"derisive"? A tad over-sensitive are we? If it hurts your feeling so much just substitute whatever phrase you use to refer to the average-non-technically-inclined-consumer.
How do you figure a walmart shopper is going to drop an extra 400 bones just to brag about it? We are not talking about videophiles here.
The transition from cassette tape to CD and from VHS to DVD offered dramatic and obvious improvements, even to the untrained eye/ear. Aside from P & S quality, you also had the ability to jump around to random places on the discs and you didn't have to rewind those damn tapes(!!!). Even the neophyte can appreciate these improvements.
Now compare this to the DVD -> HD-DVD/Blu-Ray transition. For starters, they essentially look the same. So whats the difference again? Oh yeah, the picture looks a little better. How many Joe 6-packs do you know who complain about DVD image quality (assuming a properly done transfer)? Not many.
Something else to consider... if you are disinterested in this new technology because the difference isn't that noticable and from the looks of things you seem to be technically fluent, how is the average joe going to react? I'm talking about those people who watch standard def contents on their HDTV sets without even realizing it/knowing the difference.
It's along the same lines as the Xbox gamertag but for PCs. Will show what game you are currently playing, allowing your friends to join you in game, IM you in-game, voice chat, share files, etc.
On a cognitive level I think a lot of the OS X effects help the user understand exactly what is happening in computerland.
An example of this is Expose, how the windows nicely slide and resize, making it obvious what is going on. The animation here is not really necessary (think windows alt-tab) but it certainly helps. Another example is the fast user switching feature. Rather than simply flipping to the other desktop leaving the user wondering where they are and how they got there, it does a nice rotation animation.
A lot of linux desktops look fantastic in screenshots but then you actually sit down and use them and realize they are clunky and obtuse. The linux desktop has come a long long way in recent years but it's still a distant third place behind OS-X and XP for me in terms of what I would like to use on my desktop on a daily basis. Yeah things like transparent windows and organically shaped widgets are nice eye-candy but the it takes more than eye-candy to make a good desktop environment.
BTW last time I tried enlightenment it was no lightweight in terms of memory usage so unless things have changed drastically I don't agree with your statement about running on lower spec machines.
If you like using the keyboard for navigation try out Quicksilver for OS-X. You can set it up to do damn near anything and assign whatever keystrokes you want.
"Besides, if the hardware thing was true, OS 8 and OS 9 should have been MUCH MORE stable because they only ran on those few pieces of Apple hardware, while Windows XP should be much LESS stable because it runs on so many million different types of computers."
Err this is reality.
Apple has a much more simple set of hardware variables to consider. That doesn't mean that Apple developers lack talent.
Personally, I've found XP to be rock solid stability-wise. I can leave my XP machine up for months on end without any problems. When I do hear of people having stability issues 80% of the time it turns out to be some flakey third party hardware driver. This is in-line with your original statement.
N52 is ultimately just a re-arranged keyboard so in an of itself there is nothing about an n52 that violates the ToS.
Where you run into trouble is with the macroing software. Are you using it in a way where a sequence of things happens automagically? Expect Bliz to come down on this if they ever catch you.
I've got a G5 dualie and a brand new optiplex here, I use them both on a daily basis. The G5 is a little bigger but also much more rugged and sturdy. I can't say I've noticed the G5 to be any louder. The dell is quite ugly however with stickers all over the place and a chinsy plastic look to it.
TB uses whatever SMTP server you have assigned to a particular account. I have 2 main accounts, A and B. I have 2 smtp servers corresponding to each of those accounts. Any mail I send within the context of account A uses SMTP server A, any mail sent from account B uses SMTP server B.
The only thing "tricky" about it is that you add the SMTP servers in one section (talking recent 1.0.x here, I don't recall if it was different in older vers), but you have to then select/assign them to your accounts in another area. If "TB doesn't know when to use them" it's because you haven't told TB which SMTP server goes with which account so it's likely trying to use the default SMTP server for every account.
If your criteria for "originality" stipulates that no external influence or inspiration from other forms of media is allowed then there has never been and never will be an original movie.
Because running a disc for a few minutes is going to tell you very little. You think all these scratched discs occurred within the first 3 minutes of use? I seriously doubt it. So you could run your little overly simplistic 3 minute QA disc test and STILL get all these scratched disc returns that occurred 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month into the console lifespan and you would have accomplished nothing.
I've seen the ads but I haven't seen it in action yet. Is it *real* TV or is it just a collection of pre-recorded streamed vid clips that they call TV? I mean if you are watching the football game on your phone are you seeing it more or less realtime plus a few seconds delay?
I just find it hard to believe that Canadian cell offerings are anywhere near cutting edge when I look at what is available in europe and how cheap it is.
...thank god podcasting is "officially a word". Now I can utter it in speech without fear of spontaneously combusting because I hate it when that happens.
On my work PC I run the start bar double height and it's always full of running apps. This includes word/excel/access/dreamweaver/firefox(60 or so tabs)/5 or 6 IE windows/3 or 4 remote desktop sessions/cmd window/calc/various other pieces of proprietary software. The only time I ever restart the machine is if there is some update which insists on a full restart which isn't very often. Other than it literally runs indefinitely. I can't even remember the last time I saw a blue screen.
My personal uptime for my linux box at home is somewhere around 185 days and it went down due to a brownout (no UPS on it at the time). I tend to use it for all command line/server type stuff which definitely helps as far as stability goes.
My G5 here at work has yet to freeze/crash/restart since I got it. I also use it on a daily basis.
Point is, all of these machines run indefinitely. If you believe the average slashdot poster then an XP machine crashes if you look at it funny but I've not found that to be the case. Usually the culprit in situations like that is buggy hardware drivers or really poorly written software and all 3 OS's are vulnerable to this.
lol just a story that shows the 360 in an unflattering light huh?
Take a look at the headline and summary again, it's over the top sensationaliztion. Not that I really expect anything better from slashdot. I mean come on now, only a small % of members here are even capable of discussing microsoft without the conversation degenerating into a series of worn out weren't-all-that-funny-in-the-first-place MS/BSOD/Bill Gate$ jokes. roflcakes with bbqsauce indeed.
Grats on rewriting exactly what he stated in the original piece and getting modded up for it. You are a true master of repetition. I'm guessing as a child you excelled at following your big sister around and repeating everything she said verbatim to annoy her.
It's a little faster in some cases, and a little slower in others. It seems the old OpenGL/DirectX performance tradeoff with the ATI/Nvidia cards lives on strong. For all the extra time they had, I'm pretty suprised to see them release a part that is at best comparable to a 7800GTX performance wise and more expensive too. As for the headroom comment, you could just as easily say the nvidia cards have loads of headroom in terms of clockspeeds as they are pretty conservatively clocked right now.
If they had been released at the same time, it would be a tougher decision but as it is now why would you pay more money for equal, possibly even slightly less performance?
Slashdot Mirror
"derisive"? A tad over-sensitive are we? If it hurts your feeling so much just substitute whatever phrase you use to refer to the average-non-technically-inclined-consumer.
How do you figure a walmart shopper is going to drop an extra 400 bones just to brag about it? We are not talking about videophiles here.
The transition from cassette tape to CD and from VHS to DVD offered dramatic and obvious improvements, even to the untrained eye/ear. Aside from P & S quality, you also had the ability to jump around to random places on the discs and you didn't have to rewind those damn tapes(!!!). Even the neophyte can appreciate these improvements.
Now compare this to the DVD -> HD-DVD/Blu-Ray transition. For starters, they essentially look the same. So whats the difference again? Oh yeah, the picture looks a little better. How many Joe 6-packs do you know who complain about DVD image quality (assuming a properly done transfer)? Not many.
Something else to consider... if you are disinterested in this new technology because the difference isn't that noticable and from the looks of things you seem to be technically fluent, how is the average joe going to react? I'm talking about those people who watch standard def contents on their HDTV sets without even realizing it/knowing the difference.
Have you checked out XFire?
www.xfire.com
It's along the same lines as the Xbox gamertag but for PCs. Will show what game you are currently playing, allowing your friends to join you in game, IM you in-game, voice chat, share files, etc.
Pretty please?
On a cognitive level I think a lot of the OS X effects help the user understand exactly what is happening in computerland.
An example of this is Expose, how the windows nicely slide and resize, making it obvious what is going on. The animation here is not really necessary (think windows alt-tab) but it certainly helps. Another example is the fast user switching feature. Rather than simply flipping to the other desktop leaving the user wondering where they are and how they got there, it does a nice rotation animation.
I got a lot more crashes with mythtv than I do with MCE but yeah, the DRM thing blows.
KnoppMyth gets pretty close to what you are describing:
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
It's not perfect but it's close to out-of-the-box.
It helps if you are careful when selecting your hardware to make sure it is well supported ahead of time (hauppauge is a good call).
A lot of linux desktops look fantastic in screenshots but then you actually sit down and use them and realize they are clunky and obtuse. The linux desktop has come a long long way in recent years but it's still a distant third place behind OS-X and XP for me in terms of what I would like to use on my desktop on a daily basis. Yeah things like transparent windows and organically shaped widgets are nice eye-candy but the it takes more than eye-candy to make a good desktop environment.
BTW last time I tried enlightenment it was no lightweight in terms of memory usage so unless things have changed drastically I don't agree with your statement about running on lower spec machines.
If you like using the keyboard for navigation try out Quicksilver for OS-X. You can set it up to do damn near anything and assign whatever keystrokes you want.
"Besides, if the hardware thing was true, OS 8 and OS 9 should have been MUCH MORE stable because they only ran on those few pieces of Apple hardware, while Windows XP should be much LESS stable because it runs on so many million different types of computers."
Err this is reality.
Apple has a much more simple set of hardware variables to consider. That doesn't mean that Apple developers lack talent.
Personally, I've found XP to be rock solid stability-wise. I can leave my XP machine up for months on end without any problems. When I do hear of people having stability issues 80% of the time it turns out to be some flakey third party hardware driver. This is in-line with your original statement.
N52 is ultimately just a re-arranged keyboard so in an of itself there is nothing about an n52 that violates the ToS.
Where you run into trouble is with the macroing software. Are you using it in a way where a sequence of things happens automagically? Expect Bliz to come down on this if they ever catch you.
I've got a G5 dualie and a brand new optiplex here, I use them both on a daily basis. The G5 is a little bigger but also much more rugged and sturdy. I can't say I've noticed the G5 to be any louder. The dell is quite ugly however with stickers all over the place and a chinsy plastic look to it.
TB uses whatever SMTP server you have assigned to a particular account. I have 2 main accounts, A and B. I have 2 smtp servers corresponding to each of those accounts. Any mail I send within the context of account A uses SMTP server A, any mail sent from account B uses SMTP server B.
The only thing "tricky" about it is that you add the SMTP servers in one section (talking recent 1.0.x here, I don't recall if it was different in older vers), but you have to then select/assign them to your accounts in another area. If "TB doesn't know when to use them" it's because you haven't told TB which SMTP server goes with which account so it's likely trying to use the default SMTP server for every account.
Joke older than dirt and even less funny than Ellen Degeneres spawns multiple instances in french-related slashdot article.
Film at 11.
If your criteria for "originality" stipulates that no external influence or inspiration from other forms of media is allowed then there has never been and never will be an original movie.
Because running a disc for a few minutes is going to tell you very little. You think all these scratched discs occurred within the first 3 minutes of use? I seriously doubt it. So you could run your little overly simplistic 3 minute QA disc test and STILL get all these scratched disc returns that occurred 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month into the console lifespan and you would have accomplished nothing.
I've seen the ads but I haven't seen it in action yet. Is it *real* TV or is it just a collection of pre-recorded streamed vid clips that they call TV? I mean if you are watching the football game on your phone are you seeing it more or less realtime plus a few seconds delay?
I just find it hard to believe that Canadian cell offerings are anywhere near cutting edge when I look at what is available in europe and how cheap it is.
You really need to get out more.
...thank god podcasting is "officially a word". Now I can utter it in speech without fear of spontaneously combusting because I hate it when that happens.
On my work PC I run the start bar double height and it's always full of running apps. This includes word/excel/access/dreamweaver/firefox(60 or so tabs)/5 or 6 IE windows/3 or 4 remote desktop sessions/cmd window/calc/various other pieces of proprietary software. The only time I ever restart the machine is if there is some update which insists on a full restart which isn't very often. Other than it literally runs indefinitely. I can't even remember the last time I saw a blue screen.
My personal uptime for my linux box at home is somewhere around 185 days and it went down due to a brownout (no UPS on it at the time). I tend to use it for all command line/server type stuff which definitely helps as far as stability goes.
My G5 here at work has yet to freeze/crash/restart since I got it. I also use it on a daily basis.
Point is, all of these machines run indefinitely. If you believe the average slashdot poster then an XP machine crashes if you look at it funny but I've not found that to be the case. Usually the culprit in situations like that is buggy hardware drivers or really poorly written software and all 3 OS's are vulnerable to this.
lol just a story that shows the 360 in an unflattering light huh?
Take a look at the headline and summary again, it's over the top sensationaliztion. Not that I really expect anything better from slashdot. I mean come on now, only a small % of members here are even capable of discussing microsoft without the conversation degenerating into a series of worn out weren't-all-that-funny-in-the-first-place MS/BSOD/Bill Gate$ jokes. roflcakes with bbqsauce indeed.
So following on with your food analogy, you prefer to be spoonfed?
Don't worry, you are not alone; This planet is full of people just like you.
Grats on rewriting exactly what he stated in the original piece and getting modded up for it. You are a true master of repetition. I'm guessing as a child you excelled at following your big sister around and repeating everything she said verbatim to annoy her.
It's a little faster in some cases, and a little slower in others. It seems the old OpenGL/DirectX performance tradeoff with the ATI/Nvidia cards lives on strong. For all the extra time they had, I'm pretty suprised to see them release a part that is at best comparable to a 7800GTX performance wise and more expensive too. As for the headroom comment, you could just as easily say the nvidia cards have loads of headroom in terms of clockspeeds as they are pretty conservatively clocked right now.
If they had been released at the same time, it would be a tougher decision but as it is now why would you pay more money for equal, possibly even slightly less performance?