would kill them in every other market as well.
And they are under heavy pressure to drop the price and the charge for online play.
Under heavy pressure from whom? Xbox Live subscriptions are up, beating projections (I think Moore said they crossed the 7 million subscriber mark at E3). The only people I've seen who care about the price of Live are those coming from an environment without a cohesive online story (Sony fanboys, mostly).
On the price of the console, the most expensive Xbox 360 is still cheaper than the cheapest PS3. The consoles are still selling well, though they did just barely miss the quarter's sell-through numbers. Sure, people would like for the price to drop, but that's not going to stop most people who want the console. There are enough great games already out and coming soon that the price of a 360 is easily justified (in comparison, the PS3's price even at $500 is very difficult to justify due to lack of games). A price drop probably will come along, most likely at the same time manufacturing switches over to the cheaper 65nm process. But if it doesn't come, it's not going to hurt Microsoft too much, and the ability to finally make a profit on the console may easily outweigh the few gamers they won't get due to price.
If this is the case, buckle down the AP settings so they're not open or easily accessible via iPhone and require students to anti up their MAC addresses to connect to the wireless network.
While not mentioned explicitly in the article, I assumed that's what they were already doing. Then the problem would be that the iPhone doesn't know when to shut up when the AP denies its MAC (I mean really, who would deny an iPhone? They're so cool!). I'm not sure what more they can do about it if there's no forthcoming patch from Apple. Ignoring the packets at the AP would still require some bandwidth, because you'd have to look to see the MAC address prior to dropping it.
The reality is that you actively and continually have to work at PREVENTING 2007 from saving under the new formats. I have older Excel documents that I often work with and every single time I open them and work on them and save I get sometimes multiple warnings about various reasons why I "should" save as the new format - with defaults always set to save as the new file format
Your reality is apparently very different from my own. Just to verify that I'm not crazy, I did the following tests:
Create a new Word document in Word 2007 and explicitly save it as a.doc (Word 97 - Word 2003 format). Close Word, re-open Word and reload that document. Make some changes and save. No prompts, saves as.doc.
Create a new Excel spreadsheet in Excel 2007 and explicitly save it as a.xls (Excel 97 - Excel 2003 format). Close Excel, re-open Excel and reload that spreadsheet. Make some changes and save. No prompts, saves as.xls.
Open the.xls created in #2 and apply some Excel 2007-specific formatting (in this case, I marked a cell as "Good", from the Style section of the Home ribbon). Try to save. Get a warning that the 2007-specifiic formats will be lost if I continue. Options are to "Continue" (save as the old format, losing the new styles), "Cancel" (go back to the spreadsheet, where I can choose to "Save As" the new format), or "Copy to New Sheet".
Open the.xls created in #2, apply some formatting, and choose to Save As a text format (.txt, tab-delimited). Get a warning that the format doesn't allow multiple worksheets, with the options of "OK" (save only the active sheet) and "Cancel" (go back to the spreadsheet without saving). Choose "OK". Get another warning that the spreadsheet may contain features incompatible with the chosen format. Options are "Yes" (keep the format, losing any incompatible features), "No" (go back to the spreadsheet without saving), and "Help" (tell me what I might lose).
Tests #3 and #4 above are the only times I've ever seen any warnings on save. The warning dialogs will not allow you to accidentally convert your file to the new format. Instead, you can either save it in the format you chose without all of the formatting data, or you can cancel out and choose to "Save As" a different format.
To reiterate, there is absolutely, positively no way that you can "accidentally" save an existing file of an older format as the new.*x Office formats. You can do so intentionally by using Save As, but you can't do so accidentally. Of course Office is going to warn you that using the older format could be bad, but it's smart enough to do so only when there's a reason to give you that warning.
Obviously new documents will save in the new format unless you explicitly choose otherwise.
If you're just talking about the new.*x formats (.docx,.xlsx), you actively have to work at converting your old files to the new format. If you open an old.doc or.xls in Word 2007 or Excel 2007 and then try to save it, the document will continue to use the old format. New documents will save in the new format, and you can convert your old documents to the new format, but it's not done automatically.
That said, the linked article is not even talking about any of that at all. It's simply pointing out that some new PCs are now shipping with trial versions of Office 2007, and says nothing about any difficulties of downgrading to an older version. The submitter's summary and story have absolutely nothing to do with the linked article, and are based on issues with a version of Office 4 years and 2 versions older than what's currently available.
Outlook pst conversion is a different story, but I think the submitter went about it in a strange way. Outlook allows you to export and import your data in many different formats, so I don't understand why he had to install his own copy of the trial just to export some data. More importantly, why would you risk important data without a backup when trialling software that you're not 100% sure you want to keep? That's just bad practice with anything, not just Microsoft products.
Given that the "fire sale" will last probably over a month, should it really be considered one?
Okay, maybe "closeout sale" or even "going out of business sale" would be more appropriate, since those usually last a few months (when the CompUSA stores were all closing around here, they ran a going out of business sale for something like 4 months). Anyway, if the current stock of 60GB PS3 consoles is enough to make the sale last for several months, that's a pretty good indicator of how unpopular the console really is (at least at $600, anyway). The real question is, will the sale last that long because there's so much stock available, or because even at $500 nobody wants one?
I'll be waiting for a more substantial and permanent price drop before I buy one (and even then, I won't bother unless there are exclusive games I have to have).
I can easily see Microsoft releasing a new version of their hardware in time for the holidays and having a firesale of their own on the old models around the holiday season, which would really cut into Sony's sales. Sony is going to look bad selling at $500 when you can get an Xbox 360 at $300.
Microsoft is releasing a new "version" of their console with Halo 3, but I assume that's just a re-paint of an Elite. As for dropping the price, why should they? Sony is doing a good enough job of shooting themselves in the foot. Anything Microsoft would add via price drops on the 360 would just be a drop in the bucket compared to Sony Marketing's own damn incompetence.
Oh yeah, and you can get an Xbox 360 for $300 today. You'll have to spend another $100 for a hard drive, $50 for a wireless controller, and $30 for component video cables for a grand total of $480 to match the $400 premium console, but you can do it that way if you want:).
I honestly think that Sony should slash prices down to at least $400, which would get a lot of consumers to purchase one.
If Sony would slash prices down to a sustained $400 rather than a fire sale $400, they'd probably triple their userbase overnight. $400 today is generally a consumer electronics "sweet spot", where it's just cheap enough to justify buying. Anything over $400 requires real thought to purchase.
I would actually like a small amount of rumble on my mouse
Welcome to 2001, where Logitech is about to release its new line of iFeel mice based on Immersion's TouchSense technology.
As it turns out, rumble in a mouse wasn't all that great. Sure, it was a neat little trick initially, but ultimately there was no support for it but for a very few games. Logitech killed the iFeel line of mice relatively quickly.
That said, I do agree with you that the Wii's pointer feedback is helpful. Part of that is because the Wiimote simply doesn't have the accuracy of a mouse. I'm not sure how useful it would really be on a mouse, though I still hope somebody will eventually re-visit the concept (preferably with an open standard that anybody can use, and with great drivers and support in major libraries like DirectX). I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.
Rumble controllers are like cruise control on new cars. It should be standard, it isn't expensive, but some manufactures still want to milk the end users for every friggen dime.
s/manufacturers/Immersion/. All of Sony's talk about rumble screwing up the motion sensitive SIXAXIS was just a bunch of crap intended to cover up the fact that they refused to settle Immersion's patent lawsuit like Microsoft and Nintendo did. They finally settled, which is why they're talking about bringing back rumble, but like most things Sony lately, they've done too little too late. Either they should've settled with Immersion before the PS3 shipped, or they should've stuck to their guns and fought the patent sharks to the bitter end. By settling now, we get the worst of both worlds -- Immersion's patent is now bolstered by all three console manufacturers, and current PS3 owners get to spend another $50 to purchase a new controller if they want rumble.
But I digress, I don't need it anymore now that I have motion sensitive bluetooth IR tracking Wiimotes.
Trailer wasn't FMV, it was realtime, in-engine footage. Not gameplay, but its a far cry from pre-rendered FMV. Its the same graphical quality you'd see from gameplay.
Just like last year's Killzone2 trailer, right? I'm sorry, but I won't buy that something is "in-engine footage" unless there's somebody in front of the TV who is obviously controlling it. I definitely won't just take Sony's word for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. I didn't say anything about that, as I don't care. I highlighted that section for your improper use of brackets for a parenthetical comment. The content of the comment held no interest to me in terms of pointing out grammatical errors. "God" vs. "god" doesn't really matter, as for all I knew you could've been referencing one of the Greek gods rather than the Christian God.
Your English teacher didn't do a very good job.
The thing about free speech, as protected by the US Constitution, is that it only protects you against the government (not private or public businesses) and it doesn't guarantee you a forum. If the US government chose to censor your blog, that's against the constitution. If Google decided that they don't want your blog on their Blogger service, that's completely within their rights to do and is not a violation of free speech. Without knowing why Google decided to remove your blog (did the Israeli government really pressure them?), there's not a whole lot you can do about it.
That said, you can still say what you want. You just need to find another forum. Find a web hoster that's sympathetic to your cause (meaning they won't drop you) and host your blog there.
While other developers may still suck, Microsoft got it right with Office on OS X. If Microsoft can do that, surely Apple can get iTunes and Quicktime right on Windows.
Office 2007 aside (the Ribbon is just "different"), the controls within the interfaces always act the same, even if they're not in standard locations. There is no shift-ctrl-right-click buttons in WMP, the menu in IE7 pops up and acts just like a normal menu even if it is hidden by default, and even Office 2007's Ribbon buttons act like normal toolbar buttons when you click on them even though they're in an odd container. Personally, I don't care that Apple's media apps have the brushed aluminum skin (media players have always been different like that). What I care about is that the controls in the app work as expected on the OS its running. Simple things are missing or just plain weird, like missing a lot of keyboard controls or having specific actions on different buttons if different modifiers are held down during a click.
Re-reading the article, it doesn't sound like the "old Zune" is going away. Instead, they're going to do three things:
- Introduce a new flash-based player, like the iPod Mini/Nano (probably not in the same league as the Shuffle),
- Ship the 2.0 firmware with undisclosed new features on the current Zune hardware (similar to the "fat" iPod selling alongside the mini/nano/shuffle), possibly with a drive size increase, and
- Provide the 2.0 firmware to existing Zune owners
If indeed the "fat" Zune gets a drive size bump, that's probably what you'll see showing up across the pond. If it doesn't and it's just a firmware update, the Zune packages should be the same as here (just different colors). And I'd expect the flash-based Zune would sell in all markets that get the fat Zune.Close enough. My house's wireless router adequately covers my attached garage. It might be more difficult for someone living in an apartment, or a condo with detached parking. For most homeowners with wireless routers, I'd be surprised if their garage didn't have wireless coverage.
On the other hand, "rented" music allows you to sample a much wider variety of music than if you had to pay for it all. $15 will buy you 15 songs on iTunes forever, or it will buy you an "infinite" (limited by what's available on the Zune Marketplace) amount of music for one month. If you like the music, you can always buy it. Personally, the music subscription is what swayed me toward Zune rather than iPod. Well, that and I can't stand Apple's software on Windows. If you're going to make a Windows app, make a damn Windows app. Don't port an OS X app over to Windows, because not only is the look and feel all wrong but the functionality of "standard" controls is different as well. I don't expecto to have to ctrl-click or shift-click on a button in Windows to make some action happen, but that's exactly how the iTunes software works. Microsoft got it right with Office on OS X, building an interface and behaviors specific to OS X. Why can't Apple reciprocate and make proper Windows apps?
So turn off the wireless when you're not actively looking for or sharing with other Zune players. As a bonus, you'll get a longer battery life with wireless off.
From the article linked by the article, the Microsoft rep flat-out says that the new firmware will be pushed to old Zunes. Since there's no information about hardware updates other than the Shuffle-like Zune, if you're in the market for one there's no reason not to buy now. Then again, there may be a price drop on old versions, or there may be a new version with a bigger hard drive.
Think of a car application, where you have the Zune basically hardwired into your car audio. As such, it'd have power already, but you'd still have to remove it from the car in order to add new music. Being able to wirelessly sync would allow you to run the Zune app on a PC in your house and sync songs out to your car without having to take the Zune out of your car at all.
I just purchased the Halo 3 Zune, and have an appointment next week to get my car set up with an AUX input solution (Porsche's stupid MOST bus Becker head units don't have AUX inputs available as standard or an option). So of course they have to announce Zune 2.0 coming "before holiday season", which most likely means "August".
Hopefully the Zune 2.0 firmware will be pushed to current Zunes.
Or it'll encourage non-European camera manufacturers to open up fabs in Europe, similar to how Honda, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes opened up car manufacturing plants in the US to avoid import taxes on popular models (most Accords are made in the US, for example). This actually makes Honda and Toyota cars more "American" than the big 2.5, who outsource most of their manufacturing to Canada and Mexico (yay NAFTA!).
With enough automation, the cost of labor in differing markets is negligible. The only remaining quesiton is whether the cost of land and more stringent pollution control in developed countries is cheaper than the import tariff. If so, the companies will open up new plants. If not, they'll pass the tariff prices on to the consumer.
Why? Are you saying that Slashdot is filled with people with Asperger's Syndrome? That's highly unlikely. There are plenty of people here who wish they had Asperger's, even going so far as to self-diagnose. The truth of the matter is that while Asperger's is real, it's nowhere near as common as internet message boards would have you believe. It is a good scapegoat for people who never learned how to interact socially with other people.
Maybe in a direct apples-to-apples comparison. "Equivalent" laptops are barely more expensive than desktops, where "equivalent" is more about mapping the laptop to a demographic rather than comparing raw numbers -- economy laptop/desktop, entertainment laptop/desktop, workstation laptop/desktop, etc. Of course the laptops are going to have slower CPUs, slower and smaller hard drives, slower GPUs, and so on. That's just the way it is.
How is that different than what the Joe Average User does today? They might do a mid-life memory upgrade, but that's about it. And that's quite possible on a laptop.
Stop buying from companies that lock you in. I have a ~2 year old Dell Inspiron that I've upgraded with off-the-shelf parts from Fry's. I did the RAM (increased to 2GB) and hard drive (7200rpm 100GB replacing a 5400rpm 80GB), but I could've also upgraded the CPU with an off-the-shelf part (Fry's carries laptop CPUs). The GPU is upgradeable as well, though I would have to find a specific form factor that's no longer available direct from Dell and would cost me $400+ on ebay. If I wanted, I could even upgrade my wireless card (standard mini-PCI internal card) if I wanted to get 802.11n support (my card supports b/g/a already so I don't see any need to upgrade).
Again, that really depends on the manufacturer of your notebook. Using my Dell as an example, there are multiple places online that sell various different parts (everything from new screens to the plastic bezel surroundings), and Dell has online instructions on how to completely disassemble and reassemble the laptop. I've personally replaced the keyboard on my laptop, and considered replacing the screen with a higher resolution model. If I needed to, I could build almost an entirely new laptop from those replacement parts and instructions, since just about everything is available (I think only the bottom case portion of the laptop is not easily available).
Duh? There are plenty of things desktops are much better at than laptops. Unfortunately for desktop users, laptops have been getting better at many things, to the point where Average Joe User may as well buy a laptop instead of a desktop since the prices are relatively comparable, the performance is more than enough for browsing, email, video, word processing, and light gamin
It was wired because they couldn't pay Microsoft anything to use the wireless technology. Microsoft began licensing that only very recently (approximately around the same time that Guitar Hero III announced it would have a wireless guitar). I'm sure Red Octane would've loved to have made a wireless guitar for GH2, but it was simply impossible at the time.
Microsoft has much different goals and expectations in Japan than Sony does. While Japan is still a huge video game market, and Microsoft would love to do well there, they realize that it's a very difficult market to enter as a non-Japanese company. As such, sales expectations are quite low. Sony, on the other hand, is a Japanese company and the Japanese market is supposed to be their cash cow. Only holding a 2x lead over Microsoft in Japan is terrible.
Microsoft could give up on the Japanese market now that they've gotten many Japanese developers on their side (Capcom, Konami, SEGA, etc), but I doubt they will in fear of losing those same developers. Sony simply can't give up on the Japanese market, because that would kill them in every other market as well.
Under heavy pressure from whom? Xbox Live subscriptions are up, beating projections (I think Moore said they crossed the 7 million subscriber mark at E3). The only people I've seen who care about the price of Live are those coming from an environment without a cohesive online story (Sony fanboys, mostly).
On the price of the console, the most expensive Xbox 360 is still cheaper than the cheapest PS3. The consoles are still selling well, though they did just barely miss the quarter's sell-through numbers. Sure, people would like for the price to drop, but that's not going to stop most people who want the console. There are enough great games already out and coming soon that the price of a 360 is easily justified (in comparison, the PS3's price even at $500 is very difficult to justify due to lack of games). A price drop probably will come along, most likely at the same time manufacturing switches over to the cheaper 65nm process. But if it doesn't come, it's not going to hurt Microsoft too much, and the ability to finally make a profit on the console may easily outweigh the few gamers they won't get due to price.
Ugh, nevermind. Should've read on to page two, where they talk about the iPhones already being on the network, so my theory doesn't work.
While not mentioned explicitly in the article, I assumed that's what they were already doing. Then the problem would be that the iPhone doesn't know when to shut up when the AP denies its MAC (I mean really, who would deny an iPhone? They're so cool!). I'm not sure what more they can do about it if there's no forthcoming patch from Apple. Ignoring the packets at the AP would still require some bandwidth, because you'd have to look to see the MAC address prior to dropping it.
Your reality is apparently very different from my own. Just to verify that I'm not crazy, I did the following tests:
- Create a new Word document in Word 2007 and explicitly save it as a
.doc (Word 97 - Word 2003 format). Close Word, re-open Word and reload that document. Make some changes and save. No prompts, saves as .doc.
- Create a new Excel spreadsheet in Excel 2007 and explicitly save it as a
.xls (Excel 97 - Excel 2003 format). Close Excel, re-open Excel and reload that spreadsheet. Make some changes and save. No prompts, saves as .xls.
- Open the
.xls created in #2 and apply some Excel 2007-specific formatting (in this case, I marked a cell as "Good", from the Style section of the Home ribbon). Try to save. Get a warning that the 2007-specifiic formats will be lost if I continue. Options are to "Continue" (save as the old format, losing the new styles), "Cancel" (go back to the spreadsheet, where I can choose to "Save As" the new format), or "Copy to New Sheet".
- Open the
.xls created in #2, apply some formatting, and choose to Save As a text format (.txt, tab-delimited). Get a warning that the format doesn't allow multiple worksheets, with the options of "OK" (save only the active sheet) and "Cancel" (go back to the spreadsheet without saving). Choose "OK". Get another warning that the spreadsheet may contain features incompatible with the chosen format. Options are "Yes" (keep the format, losing any incompatible features), "No" (go back to the spreadsheet without saving), and "Help" (tell me what I might lose).
Tests #3 and #4 above are the only times I've ever seen any warnings on save. The warning dialogs will not allow you to accidentally convert your file to the new format. Instead, you can either save it in the format you chose without all of the formatting data, or you can cancel out and choose to "Save As" a different format.To reiterate, there is absolutely, positively no way that you can "accidentally" save an existing file of an older format as the new .*x Office formats. You can do so intentionally by using Save As, but you can't do so accidentally. Of course Office is going to warn you that using the older format could be bad, but it's smart enough to do so only when there's a reason to give you that warning.
Obviously new documents will save in the new format unless you explicitly choose otherwise.
If you're just talking about the new .*x formats (.docx, .xlsx), you actively have to work at converting your old files to the new format. If you open an old .doc or .xls in Word 2007 or Excel 2007 and then try to save it, the document will continue to use the old format. New documents will save in the new format, and you can convert your old documents to the new format, but it's not done automatically.
That said, the linked article is not even talking about any of that at all. It's simply pointing out that some new PCs are now shipping with trial versions of Office 2007, and says nothing about any difficulties of downgrading to an older version. The submitter's summary and story have absolutely nothing to do with the linked article, and are based on issues with a version of Office 4 years and 2 versions older than what's currently available.
Outlook pst conversion is a different story, but I think the submitter went about it in a strange way. Outlook allows you to export and import your data in many different formats, so I don't understand why he had to install his own copy of the trial just to export some data. More importantly, why would you risk important data without a backup when trialling software that you're not 100% sure you want to keep? That's just bad practice with anything, not just Microsoft products.
Okay, maybe "closeout sale" or even "going out of business sale" would be more appropriate, since those usually last a few months (when the CompUSA stores were all closing around here, they ran a going out of business sale for something like 4 months). Anyway, if the current stock of 60GB PS3 consoles is enough to make the sale last for several months, that's a pretty good indicator of how unpopular the console really is (at least at $600, anyway). The real question is, will the sale last that long because there's so much stock available, or because even at $500 nobody wants one?
I'll be waiting for a more substantial and permanent price drop before I buy one (and even then, I won't bother unless there are exclusive games I have to have).
Microsoft is releasing a new "version" of their console with Halo 3, but I assume that's just a re-paint of an Elite. As for dropping the price, why should they? Sony is doing a good enough job of shooting themselves in the foot. Anything Microsoft would add via price drops on the 360 would just be a drop in the bucket compared to Sony Marketing's own damn incompetence.
Oh yeah, and you can get an Xbox 360 for $300 today. You'll have to spend another $100 for a hard drive, $50 for a wireless controller, and $30 for component video cables for a grand total of $480 to match the $400 premium console, but you can do it that way if you want :).
If Sony would slash prices down to a sustained $400 rather than a fire sale $400, they'd probably triple their userbase overnight. $400 today is generally a consumer electronics "sweet spot", where it's just cheap enough to justify buying. Anything over $400 requires real thought to purchase.
Welcome to 2001, where Logitech is about to release its new line of iFeel mice based on Immersion's TouchSense technology.
As it turns out, rumble in a mouse wasn't all that great. Sure, it was a neat little trick initially, but ultimately there was no support for it but for a very few games. Logitech killed the iFeel line of mice relatively quickly.
That said, I do agree with you that the Wii's pointer feedback is helpful. Part of that is because the Wiimote simply doesn't have the accuracy of a mouse. I'm not sure how useful it would really be on a mouse, though I still hope somebody will eventually re-visit the concept (preferably with an open standard that anybody can use, and with great drivers and support in major libraries like DirectX). I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.
s/manufacturers/Immersion/. All of Sony's talk about rumble screwing up the motion sensitive SIXAXIS was just a bunch of crap intended to cover up the fact that they refused to settle Immersion's patent lawsuit like Microsoft and Nintendo did. They finally settled, which is why they're talking about bringing back rumble, but like most things Sony lately, they've done too little too late. Either they should've settled with Immersion before the PS3 shipped, or they should've stuck to their guns and fought the patent sharks to the bitter end. By settling now, we get the worst of both worlds -- Immersion's patent is now bolstered by all three console manufacturers, and current PS3 owners get to spend another $50 to purchase a new controller if they want rumble.
You know your Wiimote rumbles, right?
Just like last year's Killzone2 trailer, right? I'm sorry, but I won't buy that something is "in-engine footage" unless there's somebody in front of the TV who is obviously controlling it. I definitely won't just take Sony's word for it.