"Does anybody actually have any WMA files? That contain music? That they actually listen to? I don't even know where i would get a program that rips CD's to WMA. Why does everything always include support for WMA when nobody really uses it?"
I always transcode to WMA when transferring files to my 64MB Nomad II MG. Since it only supports MP3, WAV and WMA, the best quality at low bitrate of those three is WMA. Of course my originals are in FLAC or OGG. So basically I'm saying that WMA is generally there because it has better low bitrate performance than MP3. Of course OGG blows all that away so they probably included it 'by tradition' in the karma player.
As to encoding to WMA, it's very common if you're using windows. Most major rip/encode programs will let you encode to it if you look through the options. I just use WinAMP's WMA output plugin myself.
" I disagree. Most modders care about how the PC looks. They would rather spent $100 extra on an aluminium case with a window and save $50 on the power supply which is not seen."
When your cheap-ass PSU dies and shorts on the DC side, you'll have a lovely front row view of the fireworks when your HDs go up in smoke;-)
But seriously, I despise case windows. They leak light out of the case and who knows what kind of EM radiation is escaping. Aluminium is good, yes. I just bought a Lian Li Aluminium case recently, but I will leave the case windows for other people.
"DOH! NOW I know why my home build PC isn't working. I also made the "often made" mistake of forgetting the Power Supply."
I actually have 'solved' problems on IRC help channels where the person said that their computer would not power up no matter what they did. The solution of course was to flip the power switch on the back of the PSU;-)
"This device isn't really for spying, it's more to allow parents to spy on their children, and employers to spy on their employees."
If you treat people like they're a problem waiting to happen or you expect them to be misbehaving, then they'll act like they a misbehaving problem. Honestly I think things like this create more problems than they solve.
"Users hate scrolling left to right...So now why do I want this mouse?"
For gaming, of course. Extra scrollwheels are quite useful in games because you can assign them to different selections. The first scroll wheel scrolls through your different weapons. The second scroll wheel scrolls through your inventory, or magic spells or whatever. It allows you to access more things quickly without needing an extra finger for toggling.
Btw, my single-scroll-wheel Logitech MX700 (which rocks, btw) can scroll both ways with one scroll wheel. If the pointer is closer to a horizontal scroll bar, it will scroll horizontally. If it's closer to a vertical scroll bar, it scrolls vertically.
McBride: What happen? Ballmer: Somebody set up us the bitchslap. Ballmer: We get lawsuit. McBride: What! McBride: Main screen turn on. McBride: It's You!! BigBlue: How are you gentlemen!! BigBlue: All your rights are belong to us. BigBlue: You are on the way to bankruptcy. McBride: What you say!! BigBlue: You have no chance to survive make your time. BigBlue: Ha Ha Ha Ha.... McBride: Take off every preferred share. Ballmer: You know what you doing. McBride: Move shares. McBride: For great profit.
"CC on the other hand does not need every listener they can get to profit or stay in business(with the amount of adds and low amount of work they need to do they are making money hand over fist), but they are just greedy SOB's that want every penny they can."
Or more generally:
$MONOPOLY_OWNER on the other hand does not need every person, they can get to profit or stay in business (with the amount of sales and low amount of work they need to do they are making money hand over fist), but they are just greedy SOB's that want every penny they can.
"My ibook is only 700MHz, maybe it runs cooler than yours. Mine hasn't been too bad at the end of a 27-hour kde compiling session under gentoo linux. It was definitely very warm, but I could still touch the bottom of the ibook, no problem."
Mine has a 40G drive. Maybe those get really hot or something.
"I agree that some $1300 x86 laptops will be faster than a $1300 ibook, but the x86 will also be much hotter and have at best half the battery life."
Have you used an iBook when it is under duress? I ran mine for 2 weeks straight on bittorrent and after that, the TABLE was too hot to touch!
Now when I use bittorrent + iBook I hang the front of the notebook off the table so the hard drive (which is at the front) is radiating heat into the air instead of into the table (so as to avoid getting it radiated back.)
"Apple also does not produce luggables, almost-PDA-sized laptops, laptops without CDs, laptops with less than 4.5 hours of battery life, or tablets."
Just nitpicking here: In real world use you're not going to get more than 4h out of a 12" iBook battery unless you have the screen brightness at minimum, turn of WiFi and don't use the CD drive. But you CAN get 5h if you do all these things.
"I'd say its because theres still millions of newbies out there who still think they'll become fabulously wealthy, just as soon as they learn how to program a computer."
I have to agree with you on that. Someone figured out they'd be fabulously wealthy if they harnessed the collective ignorance of the people who only want to get into programming for the perceived money.
This is how you get those people in CS courses who are obviously not cut out for it. Back in first year I was writing this quiz in a CS class. (It was a 20 minute in-lab quiz where you had to program the answer in Java.) I read the question in 2 minutes and programmed the answer in 30 seconds. The person next to me sat there uncomfortably and at the end told her friend she had forgotten how to program a loop. Probably wan't a stupid person... just not destined to be a programmer.
I remember in this one senior C++ programming course in high school, during the first week, these two people came up to the teacher (who was this cool Czechoslovakian 'hacker-guy' that looked like the lead singer of Hansen btw) ask asked him if it was a "programming-heavy" course. Heh. Obviously they dropped.
It's people like this who drive the demand for the bazar of intro programming books. Maybe some dot-bombed slashdotters ought to get together and write one of these fantastic books and become wealthy;-)
" I'm sure lots of companies are started by waterloo grads, not all of which hire coops...fortunately Mike Lazaridis decided to give quite a lot back to the university...that plus it's cheap labour what with the gov't paying half the salary:-)"
I wasn't complaining or anything;-) But the government does not pay half the salary. It's only 10%. But still if the student makes $16/h, the government pays $1.60 per hour and for a 4 month placement at 40h/week, that $1024 into RIM's pockets per student which ain't exactly chump change.
I was about to take a cheap shot at you here, but my stupid spellchecker told me that 'ungrammatical' is actually a real word... damn ungood spellcheckers...
"yes, that's the big joke around university of waterloo (right beside RIM headquarters, they hire a good number of coop students)."
This is not surprising since RIM was founded by Waterloo students. One CS guy from my university (which competes heavily with Waterloo) got one of the first coop jobs ever at RIM where a non-waterloo student was hired. It wasn't surprising that he was mistaken for a waterloo student all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
I always transcode to WMA when transferring files to my 64MB Nomad II MG. Since it only supports MP3, WAV and WMA, the best quality at low bitrate of those three is WMA. Of course my originals are in FLAC or OGG. So basically I'm saying that WMA is generally there because it has better low bitrate performance than MP3. Of course OGG blows all that away so they probably included it 'by tradition' in the karma player.
As to encoding to WMA, it's very common if you're using windows. Most major rip/encode programs will let you encode to it if you look through the options. I just use WinAMP's WMA output plugin myself.
When your cheap-ass PSU dies and shorts on the DC side, you'll have a lovely front row view of the fireworks when your HDs go up in smoke ;-)
But seriously, I despise case windows. They leak light out of the case and who knows what kind of EM radiation is escaping. Aluminium is good, yes. I just bought a Lian Li Aluminium case recently, but I will leave the case windows for other people.
I actually have 'solved' problems on IRC help channels where the person said that their computer would not power up no matter what they did. The solution of course was to flip the power switch on the back of the PSU ;-)
If you treat people like they're a problem waiting to happen or you expect them to be misbehaving, then they'll act like they a misbehaving problem. Honestly I think things like this create more problems than they solve.
Oh, I finally realised that you said that in reference to my 'homepage.' Heh, I was just tired of having nothing of consequence there. ;-)
Perhaps you have forgotten that this is slashdot...
For gaming, of course. Extra scrollwheels are quite useful in games because you can assign them to different selections. The first scroll wheel scrolls through your different weapons. The second scroll wheel scrolls through your inventory, or magic spells or whatever. It allows you to access more things quickly without needing an extra finger for toggling.
Btw, my single-scroll-wheel Logitech MX700 (which rocks, btw) can scroll both ways with one scroll wheel. If the pointer is closer to a horizontal scroll bar, it will scroll horizontally. If it's closer to a vertical scroll bar, it scrolls vertically.
Sorry, I caught that right after I posted it. But hey, lack of quality control is one of the pillars of slashdot.
Now I've been accused of a lot of things in my time, but this is a first ;-)
McBride: What happen?
Ballmer: Somebody set up us the bitchslap.
Ballmer: We get lawsuit.
McBride: What!
McBride: Main screen turn on.
McBride: It's You!!
BigBlue: How are you gentlemen!!
BigBlue: All your rights are belong to us.
BigBlue: You are on the way to bankruptcy.
McBride: What you say!!
BigBlue: You have no chance to survive make your time.
BigBlue: Ha Ha Ha Ha
McBride: Take off every preferred share.
Ballmer: You know what you doing.
McBride: Move shares.
McBride: For great profit.
The site is slashdotted ... can someone please tell me where the 'Hartwall' area is?
I'd say it's more ironic than funny:
After the lawsuit ...
IBM to SCO: Do you feel lucky today? Well do ya?!?
Try doing some streaming radio with a WMP user base and get back to me.
Or more generally:
$MONOPOLY_OWNER on the other hand does not need every person, they can get to profit or stay in business (with the amount of sales and low amount of work they need to do they are making money hand over fist), but they are just greedy SOB's that want every penny they can.
Mine has a 40G drive. Maybe those get really hot or something.
RTFA. The FTC says there is no proof that these things work but it does not have the resources to follow up. I guess there are bigger fish to fry.
Btw, it also says that the guy has a strange sense of ethics and honoured all refund requests. He's also a national-level expert chess player.
The log is not accessible anymore. And if you read the article, a bunch of women were on the customer list as well.
(In reality, the wired article was linking to the exposed customer logs which now returns a 404.)
Have you used an iBook when it is under duress? I ran mine for 2 weeks straight on bittorrent and after that, the TABLE was too hot to touch!
Now when I use bittorrent + iBook I hang the front of the notebook off the table so the hard drive (which is at the front) is radiating heat into the air instead of into the table (so as to avoid getting it radiated back.)
Aside from the slight typographical error, you should be aware that these are NOT mutually exclusive goals. Please look here for more information.
Just nitpicking here: In real world use you're not going to get more than 4h out of a 12" iBook battery unless you have the screen brightness at minimum, turn of WiFi and don't use the CD drive. But you CAN get 5h if you do all these things.
I have to agree with you on that. Someone figured out they'd be fabulously wealthy if they harnessed the collective ignorance of the people who only want to get into programming for the perceived money.
This is how you get those people in CS courses who are obviously not cut out for it. Back in first year I was writing this quiz in a CS class. (It was a 20 minute in-lab quiz where you had to program the answer in Java.) I read the question in 2 minutes and programmed the answer in 30 seconds. The person next to me sat there uncomfortably and at the end told her friend she had forgotten how to program a loop. Probably wan't a stupid person ... just not destined to be a programmer.
I remember in this one senior C++ programming course in high school, during the first week, these two people came up to the teacher (who was this cool Czechoslovakian 'hacker-guy' that looked like the lead singer of Hansen btw) ask asked him if it was a "programming-heavy" course. Heh. Obviously they dropped.
It's people like this who drive the demand for the bazar of intro programming books. Maybe some dot-bombed slashdotters ought to get together and write one of these fantastic books and become wealthy ;-)
I wasn't complaining or anything ;-) But the government does not pay half the salary. It's only 10%. But still if the student makes $16/h, the government pays $1.60 per hour and for a 4 month placement at 40h/week, that $1024 into RIM's pockets per student which ain't exactly chump change.
I was about to take a cheap shot at you here, but my stupid spellchecker told me that 'ungrammatical' is actually a real word ... damn ungood spellcheckers ...
This is not surprising since RIM was founded by Waterloo students. One CS guy from my university (which competes heavily with Waterloo) got one of the first coop jobs ever at RIM where a non-waterloo student was hired. It wasn't surprising that he was mistaken for a waterloo student all the time.