For it to be really worth it, we'd need source files of higher quality. I rip at 192kbs and have a hard time telling the difference in most recordings. Then again, I don't have really high end equipment either. What happened to "Super-Audio" CD's I remember hearing about it but never see them on shelves?
the google calendar for your domain is nice, but the email integration is missing a few things that would put it on par with an exchange server. distribution lists and permissions as to who can send to what, and a few other items of polish would do the trick. I wish google supported syncml so I could add an appointment on my cell phone and have it sync up to my google calendar, but so far you can't do that.
I agree that it makes sense for a company to just grab a web based solution though, naturally cross platform and not vendor specific (except for dumb-ass activeX BS websites)
Like not being able to use an MP3 file as a ringtone unless it was purchased through the provider even though the actual hardware supports it? Or, sending and receiving files over bluetooth? I had 2 Nokia 6620 phones on Cingular that let me send and recieve files and set MP3 ringtones, one phone broke and had to be replaced under warranty. The new phone had a newer firmware and no longer could I used MP3's as ringtones. well I raise hell and got another replacement, same problem, raised hell again and finally got another phone with the older firmware that restored the functions that was the reason I spent extra money for that model in the first place. I got another phone added to my plan for a family member, a Motorola razor. Although the razor has bluetooth, you cannot recieve files over bluetooth presumable because they'd rather have you get your music for $2.99 a pop and have it expire after 90 days. When my 6620 got lost, instead of getting another phone from my provider, I went to http://www.celluloco.com/ and purchased an unlocked Motorola A780 that let me do all the bluetooth mp3 ringing goodness that I wanted. It was a little harder to setup as Cingular doesn't support that model and settings won't automagically download from the network, but I was able to get network settings and voicemail number from tech suppport and it works fine now.
How about others here? what carrier and what features does your phone have turned off?
I Love my A780 from Motorola. I think any device that has so many functions has some type of learning cure. Every time new things come out people complain about how hard they are to use and slowly but surely things get worked out. The A780 has an external keypad and is much like a simple phone when closed. Open it up to the touchscreen and you can do everything else. text to speech and voice dialing could use some tweaking but it's still cool to grab the phone in it's holster press the voice command button and say "check time" or "check missed calls" and have the phone talk to me without having to take my eyes off the road. The A1200, the sucessor to the A780 has the same functions without the external keypad...Why Why Why Motorola did you do that?
Someday it'd be nice to use Qtopia apps and such as there isn't much available for native Linux phone apps that run on Motorola EZX platform but it does support Java apps fairly well.
Once high speed connectivity at a low price or free with a cell plan becomes available, I think providers won't have the phones so locked down and you'll get more choices for what you can do or install just like a regular PC. Get support for penguin liberation front application repository on a cell phone and I don't think there'd be anything left you couldn't do.
anyhow, when I lost my Nokia 6620 and got my Motorola A780, I missed having the Symbian OS interface until I learned the new one and now I like it better. If change throws you that bad it must be a sign of old age;-)
SO many Kid related sites with flash games don't work so well with Linux. I have 3 kids and they want to play at Club Penguin (nothing to do with Linux strangely enough)...I got it to work by installing flash and alll kinds of different fonts until I got everything right. Lots of "shockwave" stuff still won't work and I don't care to spend much time trying fix that. It's easier to just keep a windows partition around for sites like that. The real problem is the website developers of course not using web standards to do stuff with. Most of the slick Site design tools are made by companies with a vested iterest in promoting thier own proprietary stuff.
IT Nothing, ry being "The Cable Guy"
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 1
you work as a contractor (no health benefits or vacation time) from leaving the house at 6AM and getting home around 8 or 9 (sometimes later) at night. do this 6 days a week , dig trenches to lay cable lug a heavy ladder around and crawl in attics at 120+ degrees, then spend most of Sunday cleaning out your cable rig and getting ready for another run. it's $1200 a week the hard way, it either keeps you young or ages you before your time I'm not sure which yet.
Me thinks you Likely just spend too much time reading slashdot instead of "Tickling the Wife" as we in the Cable business call it.
I installed rc1 and got into a reboot loop. I got out of the loop but now I can't use windows update because IE won't launch. I don't even have the internet options control panel available from windows control panel. All I need IE for is to run windows update because outside of that firefox rules.
Hell the only reason MS exists on this machine is so the Kids can play at some games. after messing with that reboot loop hell I went into ubuntu and upgaraded the whole thing to 6.04 with only a few clicks and no errors or conflicts.
of course if you launch ie6setup.exe it only complains that a newer version is available and doesn't offer you the option of downgrading.
and people think Linux is hard... Windows is hell!!!
just make a mess of shell scripts and command line video tools. after you come up with something that works, announce a new open source Linux Distro called PenguinTV or something and put up a website.
there's not too many HD movies out yet, and why put out $1000 for a stand alone player when PS3 will do so much more for $600. Normally you'd have no idea what a new Bluray player would cost in 6 months but PS3 being a video game console they have already released price info way ahead of launch. Also, not too many sets support real 1080p inputs yet so it's not like people have had a real 1080p set sitting around for a year just waiting for a standalone HD movie player.
I was excited that I could stream video via rss, however, when you go to the "sample channel" the video makes you save it to memory stick and then go to your video folder to watch it....
oh well. perhaps when ps3 arrives video streaming will be an option like location free tv.
Sony has way more up it's sleeve than any article I've seen recently about the impending demise of Sony has taken into consideration.
PS3 + PSP means so much more.... multiplayer gaming with the TV giving a birds eye view, and each players first person perspective on thier PSP. or using your PSP as a universal remote control. Being able to get your media collection streamed to your PSP (I do this now with TVersity(or try PSPITunes), but it's a pain to browse, subscribe to rss, close browser, open rss, listen to music....) Using your PS3 as a DVR and watching from a WiFi hot spot somewhere else. Look at some of the other goodies coming like VOIP for PSP, GPS sensor, and a camera for games and Video calls. I just hope they get a Camera/GPS unit in one for GPS tagged video's and pictures. How about 7000 PS1 games available for download to your PSP by the end of next year? I'd bet you could get those on your PS3 if you wanted to but haven't heard anything to that effect (or use the PS3 to store your PSP downloads until you need them. How about those PDA Apps on your PSP? PSP in education as a learning tool for trades or a portable tech manual for mobile workers.
Sony has all this potential with this hardware, and they are in a good position to make money from additional services like movie or music or game download services and such.
I know you don't have Linux installed, but you might still want to look at knoppix based mythtv
I've not used it myself, but it's comparable to WIndows Media center edition without the Digital Rights management issues. if Linux sees firewire video feeds like it would a TV tuner card, MythTV would be like usig a TIVO for your HDTV.
I live in Florida in an area that was sure to be hit by Charley, I left Thursday and got a hotel room for me and my family ( I live 1 block from the Gulf in a low lying area). My work was open that Thursday until 3PM when the "Official" notice came to leave. The hotel I found was full that night and had I waited to leave until I was Allowed to by my employer I would've had a tough time finding a room and may have had to sit in an evacuation center for a few days. Anyhow, I did get a "Written Notice" from my employer for not coming in that day which I signed with a note saying that my family comes before my job.
The good news is that I hated that job and I quit today anyhow. (they're sleazy snakes) all in all, F any employer that asks you to stand in harms way so they can make a buck. If more people took this approach employers would have to be more considerate. I'd guess your employer is a publicly traded company, where Money is the only diety.
I've found most distros have thier own GUI tools to simplify configuring your system but all these tools simply mask what's going on underneath where everything is really just shell commands and scripts strung together. When the GUI fails what you want to do, you're lost without knowing what goes on underneath. Beyond that, if you become familiar with Redhat tools and GUI and your work installs Debian you're starting over. I'd also reccomend learning Bash shell scripting which is the ultimate in telliing your Linux system what to do.
for an example of what's been done with Linux from scratch check out ByzantineOS
The Docsis cable modem spec has plenty of room to increase speed, and most subscribers don't use all the speed all the time. The cost of upgrading cable networks for 2 way service has decreased dramatically not to mention that cable companies have already done most of the last mile wiring upgrades anyhow.
The only thing that would cause them to drop prices is if comparable speeds become available with wireless technology which will happen but not for many years yet. Once you can get MegaHighSpeed service with no wires, the cable companies will all become history (Or wireless broadband providers) because the asset they posess is in the wiring they've spent years laying all over town.
Some cable providers already offer reduced but stil fast speeds at dialup prices (around $21.95/month)
but they seem to have stopped. my problem now is all sorts of companies calling for whoever previoisly had our phone number. as I understand it this is legal because the previous person had given them written permission to call but our number is on the donotcall list and has been for over 3 months.
per donotcall.gov this may be legal since they're not calling for us, but even after being told it's a wrong number they proceed to try and solicit us.
Slashdot Mirror
extinguish...
nuff said
For it to be really worth it, we'd need source files of higher quality. I rip at 192kbs and have a hard time telling the difference in most recordings. Then again, I don't have really high end equipment either. What happened to "Super-Audio" CD's I remember hearing about it but never see them on shelves?
1. Sign up
2. enter on the website in question
3. go to hotmail and sift through junk until you find the verification email.
the google calendar for your domain is nice, but the email integration is missing a few things that would put it on par with an exchange server. distribution lists and permissions as to who can send to what, and a few other items of polish would do the trick.
I wish google supported syncml so I could add an appointment on my cell phone and have it sync up to my google calendar, but so far you can't do that.
I agree that it makes sense for a company to just grab a web based solution though, naturally cross platform and not vendor specific (except for dumb-ass activeX BS websites)
how's he hurting anything? not like he's poking fun at them for being in bed with the enemy.
really, I mean people love to get worked up over the littlest things, how dare he suggest that I co-operate with someone else!!!!!
Does it run Linux?
Like not being able to use an MP3 file as a ringtone unless it was purchased through the provider even though the actual hardware supports it? Or, sending and receiving files over bluetooth? I had 2 Nokia 6620 phones on Cingular that let me send and recieve files and set MP3 ringtones, one phone broke and had to be replaced under warranty. The new phone had a newer firmware and no longer could I used MP3's as ringtones. well I raise hell and got another replacement, same problem, raised hell again and finally got another phone with the older firmware that restored the functions that was the reason I spent extra money for that model in the first place. I got another phone added to my plan for a family member, a Motorola razor. Although the razor has bluetooth, you cannot recieve files over bluetooth presumable because they'd rather have you get your music for $2.99 a pop and have it expire after 90 days.
When my 6620 got lost, instead of getting another phone from my provider, I went to http://www.celluloco.com/ and purchased an unlocked Motorola A780 that let me do all the bluetooth mp3 ringing goodness that I wanted. It was a little harder to setup as Cingular doesn't support that model and settings won't automagically download from the network, but I was able to get network settings and voicemail number from tech suppport and it works fine now.
How about others here? what carrier and what features does your phone have turned off?
runs from a cd in ram and is just Mozilla, not much else.
ByzantineOS on Sourceforge
works with most computers with a lan connection.
watch the video
I Love my A780 from Motorola. I think any device that has so many functions has some type of learning cure. Every time new things come out people complain about how hard they are to use and slowly but surely things get worked out. The A780 has an external keypad and is much like a simple phone when closed. Open it up to the touchscreen and you can do everything else. text to speech and voice dialing could use some tweaking but it's still cool to grab the phone in it's holster press the voice command button and say "check time" or "check missed calls" and have the phone talk to me without having to take my eyes off the road. The A1200, the sucessor to the A780 has the same functions without the external keypad...Why Why Why Motorola did you do that?
;-)
Someday it'd be nice to use Qtopia apps and such as there isn't much available for native Linux phone apps that run on Motorola EZX platform but it does support Java apps fairly well.
Once high speed connectivity at a low price or free with a cell plan becomes available, I think providers won't have the phones so locked down and you'll get more choices for what you can do or install just like a regular PC. Get support for penguin liberation front application repository on a cell phone and I don't think there'd be anything left you couldn't do.
anyhow, when I lost my Nokia 6620 and got my Motorola A780, I missed having the Symbian OS interface until I learned the new one and now I like it better. If change throws you that bad it must be a sign of old age
SO many Kid related sites with flash games don't work so well with Linux. I have 3 kids and they want to play at Club Penguin (nothing to do with Linux strangely enough)...I got it to work by installing flash and alll kinds of different fonts until I got everything right. Lots of "shockwave" stuff still won't work and I don't care to spend much time trying fix that. It's easier to just keep a windows partition around for sites like that. The real problem is the website developers of course not using web standards to do stuff with. Most of the slick Site design tools are made by companies with a vested iterest in promoting thier own proprietary stuff.
you work as a contractor (no health benefits or vacation time) from leaving the house at 6AM and getting home around 8 or 9 (sometimes later) at night. do this 6 days a week , dig trenches to lay cable lug a heavy ladder around and crawl in attics at 120+ degrees, then spend most of Sunday cleaning out your cable rig and getting ready for another run. it's $1200 a week the hard way, it either keeps you young or ages you before your time I'm not sure which yet.
Me thinks you Likely just spend too much time reading slashdot instead of "Tickling the Wife" as we in the Cable business call it.
Do No Evil
unless of course you'll be compensated accordingly
I installed rc1 and got into a reboot loop. I got out of the loop but now I can't use windows update because IE won't launch. I don't even have the internet options control panel available from windows control panel. All I need IE for is to run windows update because outside of that firefox rules.
Hell the only reason MS exists on this machine is so the Kids can play at some games. after messing with that reboot loop hell I went into ubuntu and upgaraded the whole thing to 6.04 with only a few clicks and no errors or conflicts.
of course if you launch ie6setup.exe it only complains that a newer version is available and doesn't offer you the option of downgrading.
and people think Linux is hard... Windows is hell!!!
just make a mess of shell scripts and command line video tools. after you come up with something that works, announce a new open source Linux Distro called PenguinTV or something and put up a website.
there's not too many HD movies out yet, and why put out $1000 for a stand alone player when PS3 will do so much more for $600. Normally you'd have no idea what a new Bluray player would cost in 6 months but PS3 being a video game console they have already released price info way ahead of launch. Also, not too many sets support real 1080p inputs yet so it's not like people have had a real 1080p set sitting around for a year just waiting for a standalone HD movie player.
I was excited that I could stream video via rss, however, when you go to the "sample channel" the video makes you save it to memory stick and then go to your video folder to watch it....
oh well. perhaps when ps3 arrives video streaming will be an option like location free tv.
Sony has way more up it's sleeve than any article I've seen recently about the impending demise of Sony has taken into consideration.
PS3 + PSP means so much more.... multiplayer gaming with the TV giving a birds eye view, and each players first person perspective on thier PSP. or using your PSP as a universal remote control. Being able to get your media collection streamed to your PSP (I do this now with TVersity(or try PSPITunes), but it's a pain to browse, subscribe to rss, close browser, open rss, listen to music....) Using your PS3 as a DVR and watching from a WiFi hot spot somewhere else.
Look at some of the other goodies coming like VOIP for PSP, GPS sensor, and a camera for games and Video calls. I just hope they get a Camera/GPS unit in one for GPS tagged video's and pictures. How about 7000 PS1 games available for download to your PSP by the end of next year? I'd bet you could get those on your PS3 if you wanted to but haven't heard anything to that effect (or use the PS3 to store your PSP downloads until you need them. How about those PDA Apps on your PSP? PSP in education as a learning tool for trades or a portable tech manual for mobile workers.
Sony has all this potential with this hardware, and they are in a good position to make money from additional services like movie or music or game download services and such.
and everything else you say will make perfect sense.
I know you don't have Linux installed, but you might still want to look at knoppix based mythtv
I've not used it myself, but it's comparable to WIndows Media center edition without the Digital Rights management issues. if Linux sees firewire video feeds like it would a TV tuner card, MythTV would be like usig a TIVO for your HDTV.
I live in Florida in an area that was sure to be hit by Charley, I left Thursday and got a hotel room for me and my family ( I live 1 block from the Gulf in a low lying area). My work was open that Thursday until 3PM when the "Official" notice came to leave. The hotel I found was full that night and had I waited to leave until I was Allowed to by my employer I would've had a tough time finding a room and may have had to sit in an evacuation center for a few days. Anyhow, I did get a "Written Notice" from my employer for not coming in that day which I signed with a note saying that my family comes before my job.
The good news is that I hated that job and I quit today anyhow. (they're sleazy snakes) all in all, F any employer that asks you to stand in harms way so they can make a buck. If more people took this approach employers would have to be more considerate. I'd guess your employer is a publicly traded company, where Money is the only diety.
Roll your own using http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
I've found most distros have thier own GUI tools to simplify configuring your system but all these tools simply mask what's going on underneath where everything is really just shell commands and scripts strung together. When the GUI fails what you want to do, you're lost without knowing what goes on underneath. Beyond that, if you become familiar with Redhat tools and GUI and your work installs Debian you're starting over. I'd also reccomend learning Bash shell scripting which is the ultimate in telliing your Linux system what to do.
for an example of what's been done with Linux from scratch check out ByzantineOS
this game has good feedback in steering and brakes and is the closest to driving a real car I've ever tried. see This Page
The Docsis cable modem spec has plenty of room to increase speed, and most subscribers don't use all the speed all the time. The cost of upgrading cable networks for 2 way service has decreased dramatically not to mention that cable companies have already done most of the last mile wiring upgrades anyhow.
The only thing that would cause them to drop prices is if comparable speeds become available with wireless technology which will happen but not for many years yet. Once you can get MegaHighSpeed service with no wires, the cable companies will all become history (Or wireless broadband providers) because the asset they posess is in the wiring they've spent years laying all over town.
Some cable providers already offer reduced but stil fast speeds at dialup prices (around $21.95/month)
but they seem to have stopped. my problem now is all sorts of companies calling for whoever previoisly had our phone number. as I understand it this is legal because the previous person had given them written permission to call but our number is on the donotcall list and has been for over 3 months.
per donotcall.gov this may be legal since they're not calling for us, but even after being told it's a wrong number they proceed to try and solicit us.