I've got Google+ as well, only everyone stopped posting to it early last year. I log in after not using it for a month and there is like one new post. Perhaps if your social network all uses Google+ it would be fine, but everyone I knew migrated back to FB for nearly all updates.
I won't even try to use Facebook via the web. It's just so terrible. At least the apps are somewhat more bandwidth friendly, but even then, I only visit a few times a week.
This is a clear case where you understand that you aren't the customer, you are the product.
One trick that helped my battery life, at least on the iPhone, was to disable background updating. There's no reason it needs any cycles in the background, except to terminate it and write state to flash (which would happen anyway.)
Even if you close it, as my wife did, it's not really closed.
Their user experience has been compromised for ages. I've largely given up following anything. Between the amazingly poor ads, the random ordering of posts and all the fake news and click bait, it's about 92% crap. What's next auto-playing videos? Oh wait, they have those as well. Maybe they'll just start saying "Facebook has detected a virus!" Actually, they kind of already do that as well. They just don't offer to sell you something to "fix" the problem.
Maybe a new cell phone? Oops there as well. Maybe they'll just start calling people and asking them to go online.
If you read their fine print, it wasn't unlimited anyway. They'd only let you upload certain file types, and they stated they could terminate you account if you used too much space. It was never unlimited, but likely more than 1 TB. I skipped their offerings for these reasons.
A proper IT infrastructure can deal with a direct lightning strike as well.
At what cost? I doubt it's worth it for most businesses. There are too many disasters to plan for: lightening, flood, earthquake, tornado, high winds, several combined. It's probably impossible to protect against everything unless you have Federal Government money.
I've yet to see a surge suppression system that's affordable to a mid-scale business that can take a direct hit, anyway. Plus you get EM induced voltage that fries networking and other stuff, including the power system control circuitry. I've seen that myself.
Every time I've tried to book travel in the past few years, I've found better prices directly on hotel chains' web sites. There was one time when the chains had no rooms, but Expedia did, but at $500/night (vs $125 normal rate.) I passed.
From my experience, the hotel industry got much worse following the rise of these reseller sites. They suck up rooms and hold them, hoping for a better deal. That makes it harder to find rooms, and their policies are always worse. It wasn't long ago that any hotel wouldn't charge you if you canceled the day of your reservation. That's getting harder to find, since these sites lowered expectations.
These sites sure advertise a lot, but a tiny amount of searching will almost always find better rates. I mostly use them to see what hotels are in the area then go directly to the hotel's web site to book. Always cheaper.
They are doing the same thing with rental cars, too. I've always found better rates elsewhere than those sites. Costco, in particular, has better rates for car rentals than just about anyone and if you don't want the car, just don't pick it up. No fees.
That's just a nit-picky detail. There are still icons there that I'll never use and can't remove. They clutter up the UI and make it hard to do what I want.
I have a PS4 and it's decent, but their obsession pushing "partner" apps on it that I can't remove aggravates me. It leaves a bad impression and I just don't use it much. I used to use my PS3 for Netflix and such, but I've mostly switched to the Apple TV since it has a better UI.
I was in the market for an Android phone, but I never even considered Sony. I figured I'd get one and they'd drop the whole line next month. Nothing seemed compelling. I am sort of considering a mirrorless camera, and they do make some good stuff there. But I'm less sure I even want a standalone camera that costs more than like $400 anymore since I always have my phone with me.
I recently purchased a new 4K TV, and considered Sony. But their prices were significantly higher than everyone else and reviewed no better. That and some were downright hideous. Sony has never had a great reputation for AV receivers, so I never considered them when I purchased one of them either.
Basically, they make overpriced, mediocre stuff. They need to cut headcount and have small teams focusing on innovative products that perform well. And spin off their goofy entertainment empire. That's holding them back even more than high prices. If they did this, they'd have a pretty hard time making it work, though as times have changed.
Cut one open. Is there actual fruit in there or just juice or just a puree? Seems like if you can squeeze out juice, either the fruit isn't very fresh or is already pureed.
This article and the recent ones about Tilt makes me thing that these "investors" decide where to invest almost entirely based on how dynamic and likable the pitchman is, nothing else.
As for this juicer, you can buy frozen fruit at Costco and juice or make smoothies for pennies on the dollar of this product. But too any good juice or smoothie is just too sweet to be healthy in the first place. Another "health food" gimmick as are almost all of these diets, supplements, programs and devices.
I'm not so sure on the 3D. All the 3D theaters new me have those lame Sony 4K projectors. They are far too dim for an enjoyable experience. I have a 3D TV at home and it looks MUCH better, although I do sit back 15 feet or so.
As for sound, 3 of the last 4 movies I've seen had some issue with the center channel speaker. It sounded distorted and lower in volume. When dialog moved from the center to the rear, it got louder and more clear.
As far as I'm concerned, seeing a movie in a theater is a negative in every respect. I have a decent surround system, 4K TV and the ability to pause when I want more popcorn or use the facilities. Plus for the price for three of us to see a movie, I can own it on blu-ray 4K and eat like 20 bags of popcorn and a case of coke.
We use the Amazon apps on our Tivo and PS4 and their interfaces are HORRIBLE. I won't even watch Amazon Prime video anymore. I want to tell it "never, ever show me non-free content" but it "forgets" that constantly. There are no good discovery tools, basically just search. It's pathetic. They have a long way to go in order to be competitive. I think their chief concern is to get you to purchase something. Prime Video is an afterthought. I wouldn't even pay $3/mo for their service.
Amazon also offered free photo storage, and it's even worse. The app (at least on the Mac) appears to have been written by a high school student. It's amazingly bad, so I gave up there as well. You get what you pay for sometimes, and with Prime that's "free" shipping only.
I recently bought a Samsung. I would have gone the cheaper Vizio route but this issue held me off. Samsung isn't necessarily better but at least they tell you ahead of time in the terms and you can simply not connect it to the internet if you so wish. Vizio was deceptive and unrepentant about it. That lost them a sale from me.
And indeed, that's what I purchased. I didn't realize until later that viewing most Samsung's off-axis results in a terrible picture. I'm not happy about that, but it's too late now. And their upscaling of non-1080p content is significantly worse than my 10 year old Sony, which is frustrating. But it's not a Vizio, so that's a plus.
I haven't set up any of their "smart" stuff since it's mostly useless as far as I can tell. I have enough devices that can play Netflix and Amazon video connected already, I really don't need one more. So far I have an old Bluray player, PS3, PS4, Tivo and AppleTV. All of which can play video from those sources and others.
OLED screens are down a lot and I'd likely get one of those now if I were in the market.
I was in the market for a TV last year and this sort of stuff is why I ruled out Vizio immediately. Everyone wants to compete on price so they have to make it up somewhere else. Pretty sure we'll soon be paying a subscription for the content AND the TV you watch it on. Well, some people will, not me. I'm watching less and less on TV each year.
So, you failed as a business at what you specialized at, and now you're going to "pivot" to a field that's already over-crowded with others who've failed and are making the same pivot.
No, no. They have no idea what to do because people don't want super-expensive lock in to overly complex products, so they are throwing out the latest buzz-phrases in order to seem relevant to investors. What are they going to make an IoT smoke detector that costs $500 and requires an annual service contract?
I haven't looked at the Yealink IP phone, but I do see advertisements for them from my telecom vendors. We settled on Polycom phones a while back. We upgraded to SoundPoint IP 650s and have been very happy. They are sufficiently open, although their config stuff is a bit obtuse. But at least it's all open enough to do what I want relatively easily. They just work and sound great. We looked at Avaya a while back, and everyone with prior experience we talked to said "run away!"
I'd assume it would fill in less than 2x time, since it's likely able to write faster given it's putting the data in a smaller physical space. Likely more tracks, so it should likely increase, but maybe 50%?
Happens on multiple computers, including phones, Macs, PCs, and devices that don't have a proper OS. Mine and other people's devices. And only on slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got Google+ as well, only everyone stopped posting to it early last year. I log in after not using it for a month and there is like one new post. Perhaps if your social network all uses Google+ it would be fine, but everyone I knew migrated back to FB for nearly all updates.
I won't even try to use Facebook via the web. It's just so terrible. At least the apps are somewhat more bandwidth friendly, but even then, I only visit a few times a week.
This is a clear case where you understand that you aren't the customer, you are the product.
One trick that helped my battery life, at least on the iPhone, was to disable background updating. There's no reason it needs any cycles in the background, except to terminate it and write state to flash (which would happen anyway.)
Even if you close it, as my wife did, it's not really closed.
Their user experience has been compromised for ages. I've largely given up following anything. Between the amazingly poor ads, the random ordering of posts and all the fake news and click bait, it's about 92% crap. What's next auto-playing videos? Oh wait, they have those as well. Maybe they'll just start saying "Facebook has detected a virus!" Actually, they kind of already do that as well. They just don't offer to sell you something to "fix" the problem.
Maybe a new cell phone? Oops there as well. Maybe they'll just start calling people and asking them to go online.
If you read their fine print, it wasn't unlimited anyway. They'd only let you upload certain file types, and they stated they could terminate you account if you used too much space. It was never unlimited, but likely more than 1 TB. I skipped their offerings for these reasons.
A proper IT infrastructure can deal with a direct lightning strike as well.
At what cost? I doubt it's worth it for most businesses. There are too many disasters to plan for: lightening, flood, earthquake, tornado, high winds, several combined. It's probably impossible to protect against everything unless you have Federal Government money.
I've yet to see a surge suppression system that's affordable to a mid-scale business that can take a direct hit, anyway. Plus you get EM induced voltage that fries networking and other stuff, including the power system control circuitry. I've seen that myself.
And has a shag carpet back for the premium feel.
Many of those sites are owned by a single company anyway, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Every time I've tried to book travel in the past few years, I've found better prices directly on hotel chains' web sites. There was one time when the chains had no rooms, but Expedia did, but at $500/night (vs $125 normal rate.) I passed.
From my experience, the hotel industry got much worse following the rise of these reseller sites. They suck up rooms and hold them, hoping for a better deal. That makes it harder to find rooms, and their policies are always worse. It wasn't long ago that any hotel wouldn't charge you if you canceled the day of your reservation. That's getting harder to find, since these sites lowered expectations.
These sites sure advertise a lot, but a tiny amount of searching will almost always find better rates. I mostly use them to see what hotels are in the area then go directly to the hotel's web site to book. Always cheaper.
They are doing the same thing with rental cars, too. I've always found better rates elsewhere than those sites. Costco, in particular, has better rates for car rentals than just about anyone and if you don't want the car, just don't pick it up. No fees.
The sooner these sites die, the better.
That's just a nit-picky detail. There are still icons there that I'll never use and can't remove. They clutter up the UI and make it hard to do what I want.
I have a PS4 and it's decent, but their obsession pushing "partner" apps on it that I can't remove aggravates me. It leaves a bad impression and I just don't use it much. I used to use my PS3 for Netflix and such, but I've mostly switched to the Apple TV since it has a better UI.
I was in the market for an Android phone, but I never even considered Sony. I figured I'd get one and they'd drop the whole line next month. Nothing seemed compelling. I am sort of considering a mirrorless camera, and they do make some good stuff there. But I'm less sure I even want a standalone camera that costs more than like $400 anymore since I always have my phone with me.
I recently purchased a new 4K TV, and considered Sony. But their prices were significantly higher than everyone else and reviewed no better. That and some were downright hideous. Sony has never had a great reputation for AV receivers, so I never considered them when I purchased one of them either.
Basically, they make overpriced, mediocre stuff. They need to cut headcount and have small teams focusing on innovative products that perform well. And spin off their goofy entertainment empire. That's holding them back even more than high prices. If they did this, they'd have a pretty hard time making it work, though as times have changed.
Cut one open. Is there actual fruit in there or just juice or just a puree? Seems like if you can squeeze out juice, either the fruit isn't very fresh or is already pureed.
This article and the recent ones about Tilt makes me thing that these "investors" decide where to invest almost entirely based on how dynamic and likable the pitchman is, nothing else.
As for this juicer, you can buy frozen fruit at Costco and juice or make smoothies for pennies on the dollar of this product. But too any good juice or smoothie is just too sweet to be healthy in the first place. Another "health food" gimmick as are almost all of these diets, supplements, programs and devices.
The Sony 4K ones in the theaters new me don't seem to have very good contrast or dynamic range, in my opinion. Perhaps my theaters use cheap(er) ones.
I'm not so sure on the 3D. All the 3D theaters new me have those lame Sony 4K projectors. They are far too dim for an enjoyable experience. I have a 3D TV at home and it looks MUCH better, although I do sit back 15 feet or so.
As for sound, 3 of the last 4 movies I've seen had some issue with the center channel speaker. It sounded distorted and lower in volume. When dialog moved from the center to the rear, it got louder and more clear.
As far as I'm concerned, seeing a movie in a theater is a negative in every respect. I have a decent surround system, 4K TV and the ability to pause when I want more popcorn or use the facilities. Plus for the price for three of us to see a movie, I can own it on blu-ray 4K and eat like 20 bags of popcorn and a case of coke.
More like Feces Pieces
So true! I used to shop at buy.com rather frequently. After that odd name change, I basically lost interest.
We use the Amazon apps on our Tivo and PS4 and their interfaces are HORRIBLE. I won't even watch Amazon Prime video anymore. I want to tell it "never, ever show me non-free content" but it "forgets" that constantly. There are no good discovery tools, basically just search. It's pathetic. They have a long way to go in order to be competitive. I think their chief concern is to get you to purchase something. Prime Video is an afterthought. I wouldn't even pay $3/mo for their service.
Amazon also offered free photo storage, and it's even worse. The app (at least on the Mac) appears to have been written by a high school student. It's amazingly bad, so I gave up there as well. You get what you pay for sometimes, and with Prime that's "free" shipping only.
Just don't connect it to your router. Problem solved.
That doesn't fix their ethics "problem", unfortunately. What other sketchy things have they done?
I recently bought a Samsung. I would have gone the cheaper Vizio route but this issue held me off. Samsung isn't necessarily better but at least they tell you ahead of time in the terms and you can simply not connect it to the internet if you so wish. Vizio was deceptive and unrepentant about it. That lost them a sale from me.
And indeed, that's what I purchased. I didn't realize until later that viewing most Samsung's off-axis results in a terrible picture. I'm not happy about that, but it's too late now. And their upscaling of non-1080p content is significantly worse than my 10 year old Sony, which is frustrating. But it's not a Vizio, so that's a plus.
I haven't set up any of their "smart" stuff since it's mostly useless as far as I can tell. I have enough devices that can play Netflix and Amazon video connected already, I really don't need one more. So far I have an old Bluray player, PS3, PS4, Tivo and AppleTV. All of which can play video from those sources and others.
OLED screens are down a lot and I'd likely get one of those now if I were in the market.
I was in the market for a TV last year and this sort of stuff is why I ruled out Vizio immediately. Everyone wants to compete on price so they have to make it up somewhere else. Pretty sure we'll soon be paying a subscription for the content AND the TV you watch it on. Well, some people will, not me. I'm watching less and less on TV each year.
Wait. Didn't the US try banning alcohol before? Does anyone have a link to a study of what happened?
Yep, it led to the creation of a whole genre of movies: gangster movies. Otherwise, not much else lasting effects.
So, you failed as a business at what you specialized at, and now you're going to "pivot" to a field that's already over-crowded with others who've failed and are making the same pivot.
No, no. They have no idea what to do because people don't want super-expensive lock in to overly complex products, so they are throwing out the latest buzz-phrases in order to seem relevant to investors. What are they going to make an IoT smoke detector that costs $500 and requires an annual service contract?
I haven't looked at the Yealink IP phone, but I do see advertisements for them from my telecom vendors. We settled on Polycom phones a while back. We upgraded to SoundPoint IP 650s and have been very happy. They are sufficiently open, although their config stuff is a bit obtuse. But at least it's all open enough to do what I want relatively easily. They just work and sound great. We looked at Avaya a while back, and everyone with prior experience we talked to said "run away!"
I'd assume it would fill in less than 2x time, since it's likely able to write faster given it's putting the data in a smaller physical space. Likely more tracks, so it should likely increase, but maybe 50%?
Happens on multiple computers, including phones, Macs, PCs, and devices that don't have a proper OS. Mine and other people's devices. And only on slashdot.