Problem with the Netwinder
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Netwinder is Back
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The problem with the Netwinder IMHO always was price. It was cool, but only "geeky" people would understand it enought to want it, sort of, which is enough.
But, when really geeky people look at computers, they know how much it will cost to build their own bleeding edge box, why spend over $400 on something (not including a monitor) for a StrongArm DESKTOP when a Athlon 1.8GHz can be built?
I'm not bashing it, I think it's cool hardware. I really do. But they really have to consider what other things in that price point are, and that's dominated by x86. Just look at how cheap a ThinkNIC is, and that's going to have as much geek/hacker/toy/xterminal/whatever appeal.
Honest Question. Isn't the bottleneck still Disks
on
It's (Almost) Hammer Time
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Just wanted to see if anyone could give me some pointers, explination, or URLs to find out.
As we go over 2GHz, and from 32 to 64 bit, bus speed is going up (good), memory seems to be creeping up on speed (RAM that is)....
But what about hard drive access speeds? They don't seem to be getting faster at the same rate as everything else. And, the only think I seem to ever be "waiting" for using my 32bit 1Ghz system is reading something from the hard drive.
I'm starting to print out the most scummy spams, Porn etc (Esp pictures) and I'm going to mail them to my Congressmen and Senators.
How's that going to help if the porn sites are in China? Passing a law won't change it, your Congressman and Senator would have to be willing to support some kind of "punishment" in the form of economic sanctions or something on the country as a whole.... If that... It's not going to happen, not by just passing a law.
If it were to be stopped by law, it would have to be an INTERNATIONAL law (funny how electrons in cables don't know to carry a passport and stop to check in with the Customs Officer when they cross a border).
And, EVERY country would have to support the law. Or else the spaming operations would just move to a country that allows it. Good luck getting every country in the world to agree to an international policy just to keep spam out of your inbox.
Sorry to rant, but it gets on my nerves when ANYONE thinks the USA has some right to make any Internet regulation at all.... because, they are trying to control something that extends way beyond the countrys borders.
I understand someone puting the full text of an artical up when the source site is slow. But, this is from a BBC site, why can't people just read it on the original sources page?
"Netscape doesn't charge for the Netscape browser"
And you KNOW Sun will charge? Ever try to get Netscape _with_ support? Netscape is a company, they make money. They make it by making their browser ultra secure and do unexpected functions for clinets.
At this point you either go, "I can make it secure, and do intra-net mail, news, and all kinds of inside corprate stuff for MY company. Or, you go "what the hell are you talking about" in which case you need to speak to a Netscape sales representitive about.
You REAjLLY think they are a company that pays hundreds of employees to code, answer phones, maintain servers, maintain all of that by doing OSS only software???
If you really belive Netscape can pay all it's employees, OSS coders on Mozilla, it's system admins, and, yes, even JANITORS and RENT on that HUGE OFFICE COMPLEX they work out of by GIVING AWAY SOFTWARE....
Well, then, if you're that nieve, you probably can criticize Sun for offering Open Office for FREE and charging a fee to sell Star Office.
You may -1 me for trolling, but -10 this bozo for this statment!
OpenOffice is unusable
I use it DAILY. That IS a troll and a half! Come on, anyone that goes to OpenOffice.org TODAY and downloads it can install a binary and use it. Is someone afraid of Sun here? This is SUCH a LIE, SUCH A TROLL.
Funny, Open Office runs fine for me.... Build it from source? A 128M project? You kidding me? They tried for a year and can't do it?
OK, Mozilla wasn't THIS big, and it took MONTHS for anyone to be able to build that. I _personally_ don't remember Open Office being around "over a year."
Can someone explain to me how all the/.'ers can jump down Sun's throat for this? What is with the half dozen Sun this or Sun that stories this last couple weeks... All of a sudden, every third story has do do with Sun?
Why is it that Netscape is so promoted as "the great thing" because it supports Mozilla, and then does Netscape as commercial (and makes BIG money modifying it internally for specific corprate needs).
Mozilla is a MONEY MAKEING MACHINE for Netscape. They know it. AOL, the parent company knows it. The code base grows, and users benifit. The code base grows, and serves as the BASE for future Netscape and AOL ventures.
Yet, Netscape is a HERO, and SUN want's to do the same with an OFFICE SUITE, and everyone is pissed off? It seems like the same thing to me, only differance I see is that for some reason SlashDot Loves Netscape and Hates SUN.
I still have a hard time believing that MS Office and.doc are going to be the tough part of getting people to choose OSS over MS software.
I don't believe people are _that_ afraid to try an OSS office suite. Maybe a little intimidated, but not truely scared.
I think the real resistance, the real fear, will show up when you try to get people to give up Quicken or MS Money in favor of some OSS replacement.
IMHO, people will be much more worried about looseing their banking info, check book ballances, account numbers, payment histories, and other financial information... By comparision to worrying about formating of a frigging.doc vs. a.rtf, which do YOU think they will worry about more?
I think a lot of you are overlooking that there are actually a large number of managers out there that KNOW what they are doing, and still DON'T CARE. Why? Because they burned out long before you were ever even IN the job market.
Not saying your case of getting fired was right. Probably wasn't, but I'm not going to say it was wrong either. Could be (Just COULD) that someone had already told him _they_ could get it done in 3 weeks, and he gave you first chance at it, and you said you couldn't hack it... COULD BE, probably not, but could be...
As for the main post, "Managers Lack Vision" I would have to say, well, 75% completely lack vision, and the other 25% had vision once, but lost it. How many projects can you love, make great, and pour your heart and vision into, only to have it bastardized by either 1) Bad Marketing 2) Bad Upper Management Decision (managers have managers too!) or 3) Complete failure of the people working under you to deliver your visions. When you have vision, and never see it materialize, eventually you just give up.
Sorry, I've taken your word as true, based on something I _thought_ I saw. but I've been looking all afternoon, and can't find that price even for an UPGRADE version, WITH purchace. Turned out that is a $150 OFF offer, still costing $459.95 and only directly from Apple.
If you know how to get Office X for $150, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post the link!
You say that the public perception is that you need MS Office to make a computer useful. Then maybe this is what we should change.
OK, well, I think most of the open source community has been trying to do that for well over 5 years now. You suddenly have a way to make that happen that hasn't been tried?
Also, why is it Apple's fault that Microsoft doesn't cut them a great deal to bundle Office v X with new machines?
Where did I blame Apple? I thought I made it clear that I blame Microsoft for the lack of more people taking the purchace of a new Mac seriously...
The $150 price is for the Upgrade, discounted only with purchace of a new Mac. So, it assumes your getting a new mac at the same time, and you have a "qualified" previous version of Office for Mac you can install on the new Mac, and then upgrade....
Strangely enough, that discounted price seems to violate Microsoft's own shrink wrap policy, that once you have installed on one computer, you can't install on another... So, how do you install the old Office version on your New mac (second computer) to get the upgrade to work, if you already had a Mac and Office installed.
So, yea, it's cheaper that way, but how exactly is it suppose to work for people out to try mac insted of x86?
Just a thought, but go to pricewatch.com and search for 12.1" TFT. You can get a laptop for about $250 used that should meet all your needs, plus allow you to put a wireless card in it and have a nice "roam around the house" X-terminal...
I'm trying to pick up what I can on this topic... I know very little, but learning. So I have some basic questions.
100 watts? On the link listed, that's what they say. But as far as I know, the legal limit to boost a signal in the US is 1 watt. More than that, and someone will hunt you down to shut you down. Right?
It says TRANSMIT, doesn't that mean it's not a bi-directional antenna like you need for 802.11b? Wouldn't something sold over at HyperLink Tech. be better, seeing as they are more specifically designed to be used with 802.11b?
Why all the hype on the directional antennas? I would be MUCH more interested in an omnidirectional antenna so some neighbors and I can ALL see each other, not just 1 to 1. Is it just that they are harder to make?
Not Overpriced Hardware, it's STILL Microsoft's!
on
Cringely: OS X on Intel
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I dissagree. The hardware isn't HALF the magic, it's ALL the magic. OS X is nice and all, but it's not going to make me buy ANY system, ever. I'm not worried as long as NetBSD, FreeBSD or Linux runs on the hardware, I'll take it if it's QUALITY.
Look at the iBook. Small, light, preforms decent. Try to find a brand name x86 for the same money with similar equiptment. Same for the iMac.
Yes, you can say that you can _build your own_ for less with x86. x86 to Apple is already comparing apples to oranges, so to further try to compare a home built to off the shelf brand name is not a fair comparison.
SO, what's the REAL problem with APPLE?
When you can get an iMac for $799, an iBook for $1199, and then have to pay $550 for MS Office X who wants to buy it? When you can get at least the basic MS Office bundled with almost all x86 brand name hardware for almost nothing!
Don't bother arguing the Open Source office suites to me, I know. That doesn't change the fact that public perception is in the believe that you NEED MS Office to make a computer useful.
You are SOOO right. FSKing bastages script kiddies that run the Mods on SlashDot now days will never mod you up, but lemme tell you, _I_ believe ya!
NetBSD runs on EVERYTHING, with more packages, more complete, LONG LONG LONG before ANYTHING else (backhacked that is). Linux is not a step or two behind NetBSD, it's MILES behind when it comes to porting.
For that matter, IMHO, Linux (although it's almost the only UNIX I use now days) _STILL_ doesn't get "porting" the way the BSD community does. Make an app compile given a set of general expected things you expect to be there, and it COMPILES, and it RUNS.
Way too many Linux programmers think "if it compiles on Mandrake and on Debian, it's portable!" &*#*(@!&(*@!
ONLY NetBSD will get X running on the box you drag out of the closet and brush the dust of to read what it is.... Atari? MacSE? That wasn't my furnace, that was a PDP11? NetBSD is your friend.
OK, maybe X is a stretch, but, still, don't diss the dog that sniffed the trail!
As Usual, I was making a point, and went a _little_ overboard. Tetris is still MY #1 game, and I can't play anything that takes more than 3 minutes to figure out... I have a very short attenti.. Stuff, things, what?
Anyhow. Still, that works in most emulators, right? what's the need for FreeDOS? It's one of the re-invention the wheel thing that needs a wake up call. Plenty of cool stuff is out there, these guys need to put their skills (and I know they have em!) where needed, not in this FreeDOS shit. Hell, get enough people to sign on the line, and Dr. Dos could be opensourced easier than trying to develop FreeDOS.
I'm just saying, it's CUTE, yea, but useful? No, not to anyone anymore...
1) use optimizations for your specific hardware in ALL compiling (thus, why Mandrake is resonably popular).
2) Simple, get ONE FAST AS SHIT BOX, and hang terminals off it... (old schools knows what I'm talking about, but for the kiddies, read http://www.ltsp.org)
Uh... Try google? Good point on the boot disk thing... I just went through boot disk hell (both my comps are win2k)... motherfucking luckily my roommate upgraded to xp a few weeks ago... Try anything at all to find one? Like say, uh... bootdisk.com?
Slashdot Mirror
But, when really geeky people look at computers, they know how much it will cost to build their own bleeding edge box, why spend over $400 on something (not including a monitor) for a StrongArm DESKTOP when a Athlon 1.8GHz can be built?
I'm not bashing it, I think it's cool hardware. I really do. But they really have to consider what other things in that price point are, and that's dominated by x86. Just look at how cheap a ThinkNIC is, and that's going to have as much geek/hacker/toy/xterminal/whatever appeal.
As we go over 2GHz, and from 32 to 64 bit, bus speed is going up (good), memory seems to be creeping up on speed (RAM that is)....
But what about hard drive access speeds? They don't seem to be getting faster at the same rate as everything else. And, the only think I seem to ever be "waiting" for using my 32bit 1Ghz system is reading something from the hard drive.
How's that going to help if the porn sites are in China? Passing a law won't change it, your Congressman and Senator would have to be willing to support some kind of "punishment" in the form of economic sanctions or something on the country as a whole.... If that... It's not going to happen, not by just passing a law.
If it were to be stopped by law, it would have to be an INTERNATIONAL law (funny how electrons in cables don't know to carry a passport and stop to check in with the Customs Officer when they cross a border).
And, EVERY country would have to support the law. Or else the spaming operations would just move to a country that allows it. Good luck getting every country in the world to agree to an international policy just to keep spam out of your inbox.
Sorry to rant, but it gets on my nerves when ANYONE thinks the USA has some right to make any Internet regulation at all.... because, they are trying to control something that extends way beyond the countrys borders.
I understand someone puting the full text of an artical up when the source site is slow. But, this is from a BBC site, why can't people just read it on the original sources page?
And you KNOW Sun will charge? Ever try to get Netscape _with_ support? Netscape is a company, they make money. They make it by making their browser ultra secure and do unexpected functions for clinets.
At this point you either go, "I can make it secure, and do intra-net mail, news, and all kinds of inside corprate stuff for MY company. Or, you go "what the hell are you talking about" in which case you need to speak to a Netscape sales representitive about.
You REAjLLY think they are a company that pays hundreds of employees to code, answer phones, maintain servers, maintain all of that by doing OSS only software???
If you really belive Netscape can pay all it's employees, OSS coders on Mozilla, it's system admins, and, yes, even JANITORS and RENT on that HUGE OFFICE COMPLEX they work out of by GIVING AWAY SOFTWARE....
Well, then, if you're that nieve, you probably can criticize Sun for offering Open Office for FREE and charging a fee to sell Star Office.
OpenOffice is unusable
I use it DAILY. That IS a troll and a half! Come on, anyone that goes to OpenOffice.org TODAY and downloads it can install a binary and use it. Is someone afraid of Sun here? This is SUCH a LIE, SUCH A TROLL.
OK, Mozilla wasn't THIS big, and it took MONTHS for anyone to be able to build that. I _personally_ don't remember Open Office being around "over a year."
Why is it that Netscape is so promoted as "the great thing" because it supports Mozilla, and then does Netscape as commercial (and makes BIG money modifying it internally for specific corprate needs).
Mozilla is a MONEY MAKEING MACHINE for Netscape. They know it. AOL, the parent company knows it. The code base grows, and users benifit. The code base grows, and serves as the BASE for future Netscape and AOL ventures.
Yet, Netscape is a HERO, and SUN want's to do the same with an OFFICE SUITE, and everyone is pissed off? It seems like the same thing to me, only differance I see is that for some reason SlashDot Loves Netscape and Hates SUN.
diffrent conspiracy theory?
Maybe they are doing it as a back door way to get some control over a new standard Microsoft is pushing.
I don't believe people are _that_ afraid to try an OSS office suite. Maybe a little intimidated, but not truely scared.
I think the real resistance, the real fear, will show up when you try to get people to give up Quicken or MS Money in favor of some OSS replacement.
IMHO, people will be much more worried about looseing their banking info, check book ballances, account numbers, payment histories, and other financial information... By comparision to worrying about formating of a frigging .doc vs. a .rtf, which do YOU think they will worry about more?
Because, Uh, I'm really interested in embedded stuff, yea, that's it, embedded stuff...
Not saying your case of getting fired was right. Probably wasn't, but I'm not going to say it was wrong either. Could be (Just COULD) that someone had already told him _they_ could get it done in 3 weeks, and he gave you first chance at it, and you said you couldn't hack it... COULD BE, probably not, but could be...
As for the main post, "Managers Lack Vision" I would have to say, well, 75% completely lack vision, and the other 25% had vision once, but lost it. How many projects can you love, make great, and pour your heart and vision into, only to have it bastardized by either 1) Bad Marketing 2) Bad Upper Management Decision (managers have managers too!) or 3) Complete failure of the people working under you to deliver your visions. When you have vision, and never see it materialize, eventually you just give up.
Realize, there are TWO sides to most stories.
I'll wait and see. I sort of know more than I should, and more than I should say... But, let's just wait and see ;-)
Someone remind me to post a link back to this story in a month or two when Sun announces their faster processors with solved ecache solutions...
If you know how to get Office X for $150, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post the link!
OK, well, I think most of the open source community has been trying to do that for well over 5 years now. You suddenly have a way to make that happen that hasn't been tried?
Also, why is it Apple's fault that Microsoft doesn't cut them a great deal to bundle Office v X with new machines?
Where did I blame Apple? I thought I made it clear that I blame Microsoft for the lack of more people taking the purchace of a new Mac seriously...
Apple is competitive on higher end too... go shopping the websites and look for yourself
Strangely enough, that discounted price seems to violate Microsoft's own shrink wrap policy, that once you have installed on one computer, you can't install on another... So, how do you install the old Office version on your New mac (second computer) to get the upgrade to work, if you already had a Mac and Office installed.
So, yea, it's cheaper that way, but how exactly is it suppose to work for people out to try mac insted of x86?
Just a thought, but go to pricewatch.com and search for 12.1" TFT. You can get a laptop for about $250 used that should meet all your needs, plus allow you to put a wireless card in it and have a nice "roam around the house" X-terminal...
100 watts? On the link listed, that's what they say. But as far as I know, the legal limit to boost a signal in the US is 1 watt. More than that, and someone will hunt you down to shut you down. Right?
It says TRANSMIT, doesn't that mean it's not a bi-directional antenna like you need for 802.11b? Wouldn't something sold over at HyperLink Tech. be better, seeing as they are more specifically designed to be used with 802.11b?
Why all the hype on the directional antennas? I would be MUCH more interested in an omnidirectional antenna so some neighbors and I can ALL see each other, not just 1 to 1. Is it just that they are harder to make?
Look at the iBook. Small, light, preforms decent. Try to find a brand name x86 for the same money with similar equiptment. Same for the iMac.
Yes, you can say that you can _build your own_ for less with x86. x86 to Apple is already comparing apples to oranges, so to further try to compare a home built to off the shelf brand name is not a fair comparison.
SO, what's the REAL problem with APPLE?
When you can get an iMac for $799, an iBook for $1199, and then have to pay $550 for MS Office X who wants to buy it? When you can get at least the basic MS Office bundled with almost all x86 brand name hardware for almost nothing!
Don't bother arguing the Open Source office suites to me, I know. That doesn't change the fact that public perception is in the believe that you NEED MS Office to make a computer useful.
NetBSD runs on EVERYTHING, with more packages, more complete, LONG LONG LONG before ANYTHING else (backhacked that is). Linux is not a step or two behind NetBSD, it's MILES behind when it comes to porting.
For that matter, IMHO, Linux (although it's almost the only UNIX I use now days) _STILL_ doesn't get "porting" the way the BSD community does. Make an app compile given a set of general expected things you expect to be there, and it COMPILES, and it RUNS.
Way too many Linux programmers think "if it compiles on Mandrake and on Debian, it's portable!" &*#*(@!&(*@!
ONLY NetBSD will get X running on the box you drag out of the closet and brush the dust of to read what it is.... Atari? MacSE? That wasn't my furnace, that was a PDP11? NetBSD is your friend.
OK, maybe X is a stretch, but, still, don't diss the dog that sniffed the trail!
Anyhow. Still, that works in most emulators, right? what's the need for FreeDOS? It's one of the re-invention the wheel thing that needs a wake up call. Plenty of cool stuff is out there, these guys need to put their skills (and I know they have em!) where needed, not in this FreeDOS shit. Hell, get enough people to sign on the line, and Dr. Dos could be opensourced easier than trying to develop FreeDOS.
I'm just saying, it's CUTE, yea, but useful? No, not to anyone anymore...
Uh, simple UNIX Rules...
1) use optimizations for your specific hardware in ALL compiling (thus, why Mandrake is resonably popular).
2) Simple, get ONE FAST AS SHIT BOX, and hang terminals off it... (old schools knows what I'm talking about, but for the kiddies, read http://www.ltsp.org)
Uh... Try google? Good point on the boot disk thing... I just went through boot disk hell (both my comps are win2k)... motherfucking luckily my roommate upgraded to xp a few weeks ago... Try anything at all to find one? Like say, uh... bootdisk.com?