It seems you failed to spot the missing comma and continue parsing correctly anyway. Personally I didn't have a problem understanding the post in context.
If you tap with two fingers instead of one, it will right click instead of single click when you tap.
You need to enable this in System Preferences, but it works just great (I've always used tapping instead of clicking the mouse button on my PowerBooks/MacBook, as it's a much more elegant solution than using a button IMO).
However EWRONGOS occurs if you try it on something other than Mac OS, AFAIK...
If by 'nigh on impossible' you mean do cp -R on the music directory on the iPod and copy it to your desktop (or say, opt to 'View Hidden Files and Directories' if on Windows) then just drag the resulting copied folder to iTunes (which will happily important and rename the tracks accordingly automagically) then yeah, it is.
I would call that gross exaggeration though, at worst it's not as convient as it could be, but it's hardly difficult - it's just in a hidden directory, which iTunes will happily import the contents of, just not via the default GUI (to deter casual copyright infringement, it seems clear).
I have to turn on 'View hidden files and directories' on Windows fairly often in the course of normal Windows usage, for example - it's a basic UI option accessible very easily. Of course I work with files and directories begining with a period all the time on Unix too.
It's not a big deal, and hardly an unreasonable step given the rampant abuse so many users are keen to commit (I don't think for a minute they "just want to send the odd track to friends" or something similarly reasonable - what most people want to do is rip the contents of other peoples iPods wholesale and not have to pay for any of it (all the convenience of a digital format without having to worry about the nasty payment stuff).
As an early adopter I've owned (and occasionally trialed through work) loads of new phones - and developed 3rd party software for a couple (for fun).
The software on most phones is appaling, no attention is paid to user experience. They are not built by people who understand how to put together a good UI or a robust and appropriate interface for a mobile device - and I can't imagine they've gone through any sort of meaningful usability testing.
Smart phones are showcase of poorly designed software, with inconsistent behaviour, over complicated and badly organised system settings and unresponsive, sluggish and often unstable user interfaces - that are typically only half-implimented. This only started to be really visible once phones started getting complicated (as it's easy to make a simple system, like the early Nokia UI, easy to use).
I'm sure my last 4 or 5 phones will technically have a lot more features than the Apple Phone when it comes out - I've got 5 year old phones that I'm sure will be able to claim a richer feature set - but in the same way I've had other, more 'powerful' MP3 players than my iPod, if the user experience is right, that's more important to me. I'd rather have a smaller subset of features that just work really well, rather than bunch of confusing settings and overly complicated menus and options that insist on getting in the way rather than just behaving in a simple, minimalist manner and doing what I'm actually likely to WANT it to do.
I hope that in demonstrating how to get software right (which I have every confidence Apple will do - given their track record with things like the Newton) manufacturers will learn and develop similarly user-experience focused platforms with a similar level of polish. But I doubt it, after all they didn't learn from the Newton and the development of Palm OS has been royally screwed up.
As much as I don't want to sound like a fanboy, it's actually depressing how good the the UI on the Newton was when I think that no PDA or smartphone I've owned or even heard of since (and that must be about 20) has even been HALF as good. Sony were making some great hardware till they halted Clie development (the PEG-TH55 is still an awesome peice of kit, several years on) and the latest Nokia Smartphone range is interesting (I've got an E61 ATM), and the Sharp Zarus PDA range is really nifty too, but without good software, the hardware is just wasted.
Routers have been crashing for over a decade because their routing tables got too full. Modern day vendors are not exactly purveyors of sophisticated software. I don't know why anyone would buy into excuses from a vendor as to why their box has, yet again, screwed up (running out of memory doesn't wash as reasonable justification for a crash).
Well, I say I don't know why people buy in to lame excuses - I think I have a pretty good idea why, I think it's because most network engineers have low expectations when it comes to software quality on any sort of routing/switching equipment, because they've never known anything else (and because they don't have the software development experience themselves to be able to see just how poor a job some vendors are doing). That and of course there are limited choices of vendor (and at most, carriers and telcos are locked into to two, if not just one, vendor in order to keep costs own - so complaning is only going to get you so far).
Given how much most vendors charnge, most of the kit they release is buggy as hell, rarely has all the features you need (even some basic ones), will only even vaguely do what you want if you are running some unsupported branch (that is missing loads of other basic features), often has an enormous licencing fee associated with it when it finally is released into production, will sliently break your existing config without warning when you upgrade to the final release, and you'll have to pay inflated hardware prices for additional memory and/or cards just so you can run it (even when they are not uniquely sophisticated - just overly expensive).
At least with JunOS (BSD based) and IOS XR (QNX based) on the CRS's things are heading in the right direction (they can still screw up the implimentations of course). It's only a matter of time before router software - and the complexity of data they can handle increases significantly across the board. I wouldn't worry about routing tables being too large, it's not really a big deal (and vendors would address it soon enough if they knew it was coming).
Good question, I had no idea. Drug crime is certainly very common here, but it's not handled in the same way (you don't get police running sting operations for something as trivial as cannabis though, that's generally regarded as a waste of time). Even for harder drugs it's fine and/or rehab (which is recognised as more effective, even if we don't persue it as strongly or effectively as other European countries do).
The latest crime survey says it's Theft (inc. shoplifting, car theft and handbag snatching, but not burglary or violent robbery), Violence Against The Person and Criminal Damage - which all fits very much fitting in with my preception of life here in the UK.
One thing visitors here (from Australia, New Zealand) often comment on is how unpredicable steets can be here. There are good areas - even very wealthy areas in London (where houses are over a million GBP) where there are street murders and gangs hanging around (with council estates just 5 / 10 minutes walk away) and things can turn very nasty in an area when it starts to get dark (though other cities across the UK have this problem too).
This is as a result of government policy (which has existed throughout successive governments) to prevent 'gettoisation', though it's pretty much a disasterous one IMO. It's practically impossible to live somewhere like London and not live near a crime-hotspot council estate unless you are in some exorbitant 3 million GBP per house area.
It's one of the main reasons I'm thinking of moving out of London, I just want to live in a half decent area where I don't have to watch my back at nights : I've been assaulted more than once, including when I stepped in to defend another passenger on the tube from some racist yob picking a fight on an Asian guy - while the rest of the passengers tried to hide their faces - and I've been attacked by Asian rascists in East London who don't like white people 'in their area' as they put it and that's especialy if you a woman, according to a couple of girls who work in the area. There are a couple of other occasions too. Council estate yobs who's parents are living on handouts is the common theme though.
I categorise myself as slightly left of center, or at least I did - I think I am now, TBH it's hard to tell. I'm probably slightly right of center now (though that's still to left of center by American standards).
I'm moving further to the right as I get older, I notice, and that's certainly colored by my negative experiences.
As a non-republican guy who watchs CNN, and FOX, I find FOX to be fair to liberals while being recognizably conservative and CNN to have a strong liberal agenda. A Liberal and a liberal are not the same thing (sadly most Americans consistently fail to demonstrate an undersanding of that when using the word, including professional commentators on both Fox and CNN).
You can be right wing and liberal, just as you can be left wing and liberal. In fact a lot of the values held by many Republican voters (small government, low taxes) are profoundly liberal ideals. If you are strongly right or strongly left leaning, you are unlikely to be very liberal however (people tend to polarise off into either Nazi or Communist parties respectively - and neither are typically liberal).
Fox is strongly right leaning, CNN is lightly left leaning (in the context of US politics). However CNN is right leaning if you are from pretty much any other western democracy (other than say countries with more right leaning political centers such as Japan, Greece or Israel) - or if you have a broader political perspective. Similarly, center-right political parties in Europe are frequently light to moderate left leaning from an American perspective.
The only long term solution is good education. I used to think that, but I'm increasingly leaning to view that's not the only answer (though it is still part of the solution). I think some people are beyond being able to assit with state education.
I suspect what we need to create is a more equitable society. I think it's in some ways sad - in that the only way to create a stable low crime society is to create one where everyone has a similar level of personal wealth, regardless of how hard they work (or don't) - but from looking at other, more successful democractic societies in Europe, it seems to be what it will take.
In my experience, cops in the UK are much less aggressive than those in the US (which also translates as not as good as actually dealing with criminals) and less inclined to actually abuse authority.
While we have more CCTV cameras than any other country, this means that even criminals caught on film go about unhindered. The cops are too lazy to look at the footage and follow up the crime, even if you try and press charges (whether it's footage you hand them from your business CCTV, public footage on a street CCTV cam or footage from a private CCTV cam - e.g. run by the local estate in the case of a privately managed housing complex).
In the defense of the police, even if they do catch them, they know (as do we) that it's a waste of time as they will be right back on the streets - we don't have any room in our jails (see the recent debacle about moving to 'prison ships' as an emergency measure to increase capacity) and so the judges - who are complicit in following 'goverment recommendations' that suggest not putting people in jail - will turn them free with some 40 hours community service at best.
So, we have one of the highest prision populations in Europe with the most street surveillance, but our streets are still full of hooligans and the police are unwilling to go after anything that isn't a glamerous / high profile crime (like arresting drug dealers, murderers, etc). The big problem we have is that successive governments seem to think installing CCTV cameras helps, which it manifestly doesn't.
I actually like the vagaries of our legal system, in that they are generally applied sensibly. European legislation also helps counter-act it by protecting the rights in the individual in a number of ways.
I agree with you on the 'moving to Canada' idea. As a less drastic option, maybe now the SNP (Scottish National Party) are in charge in Scotland (barely) and are keen to establish independence I can move up north (assuming they spend money on more sensible things, which they claim to be keen to do).
I mean, I like it, but it's only a 3 level demo (and not very large levels at that) - a couple of evenings was more than enough to explore them fully.
Granted it's just a limited early preview, but it's a bit disappointing to see it only looks like an updated version of Halo 2 - in that there is nothing to indiate it's going to live up to the origional promise of Halo (when it was slated for Mac/PC) with big, outdoor maps. I still hope we get to see those big, 32 / 64 player maps that have been rumoured and hinted at going back a couple of years now in the final release.
If they were going to do that, I'd expect to see at least one map like that in a release like this (where they could take advantage of seeing how well it handled that sort of 'in the real world'). I'm going to be happy with it as long as the single player campaign is solid, but I'm still going to be disappointed if it doesn't have epic multiplayer combat.
I'd love to see PC-style Battlefield Conquest gameplay, with Halo style designed-for-console FPS controls - and it's great vehicle design (I felt the Battlefield implimentaton for 360 didn't really work out that well).
No one is disuputing it was an unforseen technical glitch which caused a short delay in release (that most can agree was ultimately was no big deal - and few people actually got uptight about it), it's only a 3 level multiplayer-only demo after all). That doesn't lessen users entitlement to the bundle as it was sold, which is a different argument.
Public beta's go through a Q&A process, especially when they are high profile marketing exercises, like this one. There are 'pre-betas', on a product like this you'd expect to have development releases, then later quality releases approximating alpha and beta quality then release canidates - you do that on anything that goes public on a commercia; project of any scale. The problem was no one bothered to test the roll out process for anyone who access it via preview access that was bundled with Crackdown.
On a platfom like X-Box Live on a public demo you don't just roll out a release like you would a real beta-quality release (a 'public beta' in modern parlance is quite a different thing from a 'beta quality' release). So, quite apart from the fact that users have a justified sense of entitlement, you'd expect it to have gone through the same release process as any other demo put out via Live.
Granted, MS brought the attitude on themselves by the promoting they did, but people still aren't owed anything by MS, even if they did buy Crackdown. Wrong. If they purchased a copy of Crackdown on it which specifically included early access to Halo 3, then they are entitled to exactly that.
I guess it just boils down to people being spoiled. I don't know where people get their air of entitlement from, but they certainly have it. People bought Crackdown and access to the Halo 3 Public Beta was included in the purchase of that product. It would have been illegal for Microsoft to recind this offer after purchase without offering some form compensation and/or a full refund (which depends specifically on the consumer rights laws in your state/country).
No, it's not that it had issues, it's that some people didn't get it at all, and they are quite right to complain. In this case, the Halo 3 "Beta" wasn't really a "Beta" in a technical sense, it's a promotional demo - a marketing exercise as much as anything.
Users have always loved the idea they are getting "omg exlusive leet beta!" releases of hot new software though - that's been the case for years - and so game companies have learned to take advantage of this by labelling regular demo's "public betas" and having "exlusive" groups of "only a few tens of thousands of players" in them, which is pretty farcial really, but a great way of generating hype and buzz for your game (as most of those players are likely to be positive about the game - given they took pro-active action to get to play it in the first place).
RE: "Free" bundled games with videocards - they are not 'free'. Part of the money you are paying for the card goes towards covering the cost of bundling those games. You are paying for them. You have every right (including legal right) to complain if they are not fit for purpose.
Manufacturers can't just include something with a product and legally get off the hook for it being shoddy by saying "Well, it was bundled free, we were only charging them for one part of the product." if it's promised as part of the deal.
In fairness to Halo, it's a bit hard to take that critisim seriously, as Halo 2's enduring popularity has entirely been down to it's multiplayer compontent, not it's single player campaign - and the multiplayer aspect of Halo 3 is what a lot of people are looking forward to, more so than the single player (which incidentally has some of the best in game AI ever). The AI in Halo is not terrible by any description and it's a lot smarter than most Battlefield players I play against or with. And you can quote me on that.
I do understand the complaints about these very short deathmatch games. There's no strategy in these "everyone run out and shoot" games where the round is over in 2 minutes. Then again, there's almost no strategy in halo. Its just a fun dumb shoot 'em up in a sci-fi setting. In my world its a fun rental. That's it. Battlefield series games are typically longer, and I prefer a long, tactical team based FPS game, but it's pertty hard to find a good group. BF2142 almost always amounts to "a fun dumb shoot 'em up in a sci-fi setting" for that reason (with idiots in Titans TK'ing from above from the Titan main guns).
To be assured of a good group, you need a clan, as good random pickup groups (where the majority of your small squad - let alone everyone - actually has a mic hooked up) are rare as hens teeth. Halo 2, for it's part, is entirely built around clans (and I"m sure they won't drop the ball with Halo 3) something Dice could learn from.
I quite agree that BF has the potential to be a much more tactical shooter, but really, it rarely exhibts that - most players just want to run around like rambo and so most games are a random mess, or dominated by the one team that has a 5 man squad on it that are actually working together to cap flags (while 20-30 other players run around shooting each other over who gets to fly the helicopter). On a few occasions I've racked up an insane number of kills after picking a camping spot which was well placed to target people, but right out in the open, where I could be easily picked off by a couple of guys working together - but everyone was doing their own thing and so I just racked up the kills in a way that was almost embarrassingly easy.
I also agree with you in that I too prefer Battlefield 2 over Halo multiplayer - as do over UT or Q3A, for reason is that Battlefield 2 is overall a slower paced and more tactical experience, where you have more time to think about your actions and what you are going to do next. Quick fire deathmatch rounds can last a fair old time though (often 20 or 30 minutes) and I think it's unfair to categorise them as 'dumb shooters'. The likes of Halo, Q3A and UT require plenty of skill, but it's in knowing how to react quickly, knowing the maps and knowing which weapon is best in a given scenario - everything happens at a much faster pace.
I find, though I'm not bad at them, Halo/Q3A/UT style fast-pased action FPS multiplayers are a lot harder to master than games like the BF series (where you can dominate just by being in a squad that works together - yet most players can't even do that). It's inaccurate to trivialize them as "dumb shooters where the action is over in two minutes".
Almost everyone who has broadband is NAT'd. You don't get that many customers connecting directly, via a real and entirely unfirewalled/NAT'd IP via USB interface any more (though common about 5 years go amoung some providers, on entry level products). That's been the case for years now - providers tend to give them out UNLESS you ask for a 'wires only' service - not even an option with cable. In addition, almost all PC stores only sell the likes of Netgear or Linksys ADSL modems.
You get cable modems with USB as well as RJ45, just as you use to get USB only ADSL modems, but in those instances the providers are almost always still behind a NAT'd connection or inbound port-restricted IP space, they are almost all products aimed at first time / novice market. Just because they are using a USB connection (even something as naff as the dreaded Alcatel Stingray) doesn't mean they are on an unfiltered connection (or one without NAT).
as it's more likely that they have a USB port than a network port. The only reason some providers used to provide USB only interfaces is that it was a marginally cheaper option for them. It wasn't to do with the user being more likely to have an RJ45 socket, it was about saving money by shifting more work on the the users PC - in fact outside of Apple (who adopted USB before other mainstream PC vendors, but really dragged their heels when it came to getting on board with bulding in RJ45 sockets) RJ45 was commonplace on PC's years before USB.
IIRC, the only computer I bought in the last 15 years or so that hasn't had RJ45 (out of many laptops and desktops), was a PowerMac in the mid 90's (which had an AAUI connector)
I can think of a few instances where it's not the user's fault. If you install windows xp, no service packs, because that's what came with your computer, and you aren't behind a router or any other firewall, then the computer will become infected before you can even download the updates. Only if you are using a very old copy of XP (it's 2007 now, XP has been shipping with the ultra nannying SP2 since 2004). SP2 of course broke plenty of legitimate software because of it's restrictive nature (that being the downside), though they eventually struck a decent balance I think.
Even with an outdated copy open ports are unlikely attack vector for desktop users, as almost all desktops - residental and commerical - are behind some form of NAT (and that surely applies to 99% of all users who don't know what they are doing). The problem is overwhelmingly users explictly installing malware and dismissing updates even their computer repeatedly nags them to install them.
That's a pretty sad state of affairs. It's something MS needs to fix. They did, back in 2004. I would argue the problem is now, with Vista in particular, that they've gone too far, and using it can be a horrible experience unless you disable the security features (depending on the software you are trying to use with it - in some usage senarios you hardly notice it).
I agree that software companies should be more responsible than they presently are (and that software doesn't do what it could to keep users safe), but it's ultimately a toss up between an OS thats horrible and frustrating to use (e.g. Vista style constant nagging whenever you try to do anything) and just relying on users common sense. When you do get to the stage of having constant blocking and / or popups during normal use, those messages lose their effectiveness, because users click right through them (power users and novice users alike).
When users get infected with malware, it's because they invariably did something foolish (like downloading something clearly dodgy, or being lazy and not keeping their computer up to date and dismissing all those 'it's time to upgrade!' dialogs it keeps bringing up).
I think it's impractical to have an OS with the flexbility of a Mac OS, Windows or Linux desktop and have the computer to be able to tell what's harmful behaviour and what isn't. That's the sort of thing advocates DRM in the hardware and the OS tout (quite reasonably) as one advantage of signed software. Personally, I'd rather not go down that route, and would rather expect people to exercise some common sense. They will soon learn if you restrict their net access when they misbehave.
As I mentioned though, that's not to say desktop OS's couldn't strike a much better balance without being too disruptive (or in the case of Vista, less disruptive).
Heh heh, yeah 'a friend' of mine was beaten online by a 12 year old at Halo once in a random online match. Except in this case by 'a friend' I mean me. On the PC too.
In my defense I didn't really play it much on the PC, and he was hosting the game (and multiplayer Halo is really favourable to the host). Even without that aspect of it, he still played better than anyone else in my office does (who I can apparently beat even when they team up on me, even though I only very rarely play multiplayer Halo).
I'm not sure why you seem to think that undermines the previous posters point.
As they said, the console market is far larger than the PC market, and that console titles outstrip sales of PC titles significantly (and that they sell for more). World of Warcraft and Linage don't change that. Selling a million plus copies of a game in the first year is expected of a half decent console game (games EA's Madden do that and more in their first couple of weeks - games on the PC don't sell that well with anything like that frequency (nor do they tend to retail for as much).
Added to that, is of course the risk factor.
You might imagine that releasing an MMO is a better way to make money than a console game, but that's not borne out. MMO are far risker projects, requiring many times the capital investment, much longer development cyles (years longer), a more complicated business structure and business plan and have massive monthly outgoings (rather than just paying a small amount for a tiny helpdesk team and letting the staffers go once the game is out). When the risk is higher, you of course keep less of the return (and again, there is a lower return when you have high on-going costs).
As EA has discovered, it's a lot more economical to stick to releasing incrimental upgrades of existing tiles (from Madden and Fifa to the Battlefield series) than to take risks with PC MMO's, which ultimately fail far more often, and bring in less profit as a percentage of both investment and revenue even when they are successful. EA have even shut down 'successful' PC MMO's down, because they were not successful enough by their standards - there just wasn't enough of a return on their investment, that is, they were better off spending that money in developing a new console title, because it was almost certain to give a better RoI.
The overall numbers of gamers for Lineage 2 and WoW is large, but it's probably not as profitable as many think - a third of WoW subscribers are in China, and they pay just a fraction of the amount US and EU players pay. Several million more people in the US, EU and AUS have played the likes of Halo 2 on the X-Box than have played WoW on a PC or Mac.
All the above is is why there are so few MMO's, compared to console titles, as a business MMO's are simply less profitable (because they bomb more often every n attempts, and when the do go wrong they do so more spectacularly, in that a bigger hole is left in the publisher and/or developers wallet).
It's something that matters to a tiny proportion of 360 owners, so I can see why they wouldn't bother. You say "I don't care what input device you use.", with that attitude why should anyone care what YOU want to use, when most people manage just fine?
Now, I like both methods (unlike some posters here, I'm not deficient and can use both input methods quite well without crying like a baby about it), but obviously using a keyboard and mouse input is more technically accurate than using an analog input as far as an FPS is concerned (at least certainly when you don't factor in vehicle control).
With that in mind, I can see good reason why you might not want to enable support for a mouse and keyboard on a console. One of the advantages a console has is it's roughly a level playing field (everyone has the same spec'd system, it's highly unlikely anyone is cheating). In a competitive game, having some players with that sort of technical advantage is only going to put off the majority of players (who have no interest in sitting at a desk in their living room, or on trying to balance a keyboard and mouse on their lap).
Alternative, you COULD design a multiplayer came around a dual analog stick input (which most console FPS games are), but then the mechanics of it would annoy anyone trying to use a mouse (a reason why allowing users to use a mouse, even in single player - even *especially* in single player - may not be as desirable as it might sound). Subtle ssisted aiming and CoF mechanics are great on a console title, but they are much less pleasant to have when you are using a mouse and keyboard and more more fined grained control).
The number of people who find using anlog stick difficult for FPS games are small, and it's mostly because they don't try. I know 4 year olds that don't have a problem with it. There are serveral million Halo 2 players out there who don't have a problem with it. Lots of people cope just fine and have never seen it as problem.
Frankly, if you can master a mouse for controlling and FPS, I don't belive that you can find using an anlog stick difficult, I think you've just convinced yourself you can't. Some people who don't play PC games say the same thing about using mice. I don't belive them either. Some people need to quit winging and get on with it.
I don't belive there really is a group of people who can't use mice for FPS games, and a group who can't use analog inputs. I think there are just some people are too close minded to even try.
I play both (a Windows system with a 24" Dell Display, AMD FX CPU and SLI GTX card and Audigy w/ 5.1 dedicated for PC gaming - I do my work on Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris - and 360 with 50" HD Plasma and 5.1 Surround for gaming (a setup bought over a year ago - before I any HDTV feed, again specifically for gaming). I mention all that just to get the point across that I take my gaming pretty seriously.
I have way more fun playing a game like GRAW on a big comfy chair in the living room, with a larger display and a huge display and superior sound system) than on the PC - and that's not just due to the inferior quality of the PC port, the console version is a cinematic experience designed for a console. I prefer Halo on the console too. These are games who's gameplay is specifically tailored to a console environment.
I prefer Unreal on the PC, and Battlefield on the PC too (though the console Battlefield plays differently, as it should for a console). Unreal and the PC Battlefield series rely much more on pixel perfect accuracy and positioning and less on CoF dynamics and just looking at a nearby object to 'use' it, the circumstances and manner in which you take damage are often different too (particularly when playing against AI). As a result, the gameplay is different.
There is no doubt that you can place shots more accurately using a keyboard and mouse and sitting very close to a screen. It doesn't mean it's always more fun to play that way - if everyone else is using a console, it's not like you are at a disadvantage in any way (and I would argue that's a good reason NOT to include keyboard support in multiplayer FPS games - that and such a tiny percentage of people would use it I'd rather console developers focus on features that actually matter to most people).
I enjoy both. I think the people who complain they find using a controller difficult are either being close minded, or have mental deficiency when it comes to hand-eye coordination. If most 7 year olds can manage it (and I know a 4 year old that can do it just fine) it's something these so-called gamers should be embarrassed about finding difficult.
This nice man (or presently, rather his son James) lets you have it for free if you work for them in the UK.
It's on Sky TV - the dominant satellite (and increasingly dominant broadband) provider in the UK, on their premier channel, Sky One). As I referenced in a previous post, I think we actually (in a bizzare turnaround for the normal state of affaris) to better when it comes to a lot of US sci-fi shows (ranging from Angel to the Stargate francise to BSG), we even get episodes a bit ahead of the US on occation (instead of being 6 months behind, which is usally the norm for US TV shows here).
We have a sci-fi channel here, but things like BSG, SG1/SGA and new Trek francises are mainsteam on Sky One at primetime (along with shows like Lost).
I gather you can get it in HD in the US, but perhaps only in some areas, or only for some providers. Some users have posted details about it a couple of posts above yours.
The market here is much less fractured, Sky is (as of fairly recently at any rate) AFAIK the *only* way to get shows like BSG, Lost in the UK (they used to re-sell channels to a major cable operation Virgin (yeah one that's also an airline, and a cola, etc.) but they pulled the plug on that fairly recently (but upping the price of the channel to a point where Virgin decided they couldn't afford it - which is costing Virgin a fair bit now in terms of customers who are flocking to Sky directly).
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MP3 Isn't lossless.
It seems you failed to spot the missing comma and continue parsing correctly anyway. Personally I didn't have a problem understanding the post in context.
AAC isn't either.
Not relevant.
If you tap with two fingers instead of one, it will right click instead of single click when you tap.
You need to enable this in System Preferences, but it works just great (I've always used tapping instead of clicking the mouse button on my PowerBooks/MacBook, as it's a much more elegant solution than using a button IMO).
However EWRONGOS occurs if you try it on something other than Mac OS, AFAIK...
If by 'nigh on impossible' you mean do cp -R on the music directory on the iPod and copy it to your desktop (or say, opt to 'View Hidden Files and Directories' if on Windows) then just drag the resulting copied folder to iTunes (which will happily important and rename the tracks accordingly automagically) then yeah, it is.
I would call that gross exaggeration though, at worst it's not as convient as it could be, but it's hardly difficult - it's just in a hidden directory, which iTunes will happily import the contents of, just not via the default GUI (to deter casual copyright infringement, it seems clear).
I have to turn on 'View hidden files and directories' on Windows fairly often in the course of normal Windows usage, for example - it's a basic UI option accessible very easily. Of course I work with files and directories begining with a period all the time on Unix too.
It's not a big deal, and hardly an unreasonable step given the rampant abuse so many users are keen to commit (I don't think for a minute they "just want to send the odd track to friends" or something similarly reasonable - what most people want to do is rip the contents of other peoples iPods wholesale and not have to pay for any of it (all the convenience of a digital format without having to worry about the nasty payment stuff).
I don't see that market success is consistantly correlated to quality of software.
That said, I don't think that's a good reason not to have good software.
As an early adopter I've owned (and occasionally trialed through work) loads of new phones - and developed 3rd party software for a couple (for fun).
The software on most phones is appaling, no attention is paid to user experience. They are not built by people who understand how to put together a good UI or a robust and appropriate interface for a mobile device - and I can't imagine they've gone through any sort of meaningful usability testing.
Smart phones are showcase of poorly designed software, with inconsistent behaviour, over complicated and badly organised system settings and unresponsive, sluggish and often unstable user interfaces - that are typically only half-implimented. This only started to be really visible once phones started getting complicated (as it's easy to make a simple system, like the early Nokia UI, easy to use).
I'm sure my last 4 or 5 phones will technically have a lot more features than the Apple Phone when it comes out - I've got 5 year old phones that I'm sure will be able to claim a richer feature set - but in the same way I've had other, more 'powerful' MP3 players than my iPod, if the user experience is right, that's more important to me. I'd rather have a smaller subset of features that just work really well, rather than bunch of confusing settings and overly complicated menus and options that insist on getting in the way rather than just behaving in a simple, minimalist manner and doing what I'm actually likely to WANT it to do.
I hope that in demonstrating how to get software right (which I have every confidence Apple will do - given their track record with things like the Newton) manufacturers will learn and develop similarly user-experience focused platforms with a similar level of polish. But I doubt it, after all they didn't learn from the Newton and the development of Palm OS has been royally screwed up.
As much as I don't want to sound like a fanboy, it's actually depressing how good the the UI on the Newton was when I think that no PDA or smartphone I've owned or even heard of since (and that must be about 20) has even been HALF as good. Sony were making some great hardware till they halted Clie development (the PEG-TH55 is still an awesome peice of kit, several years on) and the latest Nokia Smartphone range is interesting (I've got an E61 ATM), and the Sharp Zarus PDA range is really nifty too, but without good software, the hardware is just wasted.
Routers have been crashing for over a decade because their routing tables got too full. Modern day vendors are not exactly purveyors of sophisticated software. I don't know why anyone would buy into excuses from a vendor as to why their box has, yet again, screwed up (running out of memory doesn't wash as reasonable justification for a crash).
Well, I say I don't know why people buy in to lame excuses - I think I have a pretty good idea why, I think it's because most network engineers have low expectations when it comes to software quality on any sort of routing/switching equipment, because they've never known anything else (and because they don't have the software development experience themselves to be able to see just how poor a job some vendors are doing). That and of course there are limited choices of vendor (and at most, carriers and telcos are locked into to two, if not just one, vendor in order to keep costs own - so complaning is only going to get you so far).
Given how much most vendors charnge, most of the kit they release is buggy as hell, rarely has all the features you need (even some basic ones), will only even vaguely do what you want if you are running some unsupported branch (that is missing loads of other basic features), often has an enormous licencing fee associated with it when it finally is released into production, will sliently break your existing config without warning when you upgrade to the final release, and you'll have to pay inflated hardware prices for additional memory and/or cards just so you can run it (even when they are not uniquely sophisticated - just overly expensive).
At least with JunOS (BSD based) and IOS XR (QNX based) on the CRS's things are heading in the right direction (they can still screw up the implimentations of course). It's only a matter of time before router software - and the complexity of data they can handle increases significantly across the board. I wouldn't worry about routing tables being too large, it's not really a big deal (and vendors would address it soon enough if they knew it was coming).
Good question, I had no idea. Drug crime is certainly very common here, but it's not handled in the same way (you don't get police running sting operations for something as trivial as cannabis though, that's generally regarded as a waste of time). Even for harder drugs it's fine and/or rehab (which is recognised as more effective, even if we don't persue it as strongly or effectively as other European countries do).
The latest crime survey says it's Theft (inc. shoplifting, car theft and handbag snatching, but not burglary or violent robbery), Violence Against The Person and Criminal Damage - which all fits very much fitting in with my preception of life here in the UK.
One thing visitors here (from Australia, New Zealand) often comment on is how unpredicable steets can be here. There are good areas - even very wealthy areas in London (where houses are over a million GBP) where there are street murders and gangs hanging around (with council estates just 5 / 10 minutes walk away) and things can turn very nasty in an area when it starts to get dark (though other cities across the UK have this problem too).
This is as a result of government policy (which has existed throughout successive governments) to prevent 'gettoisation', though it's pretty much a disasterous one IMO. It's practically impossible to live somewhere like London and not live near a crime-hotspot council estate unless you are in some exorbitant 3 million GBP per house area.
It's one of the main reasons I'm thinking of moving out of London, I just want to live in a half decent area where I don't have to watch my back at nights : I've been assaulted more than once, including when I stepped in to defend another passenger on the tube from some racist yob picking a fight on an Asian guy - while the rest of the passengers tried to hide their faces - and I've been attacked by Asian rascists in East London who don't like white people 'in their area' as they put it and that's especialy if you a woman, according to a couple of girls who work in the area. There are a couple of other occasions too. Council estate yobs who's parents are living on handouts is the common theme though.
I categorise myself as slightly left of center, or at least I did - I think I am now, TBH it's hard to tell. I'm probably slightly right of center now (though that's still to left of center by American standards).
I'm moving further to the right as I get older, I notice, and that's certainly colored by my negative experiences.
You can be right wing and liberal, just as you can be left wing and liberal. In fact a lot of the values held by many Republican voters (small government, low taxes) are profoundly liberal ideals. If you are strongly right or strongly left leaning, you are unlikely to be very liberal however (people tend to polarise off into either Nazi or Communist parties respectively - and neither are typically liberal).
Fox is strongly right leaning, CNN is lightly left leaning (in the context of US politics). However CNN is right leaning if you are from pretty much any other western democracy (other than say countries with more right leaning political centers such as Japan, Greece or Israel) - or if you have a broader political perspective. Similarly, center-right political parties in Europe are frequently light to moderate left leaning from an American perspective.
Scotland will need to get money from somewhere when it can't rely on English subsidies :-)
I suspect what we need to create is a more equitable society. I think it's in some ways sad - in that the only way to create a stable low crime society is to create one where everyone has a similar level of personal wealth, regardless of how hard they work (or don't) - but from looking at other, more successful democractic societies in Europe, it seems to be what it will take.
In my experience, cops in the UK are much less aggressive than those in the US (which also translates as not as good as actually dealing with criminals) and less inclined to actually abuse authority.
While we have more CCTV cameras than any other country, this means that even criminals caught on film go about unhindered. The cops are too lazy to look at the footage and follow up the crime, even if you try and press charges (whether it's footage you hand them from your business CCTV, public footage on a street CCTV cam or footage from a private CCTV cam - e.g. run by the local estate in the case of a privately managed housing complex).
In the defense of the police, even if they do catch them, they know (as do we) that it's a waste of time as they will be right back on the streets - we don't have any room in our jails (see the recent debacle about moving to 'prison ships' as an emergency measure to increase capacity) and so the judges - who are complicit in following 'goverment recommendations' that suggest not putting people in jail - will turn them free with some 40 hours community service at best.
So, we have one of the highest prision populations in Europe with the most street surveillance, but our streets are still full of hooligans and the police are unwilling to go after anything that isn't a glamerous / high profile crime (like arresting drug dealers, murderers, etc). The big problem we have is that successive governments seem to think installing CCTV cameras helps, which it manifestly doesn't.
I actually like the vagaries of our legal system, in that they are generally applied sensibly. European legislation also helps counter-act it by protecting the rights in the individual in a number of ways.
I agree with you on the 'moving to Canada' idea. As a less drastic option, maybe now the SNP (Scottish National Party) are in charge in Scotland (barely) and are keen to establish independence I can move up north (assuming they spend money on more sensible things, which they claim to be keen to do).
Oh for sure! :-)
I mean, I like it, but it's only a 3 level demo (and not very large levels at that) - a couple of evenings was more than enough to explore them fully.
Granted it's just a limited early preview, but it's a bit disappointing to see it only looks like an updated version of Halo 2 - in that there is nothing to indiate it's going to live up to the origional promise of Halo (when it was slated for Mac/PC) with big, outdoor maps. I still hope we get to see those big, 32 / 64 player maps that have been rumoured and hinted at going back a couple of years now in the final release.
If they were going to do that, I'd expect to see at least one map like that in a release like this (where they could take advantage of seeing how well it handled that sort of 'in the real world'). I'm going to be happy with it as long as the single player campaign is solid, but I'm still going to be disappointed if it doesn't have epic multiplayer combat.
I'd love to see PC-style Battlefield Conquest gameplay, with Halo style designed-for-console FPS controls - and it's great vehicle design (I felt the Battlefield implimentaton for 360 didn't really work out that well).
No one is disuputing it was an unforseen technical glitch which caused a short delay in release (that most can agree was ultimately was no big deal - and few people actually got uptight about it), it's only a 3 level multiplayer-only demo after all). That doesn't lessen users entitlement to the bundle as it was sold, which is a different argument.
Public beta's go through a Q&A process, especially when they are high profile marketing exercises, like this one. There are 'pre-betas', on a product like this you'd expect to have development releases, then later quality releases approximating alpha and beta quality then release canidates - you do that on anything that goes public on a commercia; project of any scale. The problem was no one bothered to test the roll out process for anyone who access it via preview access that was bundled with Crackdown.
On a platfom like X-Box Live on a public demo you don't just roll out a release like you would a real beta-quality release (a 'public beta' in modern parlance is quite a different thing from a 'beta quality' release). So, quite apart from the fact that users have a justified sense of entitlement, you'd expect it to have gone through the same release process as any other demo put out via Live.
No, it's not that it had issues, it's that some people didn't get it at all, and they are quite right to complain. In this case, the Halo 3 "Beta" wasn't really a "Beta" in a technical sense, it's a promotional demo - a marketing exercise as much as anything.
Users have always loved the idea they are getting "omg exlusive leet beta!" releases of hot new software though - that's been the case for years - and so game companies have learned to take advantage of this by labelling regular demo's "public betas" and having "exlusive" groups of "only a few tens of thousands of players" in them, which is pretty farcial really, but a great way of generating hype and buzz for your game (as most of those players are likely to be positive about the game - given they took pro-active action to get to play it in the first place).
RE: "Free" bundled games with videocards - they are not 'free'. Part of the money you are paying for the card goes towards covering the cost of bundling those games. You are paying for them. You have every right (including legal right) to complain if they are not fit for purpose.
Manufacturers can't just include something with a product and legally get off the hook for it being shoddy by saying "Well, it was bundled free, we were only charging them for one part of the product." if it's promised as part of the deal.
To be assured of a good group, you need a clan, as good random pickup groups (where the majority of your small squad - let alone everyone - actually has a mic hooked up) are rare as hens teeth. Halo 2, for it's part, is entirely built around clans (and I"m sure they won't drop the ball with Halo 3) something Dice could learn from.
I quite agree that BF has the potential to be a much more tactical shooter, but really, it rarely exhibts that - most players just want to run around like rambo and so most games are a random mess, or dominated by the one team that has a 5 man squad on it that are actually working together to cap flags (while 20-30 other players run around shooting each other over who gets to fly the helicopter). On a few occasions I've racked up an insane number of kills after picking a camping spot which was well placed to target people, but right out in the open, where I could be easily picked off by a couple of guys working together - but everyone was doing their own thing and so I just racked up the kills in a way that was almost embarrassingly easy.
I also agree with you in that I too prefer Battlefield 2 over Halo multiplayer - as do over UT or Q3A, for reason is that Battlefield 2 is overall a slower paced and more tactical experience, where you have more time to think about your actions and what you are going to do next. Quick fire deathmatch rounds can last a fair old time though (often 20 or 30 minutes) and I think it's unfair to categorise them as 'dumb shooters'. The likes of Halo, Q3A and UT require plenty of skill, but it's in knowing how to react quickly, knowing the maps and knowing which weapon is best in a given scenario - everything happens at a much faster pace.
I find, though I'm not bad at them, Halo/Q3A/UT style fast-pased action FPS multiplayers are a lot harder to master than games like the BF series (where you can dominate just by being in a squad that works together - yet most players can't even do that). It's inaccurate to trivialize them as "dumb shooters where the action is over in two minutes".
You get cable modems with USB as well as RJ45, just as you use to get USB only ADSL modems, but in those instances the providers are almost always still behind a NAT'd connection or inbound port-restricted IP space, they are almost all products aimed at first time / novice market. Just because they are using a USB connection (even something as naff as the dreaded Alcatel Stingray) doesn't mean they are on an unfiltered connection (or one without NAT). as it's more likely that they have a USB port than a network port. The only reason some providers used to provide USB only interfaces is that it was a marginally cheaper option for them. It wasn't to do with the user being more likely to have an RJ45 socket, it was about saving money by shifting more work on the the users PC - in fact outside of Apple (who adopted USB before other mainstream PC vendors, but really dragged their heels when it came to getting on board with bulding in RJ45 sockets) RJ45 was commonplace on PC's years before USB.
IIRC, the only computer I bought in the last 15 years or so that hasn't had RJ45 (out of many laptops and desktops), was a PowerMac in the mid 90's (which had an AAUI connector)
Even with an outdated copy open ports are unlikely attack vector for desktop users, as almost all desktops - residental and commerical - are behind some form of NAT (and that surely applies to 99% of all users who don't know what they are doing). The problem is overwhelmingly users explictly installing malware and dismissing updates even their computer repeatedly nags them to install them. That's a pretty sad state of affairs. It's something MS needs to fix. They did, back in 2004. I would argue the problem is now, with Vista in particular, that they've gone too far, and using it can be a horrible experience unless you disable the security features (depending on the software you are trying to use with it - in some usage senarios you hardly notice it).
I agree that software companies should be more responsible than they presently are (and that software doesn't do what it could to keep users safe), but it's ultimately a toss up between an OS thats horrible and frustrating to use (e.g. Vista style constant nagging whenever you try to do anything) and just relying on users common sense. When you do get to the stage of having constant blocking and / or popups during normal use, those messages lose their effectiveness, because users click right through them (power users and novice users alike).
When users get infected with malware, it's because they invariably did something foolish (like downloading something clearly dodgy, or being lazy and not keeping their computer up to date and dismissing all those 'it's time to upgrade!' dialogs it keeps bringing up).
I think it's impractical to have an OS with the flexbility of a Mac OS, Windows or Linux desktop and have the computer to be able to tell what's harmful behaviour and what isn't. That's the sort of thing advocates DRM in the hardware and the OS tout (quite reasonably) as one advantage of signed software. Personally, I'd rather not go down that route, and would rather expect people to exercise some common sense. They will soon learn if you restrict their net access when they misbehave.
As I mentioned though, that's not to say desktop OS's couldn't strike a much better balance without being too disruptive (or in the case of Vista, less disruptive).
Heh heh, yeah 'a friend' of mine was beaten online by a 12 year old at Halo once in a random online match. Except in this case by 'a friend' I mean me. On the PC too.
In my defense I didn't really play it much on the PC, and he was hosting the game (and multiplayer Halo is really favourable to the host). Even without that aspect of it, he still played better than anyone else in my office does (who I can apparently beat even when they team up on me, even though I only very rarely play multiplayer Halo).
I'm not sure why you seem to think that undermines the previous posters point.
As they said, the console market is far larger than the PC market, and that console titles outstrip sales of PC titles significantly (and that they sell for more). World of Warcraft and Linage don't change that. Selling a million plus copies of a game in the first year is expected of a half decent console game (games EA's Madden do that and more in their first couple of weeks - games on the PC don't sell that well with anything like that frequency (nor do they tend to retail for as much).
Added to that, is of course the risk factor.
You might imagine that releasing an MMO is a better way to make money than a console game, but that's not borne out. MMO are far risker projects, requiring many times the capital investment, much longer development cyles (years longer), a more complicated business structure and business plan and have massive monthly outgoings (rather than just paying a small amount for a tiny helpdesk team and letting the staffers go once the game is out). When the risk is higher, you of course keep less of the return (and again, there is a lower return when you have high on-going costs).
As EA has discovered, it's a lot more economical to stick to releasing incrimental upgrades of existing tiles (from Madden and Fifa to the Battlefield series) than to take risks with PC MMO's, which ultimately fail far more often, and bring in less profit as a percentage of both investment and revenue even when they are successful. EA have even shut down 'successful' PC MMO's down, because they were not successful enough by their standards - there just wasn't enough of a return on their investment, that is, they were better off spending that money in developing a new console title, because it was almost certain to give a better RoI.
The overall numbers of gamers for Lineage 2 and WoW is large, but it's probably not as profitable as many think - a third of WoW subscribers are in China, and they pay just a fraction of the amount US and EU players pay. Several million more people in the US, EU and AUS have played the likes of Halo 2 on the X-Box than have played WoW on a PC or Mac.
All the above is is why there are so few MMO's, compared to console titles, as a business MMO's are simply less profitable (because they bomb more often every n attempts, and when the do go wrong they do so more spectacularly, in that a bigger hole is left in the publisher and/or developers wallet).
It's something that matters to a tiny proportion of 360 owners, so I can see why they wouldn't bother. You say "I don't care what input device you use.", with that attitude why should anyone care what YOU want to use, when most people manage just fine?
Now, I like both methods (unlike some posters here, I'm not deficient and can use both input methods quite well without crying like a baby about it), but obviously using a keyboard and mouse input is more technically accurate than using an analog input as far as an FPS is concerned (at least certainly when you don't factor in vehicle control).
With that in mind, I can see good reason why you might not want to enable support for a mouse and keyboard on a console. One of the advantages a console has is it's roughly a level playing field (everyone has the same spec'd system, it's highly unlikely anyone is cheating). In a competitive game, having some players with that sort of technical advantage is only going to put off the majority of players (who have no interest in sitting at a desk in their living room, or on trying to balance a keyboard and mouse on their lap).
Alternative, you COULD design a multiplayer came around a dual analog stick input (which most console FPS games are), but then the mechanics of it would annoy anyone trying to use a mouse (a reason why allowing users to use a mouse, even in single player - even *especially* in single player - may not be as desirable as it might sound). Subtle ssisted aiming and CoF mechanics are great on a console title, but they are much less pleasant to have when you are using a mouse and keyboard and more more fined grained control).
The number of people who find using anlog stick difficult for FPS games are small, and it's mostly because they don't try. I know 4 year olds that don't have a problem with it. There are serveral million Halo 2 players out there who don't have a problem with it. Lots of people cope just fine and have never seen it as problem.
Frankly, if you can master a mouse for controlling and FPS, I don't belive that you can find using an anlog stick difficult, I think you've just convinced yourself you can't. Some people who don't play PC games say the same thing about using mice. I don't belive them either. Some people need to quit winging and get on with it.
I don't belive there really is a group of people who can't use mice for FPS games, and a group who can't use analog inputs. I think there are just some people are too close minded to even try.
More accuracy does not equal a better experience.
I play both (a Windows system with a 24" Dell Display, AMD FX CPU and SLI GTX card and Audigy w/ 5.1 dedicated for PC gaming - I do my work on Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris - and 360 with 50" HD Plasma and 5.1 Surround for gaming (a setup bought over a year ago - before I any HDTV feed, again specifically for gaming). I mention all that just to get the point across that I take my gaming pretty seriously.
I have way more fun playing a game like GRAW on a big comfy chair in the living room, with a larger display and a huge display and superior sound system) than on the PC - and that's not just due to the inferior quality of the PC port, the console version is a cinematic experience designed for a console. I prefer Halo on the console too. These are games who's gameplay is specifically tailored to a console environment.
I prefer Unreal on the PC, and Battlefield on the PC too (though the console Battlefield plays differently, as it should for a console). Unreal and the PC Battlefield series rely much more on pixel perfect accuracy and positioning and less on CoF dynamics and just looking at a nearby object to 'use' it, the circumstances and manner in which you take damage are often different too (particularly when playing against AI). As a result, the gameplay is different.
There is no doubt that you can place shots more accurately using a keyboard and mouse and sitting very close to a screen. It doesn't mean it's always more fun to play that way - if everyone else is using a console, it's not like you are at a disadvantage in any way (and I would argue that's a good reason NOT to include keyboard support in multiplayer FPS games - that and such a tiny percentage of people would use it I'd rather console developers focus on features that actually matter to most people).
I enjoy both. I think the people who complain they find using a controller difficult are either being close minded, or have mental deficiency when it comes to hand-eye coordination. If most 7 year olds can manage it (and I know a 4 year old that can do it just fine) it's something these so-called gamers should be embarrassed about finding difficult.
This nice man (or presently, rather his son James) lets you have it for free if you work for them in the UK.
It's on Sky TV - the dominant satellite (and increasingly dominant broadband) provider in the UK, on their premier channel, Sky One). As I referenced in a previous post, I think we actually (in a bizzare turnaround for the normal state of affaris) to better when it comes to a lot of US sci-fi shows (ranging from Angel to the Stargate francise to BSG), we even get episodes a bit ahead of the US on occation (instead of being 6 months behind, which is usally the norm for US TV shows here).
We have a sci-fi channel here, but things like BSG, SG1/SGA and new Trek francises are mainsteam on Sky One at primetime (along with shows like Lost).
I gather you can get it in HD in the US, but perhaps only in some areas, or only for some providers. Some users have posted details about it a couple of posts above yours.
The market here is much less fractured, Sky is (as of fairly recently at any rate) AFAIK the *only* way to get shows like BSG, Lost in the UK (they used to re-sell channels to a major cable operation Virgin (yeah one that's also an airline, and a cola, etc.) but they pulled the plug on that fairly recently (but upping the price of the channel to a point where Virgin decided they couldn't afford it - which is costing Virgin a fair bit now in terms of customers who are flocking to Sky directly).