The AppleTV has such a slow processor that it can only play standard definition video using Boxee. It required the (proprietary) Apple Quicktime stack to be able to do 720p, since it needs hardware acceleration.
If you're only doing SD you'll be okay. But if you want to play back HD you're going to need more muscle.
Just fair warning for anyone considering trying this.:)
You can't really round off cents in transactions on a regular basis, because then folks will use this to try to game the system.
For instance, say it were required by law for all transactions to be rounded to the nearest dollar. Don't think retailers will adjust prices so that cents in the totals tend to come out to.50 or more before rounding?
And I'm fairly certain your paycheck will be something like $xxxx.49 before rounding.;)
There should be a law requiring providers to advertise the exact amount you will be billed every month. No giving you rate A, then charging you rate A + Taxes B.
This way you can just look at the marketing materials and know exactly what you're going to pay without having to ask friends questions like "What's your total bill come out to?"
This should be the case for all servides, including things like DSL, home phone, and cable TV.
Hmm, maybe it's different for businesses. The last few drive replacements I've done have been from work, with a work mailing address.
If they do charge $20, maybe that's the point. They're counting on some percentage of people to just say "fuck it" and buy a new drive; they're so cheap now after all.
Have you bothered to look on the upper left side of the Google front page, where those services are clearly linked?
Really, it's all there. Has it gotten to the point where we need huge flashing animated banners with sound for people to find out about services on a website?
Simple links are enough for me, and vastly preferred.
I'm wondering if you got stuck with clueless support personnel, or it was a special case, or what.
I've replaced several drives in that timeframe. The standard procedure is always to send the replacement first, and send the old one back in the same box, pre-paid. (IE, it doesn't cost you anything)
They take your credit card details as insurance (otherwise an unscrupulous person would use this method to steal a hard drive by pretending theirs is bad) but that's acceptable.
All the drive manufacturers I've dealt with (seagate, WD, Maxtor) work this way...
Why not use HFSplus? It is open source, has existing open source implementations on several operating systems and isn't patent-encumbered or restricted.
It would be trivial to write a Windows filesystem driver for HFSplus which could be packaged with cameras and card readers, and HFSplus doesn't suffer from any of the filesystem and file size restrictions that FAT32 does.
On top of all this, we know it works well on flash devices, otherwise Apple wouldn't use it on Mac-formatted iPod Nanos.
The new Macbook range has all the ports on one side, so it shouldn't be hard for a third party to design a docking station for it.
I remember there being docking stations for the 12" Powerbook G4s, since they had all the ports on one side too.
What would be really neat would be a docking station you can drop the laptop into vertically, but that will all depend on whether the machine is rated to operate in that position with the lid closed.
Oh, and one more thing; lets take computers out of the process, and go back to electric vote counting. No logic, no smarts, just a system that counts how many times a hole goes by. Easily verified, difficult to tamper with in a way that is not discovered, and reliable.
Hollerith did it right, and that was 100 years ago.:)
Number the ballots sequentially, and have them printed by a central authority that puts anti-counterfeiting measures on the ballots.
When a voter arrives, grab a ballot at random (shuffled deck) and issue it for punch card voting.
At the end of the day, you know how many people voted due to the log book. You know how many ballots you should have. You know which number ballots were issued (but not to which voters to preserve anonymity).
This makes it harder to lose ballots because each step of the way up knows how many ballots there should be, and ballots can't be swapped for different ones.
Yeah, this is incredibly uninteresting. If it were a 64 processor *shared memory* system, I'd be impressed. But it's just a bunch of nodes.
I have a hard time finding clusters interesting. Yeah, it's a bunch of computers. Big deal! What really impresses me is single nodes that have massive numbers of CPUs and memory. That takes technical ingenuity to implement. Clusters do not.
I feel bad for the CRAY name. It's being used in such a wrong manner.
I've had issues with ADATA flash drives too. A 4GB I gave to my girlfriend with my previous camera ended up having all kinds of issues. I felt kind of bad about it; luckily the cards are cheap now and easy to replace.
Sandisk and Kingston is all I buy these days and they've been very dependable.
Obligatory question: Why the heck did you buy a flash drive on eBay?
Flash drives aren't hard to find items and they aren't unique.
You can get them at great prices from retailers like NewEgg and TigerDirect, and not have to go through the hassle of waiting for product from *HONG KONG*!
I'm sorry that you got ripped off; that sucks. But eBay is really only good for used stuff that's impossible to find anywhere else, like collectibles, etc. Not currently available stuff like flash drives!
This is making me not only completely refuse to ever buy an iPhone, but also making me wary of buying more Macs in the future.
Apple was moving in a good direction with Mac OS X by basing their platform on BSD and building it on open source software. Now we see them pulling stuff like this.
How long until they start restricting what can be installed on Macs?
I may just return to using Linux on the desktop. Many of the issues I was annoyed with that caused me to switch to OS X in 2003 have been worked out, and I can probably deal with the remaining ones.
*grumble* just when Apple was starting to get really awesome, they pull stuff like this. Very disappointed in them.
What these sites need to do is have some sort of overload mode that kicks in when a major disaster occurs that would otherwise kill the site.
When hits per second exceeds some specific number, stop serving so many ads and images. Don't serve video. Serve text (news stories) and small images only. Switch to static HTML pages for the front page and major stories.
Not to mention, STOP telling people watching television to go check out the website. That's idiotic; they're ALREADY WATCHING YOU ON TV! Why direct them to the website and load it down further? I remember on 9/11 itself, CNN telling folks to "check out the latest on cnn.com" when cnn.com was *STILL DOWN* from the load!
If they took these measures they'd be able to keep serving pages in a crisis and not become useless like they did on 9/11.
I'm certain they've learned from their mistakes and have implemented something like this.
The thing is, time is no longer an issue in modern connections because they are packet-switched down to the bare wire.
In the old days you used a phone line, which was circuit switched, to call your ISP. They had a limited number of ports so they had to limit how long you could be online, otherwise folks would get a busy signal.
Since these days there is no customer-initiated circuit switching involved in cable and DSL links, the concept of "unlimited" can *only* apply to data transfer. There isn't anything else to limit.
Believe me, I remember the days of circuit switching and "hourly limits" quite well. I was on an ISDN connection from 2000 to 2004. Worrying about how *long* you're online is extremely irritating. Those are definitely "good old days" I wouldn't want to go back to.
Having to pay to view these old articles is irritating.
I realize it costs money to scan and archive them, but perhaps these costs can be covered by putting Google Adwords on the sides and using advertising?
This sort of resource is invaluable. I can go to the library right now and go through newspaper archives on microfilm; Google should find a way to offer the same online without charging.
What a beautiful way to look into history, by reading the news articles of the day.
I hope they can make this happen for free or ad-supported somehow.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that they are not going to care unless you are in his district.
Of course if you DO happen to live in his district, this means even MORE so that you should call.
A friend and I tried this.
The AppleTV has such a slow processor that it can only play standard definition video using Boxee. It required the (proprietary) Apple Quicktime stack to be able to do 720p, since it needs hardware acceleration.
If you're only doing SD you'll be okay. But if you want to play back HD you're going to need more muscle.
Just fair warning for anyone considering trying this. :)
You can't really round off cents in transactions on a regular basis, because then folks will use this to try to game the system.
For instance, say it were required by law for all transactions to be rounded to the nearest dollar. Don't think retailers will adjust prices so that cents in the totals tend to come out to .50 or more before rounding?
And I'm fairly certain your paycheck will be something like $xxxx.49 before rounding. ;)
It's funny how everyone is bitching about this now.
Those big long fluorescent tubes they use in office buildings? They have many times the mercury of a CFL and are used in much greater numbers.
But oh no, nobody cares about them. We must pick on CFLs because they are new and "hip".
Environmentalist extremists are just as bad as the "rape the world" conservative types. I wish both sides would just STFU already.
There should be a law requiring providers to advertise the exact amount you will be billed every month. No giving you rate A, then charging you rate A + Taxes B.
This way you can just look at the marketing materials and know exactly what you're going to pay without having to ask friends questions like "What's your total bill come out to?"
This should be the case for all servides, including things like DSL, home phone, and cable TV.
Hmm, maybe it's different for businesses. The last few drive replacements I've done have been from work, with a work mailing address.
If they do charge $20, maybe that's the point. They're counting on some percentage of people to just say "fuck it" and buy a new drive; they're so cheap now after all.
Have you bothered to look on the upper left side of the Google front page, where those services are clearly linked?
Really, it's all there. Has it gotten to the point where we need huge flashing animated banners with sound for people to find out about services on a website?
Simple links are enough for me, and vastly preferred.
I'm wondering if you got stuck with clueless support personnel, or it was a special case, or what.
I've replaced several drives in that timeframe. The standard procedure is always to send the replacement first, and send the old one back in the same box, pre-paid. (IE, it doesn't cost you anything)
They take your credit card details as insurance (otherwise an unscrupulous person would use this method to steal a hard drive by pretending theirs is bad) but that's acceptable.
All the drive manufacturers I've dealt with (seagate, WD, Maxtor) work this way...
When will companies realize that threatening lawsuits and such will only bring more attention to the very text they don't want people to see?
I wouldn't even have known about this if they hadn't threatened to sue, placing the article in the spotlight.
Jeez. Streisand effect anyone? Why do companies never learn?
Why not use HFSplus? It is open source, has existing open source implementations on several operating systems and isn't patent-encumbered or restricted.
It would be trivial to write a Windows filesystem driver for HFSplus which could be packaged with cameras and card readers, and HFSplus doesn't suffer from any of the filesystem and file size restrictions that FAT32 does.
On top of all this, we know it works well on flash devices, otherwise Apple wouldn't use it on Mac-formatted iPod Nanos.
The new Macbook range has all the ports on one side, so it shouldn't be hard for a third party to design a docking station for it.
I remember there being docking stations for the 12" Powerbook G4s, since they had all the ports on one side too.
What would be really neat would be a docking station you can drop the laptop into vertically, but that will all depend on whether the machine is rated to operate in that position with the lid closed.
I know taking devil's advocate here will probably get me strung out and shot, but...
Seriously, you signed the contract. The copyright on your code is protected just like any other copyright, but you signed it away.
That's the way life is. It sucks, but if we collectively keep letting companies snarf the right to our code, this will always be the case.
Unfortunately, one or two of us can't change this. We all have to get together and agree to not work until contracts are better.
Will that happen? With the apathy in the geek community? Probably not.
I don't understand this attitude either.
Are we as customers supposed to EXPECT failure now? WTF? Seriously?
I want my product to function as advertised, whether it's a $6.99 hand-cranked radio from Wal-Mart or a $3000 Mac Pro.
If there is a problem with the product, I have every right to call the company out on it, criticize them, and make a stink.
Yes, problems happen. But we shouldn't *expect* them.
If everyone were like the GP, imagine how crappy quality would be in.. well, everything!
Oh, and one more thing; lets take computers out of the process, and go back to electric vote counting. No logic, no smarts, just a system that counts how many times a hole goes by. Easily verified, difficult to tamper with in a way that is not discovered, and reliable.
Hollerith did it right, and that was 100 years ago. :)
Number the ballots sequentially, and have them printed by a central authority that puts anti-counterfeiting measures on the ballots.
When a voter arrives, grab a ballot at random (shuffled deck) and issue it for punch card voting.
At the end of the day, you know how many people voted due to the log book. You know how many ballots you should have. You know which number ballots were issued (but not to which voters to preserve anonymity).
This makes it harder to lose ballots because each step of the way up knows how many ballots there should be, and ballots can't be swapped for different ones.
Yeah, this is incredibly uninteresting. If it were a 64 processor *shared memory* system, I'd be impressed. But it's just a bunch of nodes.
I have a hard time finding clusters interesting. Yeah, it's a bunch of computers. Big deal! What really impresses me is single nodes that have massive numbers of CPUs and memory. That takes technical ingenuity to implement. Clusters do not.
I feel bad for the CRAY name. It's being used in such a wrong manner.
I don't get it. If they still have the data, why is it so hard for them to write up a script to fix the mistake?
It shouldn't take one of their programmers more than a few hours to whip up, and would save them all this headache.
I wonder if there's more behind this "accident" than we're seeing.
I dunno, she may be hot, but she can kill you instantly with a single finger.
When does the risk become too great for the reward? ;)
(not that I wouldn't hit it, though. If she kills me, at least I'd die happy...)
I've had issues with ADATA flash drives too. A 4GB I gave to my girlfriend with my previous camera ended up having all kinds of issues. I felt kind of bad about it; luckily the cards are cheap now and easy to replace.
Sandisk and Kingston is all I buy these days and they've been very dependable.
Obligatory question: Why the heck did you buy a flash drive on eBay?
Flash drives aren't hard to find items and they aren't unique.
You can get them at great prices from retailers like NewEgg and TigerDirect, and not have to go through the hassle of waiting for product from *HONG KONG*!
I'm sorry that you got ripped off; that sucks. But eBay is really only good for used stuff that's impossible to find anywhere else, like collectibles, etc. Not currently available stuff like flash drives!
This is making me not only completely refuse to ever buy an iPhone, but also making me wary of buying more Macs in the future.
Apple was moving in a good direction with Mac OS X by basing their platform on BSD and building it on open source software. Now we see them pulling stuff like this.
How long until they start restricting what can be installed on Macs?
I may just return to using Linux on the desktop. Many of the issues I was annoyed with that caused me to switch to OS X in 2003 have been worked out, and I can probably deal with the remaining ones.
*grumble* just when Apple was starting to get really awesome, they pull stuff like this. Very disappointed in them.
What these sites need to do is have some sort of overload mode that kicks in when a major disaster occurs that would otherwise kill the site.
When hits per second exceeds some specific number, stop serving so many ads and images. Don't serve video. Serve text (news stories) and small images only. Switch to static HTML pages for the front page and major stories.
Not to mention, STOP telling people watching television to go check out the website. That's idiotic; they're ALREADY WATCHING YOU ON TV! Why direct them to the website and load it down further? I remember on 9/11 itself, CNN telling folks to "check out the latest on cnn.com" when cnn.com was *STILL DOWN* from the load!
If they took these measures they'd be able to keep serving pages in a crisis and not become useless like they did on 9/11.
I'm certain they've learned from their mistakes and have implemented something like this.
The thing is, time is no longer an issue in modern connections because they are packet-switched down to the bare wire.
In the old days you used a phone line, which was circuit switched, to call your ISP. They had a limited number of ports so they had to limit how long you could be online, otherwise folks would get a busy signal.
Since these days there is no customer-initiated circuit switching involved in cable and DSL links, the concept of "unlimited" can *only* apply to data transfer. There isn't anything else to limit.
Believe me, I remember the days of circuit switching and "hourly limits" quite well. I was on an ISDN connection from 2000 to 2004. Worrying about how *long* you're online is extremely irritating. Those are definitely "good old days" I wouldn't want to go back to.
Having to pay to view these old articles is irritating.
I realize it costs money to scan and archive them, but perhaps these costs can be covered by putting Google Adwords on the sides and using advertising?
This sort of resource is invaluable. I can go to the library right now and go through newspaper archives on microfilm; Google should find a way to offer the same online without charging.
What a beautiful way to look into history, by reading the news articles of the day.
I hope they can make this happen for free or ad-supported somehow.
And that's just how the game is designed, so that the subscription dollars keep flowing in.
It's not by accident that it's like this.