I'm also a Comcast customer and have chosen to go with Giganews as a commercial news service. Their retention is nice and long (about 2 weeks on average) and the completeness I've seen it perfect. Its not cheap, but they provide a great news feed.
Here is a page with useful reviews of premium usenet providers if you want to do a little homework before you decide.
Lemme get this straight. You can upload (e.g. push) guide data to the TiVo and it is 100% functional without phoning home (and presumably without ever paying for a subscription)?
Without the integrated guide data, what you have is a fancy VCR. Its not nearly as useful or user friendly as a TiVo unless you can schedule it to record "Six Feet Under" (or whatever) and have the unit record that show whenever it happens to air.
The conflict management is another piece of the puzzle that a free software project is not likely to posess, at least at the start. When you have only one tuner, and you want to record two things at the same time, which one wins? TiVo does this very well (takes into account re-airs, etc).
To my mind, the money I spent on my TiVo has been well worth it and I'd buy it (and its lifetime subscription) all over again.
Re:X11? I Hate Their Popups
on
X11 Alternatives?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
i'm pretty sure it is not much more than running the hack to reveal the/mp3 directory on the iPod drive
Not exactly. Xplay is basically three things. It allows you to access your iPod as a removable hard drive (via the "MacDrive" software which Xplay includes) so you can copy any sort of files onto or off of it. It also includes an Explorer plugin which allows you to browse your MP3s as they are catalogged in iPod-land (by playlist, song title, artist or album) and to drag and drop new MP3s into the Songs "folder" to add them to the iPod; I believe you can also create and update your playlists this way. Finally, it adds support for the iPod as a removable device to the Windows Media Player, so you can use its woeful features to manage your music. In the latest release there is also support for updating the iPod's firmware and recovering the iPod music database (it doesn't simply store things in a simple directory structure), which is often necessary because of the frequent FireWire bus lockups and write-behind errors you'll get with Xplay and Windows (these are apparently mostly Windows' fault and not Xplay's).
iTunes blows away Media Player in terms of usability, but if you have your MP3s stored on a Windows box like me and just want to get them onto your iPod, Xplay is the best software available right now.
Hm, I'm pretty sure I am using PR5, but it may be PR4. I'll definitely check this out and upgrade if its the older version. It is sad that the MS FireWire drivers suck so badly.
The problem with AppleShare is the 32-character filename limitation (or at least thats what I see when I use netatalk on my Linux box). The problem with NFS is my MP3s are all on a Windows PC. I may have to do something about the latter problem.
I love my iPod as well, but unless you are a full-time Mac user, it is a pain in the ass to get music onto it.
The current crop of Windows-based iPod software is just NOT up to the job. XPlay will lock up your iPod regularly and corrupt its table-of-contents, forcing you to do a full reset and lose everything on the disk. I was unable to get EphPod to work at all on my Windows 2000 box. I got a setup screen to configure it, and the application appeared in the taskbar when I started it, but no user interface ever showed up. I had to kill it with the Task Manager to get rid of it.
The only realistic option is using a Macintosh for managing your MP3 collection, and if you have your files stored on a network server as I do, this can be problematic as well.
Under MacOS X, you can mount SMB servers and browse them in the finder as you'd expect. You can even drag an MP3 folder from a network drive directly into iTunes or into your iPod. Oops, that doesn't work!. You get a mysterious error -39 when you try this.
All of your MP3s need to live locally on your Mac's filesystems before iTunes will let you add them to your Collection or copy them to your iPod. Couple this with the woeful SMB performance under OSX, and feeding your iPod becomes a painful experience of copying and syncing.
Once you have the music (or audiobooks, or contacts or whatever) on the unit, though, its a true joy to use. I love the iPod, I just detest the software surrounding it.
Not really. I had to pop my case once when the iPod totally locked up and wouldn't reset no matter WHAT I did. I used a pocketknife to pry it open, disconnected the battery lead, reconnected it, and all was well in the world again. Re-sealing the case was just a matter or popping the metal half of the cover back on, and I don't think you can tell that its been opened.
FWIW, I know several iPod owners and at least 2 others have had this same total-system-lockup issue one or more times. This was the first and only time its happened to me.
Anyone know if it is possible to swap the PCMCIA hard drive with a larger one? I'm assuming that since Apple is now selling a 10G model, this drive must be available somewhere in the wild and it might be possible to just plop on into an "old" 5GB iPod and double your storage.
The killer feature of Furthurnet is its treatment of entire sets of files as a single entity. I am not aware of any other P2P alternative which will allow you do download an entire show as a unit, and not have to hunt down each and every track that constitutes a performance. This is a must have feature if what you are downloading is the tracks of a CD. Who wants Scarlet > without the Fire, or Mike's > H2 > without the Weekapaug?
Similar e-mail has gone out to Comcast@Home customers saying basically the same thing as the Cox/AT&T messages. They will be continuing service, but indicate the possibility of an outage and the need for users to back up data.
The TiVo has a little infrared "mouse" you can position in front of your cable/DSS box so the TiVo can control it (e.g. change channels). Kinda kludgy, but it works.
You can get a Happauge WinTV card that takes RF in and has an S/Vid output. Under $100 and they are very solid under Linux.
Scrambling depends on your cable system, but I think most basic cable is NOT scrambled. I'm lucky that my system doesn't even require a cable box unless you want PPV events, so I can watch all my channels on my PC, TV and my beloved TiVo.
One hopes that "the need for both legal protection and legitimate alternatives" will take into account the fact that some users, myself included, don't use CD-Rs to burn "pirated" music or data. There is a never-ending stream of live music that can be downloaded for free, because the performers allow their performances to be taped and traded. Check out etree.org for an example.
Some of us make (gasp!) backups of our data as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm also a Comcast customer and have chosen to go with Giganews as a commercial news service. Their retention is nice and long (about 2 weeks on average) and the completeness I've seen it perfect. Its not cheap, but they provide a great news feed. Here is a page with useful reviews of premium usenet providers if you want to do a little homework before you decide.
Lemme get this straight. You can upload (e.g. push) guide data to the TiVo and it is 100% functional without phoning home (and presumably without ever paying for a subscription)?
To my mind, the money I spent on my TiVo has been well worth it and I'd buy it (and its lifetime subscription) all over again.
Silly programmers and their off-by-one errors.
Not exactly. Xplay is basically three things. It allows you to access your iPod as a removable hard drive (via the "MacDrive" software which Xplay includes) so you can copy any sort of files onto or off of it. It also includes an Explorer plugin which allows you to browse your MP3s as they are catalogged in iPod-land (by playlist, song title, artist or album) and to drag and drop new MP3s into the Songs "folder" to add them to the iPod; I believe you can also create and update your playlists this way. Finally, it adds support for the iPod as a removable device to the Windows Media Player, so you can use its woeful features to manage your music. In the latest release there is also support for updating the iPod's firmware and recovering the iPod music database (it doesn't simply store things in a simple directory structure), which is often necessary because of the frequent FireWire bus lockups and write-behind errors you'll get with Xplay and Windows (these are apparently mostly Windows' fault and not Xplay's).
iTunes blows away Media Player in terms of usability, but if you have your MP3s stored on a Windows box like me and just want to get them onto your iPod, Xplay is the best software available right now.
No FireWire lockups, but that might not be Mediafour's problem.
OK, well I was using TP4, silly me. Just installed TP5 and we'll see how that goes. Unfortunately it says it expires on 4/15/02 so I'd better hurry!
Hm, I'm pretty sure I am using PR5, but it may be PR4. I'll definitely check this out and upgrade if its the older version. It is sad that the MS FireWire drivers suck so badly.
The problem with AppleShare is the 32-character filename limitation (or at least thats what I see when I use netatalk on my Linux box). The problem with NFS is my MP3s are all on a Windows PC. I may have to do something about the latter problem.
I have absolutely no need to do that. I just want to take my music and put it ONTO my iPod.
This appears to be more of the same. Copy files from the iPod, not to it. I don't want that.
Sigh, even more of the same.
I don't have my machine setup as the primary, but I get Error -39 whenever I try copying files from SMB -> iTunes or iPod. Are you using SMB?
The current crop of Windows-based iPod software is just NOT up to the job. XPlay will lock up your iPod regularly and corrupt its table-of-contents, forcing you to do a full reset and lose everything on the disk. I was unable to get EphPod to work at all on my Windows 2000 box. I got a setup screen to configure it, and the application appeared in the taskbar when I started it, but no user interface ever showed up. I had to kill it with the Task Manager to get rid of it.
The only realistic option is using a Macintosh for managing your MP3 collection, and if you have your files stored on a network server as I do, this can be problematic as well.
Under MacOS X, you can mount SMB servers and browse them in the finder as you'd expect. You can even drag an MP3 folder from a network drive directly into iTunes or into your iPod. Oops, that doesn't work!. You get a mysterious error -39 when you try this.
All of your MP3s need to live locally on your Mac's filesystems before iTunes will let you add them to your Collection or copy them to your iPod. Couple this with the woeful SMB performance under OSX, and feeding your iPod becomes a painful experience of copying and syncing.
Once you have the music (or audiobooks, or contacts or whatever) on the unit, though, its a true joy to use. I love the iPod, I just detest the software surrounding it.
FWIW, I know several iPod owners and at least 2 others have had this same total-system-lockup issue one or more times. This was the first and only time its happened to me.
Anyone know if it is possible to swap the PCMCIA hard drive with a larger one? I'm assuming that since Apple is now selling a 10G model, this drive must be available somewhere in the wild and it might be possible to just plop on into an "old" 5GB iPod and double your storage.
The killer feature of Furthurnet is its treatment of entire sets of files as a single entity. I am not aware of any other P2P alternative which will allow you do download an entire show as a unit, and not have to hunt down each and every track that constitutes a performance. This is a must have feature if what you are downloading is the tracks of a CD. Who wants Scarlet > without the Fire, or Mike's > H2 > without the Weekapaug?
Similar e-mail has gone out to Comcast@Home customers saying basically the same thing as the Cox/AT&T messages. They will be continuing service, but indicate the possibility of an outage and the need for users to back up data.
they
fakeroot kernel-package --revision custom.1.0 kernel-image modules-image
and dpkg -i the results.
One hopes that "the need for both legal protection and legitimate alternatives" will take into account the fact that some users, myself included, don't use CD-Rs to burn "pirated" music or data. There is a never-ending stream of live music that can be downloaded for free, because the performers allow their performances to be taped and traded. Check out etree.org for an example.
Some of us make (gasp!) backups of our data as well.
All of the liongames.com URLs give:
error 403: Forbidden!
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