As the first poster said, -"Tech can be obvious but round corners can't?"
Worth noting that the practise of putting a proximity sensor in a touch screen phone to turn the screen off when you make a call was so obvious, not a single Windows Mobile phone launched by HTC, Samsung or Motorola in Europe prior to June 2007 had one.
When I read the title, I expected a calculation or rounding issue, or an internal range issue from built in components and not "dumb ass user didn't set the range correctly when averaging". That's not an Excel error, that's a user error - Excel did exactly what it was told to do.
Not to mention that if you use a reasonably recent version of Excel (at least 2003, which is nearly 10 years old), it'll warn you if you're doing something with a range of cells and it thinks you've missed a bunch of them out.
It's not perfect, but it's caught quite a few mistakes that I've made - which is far better than doing nothing.
When you make $40K/year, have a mortgage payment, maybe a kid or two, car loans, maybe student loans, having to pay anywhere from $70/month or higher for slow broadband is not high on ones priority.
If that's your situation, then I don't think it is too unreasonable to suggest that you shouldn't be considering purchasing a next-gen console - or even a previous-gen console.
Well there's your problem. if I had to call up my ISP every time I wanted to patch windows I'd be screwed.
Part of the problem also comes from the support model. If you have a problem with Windows or your Dell PC, you don't call your ISP and expect them to resolve it.
Yet in the phone world, if you have a problem with Android or your Samsung hardware you call Verizon/Sprint/etc.
The last two (European) carriers I worked for would have more than happily passed handset customer support to the OEMs but, unsurprisingly, they didn't want to take on the massive expense to do it.
Sorry just seen your reply and not much I can do to help I'm afraid. I know the pain about W7MC being derelict, I was hoping for great things with W8MC and nothing came.
One possible workaround would be to not set the HTPC to sleep when it's idle (since, for me, Remote Potato won't work when it's sleeping) and, instead get it to go to sleep at a fixed time, wake up at a fixed time (using a scheduled task) and then immediately reboot.
In my set-up, I have a task that runs at midnight which checks if nothing is recording and, if not, puts the computer to sleep. I then have a scheduled task that runs at 7am in the morning (so forcing the computer to wake up), waits 10 seconds and (if nothing is recording) reboots. I'm happy to share the scripts with you if you want, but I'm pretty sure you can work it out yourself.
This isn't quite as power efficient as your current set-up but... the handshake issue will go, you'll have a stable platform (since W7MC seems to need a reboot to run okay) and you'll still have 6 hours (25% of the time) where the box is drawing very low power.
I'm tired of using Windows Media Center due to bugs and other problems, but since the channels are flagged it is the only option.
I'm reading at +4 and haven't really seen many possible solutions. How about looking at it another way... what exactly are the "bugs and other problems" you're having?
Maybe we can resolve those so that you can continue to use WMC?
I'm surprised no-one has written a website/web-service where if you submit one blocked address, you get another one returned which hasn't been blocked.
Bruce Tognazzini (founder of the Apple Human Interface Group) has some pretty interesting ideas about what an Apple watch should do.
Personally, I'll stick with my (practically indestructible) G-Shock for sports and my mechanical watch for everything else. The latter doesn't need charging, looks great with a suit or casual clothes and I don't have to draw attention to myself when I take it out of my pocket, turn it to the correct orientation and press the power button to view the time - but I appreciate that my views will probably differ from the general Slashdot consensus.
Personally I have a watch because it is far more convenient, discrete and (in the case of some activities) safer to check the time by turning your wrist and glancing than it is to dig out your phone, orientate it the right way, press the power button and look down.
I wouldn't advocate big gaudy oversized watches, but there are plenty of midrange ones out there that look good with whatever style of clothes you are wearing (even a suit) and don't have to be charged every night to be useful.
What is it about iPhones that keeps people buying them even when they have so many problems?
I hate to break it to you but they probably don't have those problems.
I've gone through a 3G, a 4, a 4S and now a 5 and I've not experienced any of the issues you describe. My friends don't have those problems either. On that basis, I don't think it's too unreasonable to suggest she's probably got a duff handset - it happens.
My advice is to install Google Maps onto her phone (yeah, we know Apple Maps is rubbish) and if she's still having problems with the 5 then take it back to an Apple store.
But it seems the best way to fight the iCrime Wave might be to slash the $699 price of an iPhone (unactivated), which costs an estimated $207 to make.
Only if you ignore such pesky things like R&D, salaries, buildings, administrative staff, operating costs, tooling costs, distribution, packaging, marketing and so on.
Apple make a good profit from their handsets, but not the three times that the submission implies. It's also worth noting that whilst the Nexus is impressively priced, the only Android OEM that is really making any money is Samsung - everyone else isn't doing quite so well.
Because the FSF doesn't support projects that integrate (or allow the integration of) proprietary bits and pieces. This includes firmwares that need to be loaded on a device prior to operation, so there's a fair amount of hardware with completely open drivers that don't work on Trisquel because they omitted the firmware.
Thanks for the explanation. Whilst it makes sense from an idealistic point of view, I can't help feeling that it's one of those great ideas that could ultimately do more bad than good - especially if the hardware someone uses doesn't work and the advice they find is "don't use that distribution, use this instead".
I suppose it comes down to goals: would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution? Or is the goal to get people starting to move away from OSX and Windows, even if the first step is to what they consider an "imperfect" Linux distribution?
Why not Linux Mint or Ubuntu or Debian or Redhat or one other distribution that is not only widely known, but has appropriate support, forums and users who can help?
I'm all for showing people what alternatives to Windows are out there, but surely it would be better to give them something else that - well - a decent number of people actually use?
The F in FRAND stands for fair, not free. They weren't FRAND licensed - reason being, Apple never licensed them. The question in dispute isn't the cost of the patents going forward, its punitive damage for not paying the FRAND cost upfront. If there's no punitive component to the cost, then there's no disincentive.
I never said it meant free, you must be confusing me with someone else.
Qualcomm and other chip suppliers already licence the patents, they then include that cost into the cost of the chip and pass the licence onto the buyer. They are allowed to do that.
As such, if Apple buy something from Qualcomm then they've already paid the FRAND licence indirectly to Samsung - no second payment to Samsung (and the hundreds of other companies who hold patents) is necessary as Qualcomm have already done the legwork. This is why Samsung don't have a leg to stand on.
(Disclaimer: I've bought chips from Qualcomm and the ease of handling all the various patent licences is part of their sales spiel)
While Samsung said it withdrew its claims in the interest of protecting consumer choice, it could have to do with a European antitrust investigation.
And that they are FRAND licenced, so they don't have a leg to stand on.
Oh and that they are under investigation in Korea for potentially abusing wireless Standards Essential Patents.
Plus the US Department of Justice is also looking at potential antitrust abuse by Samsung.
Not to mention that the FTC has made it clear that it won't tolerate the use of FRAND-encumbered Standards Essential Patents to block competitors in the US.
Nope, it was just about protecting "consumer choice":)
Although, I still maintain that they should have stuck with "pulled the plug" as the original article stated - which isn't ambiguous and doesn't mean completely the opposite to everyone who doesn't have in depth knowledge about how one specific software package works.
However I still don't understand why the original text which said "pulled the plugs" (and was understandable by everyone) was changed to something which is only understandable if you've ever used Git.
sfcrazy writes with news that Linus pulled a patch by Igno Molnar to remove support for the 386 from the kernel.
At first I thought I was going crazy. If Linux "pulled a patch by Igno" to remove 386 support, then that would mean that he prevented the patch going in. So why does he add "Good riddance" at the bottom?
Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux kernel, (actually Ingo Molnar) has pulled the plugs on Intel's 386 processors.
I've been here a while and this is the first time I can remember that I've seen a story on Slashdot state the complete opposite of what actually happened. Geeeeesh.
So what you want is for Google to offer a large number of custom packages so that everyone can pay for only the parts that they feel have worth to them.
It's not really as complicated as that. All I want is for Google to not treat people who own and want to use their own domain for their email address as a business and charge them business rates. Apart from that I'm happy to have all the limitations, advertising, rules and restrictions imposed by the free accounts.
Hell, I probably would be prepared to pay something per year to be able to use my own domain and have my own unique username for that domain - just not $50 per person per year.
Slashdot Mirror
Worth noting that the practise of putting a proximity sensor in a touch screen phone to turn the screen off when you make a call was so obvious, not a single Windows Mobile phone launched by HTC, Samsung or Motorola in Europe prior to June 2007 had one.
Not to mention that if you use a reasonably recent version of Excel (at least 2003, which is nearly 10 years old), it'll warn you if you're doing something with a range of cells and it thinks you've missed a bunch of them out.
It's not perfect, but it's caught quite a few mistakes that I've made - which is far better than doing nothing.
If that's your situation, then I don't think it is too unreasonable to suggest that you shouldn't be considering purchasing a next-gen console - or even a previous-gen console.
Part of the problem also comes from the support model. If you have a problem with Windows or your Dell PC, you don't call your ISP and expect them to resolve it.
Yet in the phone world, if you have a problem with Android or your Samsung hardware you call Verizon/Sprint/etc.
The last two (European) carriers I worked for would have more than happily passed handset customer support to the OEMs but, unsurprisingly, they didn't want to take on the massive expense to do it.
Sorry just seen your reply and not much I can do to help I'm afraid. I know the pain about W7MC being derelict, I was hoping for great things with W8MC and nothing came.
One possible workaround would be to not set the HTPC to sleep when it's idle (since, for me, Remote Potato won't work when it's sleeping) and, instead get it to go to sleep at a fixed time, wake up at a fixed time (using a scheduled task) and then immediately reboot.
In my set-up, I have a task that runs at midnight which checks if nothing is recording and, if not, puts the computer to sleep. I then have a scheduled task that runs at 7am in the morning (so forcing the computer to wake up), waits 10 seconds and (if nothing is recording) reboots. I'm happy to share the scripts with you if you want, but I'm pretty sure you can work it out yourself.
This isn't quite as power efficient as your current set-up but ... the handshake issue will go, you'll have a stable platform (since W7MC seems to need a reboot to run okay) and you'll still have 6 hours (25% of the time) where the box is drawing very low power.
Might be better than nothing?
I'm reading at +4 and haven't really seen many possible solutions. How about looking at it another way ... what exactly are the "bugs and other problems" you're having?
Maybe we can resolve those so that you can continue to use WMC?
I'm surprised no-one has written a website/web-service where if you submit one blocked address, you get another one returned which hasn't been blocked.
Should be a fairly simple thing to develop.
Unfortunately this isn't quite so rosy when you find out that all the Android phones with screens under 4.2" are generally gimped.
Want a 4" Samsung phone that is more powerful than the Galaxy S3 Mini? No such luck.
Bruce Tognazzini (founder of the Apple Human Interface Group) has some pretty interesting ideas about what an Apple watch should do.
Personally, I'll stick with my (practically indestructible) G-Shock for sports and my mechanical watch for everything else. The latter doesn't need charging, looks great with a suit or casual clothes and I don't have to draw attention to myself when I take it out of my pocket, turn it to the correct orientation and press the power button to view the time - but I appreciate that my views will probably differ from the general Slashdot consensus.
More than enough for Swatch group to report sales in 2012 totalling 8.14bn Swiss francs ($9bn; £5.6bn), up 14% from 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20968837
Personally I have a watch because it is far more convenient, discrete and (in the case of some activities) safer to check the time by turning your wrist and glancing than it is to dig out your phone, orientate it the right way, press the power button and look down.
I wouldn't advocate big gaudy oversized watches, but there are plenty of midrange ones out there that look good with whatever style of clothes you are wearing (even a suit) and don't have to be charged every night to be useful.
Honestly? I'm surprised they didn't have more than 150.
Here is a video of a TV show Heston Blumenthal did in the UK, which demonstrated how you can make a burger using only chunks of sirloin and salt as the binding agent.
Looks pretty good to me!
Forget IPV6 ... it doesn't have valid HTML, valid CSS and looks terrible on mobile devices.
It's not a great picture, but he appears to have a sign next to his front door saying pretty much that.
... but wouldn't honking great images of snowflakes on the ground rushing towards you (and then underneath your car) not be rather distracting?
I hate to break it to you but they probably don't have those problems.
I've gone through a 3G, a 4, a 4S and now a 5 and I've not experienced any of the issues you describe. My friends don't have those problems either. On that basis, I don't think it's too unreasonable to suggest she's probably got a duff handset - it happens.
My advice is to install Google Maps onto her phone (yeah, we know Apple Maps is rubbish) and if she's still having problems with the 5 then take it back to an Apple store.
Only if you ignore such pesky things like R&D, salaries, buildings, administrative staff, operating costs, tooling costs, distribution, packaging, marketing and so on.
Apple make a good profit from their handsets, but not the three times that the submission implies. It's also worth noting that whilst the Nexus is impressively priced, the only Android OEM that is really making any money is Samsung - everyone else isn't doing quite so well.
Thanks for the explanation. Whilst it makes sense from an idealistic point of view, I can't help feeling that it's one of those great ideas that could ultimately do more bad than good - especially if the hardware someone uses doesn't work and the advice they find is "don't use that distribution, use this instead".
I suppose it comes down to goals: would the FSF rather someone stick with Windows if they are unable to use a FSF approved Linux distribution? Or is the goal to get people starting to move away from OSX and Windows, even if the first step is to what they consider an "imperfect" Linux distribution?
Why Trisquel?
Why not Linux Mint or Ubuntu or Debian or Redhat or one other distribution that is not only widely known, but has appropriate support, forums and users who can help?
I'm all for showing people what alternatives to Windows are out there, but surely it would be better to give them something else that - well - a decent number of people actually use?
I never said it meant free, you must be confusing me with someone else.
Qualcomm and other chip suppliers already licence the patents, they then include that cost into the cost of the chip and pass the licence onto the buyer. They are allowed to do that.
As such, if Apple buy something from Qualcomm then they've already paid the FRAND licence indirectly to Samsung - no second payment to Samsung (and the hundreds of other companies who hold patents) is necessary as Qualcomm have already done the legwork. This is why Samsung don't have a leg to stand on.
(Disclaimer: I've bought chips from Qualcomm and the ease of handling all the various patent licences is part of their sales spiel)
And that they are FRAND licenced, so they don't have a leg to stand on.
Oh and that they are under investigation in Korea for potentially abusing wireless Standards Essential Patents.
Plus the US Department of Justice is also looking at potential antitrust abuse by Samsung.
Not to mention that the FTC has made it clear that it won't tolerate the use of FRAND-encumbered Standards Essential Patents to block competitors in the US.
Nope, it was just about protecting "consumer choice" :)
Thanks, I now have.
Although, I still maintain that they should have stuck with "pulled the plug" as the original article stated - which isn't ambiguous and doesn't mean completely the opposite to everyone who doesn't have in depth knowledge about how one specific software package works.
Thanks for the clarification.
However I still don't understand why the original text which said "pulled the plugs" (and was understandable by everyone) was changed to something which is only understandable if you've ever used Git.
At first I thought I was going crazy. If Linux "pulled a patch by Igno" to remove 386 support, then that would mean that he prevented the patch going in. So why does he add "Good riddance" at the bottom?
So then I read the second link and it actually says:
I've been here a while and this is the first time I can remember that I've seen a story on Slashdot state the complete opposite of what actually happened. Geeeeesh.
It's not really as complicated as that. All I want is for Google to not treat people who own and want to use their own domain for their email address as a business and charge them business rates. Apart from that I'm happy to have all the limitations, advertising, rules and restrictions imposed by the free accounts.
Hell, I probably would be prepared to pay something per year to be able to use my own domain and have my own unique username for that domain - just not $50 per person per year.