It is pretty clear based on current attitudes and past practices that Microsoft will soon be giving their.NET strategy and "product line" the ole' heave ho soon enough.
Much like animals in the wild, if a framework or strategy is weak and non self sustaining they do not mind feeding it to the wolves. In this case there is not much $$$ benefit for them to keep a sick horse with a broken leg alive much longer.
Goodbye.NET it was nice not getting (having) to know ya.
I have a blind programmer that works for me. He does a wonderful job considering the limitations.
Some people think that improved "input method" using "voice technology" is the answer. From what I have seen is just the opposite. He does not have a problem inputing data with a keyboard just like the rest of us. The problem is with the UI's and graphic rich society that we live in today -- the software to read from the screen using voice tecnology is the weakness.
He showed me some websites in Links that were some of his favorite sites that streamed into his headphones no problem. Then he showed me some sites that were impossible to make any sense out of in Links even with my eyesight -- and these were the same sights that were ugly and hard to manage even with a modern browser and full eyesight.
Not just with HTML, but as I watch him use various other programs and tools -- it is ironic how the same programs and UI designs he has problems with are the same ones that I find poorly designed and cludgy even with eyesight.
XML has been a Godsend to him, as we have been able to take RSS feeds and parse to into plain jayne text files or even his portal at bloglines.com and let him enjoy some of the stories and content without all of the multimedia and advertising timebombs that he had to deal with in the past....(As long as the sights XML feeds are full feeds and not just "teasers".)
While reading the article I came across this quote:
"Such stellar battery life suggests the E895 might be based on a single-chipset architecture, "
If I read that correctly it sounds like they don't know if was built on the single chipset or not.
I appears that the "author" does not have access to anything more than publicity manual. I would think that they could claim that this thing cures cancer, stops wars and ends world hunger...and no one would really know.
That being said, I would love to see this thing reviewd by someone who has kicked one of these things around for a couple of months. Which brings on my second gripe --
"Availability
The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region in Q4 of 2005."
I guess it does not really matter, because it will never make it to our shores -- and if it does, it won't be until we have flying cars and they find some way to increase the price and reduce the features. This is about the 10th cool gadget I have seen this month that I will never get to purchase in person, or as the case with cellphones, even if I could purchase -- I would never get to use without moving to Tokyo.
"I over 30 years of attending the LDS church, I have never seen anyone endorse a candidate or even a position over the pulpit."
Me neither until there was a "abolish gay unions" on the ballot in the state I live in now. That one got their attention, and members of my ward were highly "pushy" in getting the members to vote a certain way in that one.
When they approached me to participate -- I told them how I felt that they were crossing the line, and involving people in things and using there rolls as "local church leaders" to push their political agenda to the local members.
Granted, I don't think that this political push was officially sanctioned from "on high" (SLC) -- but there must have been some kind of memo or something that came out that they took a little creative translation with.
hee hee....I would tend to agree with you but that would mean that I would not be able to type this without abandoning my wireless card and plugging in to type this.
Nice to see that so many die hard linux "freedom fighters" have dropped everything they were waving the flag for a few years ago and taken the "easy way out". I don't blame them....If they did not have the guts to stick around, then we don't need them.
I for one am proud of all of the strides that free unix based operating systems have taken over the last few years, and am saddened by the people that have drifted away to the easier path.
Hopefully, much like their new "friends" in the Apple world, this wall of conversion (or apostasy) that I have seen of late is just a very vocal minority.
I like what the guy a few posts up said....Would you be OK with it if you had to go to court and your lawyer showed up with all sorts of visible tats and strange body piercings?
that "hinted" at people to make sure the tats were covered, and went so far as to talk (towards women) about not wearing shirts that might reveal hidden tats if they were "reaching up for things" or "bending down for things"....
I don't have tats...but this seemed really strange considering 98% of us never are in a position to where we interact with the outside world....(Since this was a memo to IT and from IT and not sales and marketing or anything).
Why compare it to the Shuffle. If the shuffle was made by anyone else other than Apple -- people would have laughed it out of existence for not having a screen, voice recorder and tuner or most importantly for the/. crowd OGG support.
I just love how apple can release just the opposite of what people want, and yet they jump on it like it's the most inovative thing since sliced bread. These same people don't mind a HD based player that has a battery that can not be replaced (very easily), and thats ok also, cause it is all the rage.
Or the fact that OS X is not open source....that's ok also, cause it's apple -- funny how many people abandon their ideals or principals so easily.
What new technology will the staunch "stable Debian" loyaltists now be subject to with this new release?
I could be a smart ASS and say: USB Support, Graphics (other than ASCII art), Plug And Play, 802.11b, etc, etc -- But I won't.
I have been totally impressed with a few of the Debian cousins lately (Ubuntu and Knoppix) so I have nothing but nice things to say about what Debian has given to us throughout the years.
That is good to hear. I have been stuck with mostly IBM and TOshiba laptops. Never had much of a problem with Linux, but I would almost be willing to dual boot if I could have 4 hours unplugged and online.
I have pretty much seen that on any laptop, battery life gets VERY short when using WLAN. I have seen people clain they can get 4.5 - 5 hours on their laptops, but I don't think that was while streeming mp3's from shoutcast or downloading a new linux distro, or any other task that would require constant LAN activity.
Show me a laptop that can have constant WLAN activity for 3.5 hours on a regular (non exteneded ) battery -- and that is the one that I will have my eye on.
So far 1.0 - 2.0 hours "online" is pretty much where it's at (more if you buy the big thick extened battery packs).
Another thing is that the lifecycle of a battery "being able to hold a full charge" quickly is reduced over a shorter period of time than I would like for something that costs in the range of $150 - $200 dollars. Usually after a few months of steady use of a new battery I start to see a dropoff in battery life from when it was new. (After about 12 months it does little more than last long enough to withstand running off battery long enough to switch rooms between AC plugs).
"I don't think the even heard my comment that having an AA battery, as opposed to a sealed internal proprietary, is a good idea.."
That is the single most important thing to me...And also the biggest surprise as to why iPods were the "chosen ones". I have an old Archos 20GB jukebox that runs from 4 AA's that I have used so much over the last few years that I am sure any internal battery would have long since bitten the dust. (My total cost for battery upkeep has been about $30 bucks for a charger with 4 extra batteries that I used to replace the ones that came with the device about 2 years into it's lifecycle).
oops. I guess I should have elaborated -- the people I work with code for a living and don't really draw pictures with their computers or blog much, so I guess that explains the lacks of Mac's.
I don't doupt that their are many mac users, and it is a growing platform (especially since they managed to expand their user base by tying into the BSD base and the whole Unix thing) -- add thousands of "guilt free" geeks to the throws of graphical artists and grade school computer labs -- and I guess 16% is a good goal. I just don't think it is realistic.
I work around 30+ programmers and various other help desk folks and support teams....of which most of them have a computer at home and at least half of them have laptops.
Not a one of them has a mac. I personally do not even know anyone who owns a mac.
On the other hand -- I am always hearing people talk about how they run Linux at home.
16% is way overblown. Now maybe 16% of Intel PC owners own an Ipod, I would find that a little easier to believe.
"When you combine a phone, PDA, and mp3 player together and then connect it to the internet, you're taking 4 different devices and trying to run them all on the same battery."
Partially correct. I think the key is when you take any of those devices together or seperate and connect them to the internet, then the battery gives up the ghost after about 45 minutes. I have tried all types of PDA's, Phones, etc -- and each one of them puke when it comes to a constant network connection. Hell, even my laptop with a brand new fully charged power house of a battery is lucky to last an hour and a half on the WLAN.
I am sure glad that I have not given up on Slashdot...I for now will throw out all of my non-drm riddled mp3 players and get a hip (even to the anti-hip) iPod if I can really copy songs from it.
Take that all you sucky competitors to Apple -- let's see me be able to copy songs of off your antiquated ugly big ole' non hip-DRM'less shells.
Next thing you guys are going to tell me is that I can actually print from my screen to some automatic ink sucking gadget....Goodbye sore hands and high pencil bills. Long live/.
The answer is simple. The PDA market does not really move forward in the traditional sense of how most electronics move forward. For every step that is taken forward in the PDA market -- they take 2 steps back.
If PDA's were TV's -- the next generation would not have remote controls and their replacements would go back to black and white.
Anyone who had a HP 200 LX or Psion back in the day that had a wide screen, CF slot AND/OR PCMCIA slot, nice keyboard, and great battery life powered by a pair cheap off the shelf AA's has been wondering for quite a few years now what happened to all of the features.
"Battery isn't user replaceable so you can't swap in a spare on the road."
This may be ok for IPOD users to have "battery lock in" -- but I would not feel very comfortable with a device that uses WIFI, and has no way to swap out or expand the battery.
OK. That works for 1 film. But in this comparisson where ESB shows 98% and Clones is 65% the question is not why Clones is 33% worse than ESB....It is what about ESB makes it 98%? I mean on a scale of what? It is tough in the information age to determine what makes a good movie.
I loved the quote in this thread about the guy that walked out of theatre after Matrix Rovolutions totally satisfied and happy only to recant a month later and join the "It is horrible" crowd. That says it all. In the digital age we are so prone to subconcious mass acceptance or mass bashing....Kind of like a digital peer presure, that has the ability to sway the parts of our brain that put all of the facts together for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.
Bottom line -- If ESB came out for the first time next week....it would get panned for bad acting, boring storylines and overall cheesyness just as bad as any other show or music piece thrown into the digital gauntlet. (The 98% rating for ESB was gained by people playing the nostalgia card using memories already burned to CD. Any movie released nowdays is in RAM and much more subject to the vocal minority.)
I look at allmp3.com the same way I look at companies whom can't come to terms with the unions, and go to arbitration.....And then the employees are awarded more than they had originally asked for.
If the company would have relented up front, it would have been considered a compromise by both parties.
If the RIAA would have got their act together early on; offering reasonable prices and services in the digital age....then maybe they could have kept the geanie in the bottle.
Since they did not -- anything nowdays that is equivelent to the pricing found at the brick and mortars is going to be looked at (by a lot of people) as trying to sell icecubes to eskimos.
I honestly believe in the age of the internet where (some) honest people deserve the right to shop around for the best prices for goods and services --- that coming across something like "allofmp3.com" would seem legitimate. I mean, when I first saw it -- I could not believe it -- so I thought that I would be hearing about it being shutdown in days by the same forces that usually take "too good to be legal" stuff away and off the market.
The fact that I went back 6 months later --- and they were still there makes it legitamte in my eyes.
"Subsequently... if I steal a 50 cent chocolate bar, should my "punishement" be... paying 50 cents?"
No...But the fact that the candy bar is only 50 cents goes a long way to explaining why candy bar theft is not a big problem. Most people have determined that it is a fair price.
Usually I am the first to bash these "all in one" devices that center around the phone....mainly because of size and battery life. Even the bare bones phones that do nothing but allow you to send and receive phonecalls seem to have an "active" battery live of about 20 minutes:)
That being said -- I don't think adding an SD slot for a 1 meg memory card and an mp3 decoder chip would chang the form factor a whole lot. Also, you would not have the same sort of tradeoffs that you have with putting a digital camera in a cellphone.
I usually carry a portable music player and cellphone with me everyday. I could go with combining the 2. Main problem is still battery life....If I can't listen to 6 hours of music and talk for about 50 minutes without having to recharge....this would never work.
Given what I have seen with battery life in these types of devices, you would have about 20 minutes of talk time and an hour or 2 of music time before having to charge.
" The portable digital music market is in it's infancy"
Ahh...That would have been true around 2001.
Bottom line -- everything from your walkman type device to your ipod type device to your DVD player to the in dash CD player in your car has been able to decode MP3's for a good while now. If you are going to start selling a service to provide content -- I would think it would be a good idea to provide content that these devices can play.
If I wanted to pick and choose content from these music stores like I would shop around between walmart, target, shop-ko -- I would have to have 3 or 4 different hardware players....and none of the content would work on my Walkman type device, my home DVD player or the CD player in my car. How stupid do they think we are. Give me a plain jane mp3 thank you.....at least then I can be sure that anything I plug it into will be able to play it.
Slashdot Mirror
It is pretty clear based on current attitudes and past practices that Microsoft will soon be giving their .NET strategy and "product line" the ole' heave ho soon enough.
.NET it was nice not getting (having) to know ya.
Much like animals in the wild, if a framework or strategy is weak and non self sustaining they do not mind feeding it to the wolves. In this case there is not much $$$ benefit for them to keep a sick horse with a broken leg alive much longer.
Goodbye
I have a blind programmer that works for me. He does a wonderful job considering the limitations.
Some people think that improved "input method" using "voice technology" is the answer. From what I have seen is just the opposite. He does not have a problem inputing data with a keyboard just like the rest of us. The problem is with the UI's and graphic rich society that we live in today -- the software to read from the screen using voice tecnology is the weakness.
He showed me some websites in Links that were some of his favorite sites that streamed into his headphones no problem. Then he showed me some sites that were impossible to make any sense out of in Links even with my eyesight -- and these were the same sights that were ugly and hard to manage even with a modern browser and full eyesight.
Not just with HTML, but as I watch him use various other programs and tools -- it is ironic how the same programs and UI designs he has problems with are the same ones that I find poorly designed and cludgy even with eyesight.
XML has been a Godsend to him, as we have been able to take RSS feeds and parse to into plain jayne text files or even his portal at bloglines.com and let him enjoy some of the stories and content without all of the multimedia and advertising timebombs that he had to deal with in the past....(As long as the sights XML feeds are full feeds and not just "teasers".)
While reading the article I came across this quote:
"Such stellar battery life suggests the E895 might be based on a single-chipset architecture, "
If I read that correctly it sounds like they don't know if was built on the single chipset or not.
I appears that the "author" does not have access to anything more than publicity manual. I would think that they could claim that this thing cures cancer, stops wars and ends world hunger...and no one would really know.
That being said, I would love to see this thing reviewd by someone who has kicked one of these things around for a couple of months. Which brings on my second gripe --
"Availability
The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region in Q4 of 2005."
I guess it does not really matter, because it will never make it to our shores -- and if it does, it won't be until we have flying cars and they find some way to increase the price and reduce the features. This is about the 10th cool gadget I have seen this month that I will never get to purchase in person, or as the case with cellphones, even if I could purchase -- I would never get to use without moving to Tokyo.
"I over 30 years of attending the LDS church, I have never seen anyone endorse a candidate or even a position over the pulpit."
Me neither until there was a "abolish gay unions" on the ballot in the state I live in now. That one got their attention, and members of my ward were highly "pushy" in getting the members to vote a certain way in that one.
When they approached me to participate -- I told them how I felt that they were crossing the line, and involving people in things and using there rolls as "local church leaders" to push their political agenda to the local members.
Granted, I don't think that this political push was officially sanctioned from "on high" (SLC) -- but there must have been some kind of memo or something that came out that they took a little creative translation with.
it is the 10% that I don't care about. I can live with only being able to use 90% of the InterWeb.
hee hee....I would tend to agree with you but that would mean that I would not be able to type this without abandoning my wireless card and plugging in to type this.
Nice to see that so many die hard linux "freedom fighters" have dropped everything they were waving the flag for a few years ago and taken the "easy way out". I don't blame them....If they did not have the guts to stick around, then we don't need them.
I for one am proud of all of the strides that free unix based operating systems have taken over the last few years, and am saddened by the people that have drifted away to the easier path.
Hopefully, much like their new "friends" in the Apple world, this wall of conversion (or apostasy) that I have seen of late is just a very vocal minority.
I like what the guy a few posts up said....Would you be OK with it if you had to go to court and your lawyer showed up with all sorts of visible tats and strange body piercings?
that "hinted" at people to make sure the tats were covered, and went so far as to talk (towards women) about not wearing shirts that might reveal hidden tats if they were "reaching up for things" or "bending down for things"....
I don't have tats...but this seemed really strange considering 98% of us never are in a position to where we interact with the outside world....(Since this was a memo to IT and from IT and not sales and marketing or anything).
Why compare it to the Shuffle. If the shuffle was made by anyone else other than Apple -- people would have laughed it out of existence for not having a screen, voice recorder and tuner or most importantly for the /. crowd OGG support.
I just love how apple can release just the opposite of what people want, and yet they jump on it like it's the most inovative thing since sliced bread. These same people don't mind a HD based player that has a battery that can not be replaced (very easily), and thats ok also, cause it is all the rage.
Or the fact that OS X is not open source....that's ok also, cause it's apple -- funny how many people abandon their ideals or principals so easily.
What new technology will the staunch "stable Debian" loyaltists now be subject to with this new release?
I could be a smart ASS and say: USB Support, Graphics (other than ASCII art), Plug And Play, 802.11b, etc, etc -- But I won't.
I have been totally impressed with a few of the Debian cousins lately (Ubuntu and Knoppix) so I have nothing but nice things to say about what Debian has given to us throughout the years.
That is good to hear. I have been stuck with mostly IBM and TOshiba laptops. Never had much of a problem with Linux, but I would almost be willing to dual boot if I could have 4 hours unplugged and online.
I have pretty much seen that on any laptop, battery life gets VERY short when using WLAN. I have seen people clain they can get 4.5 - 5 hours on their laptops, but I don't think that was while streeming mp3's from shoutcast or downloading a new linux distro, or any other task that would require constant LAN activity.
Show me a laptop that can have constant WLAN activity for 3.5 hours on a regular (non exteneded ) battery -- and that is the one that I will have my eye on.
So far 1.0 - 2.0 hours "online" is pretty much where it's at (more if you buy the big thick extened battery packs).
Another thing is that the lifecycle of a battery "being able to hold a full charge" quickly is reduced over a shorter period of time than I would like for something that costs in the range of $150 - $200 dollars. Usually after a few months of steady use of a new battery I start to see a dropoff in battery life from when it was new. (After about 12 months it does little more than last long enough to withstand running off battery long enough to switch rooms between AC plugs).
"I don't think the even heard my comment that having an AA battery, as opposed to a sealed internal proprietary, is a good idea.."
That is the single most important thing to me...And also the biggest surprise as to why iPods were the "chosen ones". I have an old Archos 20GB jukebox that runs from 4 AA's that I have used so much over the last few years that I am sure any internal battery would have long since bitten the dust. (My total cost for battery upkeep has been about $30 bucks for a charger with 4 extra batteries that I used to replace the ones that came with the device about 2 years into it's lifecycle).
oops. I guess I should have elaborated -- the people I work with code for a living and don't really draw pictures with their computers or blog much, so I guess that explains the lacks of Mac's.
I don't doupt that their are many mac users, and it is a growing platform (especially since they managed to expand their user base by tying into the BSD base and the whole Unix thing) -- add thousands of "guilt free" geeks to the throws of graphical artists and grade school computer labs -- and I guess 16% is a good goal. I just don't think it is realistic.
I work around 30+ programmers and various other help desk folks and support teams....of which most of them have a computer at home and at least half of them have laptops.
Not a one of them has a mac. I personally do not even know anyone who owns a mac.
On the other hand -- I am always hearing people talk about how they run Linux at home.
16% is way overblown. Now maybe 16% of Intel PC owners own an Ipod, I would find that a little easier to believe.
"When you combine a phone, PDA, and mp3 player together and then connect it to the internet, you're taking 4 different devices and trying to run them all on the same battery."
Partially correct. I think the key is when you take any of those devices together or seperate and connect them to the internet, then the battery gives up the ghost after about 45 minutes. I have tried all types of PDA's, Phones, etc -- and each one of them puke when it comes to a constant network connection. Hell, even my laptop with a brand new fully charged power house of a battery is lucky to last an hour and a half on the WLAN.
I am sure glad that I have not given up on Slashdot...I for now will throw out all of my non-drm riddled mp3 players and get a hip (even to the anti-hip) iPod if I can really copy songs from it.
/.
Take that all you sucky competitors to Apple -- let's see me be able to copy songs of off your antiquated ugly big ole' non hip-DRM'less shells.
Next thing you guys are going to tell me is that I can actually print from my screen to some automatic ink sucking gadget....Goodbye sore hands and high pencil bills. Long live
The answer is simple. The PDA market does not really move forward in the traditional sense of how most electronics move forward. For every step that is taken forward in the PDA market -- they take 2 steps back.
If PDA's were TV's -- the next generation would not have remote controls and their replacements would go back to black and white.
Anyone who had a HP 200 LX or Psion back in the day that had a wide screen, CF slot AND/OR PCMCIA slot, nice keyboard, and great battery life powered by a pair cheap off the shelf AA's has been wondering for quite a few years now what happened to all of the features.
"Battery isn't user replaceable so you can't swap in a spare on the road."
This may be ok for IPOD users to have "battery lock in" -- but I would not feel very comfortable with a device that uses WIFI, and has no way to swap out or expand the battery.
OK. That works for 1 film. But in this comparisson where ESB shows 98% and Clones is 65% the question is not why Clones is 33% worse than ESB....It is what about ESB makes it 98%? I mean on a scale of what? It is tough in the information age to determine what makes a good movie.
I loved the quote in this thread about the guy that walked out of theatre after Matrix Rovolutions totally satisfied and happy only to recant a month later and join the "It is horrible" crowd. That says it all. In the digital age we are so prone to subconcious mass acceptance or mass bashing....Kind of like a digital peer presure, that has the ability to sway the parts of our brain that put all of the facts together for a simple thumbs up or thumbs down.
Bottom line -- If ESB came out for the first time next week....it would get panned for bad acting, boring storylines and overall cheesyness just as bad as any other show or music piece thrown into the digital gauntlet. (The 98% rating for ESB was gained by people playing the nostalgia card using memories already burned to CD. Any movie released nowdays is in RAM and much more subject to the vocal minority.)
I look at allmp3.com the same way I look at companies whom can't come to terms with the unions, and go to arbitration.....And then the employees are awarded more than they had originally asked for.
If the company would have relented up front, it would have been considered a compromise by both parties.
If the RIAA would have got their act together early on; offering reasonable prices and services in the digital age....then maybe they could have kept the geanie in the bottle.
Since they did not -- anything nowdays that is equivelent to the pricing found at the brick and mortars is going to be looked at (by a lot of people) as trying to sell icecubes to eskimos.
I honestly believe in the age of the internet where (some) honest people deserve the right to shop around for the best prices for goods and services --- that coming across something like "allofmp3.com" would seem legitimate. I mean, when I first saw it -- I could not believe it -- so I thought that I would be hearing about it being shutdown in days by the same forces that usually take "too good to be legal" stuff away and off the market.
The fact that I went back 6 months later --- and they were still there makes it legitamte in my eyes.
"Subsequently... if I steal a 50 cent chocolate bar, should my "punishement" be... paying 50 cents?"
No...But the fact that the candy bar is only 50 cents goes a long way to explaining why candy bar theft is not a big problem. Most people have determined that it is a fair price.
Usually I am the first to bash these "all in one" devices that center around the phone....mainly because of size and battery life. Even the bare bones phones that do nothing but allow you to send and receive phonecalls seem to have an "active" battery live of about 20 minutes :)
That being said -- I don't think adding an SD slot for a 1 meg memory card and an mp3 decoder chip would chang the form factor a whole lot. Also, you would not have the same sort of tradeoffs that you have with putting a digital camera in a cellphone.
I usually carry a portable music player and cellphone with me everyday. I could go with combining the 2. Main problem is still battery life....If I can't listen to 6 hours of music and talk for about 50 minutes without having to recharge....this would never work.
Given what I have seen with battery life in these types of devices, you would have about 20 minutes of talk time and an hour or 2 of music time before having to charge.
" The portable digital music market is in it's infancy"
Ahh...That would have been true around 2001.
Bottom line -- everything from your walkman type device to your ipod type device to your DVD player to the in dash CD player in your car has been able to decode MP3's for a good while now. If you are going to start selling a service to provide content -- I would think it would be a good idea to provide content that these devices can play.
If I wanted to pick and choose content from these music stores like I would shop around between walmart, target, shop-ko -- I would have to have 3 or 4 different hardware players....and none of the content would work on my Walkman type device, my home DVD player or the CD player in my car. How stupid do they think we are. Give me a plain jane mp3 thank you.....at least then I can be sure that anything I plug it into will be able to play it.