Ok great, it has a nice installer. That still doesn't make me want to use the OS. QNX has a bad ass installer (insert CD, select partition size, watch progress, remove CD and reboot), but I have no desire to use it either.
Hey there you go, I forget that Apple is still selling some 'somewhat' lower end Macs. I could see running YDL on a new G3 based Mac. But the G4s just beg for OS X and a gig of ram (:
By the way, I'm not a Mac guy, but I work with about 30 of them.
Why would anyone run Linux on a new Apple though? OSX will have so much more support and software availability than Linux on PPC ever could imagine. I see how YDL could be awsome on some older G3s (the beige ones that I have laying around at work), but there really can't be much demand for Linux on the new boxen. Can there?
Errr... I think I'm offtopic, but to hell with karma.
It seems like a really nice feature for an email client would be something like the ICQ feature that auto-ignores people that aren't on your list. Your email client could auto delete email from people that aren't in your address book. I guess filters could be used to do this, but it's not obvious for the 'common users', like Grandma (:
There could/should also be a way for the email client to tell the mail server "hey, stop sending me mail from X@X.X". That way you cut it off at the source and it stops messing with your bandwidth. The server could also build a list of ignored email address and domains and stop responding to their requests all together for all users. This could become hurtful, putting control into the user's hands a bit, but somehow I think it would do more good than harm. It would need lots of revision, but I don't have the time or energy to care (:
I see so many times on/. all the geeks coming down hard on some new product. The manufacturer probably didn't even take geeks into consideration when they started marketing their item.
If you think about 35mm disposable cameras, and the people that use them, they don't own all the equipment that goes along with 35mm because they don't want the hastle and expense of dealing with it. They just want to take some pictures and get their prints made. The same is true for these things. People that don't own computers can still run around taking nice digital pictures that they use either to print out (at the photography shop) or have them put them on a CD to email from a cyber cafe.
We wouldn't use their service because we have our own equipment. Just like 'real photographers' don't use disposable cameras because they have $3,000 Nikon F5s and a spare room turned into a darkroom.
But yea, the quoted resolution is a joke, by anyone's standard. They need to get that up to par with the midrange cameras of today (:
Last time I encoded anything, I was using MusicMatch. They define VBR in "% quality" to the origonal. I suppose most any other encoder would define it as max and min bit rates, which makes more sense to me.
As far as the Ogg vs Mp3 comparison, size isn't that big of a difference. Five to ten percent bigger or smaller will only cost you a little space in the long run. Hard drives are so cheap that it doesn't really make a difference, to me at least.
I'm not too familiar with Ogg, but I encode all my albums into Mp3s using VBR at "100%" quality. The files stay reasonable in size and the quality is the best that the encoder can manage.
I honestly don't know, does Ogg have variable bit rate capability? If so, that'd help its popularity, but only because it would use less space.
Also, what I'm seeing to be the defining factor is that Ogg can encode with lower bit rates, generating smaller files, and get the same audio quality. I think we've decided that "size doesn't matter". I've got two 60gb drives striped together in my file server. My old roomate has two 80GBs, a 60GB, and a 40GB in his. We just do everything as 100% VBR Mp3s, and they sound great coming out of a SoundBlaster Live and a TurtleBeach SantaCruise.
Now THAT is cool. What version of BeOS are you running on it? I've got R5.0.3 installed on an IBM PC Server 704. It's got quad Pentium Pro 166 with 512k cache each and 256mb ram. I wish I could get the IBM ServeRAID card to work, then I could use the 3 channel 12 drive RAID array and get some serious disk access. (:
Most of the/. readers live in a small house or appartment. I would say the AudioTron is designed for people that have more than one computer in more than one room of a decent sized house and a stereo setup in another room. With a simple network run to the stereo equipment the user doesn't have to crank his computer speakers to listen to his mp3 collection in another room, or even through the whole house.
Most of my family would dig this device. Most of my friends would dig this device. There are just a few features that need to be added to get it up to snuff. There needs to be an easy software configuration for the PC so the user doesn't have to 'learn' windows networking to get it going, and the web interface needs to be streamlined and fluid.
I totally dig it, when the current beta reaches a finalized point (and I finish running my home network) I'm definitely buying an AudioTron.
I totally agree with you. It seems like a lot of/.ers forget that there are other people in the world. If it isn't the underdog then they don't want it. Come on! They wouldn't buy it anyway, they're too bent on open source and free software that they won't shell out some cash for a decent product.
These things are designed for -consumers-... if they want a piece of -geek- hardware, they better build it themselves, that's the only way they'll ever be happy. And after all, thats the way of the geeks.
I hadn't really thought about going outside of my local network before... but that is a great idea! I'm on a city-wide fast (4mbit) cable modem connection with lots of friends. This would make listening to their music really easy. It seems like it would work great in dorm buildings too.
Being able to access multiple mp3 collections on a LAN is the best feature about the AudioTron. I don't think most of these people see that. It's also a high quality device.
The beta software that CT talks about sounds good. It will need a nice web interface for the geeks. It will also need OGG support, though.
There are lots of things that go into my "Club USA" analogy, and having national ID cards would just push the idea.
Personally I like to view the United States of America as the World's largest country club. You can relate taxes to membership dues, 'nationalist exams' to membership forms, and there are other things that make it easy to feel this way.
I'm also a Christian, so my Christian peers are always bringing up scripture talking about numbering systems and 'the mark of the beast'. Well, I have to agree with the national ID card system. First of all, if you're going to be a member of my club, I want _somebody_ knowing what it is you're spending all your time doing. And lets say that a national ID system does play into God's plan for the return of Christ. Great, that just helps move things along!
Does anyone else see this as getting out of control? Copyrights on a damn tone? Ok, a 'sequence of tones'. In essence, a short song, which can have copyrights. But once again I see someone coming forward (what I call) a little too late. They're now asking that a _major_ social and economic device have yet another charge layed on it. They realize it's not something that can easily be changed or dropped. The world is 'stuck' breaking their copyright.
I think Open Source and free software have come of age just in time to see the copyright system spin out of control and burn out in a ball of flaming dung.
Interviewer:So, Mr. Ritchie, you claim you're a C programmer, yet you've never taken a class or been certified as one, right? And you claim decades of experience in Unix, yet you don't have any certifications? Sorry, don't call us, we'll call you...
Mr. Ritchie: "I *AM* UNIX YOU DUMB MOTHER FUCKER!"
At first I was going to agree with you whole heartedly. However, when I thought about it I realized something. In the computer industry it can be difficult to teach old dogs new tricks. Mainframe programmers don't do well in the world of Unix, simularly Apple people don't cross over to Intel well either.
These guys are incredibily intelligent, but if they don't want to learn something new, it would take a lot of time and money to convince them to do so. I'm sure their salaries were already well above six figures, and it was probably in HP's best interest to let that kind of expense go. They can start fresh with new minds that they can manipulate for a lot less money. It may take a little more time to get them up to speed, but I've got a lot of friends jumping at the chance to play with 'big iron'. They'll work for a lot less money, and get comparable work done in just a little more time. They can also hire four or five new guys for the price of one of the old ones. More man power gives them a larger resource for creativity, more man time, and better 'employee redundancy', which geeks world wide know how great redundancy is.
Business is business, no room for emotion wasted on the trusty old porch dog. Sometimes you need to bring in a new pup (or two, or three, or four... ).
Yea maybe Aqua looks nice, but personally I think it's a pain in the ass to use. Something about the way I work around a computer desktop just doesn't flow in OS X. And I seriously don't think it looks all that great. That's not to say that Windows looks any better, but it's more efficient. And besides, there are a whole lot better themes in the world than Aqua clones.
I think BlackBox has the right idea, efficiency. And they've done a fair job of giving it the ability to 'look good' at the same time.
Maybe it's that Aqua and OSX come across as bloatware to me. I get fed up with programmers/developers that program in such a way that (to me) says, "I'm writing for a G4 800, and my software is the only thing that will be running". Hello... some of us like to have 15 to 20 apps running at the same time. You have to be efficient even with a phat computer. Look at the majority of Sun's software. It's custom coded for the hardware, and has no frills attached. It gets the job done the most efficient way possible.
Efficiency and organization... wasn't that the origonal point of a computer? I think we've lost that in the past few years of desktop computer development. It's something we need to take back. Linux was making good headway, but it's been said a few times in other threads that it's becoming bloated as well (I think it was a ML 8.1 post...). If you want to relate efficiency and organization to the Aqua argument, ditch Aqua. It takes up too much room on the screen for making it pretty. It also weighs to heavy on the already labored processor. They're trying to make everyone happy, but they making everyone tired of waiting...
I say to Apple's way of UI design, "STOP WASTING MY MOTHER-FUCKING TIME!" -- Al Pacino as Vincent Hanna in "Heat"
Apple doesn't want to be mainstream, they want to be different.
Think Different
There are lots of other comments to this post about Aqua themes taking away from Apple sales and what-not. *IF* I wanted the Aqua look-n-feel I would run Linux on a phat Dell workstation and slap an Aqua theme on it (even if I had to make the theme myself), rather than purchase an overpriced Apple.
As I see it now, what Apple has going for them is the look of the OS and the case design. When I ask around, especially at work with 30+ Mac users, the reason these people won't 'convert' is because they don't like the look of Windows. "It's clunky looking, I like MacOS because it's smooth". The majority of Macintosh users don't know/care about the function of an OS, they only care how it looks. Now for Aqua, they're being told (by Apple) that it has the power of Unix yadda yadda... which is better than Windows. True, but it's implemented by Apple and running on Apple hardware which is supported by Apple. The past 15 - 20 years of Apple tell me it's not worth my time.
If I (wanted to) use Aqua, it would be a Linux theme on an Intel platform computer, probably Dell because of the support and quality hardware. Oh, and it's half the price (:
What Apple has going for them is the Look and Feel, they have to defend it because thats what they have going for them.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok great, it has a nice installer. That still doesn't make me want to use the OS. QNX has a bad ass installer (insert CD, select partition size, watch progress, remove CD and reboot), but I have no desire to use it either.
~LoudMusic
Hey there you go, I forget that Apple is still selling some 'somewhat' lower end Macs. I could see running YDL on a new G3 based Mac. But the G4s just beg for OS X and a gig of ram (:
By the way, I'm not a Mac guy, but I work with about 30 of them.
~LoudMusic
... surely I'm not the first post ... am I?
Why would anyone run Linux on a new Apple though? OSX will have so much more support and software availability than Linux on PPC ever could imagine. I see how YDL could be awsome on some older G3s (the beige ones that I have laying around at work), but there really can't be much demand for Linux on the new boxen. Can there?
~LoudMusic
Errr ... I think I'm offtopic, but to hell with karma.
It seems like a really nice feature for an email client would be something like the ICQ feature that auto-ignores people that aren't on your list. Your email client could auto delete email from people that aren't in your address book. I guess filters could be used to do this, but it's not obvious for the 'common users', like Grandma (:
There could/should also be a way for the email client to tell the mail server "hey, stop sending me mail from X@X.X". That way you cut it off at the source and it stops messing with your bandwidth. The server could also build a list of ignored email address and domains and stop responding to their requests all together for all users. This could become hurtful, putting control into the user's hands a bit, but somehow I think it would do more good than harm. It would need lots of revision, but I don't have the time or energy to care (:
~LoudMusic
I see so many times on /. all the geeks coming down hard on some new product. The manufacturer probably didn't even take geeks into consideration when they started marketing their item.
If you think about 35mm disposable cameras, and the people that use them, they don't own all the equipment that goes along with 35mm because they don't want the hastle and expense of dealing with it. They just want to take some pictures and get their prints made. The same is true for these things. People that don't own computers can still run around taking nice digital pictures that they use either to print out (at the photography shop) or have them put them on a CD to email from a cyber cafe.
We wouldn't use their service because we have our own equipment. Just like 'real photographers' don't use disposable cameras because they have $3,000 Nikon F5s and a spare room turned into a darkroom.
But yea, the quoted resolution is a joke, by anyone's standard. They need to get that up to par with the midrange cameras of today (:
~LoudMusic
That has to be the world's biggest cop out that I've ever seen. Pathetic! "Stop showing the smart people our sloppy code, they make it break!"
~LoudMusic
Last time I encoded anything, I was using MusicMatch. They define VBR in "% quality" to the origonal. I suppose most any other encoder would define it as max and min bit rates, which makes more sense to me.
As far as the Ogg vs Mp3 comparison, size isn't that big of a difference. Five to ten percent bigger or smaller will only cost you a little space in the long run. Hard drives are so cheap that it doesn't really make a difference, to me at least.
~LoudMusic
I'm not too familiar with Ogg, but I encode all my albums into Mp3s using VBR at "100%" quality. The files stay reasonable in size and the quality is the best that the encoder can manage.
I honestly don't know, does Ogg have variable bit rate capability? If so, that'd help its popularity, but only because it would use less space.
Also, what I'm seeing to be the defining factor is that Ogg can encode with lower bit rates, generating smaller files, and get the same audio quality. I think we've decided that "size doesn't matter". I've got two 60gb drives striped together in my file server. My old roomate has two 80GBs, a 60GB, and a 40GB in his. We just do everything as 100% VBR Mp3s, and they sound great coming out of a SoundBlaster Live and a TurtleBeach SantaCruise.
~LoudMusic
Now THAT is cool. What version of BeOS are you running on it? I've got R5.0.3 installed on an IBM PC Server 704. It's got quad Pentium Pro 166 with 512k cache each and 256mb ram. I wish I could get the IBM ServeRAID card to work, then I could use the 3 channel 12 drive RAID array and get some serious disk access. (:
~LoudMusic
Most of the /. readers live in a small house or appartment. I would say the AudioTron is designed for people that have more than one computer in more than one room of a decent sized house and a stereo setup in another room. With a simple network run to the stereo equipment the user doesn't have to crank his computer speakers to listen to his mp3 collection in another room, or even through the whole house.
Most of my family would dig this device. Most of my friends would dig this device. There are just a few features that need to be added to get it up to snuff. There needs to be an easy software configuration for the PC so the user doesn't have to 'learn' windows networking to get it going, and the web interface needs to be streamlined and fluid.
I totally dig it, when the current beta reaches a finalized point (and I finish running my home network) I'm definitely buying an AudioTron.
~LoudMusic
This has nothing to do with networked mp3 players ... especially the AudioTron!
It is informative, but come on, he's so offtopic.
~LoudMusic
I totally agree with you. It seems like a lot of /.ers forget that there are other people in the world. If it isn't the underdog then they don't want it. Come on! They wouldn't buy it anyway, they're too bent on open source and free software that they won't shell out some cash for a decent product.
... if they want a piece of -geek- hardware, they better build it themselves, that's the only way they'll ever be happy. And after all, thats the way of the geeks.
These things are designed for -consumers-
~LoudMusic
I hadn't really thought about going outside of my local network before ... but that is a great idea! I'm on a city-wide fast (4mbit) cable modem connection with lots of friends. This would make listening to their music really easy. It seems like it would work great in dorm buildings too.
Being able to access multiple mp3 collections on a LAN is the best feature about the AudioTron. I don't think most of these people see that. It's also a high quality device.
The beta software that CT talks about sounds good. It will need a nice web interface for the geeks. It will also need OGG support, though.
~LoudMusic
There are lots of things that go into my "Club USA" analogy, and having national ID cards would just push the idea.
Personally I like to view the United States of America as the World's largest country club. You can relate taxes to membership dues, 'nationalist exams' to membership forms, and there are other things that make it easy to feel this way.
I'm also a Christian, so my Christian peers are always bringing up scripture talking about numbering systems and 'the mark of the beast'. Well, I have to agree with the national ID card system. First of all, if you're going to be a member of my club, I want _somebody_ knowing what it is you're spending all your time doing. And lets say that a national ID system does play into God's plan for the return of Christ. Great, that just helps move things along!
~LoudMusic
Well ... right now there is absolutely nothing else on, anywhere in the world. You can't escape it.
~LoudMusic
Yea totally. I got my copy from LimeWire 2 days before they recorded it.
w00t!
~ LoudMusic
Does anyone else see this as getting out of control? Copyrights on a damn tone? Ok, a 'sequence of tones'. In essence, a short song, which can have copyrights. But once again I see someone coming forward (what I call) a little too late. They're now asking that a _major_ social and economic device have yet another charge layed on it. They realize it's not something that can easily be changed or dropped. The world is 'stuck' breaking their copyright.
I think Open Source and free software have come of age just in time to see the copyright system spin out of control and burn out in a ball of flaming dung.
~LoudMusic
Are you running Linux on PPC? Mac-on-Linux requires a PPC processor.
~LoudMuisc
Ha ha! At least I didn't get modded down!
~LoudMusic
Mr. Ritchie: "I *AM* UNIX YOU DUMB MOTHER FUCKER!"
(:
~LoudMusic
At first I was going to agree with you whole heartedly. However, when I thought about it I realized something. In the computer industry it can be difficult to teach old dogs new tricks. Mainframe programmers don't do well in the world of Unix, simularly Apple people don't cross over to Intel well either.
... ).
These guys are incredibily intelligent, but if they don't want to learn something new, it would take a lot of time and money to convince them to do so. I'm sure their salaries were already well above six figures, and it was probably in HP's best interest to let that kind of expense go. They can start fresh with new minds that they can manipulate for a lot less money. It may take a little more time to get them up to speed, but I've got a lot of friends jumping at the chance to play with 'big iron'. They'll work for a lot less money, and get comparable work done in just a little more time. They can also hire four or five new guys for the price of one of the old ones. More man power gives them a larger resource for creativity, more man time, and better 'employee redundancy', which geeks world wide know how great redundancy is.
Business is business, no room for emotion wasted on the trusty old porch dog. Sometimes you need to bring in a new pup (or two, or three, or four
~LoudMusic
I think BlackBox has the right idea, efficiency. And they've done a fair job of giving it the ability to 'look good' at the same time.
Maybe it's that Aqua and OSX come across as bloatware to me. I get fed up with programmers/developers that program in such a way that (to me) says, "I'm writing for a G4 800, and my software is the only thing that will be running". Hello
Efficiency and organization
I say to Apple's way of UI design, "STOP WASTING MY MOTHER-FUCKING TIME!" -- Al Pacino as Vincent Hanna in "Heat"
~LoudMusic
Apple doesn't want to be mainstream, they want to be different.
... which is better than Windows. True, but it's implemented by Apple and running on Apple hardware which is supported by Apple. The past 15 - 20 years of Apple tell me it's not worth my time.
Think Different
There are lots of other comments to this post about Aqua themes taking away from Apple sales and what-not. *IF* I wanted the Aqua look-n-feel I would run Linux on a phat Dell workstation and slap an Aqua theme on it (even if I had to make the theme myself), rather than purchase an overpriced Apple.
As I see it now, what Apple has going for them is the look of the OS and the case design. When I ask around, especially at work with 30+ Mac users, the reason these people won't 'convert' is because they don't like the look of Windows. "It's clunky looking, I like MacOS because it's smooth". The majority of Macintosh users don't know/care about the function of an OS, they only care how it looks. Now for Aqua, they're being told (by Apple) that it has the power of Unix yadda yadda
If I (wanted to) use Aqua, it would be a Linux theme on an Intel platform computer, probably Dell because of the support and quality hardware. Oh, and it's half the price (:
What Apple has going for them is the Look and Feel, they have to defend it because thats what they have going for them.
~LoudMusic
Dude! That's what I said! No one was listening though ... Actually I think I said "Vulcans must be pointy all over"
~LoudMusic
Now we're slashdotting CNN.com. As if they didn't have enough web requests to worry about.
~LoudMusic