I've seen the iBook touted in several places on this thread. If you plan to use Linux, great, but if you're hoping for OS X, just forget it. Those things are hopelessly slow.
Seems to me like cross-border validation is working fine.
No, it just means that those vendors chose to ship you the goods without validation. Maybe they thought the $ value was low enough to risk it, etc.
It doesn't mean that you can't authorize and charge the card - you can. It's just that you can't perform that address verification that checks to make sure the supplied address is actually the address that the credit card company has on file for the card.
There is definitely something funky going on with Mozilla and eBay.
For the longest time I would get random crashes on Mozilla/Windows when I opened several tabs and loaded eBay pages. Several times I've almost filed a bug, but I could never narrow it down to anything I thought would be useful.
So beware if you do sign up at cingular.com - Cingular SPAMs you from third party advertisers!
Never mind the 3rd party - Cingular themselves SPAM their own subscribers now! I just can't believe that somewhere there is a marketing VP that thought it would be a good idea.
There are a lot of techs on slashdot... surely someone knows someone who works in marketing at Cingular. Who are these idiots?
Seems that a pretty simple solution would be for the provider to setup a web-based interface for creating a whitelist. Sending number or email address not on the whitelist? Bounce the message.
Every cellular provider in the USA already has online billing and account maintainence. None of them have bothered to do anything like this that I know of, so it's safe to assume they don't care...
Cell phone companies are trying to stem the spam flood before it starts, worried that users will turn off their phones, thus denying providers revenue.
Yeah, right! It would be NICE if we only had to worry about true "spammers" sending unsolicited SMS. In my market (Southern California) Cingular is spamming its own users with marketing messages! Talk about stupid business decisions.
I cancelled my SMS service and let them know why. Cingular claims it's "opt-out", but strangely three different methods they recommend (return SMS, phone call to CSR, website) have failed to get me off their list.
Oh well at least my voicemail still works. My contract is up soon... maybe some readers can recommend which providers do and don't spam their own users?
Yeah, I really like the looks of the 7135. The problem with Kyocera is they are all CDMA... round here that means Verizon (expensive) or Sprint (sucks).
I'm lucky enough to live in an area with great GSM service from 3 different providers, so I'm a GSM guy...
Also it depends on the form factor... the 6035 is a huge bulky thing, while my Treo fits in my breast pocket.
The problem is that after a year or so of daily charging (necessary with the Treo) your internal battery will be dead, with no way to replace it. Lame.
I've been using a Treo 180 for about a year and I've been very happy with it. But I'm puzzled by Handspring's refusal to put on a removable battery.
That's just standard in the cell phone industry (witness the wide selection of replacement batteries on eBay). I know they say it will just make the phone larger, but I'm not buying it. Take the Ericsson T28 phones, for example. The battery is removable, just it is shaped precisely to the phone and takes up almost no space.
Another thing that bothers me is the Treo's poor battery life. We already know that Palm devices last for weeks, so that can't be the problem... natural assumption would be that the phone side of it is sucking up all the juice, except that there are plenty of phones that get 1 week or more, and the batteries are not large.
I'm not talking about not supporting OS 9. Obviously that isn't worth it for a developer. I'm talking about software that requires 10.2, or 10.1.5 when plenty of users are still on 10.1.
Is it just me, or is every OS X update pretty much a "must install" software? Just about every bit of Mac software always seems to require the latest and greatest OS. Even people with 10.1 are already finding tons of stuff won't work on their machines.
This is not the case in the Windows world, for example, most software will still run on Windows 98, and often Windows 95, which are 3 and 4 revisions old, respectively. If you visit download.com, all the shareware seems to run on 95/98/ME/2000/XP.
Apple seems to have their users by the balls... sure you don't HAVE to upgrade, but if you don't, you will quickly find that nothing new will run on your system.
Why is this? Is the system software really changing that dramatically? What makes the older versions of X so hard to support?
T-Mobile, who offers service in St. Louis now offers unlimited flat rate GPRS data for $19.99 when you buy it with a cellular plan or $29.99 for standalone PCMCIA cards.
Compare that to the cost of dialup and a baby-bell landline and it's a no brainer. Not to mention that you can take it with you on the road. Users in my area report speeds similar to 56k dialup.
Seriously. Apple could have gotten more switchers just by porting CounterStrike from way back then thorugh its 'Switch' ads. Too late.
I'm sure you were half joking, but lets do some math. Assume that it takes a team of 5 programmers 6 months to port Counterstrike to OS X. I think that's reasonable... in the past I know that one guy (Westlake Interactive) has singlehandedly done some fine Mac ports in less time than that.
So those programmers earn $100,000 a year each, or $300,000 for the entire port.
Lets assume that Apple gives away Counterstrike FREE with every Mac (in reality, they could probably sell many copies to recoup some of their costs).
Based on their annual report, I believe Apple's margins are around 30%. That means in order to recoup their $300,000 investment, Apple would need to sell $1,000,000 more worth of Mac hardware. If the average Mac costs $1,500 (I'd guess it's probably more), then Apple needs to sell just 666 more Macs as a result of their Counterstrike port to break even. Anything beyond that is gravy.
Now ask yourself - for many PC users, Counterstrike is the 'killer app' that drives hardware purchases - broadband, video cards, etc. Could Counterstrike help Apple sell a piddling 666 more Macs? Hell yeah!
mrklin, maybe Apple needs to hire you to do marketing, I think you're on to something here.
Most interesting technology is quickly copied by other companies. Anyone want to speculate why we haven't seen more MP3 players based on the Toshiba PC Card-size hard drives, like the Apple iPod?
The iPod is what, 2 years old? I thought we'd have some interesting "clones" by now, but I only know of one, and it's just as expensive as the iPod.
One thing that annoys me, well, all over the US, is bikes on the street, right next to a good bike path, and people in the street right next to a good sidewalk.
You have to realize that most bike lanes/routes in the USA are so poorly designed that they are basically useless for "serious" cyclists. By serious I mean folks that are commuting or doing fast recreational riding.
Unfortunately our "bike paths" tend to be very short (not very useful for going from point A to B) and crowded with pedestrians, unleashed dogs, and rollerbladers. They are very unsafe for cyclists that actually know what they are doing.
American traffic laws in almost every state treat bicycles as vehicle traffic, and cyclists have found that it's generally safer to act like a vehicle - obeying traffic signals and other rules of the road. As a driver, you'll find that this scenario is quite safe for you, too. Just pass safely treat the bikes like any other vehicle.
No one is arguing that Windows 2000 is drawing more stuff than OS X. I think we all agree that OS X is doing some hardcore GUI shit that pushes the system to the limit.
The point is that it is doing so in a slow fashion, which is frustrating, and also many people, including myself feel that many CPU cycles are wasted on eye candy that would be better spent making the GUI responsive.
I'm not some Wintroll that's never used Macs. I owned an iBook that I bought to use for some video editing. That project never got finished, because the computer was so unbelievably slow I got frustrated every time I used it (yes, I had plenty of RAM). That computer went on eBay.
I LIKE OS X. I hope some day Apple fixes the slow GUI problem. To this day, every browser feels like molasses compared to Windows. To me, that's unacceptable, especially given the price of the machines.
I know plenty, having used Macs since the days of my first Mac, an LC II. That LC II (I think it was 16mhz, if I remember correctly) had a more responsive GUI than OS X. Apple should be embarassed.
And don't hit me with the "you must have misconfigured your system" excuse. Even the machines at the Apple store, which presumably should be the BEST example of Apple technology, still "feel" slow.
That doesn't mean they will benchmark slow, for example, on SETI. I'm just saying the GUI is still freaking slow, and everyone who has used one knows it.
To be honest, the easiest way to solve such a thing is with a dual CPU setup.. Which is why if you've ever used a dual powermac you're blown away by the responsiveness of the system even when doing heavy processing tasks.
To be honest, I'm blown away with how much more responsive my PIII 700mhz with Windows 2000 is than a $2000 G4 running OS X.
ATI's terrible driver support is reason enough to choose NVIDIA instead. Their "support", or lack thereof, especially for laptops that use their integrated chipsets made me swear never to buy another one of their products years ago.
I know how taxes suck, but I also remember how folks used to order crap online (back when the www first started taking off.) at wholesale + 5% with no tax from jerks who simply opened up an account with WOTC or Chessex [or god forbid.. Max at the armoury.] These folks would sell out of their house, and not have to pay sales tax, or operate as a business. [or for that matter, make money.] yet I was expected to compeate with all my overhead, YET pay taxes quarterly. (Which I did, rather well infact.)]
That's called a FREE MARKET, and it's great for consumers. Oh, you can no longer get a 100% markup on little plastic kiddie toys since the advent of the internet? Tough.
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The ironic part is that the whole thing runs about as fast as a browser on OS X.
I've seen the iBook touted in several places on this thread. If you plan to use Linux, great, but if you're hoping for OS X, just forget it. Those things are hopelessly slow.
No, it just means that those vendors chose to ship you the goods without validation. Maybe they thought the $ value was low enough to risk it, etc.
It doesn't mean that you can't authorize and charge the card - you can. It's just that you can't perform that address verification that checks to make sure the supplied address is actually the address that the credit card company has on file for the card.
For the longest time I would get random crashes on Mozilla/Windows when I opened several tabs and loaded eBay pages. Several times I've almost filed a bug, but I could never narrow it down to anything I thought would be useful.
Never mind the 3rd party - Cingular themselves SPAM their own subscribers now! I just can't believe that somewhere there is a marketing VP that thought it would be a good idea.
There are a lot of techs on slashdot... surely someone knows someone who works in marketing at Cingular. Who are these idiots?
Every cellular provider in the USA already has online billing and account maintainence. None of them have bothered to do anything like this that I know of, so it's safe to assume they don't care...
Yeah, right! It would be NICE if we only had to worry about true "spammers" sending unsolicited SMS. In my market (Southern California) Cingular is spamming its own users with marketing messages! Talk about stupid business decisions.
I cancelled my SMS service and let them know why. Cingular claims it's "opt-out", but strangely three different methods they recommend (return SMS, phone call to CSR, website) have failed to get me off their list.
Oh well at least my voicemail still works. My contract is up soon... maybe some readers can recommend which providers do and don't spam their own users?
I'm lucky enough to live in an area with great GSM service from 3 different providers, so I'm a GSM guy...
Also it depends on the form factor... the 6035 is a huge bulky thing, while my Treo fits in my breast pocket.
The problem is that after a year or so of daily charging (necessary with the Treo) your internal battery will be dead, with no way to replace it. Lame.
The sidekick looked cool, but has been a big disappointment. Do I understand correctly that there is STILL no way to load your own apps on it?
That's just standard in the cell phone industry (witness the wide selection of replacement batteries on eBay). I know they say it will just make the phone larger, but I'm not buying it. Take the Ericsson T28 phones, for example. The battery is removable, just it is shaped precisely to the phone and takes up almost no space.
Another thing that bothers me is the Treo's poor battery life. We already know that Palm devices last for weeks, so that can't be the problem... natural assumption would be that the phone side of it is sucking up all the juice, except that there are plenty of phones that get 1 week or more, and the batteries are not large.
Fair enough. It's a waste of EVERYONES tax dollars.
If someone can educate me as to why this bill is so horrible
The actions it would require are a total waste of my tax dollars. Isn't that enough?
I'm not talking about not supporting OS 9. Obviously that isn't worth it for a developer. I'm talking about software that requires 10.2, or 10.1.5 when plenty of users are still on 10.1.
This is not the case in the Windows world, for example, most software will still run on Windows 98, and often Windows 95, which are 3 and 4 revisions old, respectively. If you visit download.com, all the shareware seems to run on 95/98/ME/2000/XP.
Apple seems to have their users by the balls... sure you don't HAVE to upgrade, but if you don't, you will quickly find that nothing new will run on your system.
Why is this? Is the system software really changing that dramatically? What makes the older versions of X so hard to support?
Compare that to the cost of dialup and a baby-bell landline and it's a no brainer. Not to mention that you can take it with you on the road. Users in my area report speeds similar to 56k dialup.
I'm sure you were half joking, but lets do some math. Assume that it takes a team of 5 programmers 6 months to port Counterstrike to OS X. I think that's reasonable... in the past I know that one guy (Westlake Interactive) has singlehandedly done some fine Mac ports in less time than that.
So those programmers earn $100,000 a year each, or $300,000 for the entire port.
Lets assume that Apple gives away Counterstrike FREE with every Mac (in reality, they could probably sell many copies to recoup some of their costs).
Based on their annual report, I believe Apple's margins are around 30%. That means in order to recoup their $300,000 investment, Apple would need to sell $1,000,000 more worth of Mac hardware. If the average Mac costs $1,500 (I'd guess it's probably more), then Apple needs to sell just 666 more Macs as a result of their Counterstrike port to break even. Anything beyond that is gravy.
Now ask yourself - for many PC users, Counterstrike is the 'killer app' that drives hardware purchases - broadband, video cards, etc. Could Counterstrike help Apple sell a piddling 666 more Macs? Hell yeah!
mrklin, maybe Apple needs to hire you to do marketing, I think you're on to something here.
The iPod is what, 2 years old? I thought we'd have some interesting "clones" by now, but I only know of one, and it's just as expensive as the iPod.
But you do, of course, have "Hockey Night in Canada".
You have to realize that most bike lanes/routes in the USA are so poorly designed that they are basically useless for "serious" cyclists. By serious I mean folks that are commuting or doing fast recreational riding.
Unfortunately our "bike paths" tend to be very short (not very useful for going from point A to B) and crowded with pedestrians, unleashed dogs, and rollerbladers. They are very unsafe for cyclists that actually know what they are doing.
American traffic laws in almost every state treat bicycles as vehicle traffic, and cyclists have found that it's generally safer to act like a vehicle - obeying traffic signals and other rules of the road. As a driver, you'll find that this scenario is quite safe for you, too. Just pass safely treat the bikes like any other vehicle.
The point is that it is doing so in a slow fashion, which is frustrating, and also many people, including myself feel that many CPU cycles are wasted on eye candy that would be better spent making the GUI responsive.
I'm not some Wintroll that's never used Macs. I owned an iBook that I bought to use for some video editing. That project never got finished, because the computer was so unbelievably slow I got frustrated every time I used it (yes, I had plenty of RAM). That computer went on eBay.
I LIKE OS X. I hope some day Apple fixes the slow GUI problem. To this day, every browser feels like molasses compared to Windows. To me, that's unacceptable, especially given the price of the machines.
I know plenty, having used Macs since the days of my first Mac, an LC II. That LC II (I think it was 16mhz, if I remember correctly) had a more responsive GUI than OS X. Apple should be embarassed.
And don't hit me with the "you must have misconfigured your system" excuse. Even the machines at the Apple store, which presumably should be the BEST example of Apple technology, still "feel" slow.
That doesn't mean they will benchmark slow, for example, on SETI. I'm just saying the GUI is still freaking slow, and everyone who has used one knows it.
To be honest, I'm blown away with how much more responsive my PIII 700mhz with Windows 2000 is than a $2000 G4 running OS X.
ATI's terrible driver support is reason enough to choose NVIDIA instead. Their "support", or lack thereof, especially for laptops that use their integrated chipsets made me swear never to buy another one of their products years ago.
That's called a FREE MARKET, and it's great for consumers. Oh, you can no longer get a 100% markup on little plastic kiddie toys since the advent of the internet? Tough.