SCO has shipped these products for many years, in some cases for nearly two decades, and this is the first time that IBM has ever raised an issue about patent infringement in these products.
In other words, "They let us get away with this forever, so they can't start punishing us now." Unfortunately, as users of the GIF and JPEG graphics formats have learned, past or current non-enforcement of a patent does not prevent patent enforcement in the future. While I personally hate software patents, I find it amusing that SCO may well end up being crushed by them. According to most legal analysis I've seen so far, IBM's patent claims are easily the biggest hammer they have against SCO. SCO may be forced to settle quickly just to get out from under IBM's patent claims.
Several years ago, I noticed hard drives failing in Compaq Deskpro 2000 machines at my employer on a regular basis. The hard drives were all Quantum Bigfoot drives. Nearly every single drive failed before the PCs themselves were four years old. Compaq gradually got more and more difficult to deal with until the PCs were out of warranty and we were stuck with dead drives. I was even quoted in a GripeLine column in InfoWorld about my experience (although the columnist redacted the specific drive brand and model information I emailed him).
While my observations were not statistically valid, I nevertheless knew a machine I had running based on one of those drives needed desperately to be replaced before the drive failed and took our vital services with it. I had just finished transferring the last services from the PC to real servers on my network, shut the PC down and moved it to my lab when I discovered I couldn't get the PC to reboot ever again. Chalk up another dead Bigfoot, and I took it out of service not a moment too soon.
The Quantum Bigfoot drive problems I encountered made any IBM Deskstar fiasco look like peanuts in comparison.
Re:DirecTivo does not have these features! -- YET
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ReplayTV and TiVo Compared
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DirecTV-integrated TiVos are not TiVos in the same way that standalone TiVos are. DirecTV took over all management of the DirecTiVo models, including software rollouts. It may even be that DirecTV has its own programmers maintaining the DirecTiVo code. At any rate, they're responsible for deciding what features to rollout and when.
Currently, DirecTV hasn't committed to offering the 4.0 software or the HMO feature set on their TiVos, but they're paying attention to the success or failure of TiVo's HMO rollout and they'll decide what to do based on HMO's popularity with owners of standalone Series 2 models.
If HMO is a hit, you'll see it on DirecTiVo models. If it's not, you won't. It's that simple.
If enough people decided to sue SCO simultaneously, it's conceivable that SCO could be litigated into bankruptcy, the way SonicBlue was. After all, we've got a good start with the threatened lawsuit from LinuxTag, Novell's legal threats, any possible countersuit by IBM and now, presumably, shareholder lawsuits.
I'd like to see the 1500 recipients of SCO's threat letter band together and file a class-action suit against SCO for any grounds they can find. IANAL, but I'm sure somebody could dig up some kind of grounds to sue SCO for something.
The leftime of the electronics. If it dies in 1 year, you're screwed
Actually, TiVo will transfer a lifetime subscription from a dead unit that's unfixable to an identical new unit (assuming you sent it to an authorized service center), and they'll trade out just about any dead TiVo that's out of warranty for a flat rate of $129 and transfer your lifetime sub to the new one, IIRC. So you're not quite screwed.
I don't think the lifetime plan is a great deal myself, proved right for me when DirecTV took over mine and dropped the price to $5/month (ie 5years!)
Okay, first off, five years assumes you could buy a lifetime subscription for the DirecTV models at the current standalone lifetime price of $300, which you can't because DirecTV doesn't offer lifetime subs any more. Second, when you could buy lifetime subscriptions for DirecTV models, the monthly fee was $10 and the lifetimes were $250, so the payback was just over two years. And the lifetime sub on DirecTV applied to all DirecTiVos on the account (up to 8), so you could have junked a dead DirecTiVo with a lifetime sub and as long as you didn't tell DirecTV it was dead, you were good to go.
Of course, with the TiVo charge down to five bucks a month through DirecTV, lifetime subs are pointless. But for standalone owners, lifetime subs get more valuable over time. When I bought my standalone TiVo three years ago, lifetime subs were $199 and I decided to pay for the lifetime sub about two days after I bought my TiVo because I knew I'd never want to watch TV without my TiVo again and I only had to have the TiVo for 20 months before I was saving money.
Since then, TiVo's raised the price of a lifetime sub twice, so now if I sell my Series 1 standalone on eBay, I can effectively get the full value of what a lifetime sub costs today, even though I paid $100 less for my lifetime sub. I've more than saved the difference between monthly and lifetime sub prices over that three years and my TiVo's value has actually gone up, to boot.
Does this mean a lifetime sub is good for everybody at today's pricing? Of course not. Nowadays, the payback is 24 months (not accounting for the time value of money), and it's clear that TiVo wants to start EOLing older models from the software updates cycle, which may spur more people to sell off older models and upgrade to newer ones. But my ancient HDR-312 still does everything it did when I bought it--only now it's got a lot more storage.
Why the hell doesn't it have Ethernet w/ IP functionality? I want to be able to plug the thing into my broadband connection and have it update....
When's the last time you bothered looking into TiVo, exactly? TiVoNet and TurboNet have allowed just this on Series 1 machines for at least two years. Since the 3.0 software release came out last year, Series 2 TiVos have unofficially supported several Ethernet USB connectors. The 4.0 software release for Series 2 machines makes the support official. The Home Media Option for Series 2 machines also permits sharing shows between machines in the same house, as well as web-based updating--which, unlike ReplayTVs, can be set to use your broadband to check for changes to your schedule every 10 minutes or so.
Oh, Wait. TiVo wants you to buy the larger harddrive, I forgot.
Eh? WTF are you talking about? TiVo doesn't care what you do with storage. All TiVos can have their hard drives upgraded fairly easily and TiVo doesn't earn a dime from anyone who does so. I turned a 30 hour Series 1 standalone into a 193 hour model in a couple of hours one night, and most of that time was spent transferring my unwatched shows from the original drive to the new "A" drive. Back when I had only 30 hours on my TiVo, lengthy trips out of town did result in my losing some shows before I could watch them. That's one of the reasons I upgraded mine.
I'll keep using my VCR until it has a 'functional' ethernet connection. I mean, how many VCR's can I buy for the price of one TiVo? I can record plenty of TV shows if I want.
How many VCRs can let you start watching a show while they're still recording it? How many VCRs can automatically switch days and times when your shows move around? How many VCRs know the difference between first-run episodes and re-runs? How many VCRs automatically correct for overshoot when you fast-forward past commercials? How many VCRs have keyword searching, suggestions, conflict resolution and the ability to view your JPGs and play your MP3s? How many VCRs don't require you to find a blank tape or a tape you're done watching before you can record something?
In other words, put the hookah away, go read the ten and a half billion words of praise for TiVos that are out there on the Internet and take your head out of your ass.
Tivo was all or nothing
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TiVo Basic
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I know what Tivo is and how it works but can someone please post a price structure? I've never subscribed and would like to understand what I get for what I pay.
Before TiVo Basic, there was no price structure to TiVo. There was whatever you paid for your TiVo box (usually between $200 and $500) plus the monthly or lifetime subscription fee.
With a TiVo subscription, you get all the features of TiVo. Without one, you get a boat-anchor (excluding many first-generation TiVos that could function in a VCR-only mode without program guide functionality and with constant nag screens).
Really, if you haven't sat next to a TiVo addict for any period of time, or gone to his house for a demo, you probably haven't the foggiest clue how insanely great[1] TiVo is.
You don't need a high end universal remote unless you are obsessed with touchscreen remotes.
As somebody else already mentioned, Radio Shack has a $60 touchscreen universal remote. You don't need a high-end remote just to get touchscreen, either.
Season passes are just another name for Theme channels. [...] I haven't a clue what a Wishlist is.
Actually, Wishlists are TiVo's equivalent of Replay's theme channels. TiVo Wishlists allow TiVo to record anything on any channel that meets the the Wishlist criteria, such as a specific title, actor, keyword, director, genre, etc. Season Passes are a completely different story.
Season Passes allow you to record all episodes of a particular series on a particular channel, skipping duplicates and reruns. Unlike Replay's show recording feature, a Season Pass will follow your favorite shows to their new timeslots, even on different days or nights and it also catches bonus episodes the network might be throwing in because another show bombed and they need to fill the slot. A Season Pass will only record on the assigned channel because first-run shows frequently are syndicated and run on different channels than the network affiliates where new episodes are aired. In my city, The Simpsons reruns are aired on a WB affiliate. If I want first-run-only Simpsons, I can put a Season Pass for it on my Fox affiliate's channel and set it for no re-runs.
TiVo also offers a terrific conflict-management engine for dealing with the occasional collisions between Season Passes. Auto-record Wishlists can also be prioritized in the same engine. This way, if tonight's episode of The Sopranos interferes with a show that only airs once a week, you can give The Sopranos a lower priority and the Season Pass will pick a later showing of it and will record your higher-priority show on its night.
Replay also doesn't have anything approximating TiVo's To Do List, which not only shows you what's going to be recorded in the future, but more importantly, what won't be recorded and why not.
Everything my 18 month old ReplayTV has been doing since I bought it, at twice the *current* price.
Your ReplayTV can do *some* of those things, but not all of them. Your ReplayTV can't use your broadband to check every 15 minutes for updates from your web-based programming account. TiVo with HMO can do that. Your ReplayTV can't play MP3s stored on a Windows-based PC or a Mac. TiVo with HMO can do that. ReplayTV can't show you photos that aren't stored on its own hard drive, taking up valuable space that could be used for shows. TiVo with HMO streams photos from a PC or Mac without taking up space on the TiVo.
In short, ReplayTV has some nice features and is great for people who care more about those features than about real-world usability. TiVo owners already know they have the easiest-to-use DVRs available and the new features in HMO bring TiVo up to par with any DVR on the market from a feature standpoint.
The entertainment industry (especially the movie industry) are ironically moving to Linux big-time. The visual effects industry essentially told all their tools suppliers to port to Linux or else. The tools vendors have complied. Expect to see tasks that were traditionally done on SGI or Sun machines to be done pretty much exclusively on Linux machines from now on.
James Cameron pretty much set the tone for Linux in Hollywood with the renderfarm he used for Titanic. That farm was built with Digital Alpha processors, but instead of buying DEC Unix (or Tru64 or whatever it was called then), his effects guys put Linux on the machines and saved a couple of hundred grand.
I find it endlessly amusing that Hollywood is so staunchly in support of intellectual property rights, but is more than willing to enjoy the benefits of Linux.
The AnandTech review made numerous comparisons between the Dell Latitude D800 and the Dell "Latitude 8200." There is no such product. I suspect the comparisons were to the Inspiron 8200, which is not being replaced by the Latitude D800. Ultimately, the Latitude D800 will replace the Latitude C8xx series, but the two products will coexist for a while, because a lot of companies (mine included) own a lot of Latitude Cxxx hardware for which all the docking stations, batteries and CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives are interchangeable.
In the meantime, the Dell Centrino-based product most comparable to the Inspiron 8200 is the Inspiron 600m.
and what about missles with solid rocket motors? I doubt the laser would be any good against these at all.
Clearly, it would have to have a different effect. Solid rocket fuel might be ignitable by the laser, though, so imagine what would happen to a missile that had a hole in its side and hot rocket fuel burning and spewing heat and exhaust out that hole. I suspect a solid rocket would disintegrate quite quickly. And since SRMs generally burn from the inside out, I suspect destroying a missile powered by an SRM would be possible later in the boost phase.
It is expensive, but during the Cold War we always had some nuclear-armed B-52s flying in the air ready to attack if needed.
During peacetime, we frequently have E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft doing the same kinds of patrols. I guarantee you that right now, in the Persian Gulf area, there are E3s, RC-135 Rivet Joints, E-8C Joint STARS and other huge aircraft in pretty much constant orbit, along with KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling aircraft.
To dismiss the wild success of Linux as merely an avatar of Unix is to miss the point. Unix has been around for 30 years, but it never came close to the kind of ubiquity we see today with Linux. Why? Because most implementations of Unix were proprietary in one way or another. I used to laugh when I heard the euphemism "open systems" used to describe Unix systems. There was never anything open about commercial Unices.
Today, we have truly open systems and we see a lot of companies spending money contributing to a GPL codebase because they can make more money by selling hardware or support for that code. It's interesting that BSD has been around in various flavors since the '80s and has done well in a commercial and non-commercial way, but it has never managed to get the mindshare and corporate muscle behind it that Linux has. I suspect the GPL has a lot to do with that.
I, for one, never imagined that the GPL would have the kind of far-reaching effect it's had so far. I'm sure RMS always expected far more than he's already achieved, but let's face it. The first time you heard about the GPL, could you honestly imagine IBM investing a BILLION dollars a year into developing GPL software?
Once upon a time, I used to work for a large electronics retail chain that had just (finally) implemented a point-of-sale computer system about 10 years after introducing one of the first personal computers.
The point-of-sale system, affectionately known as the POS (and boy, was it ever!) used bare-bones diskless PCs as dumb terminals. The onboard video was good old fashioned TTL monochrome and the monitors we used were 13" monochrome monitors OEM'd by a large Korean congolomerate.
We started receiving reports of burnt out monitors from other stores and one day, as I walked by the sales counter, I noticed an acrid smell. I looked at the nearest POS terminal and sure enough, the monitor was smoking. We unplugged it and replaced it, but I never did hear of a recall of the monitors, and the retailer continued to sell the same monitors to customers.
In the meantime, while downloads are large (~1.5MB), the XML package you get for HFNETCHK searches your system for proper file versions and remains the most reliable way to ensure your system is properly patched. Unfortunately, the best tool for checking your patch state (HFNETCHK) doesn't help you download the patches you need. It does identify the MS security alert addressed and even the KB article, but it's not painless. MBSA gets you one step closer by actually having the URL of the KB article, but it's not as painless as downloading updates via Windows Update (when WU properly identifies your patches).
Anybody who's used the atrociously-bad Automatic Update Service will know that it doesn't cover many important software updates and neither does Windows Update. In fact, if you use all three products, you'll frequently find that each product identifies a different set of patches that are required, and usually, none of them list all the patches identified by the others.
What I've found is that HFNETCHK actually identifies truly critical patches, while Windows Update improperly identifies non-critical updates as being critical. For instance, it tells you that installing Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 is critical (even when you're running a fully-patched IE 5.5SP2) or even worse, it tells you that a patch meant to improve functionality of using a non-IE default browser is critical.
Sorry, but as much as I hate MS and as much as I prefer Mozilla to IE for my own browsing needs (and even though it works better), I don't make it my default browser anywhere, especially on servers, so this update is hardly critical.
In short, while sysadmins at least have a chance to stay fully-patched these days--unlike the days before Code Red--MS still has incredibly shoddy patch management tools, incredibly inconsistent patch installation mechanisms and still takes liberties with customer data it shouldn't need to take.
If Microsoft ever gets serious about patch management, they'll have a common tool that sysadmins can use to patch any and all of their MS software with a common interface and no unnecessary transmission of system-specific data to MS. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.
Perhaps this emerging trend early warning system could be used to prevent such tragedies as the chronic overuse of the word "uber."
The first time I remember seeing "uber" being used was in the days when Microsoft's plan for world domination was described as "Windows uber alles." Since then, it's snowballed and these days, the word has been so overused it's simply become an annoying cliche.
If only we'd had an early warning system back then, we might have been able to prevent the uber-ification of Slashdot.
The article points out that AIX is handled by the Server group at IBM, not the software group. So while this Mills guy says exciting things, he isn't necessarily the guy to make that decision.
Excellent point. Anybody who actually read the article (and it's been up on News.com's website for a couple of days now) knows that IBM's AIX folks are surprised to hear that AIX's days are apparently numbered.
Basically, the article quotes one guy from IBM as saying that he foresees the day when Linux will replace AIX in IBM's lineup. The odds are that he's right simply because it costs so much to develop a Unix and keep it current, and IBM wants to be able to have you scale up from a low-end Intel box to a Z-series mainframe with any stop in between and take your software with you. Linux is the one OS that runs on all of IBM's hardware.
But that said, it'll be awhile and the AIX guys won't go quietly. They'll probably have some kind of AIX-compatibility libraries that they'll license to their customers the way SCO is planning to do with their libraries. IBM may also port their AIX management tools to Linux and license those separately, as well. Who knows what the future will hold, but it's likely that Linux will simply absorb AIX's capabilities in IBM's product lineup at some point. This means that even if AIX goes away, it won't really go away--it'll just change shape.
One last point. As someone pointed out in the article, "IBM has never decommissioned an operating system, and they're not about to start now."
Anybody who's read Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is already familiar with the concept of sensor-equipped smart dust that has lots of uses. That was a great book, by the way.
I saw a rare interview/profile of Lucas just before AOTC was released, and they pointed out that Lucas is intimately involved in the important decisions for all of his businesses (and he has lots of them). While he might allow small decisions to be made by subordinates, Lucas pretty much nearly micromanages his empire. Can't argue with his management style because it's clearly worked for him. Come to think of it, I wonder if the folks at Pixar would have preferred to stay with Lucas vs. going to work for Steve "Reality Distortion Field" Jobs.
According to a quote in this press release, the parrafin-based engines can be throttled, shutdown and even restarted, all of which are impossible with current solid-rocket motors.
"A hybrid rocket equivalent to the Space Shuttle's solid rockets would be about the same diameter, but would be somewhat longer," said Stanford University Professor Brian Cantwell. "Hybrid rockets, using the paraffin-based fuel, can be throttled over a wide range, including shut-down and restart. That's one reason why they could be considered as possible replacements for the Shuttle's current solid rocket boosters that cannot be shut off after they are lit," he said. "One design concept being considered is a new hybrid booster rocket that is able to fly back to the launch site for recharging," he added.
Methinks the developer program died because it probably wasn't a big hit with developers. As is pointed out in this article, TiVo has figured out that nobody wants their DVR to be the hub of their home entertainment network. A TiVo senior VP was quoted as saying, "The PC has won as the center of digital content." Once they figured that out, it probably made very little sense to do too much development on the TiVo itself, especially if nobody else was interested.
The subscription is only for the program guide data. You can still pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, and schedule recordings manually, without a subscription.
This is no longer true. DirecTV models have always required a subscription (ridiculously cheap at $4.99 per month for up to 8 TiVo units or free with some DirecTV programming packages) and standalone units have required a subscription since they began shipping with the 2.0 software. All Series 2 TiVos require subscriptions.
Anybody who complains about the TiVo subscription might as well cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions because they pay more for cable or satellite subscriptions and those alone won't bring someone the immense functionality and satisfaction a TiVo will.
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SCO's defense in its press release is:
In other words, "They let us get away with this forever, so they can't start punishing us now." Unfortunately, as users of the GIF and JPEG graphics formats have learned, past or current non-enforcement of a patent does not prevent patent enforcement in the future. While I personally hate software patents, I find it amusing that SCO may well end up being crushed by them. According to most legal analysis I've seen so far, IBM's patent claims are easily the biggest hammer they have against SCO. SCO may be forced to settle quickly just to get out from under IBM's patent claims.
Statistics be damned.
Several years ago, I noticed hard drives failing in Compaq Deskpro 2000 machines at my employer on a regular basis. The hard drives were all Quantum Bigfoot drives. Nearly every single drive failed before the PCs themselves were four years old. Compaq gradually got more and more difficult to deal with until the PCs were out of warranty and we were stuck with dead drives. I was even quoted in a GripeLine column in InfoWorld about my experience (although the columnist redacted the specific drive brand and model information I emailed him).
While my observations were not statistically valid, I nevertheless knew a machine I had running based on one of those drives needed desperately to be replaced before the drive failed and took our vital services with it. I had just finished transferring the last services from the PC to real servers on my network, shut the PC down and moved it to my lab when I discovered I couldn't get the PC to reboot ever again. Chalk up another dead Bigfoot, and I took it out of service not a moment too soon.
The Quantum Bigfoot drive problems I encountered made any IBM Deskstar fiasco look like peanuts in comparison.
DirecTV-integrated TiVos are not TiVos in the same way that standalone TiVos are. DirecTV took over all management of the DirecTiVo models, including software rollouts. It may even be that DirecTV has its own programmers maintaining the DirecTiVo code. At any rate, they're responsible for deciding what features to rollout and when.
Currently, DirecTV hasn't committed to offering the 4.0 software or the HMO feature set on their TiVos, but they're paying attention to the success or failure of TiVo's HMO rollout and they'll decide what to do based on HMO's popularity with owners of standalone Series 2 models.
If HMO is a hit, you'll see it on DirecTiVo models. If it's not, you won't. It's that simple.
If enough people decided to sue SCO simultaneously, it's conceivable that SCO could be litigated into bankruptcy, the way SonicBlue was. After all, we've got a good start with the threatened lawsuit from LinuxTag, Novell's legal threats, any possible countersuit by IBM and now, presumably, shareholder lawsuits.
I'd like to see the 1500 recipients of SCO's threat letter band together and file a class-action suit against SCO for any grounds they can find. IANAL, but I'm sure somebody could dig up some kind of grounds to sue SCO for something.
The leftime of the electronics. If it dies in 1 year, you're screwed
Actually, TiVo will transfer a lifetime subscription from a dead unit that's unfixable to an identical new unit (assuming you sent it to an authorized service center), and they'll trade out just about any dead TiVo that's out of warranty for a flat rate of $129 and transfer your lifetime sub to the new one, IIRC. So you're not quite screwed.
I don't think the lifetime plan is a great deal myself, proved right for me when DirecTV took over mine and dropped the price to $5/month (ie 5years!)
Okay, first off, five years assumes you could buy a lifetime subscription for the DirecTV models at the current standalone lifetime price of $300, which you can't because DirecTV doesn't offer lifetime subs any more. Second, when you could buy lifetime subscriptions for DirecTV models, the monthly fee was $10 and the lifetimes were $250, so the payback was just over two years. And the lifetime sub on DirecTV applied to all DirecTiVos on the account (up to 8), so you could have junked a dead DirecTiVo with a lifetime sub and as long as you didn't tell DirecTV it was dead, you were good to go.
Of course, with the TiVo charge down to five bucks a month through DirecTV, lifetime subs are pointless. But for standalone owners, lifetime subs get more valuable over time. When I bought my standalone TiVo three years ago, lifetime subs were $199 and I decided to pay for the lifetime sub about two days after I bought my TiVo because I knew I'd never want to watch TV without my TiVo again and I only had to have the TiVo for 20 months before I was saving money.
Since then, TiVo's raised the price of a lifetime sub twice, so now if I sell my Series 1 standalone on eBay, I can effectively get the full value of what a lifetime sub costs today, even though I paid $100 less for my lifetime sub. I've more than saved the difference between monthly and lifetime sub prices over that three years and my TiVo's value has actually gone up, to boot.
Does this mean a lifetime sub is good for everybody at today's pricing? Of course not. Nowadays, the payback is 24 months (not accounting for the time value of money), and it's clear that TiVo wants to start EOLing older models from the software updates cycle, which may spur more people to sell off older models and upgrade to newer ones. But my ancient HDR-312 still does everything it did when I bought it--only now it's got a lot more storage.
Why the hell doesn't it have Ethernet w/ IP functionality? I want to be able to plug the thing into my broadband connection and have it update....
When's the last time you bothered looking into TiVo, exactly? TiVoNet and TurboNet have allowed just this on Series 1 machines for at least two years. Since the 3.0 software release came out last year, Series 2 TiVos have unofficially supported several Ethernet USB connectors. The 4.0 software release for Series 2 machines makes the support official. The Home Media Option for Series 2 machines also permits sharing shows between machines in the same house, as well as web-based updating--which, unlike ReplayTVs, can be set to use your broadband to check for changes to your schedule every 10 minutes or so.
Oh, Wait. TiVo wants you to buy the larger harddrive, I forgot.
Eh? WTF are you talking about? TiVo doesn't care what you do with storage. All TiVos can have their hard drives upgraded fairly easily and TiVo doesn't earn a dime from anyone who does so. I turned a 30 hour Series 1 standalone into a 193 hour model in a couple of hours one night, and most of that time was spent transferring my unwatched shows from the original drive to the new "A" drive. Back when I had only 30 hours on my TiVo, lengthy trips out of town did result in my losing some shows before I could watch them. That's one of the reasons I upgraded mine.
I'll keep using my VCR until it has a 'functional' ethernet connection. I mean, how many VCR's can I buy for the price of one TiVo? I can record plenty of TV shows if I want.
How many VCRs can let you start watching a show while they're still recording it? How many VCRs can automatically switch days and times when your shows move around? How many VCRs know the difference between first-run episodes and re-runs? How many VCRs automatically correct for overshoot when you fast-forward past commercials? How many VCRs have keyword searching, suggestions, conflict resolution and the ability to view your JPGs and play your MP3s? How many VCRs don't require you to find a blank tape or a tape you're done watching before you can record something?
In other words, put the hookah away, go read the ten and a half billion words of praise for TiVos that are out there on the Internet and take your head out of your ass.
I know what Tivo is and how it works but can someone please post a price structure? I've never subscribed and would like to understand what I get for what I pay.
Before TiVo Basic, there was no price structure to TiVo. There was whatever you paid for your TiVo box (usually between $200 and $500) plus the monthly or lifetime subscription fee.
With a TiVo subscription, you get all the features of TiVo. Without one, you get a boat-anchor (excluding many first-generation TiVos that could function in a VCR-only mode without program guide functionality and with constant nag screens).
Really, if you haven't sat next to a TiVo addict for any period of time, or gone to his house for a demo, you probably haven't the foggiest clue how insanely great[1] TiVo is.
[1] Apologies to Steve Jobs.
"...Including TWO FULL MINUTES UNDERWATER!!!"
I loved that segment. The sad clown in the parking lot definitely added to it.
You don't need a high end universal remote unless you are obsessed with touchscreen remotes.
As somebody else already mentioned, Radio Shack has a $60 touchscreen universal remote. You don't need a high-end remote just to get touchscreen, either.
Season passes are just another name for Theme channels. [...] I haven't a clue what a Wishlist is.
Actually, Wishlists are TiVo's equivalent of Replay's theme channels. TiVo Wishlists allow TiVo to record anything on any channel that meets the the Wishlist criteria, such as a specific title, actor, keyword, director, genre, etc. Season Passes are a completely different story.
Season Passes allow you to record all episodes of a particular series on a particular channel, skipping duplicates and reruns. Unlike Replay's show recording feature, a Season Pass will follow your favorite shows to their new timeslots, even on different days or nights and it also catches bonus episodes the network might be throwing in because another show bombed and they need to fill the slot. A Season Pass will only record on the assigned channel because first-run shows frequently are syndicated and run on different channels than the network affiliates where new episodes are aired. In my city, The Simpsons reruns are aired on a WB affiliate. If I want first-run-only Simpsons, I can put a Season Pass for it on my Fox affiliate's channel and set it for no re-runs.
TiVo also offers a terrific conflict-management engine for dealing with the occasional collisions between Season Passes. Auto-record Wishlists can also be prioritized in the same engine. This way, if tonight's episode of The Sopranos interferes with a show that only airs once a week, you can give The Sopranos a lower priority and the Season Pass will pick a later showing of it and will record your higher-priority show on its night.
Replay also doesn't have anything approximating TiVo's To Do List, which not only shows you what's going to be recorded in the future, but more importantly, what won't be recorded and why not.
Everything my 18 month old ReplayTV has been doing since I bought it, at twice the *current* price.
Your ReplayTV can do *some* of those things, but not all of them. Your ReplayTV can't use your broadband to check every 15 minutes for updates from your web-based programming account. TiVo with HMO can do that. Your ReplayTV can't play MP3s stored on a Windows-based PC or a Mac. TiVo with HMO can do that. ReplayTV can't show you photos that aren't stored on its own hard drive, taking up valuable space that could be used for shows. TiVo with HMO streams photos from a PC or Mac without taking up space on the TiVo.
In short, ReplayTV has some nice features and is great for people who care more about those features than about real-world usability. TiVo owners already know they have the easiest-to-use DVRs available and the new features in HMO bring TiVo up to par with any DVR on the market from a feature standpoint.
Where the heck does HP get this figure from?
ISTR HP snagged a huge Linux deal at Dreamworks last year. And they also scored a big Linux deal at Disney.
The entertainment industry (especially the movie industry) are ironically moving to Linux big-time. The visual effects industry essentially told all their tools suppliers to port to Linux or else. The tools vendors have complied. Expect to see tasks that were traditionally done on SGI or Sun machines to be done pretty much exclusively on Linux machines from now on.
James Cameron pretty much set the tone for Linux in Hollywood with the renderfarm he used for Titanic. That farm was built with Digital Alpha processors, but instead of buying DEC Unix (or Tru64 or whatever it was called then), his effects guys put Linux on the machines and saved a couple of hundred grand.
I find it endlessly amusing that Hollywood is so staunchly in support of intellectual property rights, but is more than willing to enjoy the benefits of Linux.
The AnandTech review made numerous comparisons between the Dell Latitude D800 and the Dell "Latitude 8200." There is no such product. I suspect the comparisons were to the Inspiron 8200, which is not being replaced by the Latitude D800. Ultimately, the Latitude D800 will replace the Latitude C8xx series, but the two products will coexist for a while, because a lot of companies (mine included) own a lot of Latitude Cxxx hardware for which all the docking stations, batteries and CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives are interchangeable.
In the meantime, the Dell Centrino-based product most comparable to the Inspiron 8200 is the Inspiron 600m.
and what about missles with solid rocket motors? I doubt the laser would be any good against these at all.
Clearly, it would have to have a different effect. Solid rocket fuel might be ignitable by the laser, though, so imagine what would happen to a missile that had a hole in its side and hot rocket fuel burning and spewing heat and exhaust out that hole. I suspect a solid rocket would disintegrate quite quickly. And since SRMs generally burn from the inside out, I suspect destroying a missile powered by an SRM would be possible later in the boost phase.
It is expensive, but during the Cold War we always had some nuclear-armed B-52s flying in the air ready to attack if needed.
During peacetime, we frequently have E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft doing the same kinds of patrols. I guarantee you that right now, in the Persian Gulf area, there are E3s, RC-135 Rivet Joints, E-8C Joint STARS and other huge aircraft in pretty much constant orbit, along with KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling aircraft.
To dismiss the wild success of Linux as merely an avatar of Unix is to miss the point. Unix has been around for 30 years, but it never came close to the kind of ubiquity we see today with Linux. Why? Because most implementations of Unix were proprietary in one way or another. I used to laugh when I heard the euphemism "open systems" used to describe Unix systems. There was never anything open about commercial Unices.
Today, we have truly open systems and we see a lot of companies spending money contributing to a GPL codebase because they can make more money by selling hardware or support for that code. It's interesting that BSD has been around in various flavors since the '80s and has done well in a commercial and non-commercial way, but it has never managed to get the mindshare and corporate muscle behind it that Linux has. I suspect the GPL has a lot to do with that.
I, for one, never imagined that the GPL would have the kind of far-reaching effect it's had so far. I'm sure RMS always expected far more than he's already achieved, but let's face it. The first time you heard about the GPL, could you honestly imagine IBM investing a BILLION dollars a year into developing GPL software?
Once upon a time, I used to work for a large electronics retail chain that had just (finally) implemented a point-of-sale computer system about 10 years after introducing one of the first personal computers.
The point-of-sale system, affectionately known as the POS (and boy, was it ever!) used bare-bones diskless PCs as dumb terminals. The onboard video was good old fashioned TTL monochrome and the monitors we used were 13" monochrome monitors OEM'd by a large Korean congolomerate.
We started receiving reports of burnt out monitors from other stores and one day, as I walked by the sales counter, I noticed an acrid smell. I looked at the nearest POS terminal and sure enough, the monitor was smoking. We unplugged it and replaced it, but I never did hear of a recall of the monitors, and the retailer continued to sell the same monitors to customers.
As explained by Russ Cooper of NTBugTraq in a lengthy rant on Tax Day of 2002, Windows Update is a horrible piece of crap. He followed it with another lengthy rant about what he thinks Microsoft should be doing instead of Windows Update.
In the meantime, while downloads are large (~1.5MB), the XML package you get for HFNETCHK searches your system for proper file versions and remains the most reliable way to ensure your system is properly patched. Unfortunately, the best tool for checking your patch state (HFNETCHK) doesn't help you download the patches you need. It does identify the MS security alert addressed and even the KB article, but it's not painless. MBSA gets you one step closer by actually having the URL of the KB article, but it's not as painless as downloading updates via Windows Update (when WU properly identifies your patches).
Anybody who's used the atrociously-bad Automatic Update Service will know that it doesn't cover many important software updates and neither does Windows Update. In fact, if you use all three products, you'll frequently find that each product identifies a different set of patches that are required, and usually, none of them list all the patches identified by the others.
What I've found is that HFNETCHK actually identifies truly critical patches, while Windows Update improperly identifies non-critical updates as being critical. For instance, it tells you that installing Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 is critical (even when you're running a fully-patched IE 5.5SP2) or even worse, it tells you that a patch meant to improve functionality of using a non-IE default browser is critical.
Sorry, but as much as I hate MS and as much as I prefer Mozilla to IE for my own browsing needs (and even though it works better), I don't make it my default browser anywhere, especially on servers, so this update is hardly critical.
In short, while sysadmins at least have a chance to stay fully-patched these days--unlike the days before Code Red--MS still has incredibly shoddy patch management tools, incredibly inconsistent patch installation mechanisms and still takes liberties with customer data it shouldn't need to take.
If Microsoft ever gets serious about patch management, they'll have a common tool that sysadmins can use to patch any and all of their MS software with a common interface and no unnecessary transmission of system-specific data to MS. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.
Perhaps this emerging trend early warning system could be used to prevent such tragedies as the chronic overuse of the word "uber."
The first time I remember seeing "uber" being used was in the days when Microsoft's plan for world domination was described as "Windows uber alles." Since then, it's snowballed and these days, the word has been so overused it's simply become an annoying cliche.
If only we'd had an early warning system back then, we might have been able to prevent the uber-ification of Slashdot.
The article points out that AIX is handled by the Server group at IBM, not the software group. So while this Mills guy says exciting things, he isn't necessarily the guy to make that decision.
Excellent point. Anybody who actually read the article (and it's been up on News.com's website for a couple of days now) knows that IBM's AIX folks are surprised to hear that AIX's days are apparently numbered.
Basically, the article quotes one guy from IBM as saying that he foresees the day when Linux will replace AIX in IBM's lineup. The odds are that he's right simply because it costs so much to develop a Unix and keep it current, and IBM wants to be able to have you scale up from a low-end Intel box to a Z-series mainframe with any stop in between and take your software with you. Linux is the one OS that runs on all of IBM's hardware.
But that said, it'll be awhile and the AIX guys won't go quietly. They'll probably have some kind of AIX-compatibility libraries that they'll license to their customers the way SCO is planning to do with their libraries. IBM may also port their AIX management tools to Linux and license those separately, as well. Who knows what the future will hold, but it's likely that Linux will simply absorb AIX's capabilities in IBM's product lineup at some point. This means that even if AIX goes away, it won't really go away--it'll just change shape.
One last point. As someone pointed out in the article, "IBM has never decommissioned an operating system, and they're not about to start now."
Anybody who's read Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is already familiar with the concept of sensor-equipped smart dust that has lots of uses. That was a great book, by the way.
I saw a rare interview/profile of Lucas just before AOTC was released, and they pointed out that Lucas is intimately involved in the important decisions for all of his businesses (and he has lots of them). While he might allow small decisions to be made by subordinates, Lucas pretty much nearly micromanages his empire. Can't argue with his management style because it's clearly worked for him. Come to think of it, I wonder if the folks at Pixar would have preferred to stay with Lucas vs. going to work for Steve "Reality Distortion Field" Jobs.
According to a quote in this press release, the parrafin-based engines can be throttled, shutdown and even restarted, all of which are impossible with current solid-rocket motors.
Methinks the developer program died because it probably wasn't a big hit with developers. As is pointed out in this article, TiVo has figured out that nobody wants their DVR to be the hub of their home entertainment network. A TiVo senior VP was quoted as saying, "The PC has won as the center of digital content." Once they figured that out, it probably made very little sense to do too much development on the TiVo itself, especially if nobody else was interested.
The subscription is only for the program guide data. You can still pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, and schedule recordings manually, without a subscription.
This is no longer true. DirecTV models have always required a subscription (ridiculously cheap at $4.99 per month for up to 8 TiVo units or free with some DirecTV programming packages) and standalone units have required a subscription since they began shipping with the 2.0 software. All Series 2 TiVos require subscriptions.
Anybody who complains about the TiVo subscription might as well cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions because they pay more for cable or satellite subscriptions and those alone won't bring someone the immense functionality and satisfaction a TiVo will.