Not complete lack of support, but IE's PNG support is partly broken. Mostly in that it doesn't support alpha transparency, though all other major browsers do.
Just to clarify, the Mac version of IE has much better PNG support than the Windows version of IE. In fact, Mac IE supports alpha transparency in PNG perfectly. (Even to the point of blending a foreground PNG with alpha transparency with a background graphic!) Too bad Microsoft abandoned IE on the Mac, and even sadder still that the programmers who worked on Mac IE didn't teach a thing or two to their Windows IE counterparts.
Now if only Adobe could get off their lazy crappy-programmer asses and put proper PNG compression in Photoshop so we wouldn't
need programs like pngcrush [and] pngout.
I used to work for a company named Mastersoft, which was acquired by Frame, the makers of Frame Maker (the now-discontinued DTP app); Frame was subsequently acquired by Adobe.
While at Mastersoft, I developed an implementation of a PNG reading and writing library for use in various file format conversion products; these reading and writing libraries were also licensed to OEMs for inclusion in other commercial products, so they're in a lot of places. The libraries I wrote used Jean-Loup Gailly's (sp?) zlib (since I didn't want to reinvent the wheel and debug a compression library), but did not rely on the pnglib reference implementation in any way.
I was very proud of the fact that my libraries were the first commercial implementation of PNG, as far as I can tell. However, due to time constraints and some performance requirements, the compression done by my PNG writer libraries wasn't the best. Specifically, I avoided using any scanline filter type other than Paeth for my PNG writing library; most modern PNG writers will try all 5 filter types on each scanline, and see which compresses the best. My choice had the virtue of saving time in writing a PNG file to disk, but doesn't necessarily produce the smallest PNG files. I also used a relatively small PNG chunk size; since each chunk has some overhead, more chunks means larger PNG files. Lastly, the version of zlib that I used was current as of the drafting of the original PNG specification; subsequent versions of zlib were released which were slightly more efficient, and a few nasty bugs were stomped out.
I don't know if Adobe is using my PNG writing code in Photoshop, but since Adobe purchased the IP of Mastersoft in the Frame acquisition, it's not inconceivable that they used my code rather than writing their own. If they used my code, then it's quite possible that I'm to blame for Photoshop saving out crappy PNG files that are too big.
In my defense, though, I should say that many people did manage to compress existing GIF files using my PNG library (which shipped as part of the Mastersoft File Utilities by Adobe, a product that unfortunately didn't last long); one magazine reviewer specifically used this software suite to convert a bunch of GIFs to PNGs, and concluded that in most cases, the PNGs were indeed smaller.
As soon as you start dealing with non-indexed color images, though, PNG is no better than TIFF. Some folks might incorrectly try to take a 24-bit source image and save as PNG, then take the same source and save as GIF, and will note that the GIF is way smaller -- as it should be, since GIF doesn't support 24 bpp images, whereas PNG does. To save a 24-bit source image as GIF, you have to first reduce the color space and convert to an indexed color image, since that's the only type of image that GIF can store. With PNG, the bit depth of the original is preserved. (And since PNG supports up to 16 bits per channel, and supports up to four channels -- R, G, B, and Alpha -- you can see how a PNG image can get obscenely large. This is where it pays to manage your expectations and understand the features and limitations of the file format.)
I read the Sun-Sentinel article you linked to, and it's really a very slanted piece written by someone who obviously does not appreciate Science Fiction in general, and Stargate in specific. Here are some choice quotes:
The success of Stargate SG-1 has always been a head-scratcher. Really, there's little difference in storytelling or production quality between this show and, say, First Wave, Forever Knight, The PSI Factor, Andromeda or any of the other competent, made-in-Canada mediocrities that fill up the cable dial.
There's very little difference in storytelling or production quality between SG1 and crap like Andromeda? I beg to differ. SG1 has a bigger budget than a lot of other made-for-cable properties. It also got its start on Showtime, so they had a good seed to start with -- freedom to do storylines that you couldn't get away with on basic cable channels, money to make good sets and props, etc. SG1 also has a lot of very competent people writing for it, and does a much better job of preserving continuity than even shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and its follow-ons.
Stargate Altantis sends a team of intrepid Earthling explorers -- via the stargate, of course -- to an underwater city in an unexplored galaxy so distant there may be fuel for only a one-way trip. Yes, that sounds like a dumb scenario, but silliness has never been much of a barrier for science fiction.
OK, so this writer is apparently confused enough that he doesn't understand, or care to understand, the internal reality of the show. Fuel? But in addition to that, he takes a swipe at an entire genre of fiction, showing an incredible bias that should have recused him from writing this article in the first place. And what, pray tell, is dumb about a scenario in which scientists and explorers go on a one-way mission? It's been done before, and has been proposed seriously for manned missions to other planets in our own solar system. But since all of science fiction is apparently "silly," any ideas it puts forth must not be worth taking seriously.
Never mind that science fiction has predicted technologies decades in advance of their introduction.
The plot of the two-hour pilot is little more than the set-up for the series to follow, and its details are of negligible consequence, since an inventive mythology has never been the strongest element of the Stargate universe.
WTF? Seriously, WTF? An inventive mythology has never been the strongest element of the Stargate universe? Gee, that's funny, since the show (and the movie it's based upon) has all of the collective mythology of the entire human race to draw upon, blended together with a sprinkling of SciFi concepts to make something new and (somewhat) original. I'd like to see what this author's idea is of a truly inventive mythology.
And yeah, I know, there's better SciFi out there, most of it in print form, stuff that's really mind-blowing (and some stuff that simply can't be done on SG1's budget, which is why the good SF books never make it to the small screen, let alone the big screen). But I sincerely doubt that this author has read/seen any of that material.
I wouldn't be basing my opinions of Atlantis on the scribblings of one mentally stunted writer from a podunk newspaper who tacitly admits in the first three paragraphs that he despises science fiction.
I've seen at least one comment posted here on Slashdot from a Mac user who ripped the tracks to AIFF (he called them WAV, but that's a simple enough mistake) and burned the resulting tracks to a standard CD for his wife. However, looking at the CNet article cited, I followed some of the discussion threads and found this interesting comment:
My co-worker bought this CD and handed it to me asking if I could make MP3s out of the tracks. I used iTunes on the Mac and immediately created workable AIFF files that played perfectly on the Mac. What was surprising was when I tried to burn it back to a CD. All the tracks were scrambled.
Creating high quality MP3s was as simple as selecting the AIFF tracks and selecting Convert to MP3. I don't have an iPod so I don't know if they would play on one. Maybe my boss will let me borrow his to try out.
OK, so can anyone explain to me what scrambled means in this context? Because if it means that the AIFF tracks, as burned to an audio CD, sound distorted, then maybe there's more to this copy protection scheme than simply loading a viral device driver on a Windows PC?
Incidentally, I love the spin that SunComm put on this:
"We are actively working with Apple to provide a long-term solution to this issue," a posting on SunnComm's Web site reads. "We encourage you to provide feedback to Apple, requesting they implement a solution that will enable the iPod to support other secure music formats."
I see this as an attempt to strong-arm Apple into using stronger DRM supplied by the record labels, instead of Apple's own FairPlay DRM.
From what I was reading recently on Blu-Ray, it looks like the cartridges are only needed now for the recordable versions of Blu-Ray media; pre-recorded discs are already sans-cartridge. The Blu-Ray proponents are also working on a way to eliminate the cartridge for the recordable version, though I have my doubts if they'll succeed.
Working demos of Blu-Ray discs were shown in prototype players, and the discs with pre-recorded video had no cartridge or other carrier mechanism; you just put the disc directly in the player.
This was also covered on As the Apple Turns, oddly enough. It seems pretty clear to me that Steve Jobs, in his role as Pixar CEO, is worried about video piracy. It's trivially easy to pirate any DVD, either by ripping to hard disk and compressing using DiVX or another comparable codec, or by burning a copy to DVD-R/DVD+R.
Make no mistake. Jobs isn't complaining that HD-DVD doesn't have adequate copy protection methods. HD-DVD is so new that no standards have really been set in stone, especially not for things like the copy protection. Jobs is cautioning the industry not to jump on the HD-DVD bandwagon until something better than CSS exists for HD-DVD. Jobs specifically is saying that Hollywood shouldn't release movies in the new format until it can be assured that the new format can't be copied.
One such measure that Jobs suggested is to prevent HD-DVD burners from being bundled with computers. But this seems unlikely, and if he were to force Apple to do this, Apple might fall behind the Wintel world, which almost assuredly will start bundling HD-DVD burners with PCs as soon as it's economical to do so. Even jobs admitted this was an extreme scenario and hoped it wouldn't come to pass.
Personally, I don't see how you can meet the mandate of an un-copyable disc. Any encryption that can be decrypted in real time by embedded controllers in appliances like DVD players (or in this case, HD-DVD players) can be cracked by a computer. Most schemes to tie the content to the distribution media can be circumvented somehow. It's possible that video playback from pre-recorded HD-DVD discs might be made impossible (at the drive firmware level) on computers with HD-DVD-ROM drives, which would eliminate one of the easiest exploits for computer piracy... but an enterprising hacker might find a way to flash the drive's firmware to get around this issue, and then you're back where you started from. Yeah, you could simply not make HD-DVD-ROM drives for computers available at all, but that would insure Blu-Ray's success since everyone is hungry for bigger and better removable optical storage -- and Blu-Ray is already poised to make it into computers if Sony has its way.
As long as the content is in the digital domain, someone somewhere will be able to copy it and strip the copy protection. Hollywood waiting for a bulletproof distribution medium? They might as well wait forever, in which case we'll never see high-definition video content for purchase. (I'm sure the broadcasters would love that.)
Then again, there is precedent for creating a disc format that isn't computer readable. SACD has a physical layout that should theoretically be readable in most DVD-ROM drives, but no DVD drive has firmware that can read the high-def layer on a SACD disc, at least not that I'm aware of. In fact, most DVD drives can't even read the low-def, Red Book compliant layer on SACD hybrid discs, because the drives keep trying to read the bits off the high-def layer and get confused. There is a combination of firmware and lack of appropriate file system software for the OS of your choice that's making this an effective lock-out, though I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to read SACD discs on a PC -- assuming that there are enough people using SACD content in the first place who also happen to be hackers and file system gurus to make this happen. The fact that SACD has only found its niche in audiophile applications means this may not happen for some time, if at all!
(Damn, wish I hadn't blown my moderator points for this thread, but I really wanted to answer your question more than I wanted to moderate your question up.)
it's not about the money they made. it's about the money that they didn't make.
they lost that which they didn't make.
Which means that, in reality, they didn't "lose" anything. You can't lose something you don't already have. Of course, this doesn't stop the RIAA from bemoaning fictitious "lost profits" due to illegal P2P file trading. Such logic assumes that people will buy the music/video/whatever if no illegal downloads were available, but this is an unwarranted assumption. I rather think most people wouldn't run out and buy music/video if an avenue of piracy were cut off.
Nope. Check the comparison chart on Apple's site, and you'll see that it doesn't connect to the LAN, just to the Internet.
Actually, that's a bit misleading. You're the second person today I had to disabuse of this notion... so forgive me if this comes off a bit harsh.
First, look at the very top of the specs page for AirPort Express, and you'll notice a picture of the device with its ports clearly labeled with call-outs. Right next to the ethernet port, it says: "10/100Base-T Ethernet / Intelligent port for connecting to DSL or cable modems or a local network" (emphasis mine)
Yes, this slightly contradicts what's in the features table lower down on the page, but only if you're literal minded. The more expensive AirPort Extreme base stations include two ethernet ports, one designated WAN, the other designated LAN. The purpose of providing two ports is so that you can use an AirPort Extreme base station as a single firewall for both your wired and wireless networks.
The fact is, this device has a single ethernet port, just like the original AirPort base station (which only supported 802.11b, not 802.11g, and only supported 10Base-T and not 100Base-T). That table is therefore simply misleading; they had to list the single port on the AirPort Express device somewhere, so they called it a WAN port, but it can function either way, depending on configuration.
To further support my claims, I recommend that you read this article by Jason Snell. He got a lot of his information directly from Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of hardware product marketing, and he even edited the article once because of Joswiak's input. There are all kinds of nifty wired-wireless bridging capabilities for this device. But you only get a single ethernet port, so it's not quite as flexible as some of its bigger brethren when it comes to configuration. But yes, one of those possible configurations is connection to a wired LAN. One line in the article states:
It doesn't offer all the niceties of the UFO-shaped AirPort models, such as support for up to 50 users,
separate LAN and WAN ports, an external antenna connector, or a built-in modem.
(Again, emphasis mine.) Which implies that the single ethernet port can (and does) serve both functions, but not at the same time obviously.
Incidentally, configuration of this base station is identical to the configuration of any other Apple base station, using the AirPort admin tools. That means you get the same set of options (and fairly advanced ones, at that) for configuration across the entire product line.
Personal aside: This is the second time I've seen someone claiming that the AirPort Express doesn't support LAN connectivity based on what they saw in the product comparison matrix. (The first time was on the MacCentral discussion boards.) What I want to know is, how could you miss the big pretty picture right at the very top of the page? I mean, am I the only person who looks at the picture with call-outs first, and then looks at the table with the specs? Maybe I'm just more visually oriented than most.
The real danger I see here is the possibility that Microsoft ad revenue might become so important to Linux Today (or Slashdot, for that matter, since Slashdot ran the same ads) that if Linux Today ran an article critical of Microsoft, Microsoft might turn around and threaten to pull their ads, and thus force Linux Today to tone down any anti-Microsoft content. Then Microsoft effectively gets editorial control of the site.
Do you honestly think that such Microsoft ads come with no strings attached? Advertising isn't just about buying ad space blindly, people.
Ads should not be a reflection of the views of the site; encouraging us to view them as such threatens the site's integrity by tying its content to the identity of its sponsors.
And yet, many newspapers and magazines can and do exert editorial control over which ads they accept for publication. You seldom, if ever, see conservative newspapers and magazines giving ad space to liberal concerns. You do not see advertisements for books by Stephen Jay Gould in publications that promote Creationism. You seldom, if ever, see pro-Linux advertising on Microsoft-owned web sites or on MSNBC. You don't see advertisements for abortion clinics in Operation Rescue newsletters.
Please forgive the seemingly inflammatory analogies, but I wanted to take your arguments to their logical extremes to point out the fallacy of expecting any publication, especially a Linux advocacy web site, to run advertising for the "opposition."
Dave Whitinger seems to believe that the fact that an ad is run means that the site supports or endorses it. [...] If this were the case, it would mean that every advertisement would be paying for the editors of the site to endorse the product advertised.
But that is public perception, and despite editorial disclaimers to the contrary, running an ad for a certain product or service is a kind of paid endorsement for that product or service. That's why, when Slashdot ran these very same ads a while ago, I was rankled. (I can see from a cursory glance at the discussion threads for this article that I'm not the only one!) What kind of message does this send to readers? Sure, some are going to be infuriated, and will complain to the Editor about the ad content. Others, however, are going to wonder if maybe the site in question is softening its stance regarding Microsoft.
Well, Gentoo ships with the ebuilds for libcss and other stuff already in Portage, and since it doesn't impose limitations on emerging builds based on the locality of the user, it's up to the user to decide whether they want to break the law by building VLC or mplayer with the DeCSS code linked in.
It does suck, though, that most distributions won't provide DVD playback "out of the box," at least here in the States. But since distributions like Gentoo are meta-distributions, they don't have to ship any offending code or binaries on the disc, so they're covered. Just emerge mplayer (or emerge vlc after enabling the experimental ebuilds) and go to town.
Presumably, some company that provides a Linux distribution for commercial sale could pay the appropriate licensing fees to Frauenhofer for Lame and to the DVD-CCA for DeCSS (or some other crypto) so they could ship all these libraries in the box... but these entitites would probably balk at allowing the source code to ship as well, and that is a deal-breaker for most Linux advocates.
I can't tell if you're just being a troll, or if you're just weird, or both...
He was being sarcastic, I think. He was saying, "Gee, it's a shame that I can no longer do all this stuff," when you know perfectly well that it can be done, and is done... just illegally. I'm personally bemoaning the fact that Fedora Core had to yank a bunch of packages or otherwise cripple them so that they won't run afoul of the law. (Since Fedora Core is being given away for free, not sold in a box, non-free software just can't be included, nor can software that might violate someone's draconian IP laws.)
The first possible outcome is that the rate of hardware development and innovation drops precipitously, and the hardware side of the IT equation stagnates. Release cycles for hardware get very long because there's no incentive to release new hardware with incremental improvements every month/year/whatever.
The other possible outcome is that corporate America buys into this vision and increases the turnover rate for hardware. Companies will stop purchasing hardware, so we'll see corporations treating servers and desktop PCs the way some people now treat their leased cars. This isn't sustainable, though, as someone will have to take the old equipment and do something with it. Wouldn't it be a shame if all that obsolescent equipment just wound up in land fills? Oh, sure, a fair percentage of it will be resold cheaply, just like lease returns get resold in used car lots all the time. But some equipment has a very limited market (e.g., rack mount servers and workstations).
And of course, resales of previously leased hardware will be problematic if there are hardware mechanisms to tie the hardware to a specific software suite or OS.
You're not being pedantic, you're being factual. And I, for one, am glad to see I'm not the only person bothered by this recent trend in elevating LimeWire to the status of being its own file sharing network (when it's clearly a Gnutella client).
what part of "existing LCD models" didn't you understand ?
This is why reading comprehension is such an important skill, and why you apparently need to brush up on yours.
To make sure we're all on the same page, let me re-quote the sentence in question from the Samsung press release:
It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.
The "and" links two separate thoughts in the aforementioned sentence. It is not explicitly stated what kind of 15" display is being talked about. You could claim that they are implying a 15" LCD display, but that's an unwarranted assumption, from a strict grammatical viewpoint. (And just to be clear, the "they" in the previous sentence refers to Samsung's PR/marketing people who put this press release together.)
The reason I brought attention to this is that such weasel tactics have been used in product marketing in the past to hide facts about the product being marketed. Maybe the prototype 17" OLED display had worse power dissipation than a comparable LCD display, so the marketroids compared it to a 15" CRT display. While I doubt this is actually the case, I want people to start reading these press releases with a more critical eye. You might not appreciate the fine hair splitting, but a lawyer sure does.
It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.
But what kind of a 15" display are they comparing against? A 15" LCD display? Hopefully they're not comparing against a 15" CRT display!
Ideally, OLED displays should be significantly less power-hungry than LCD displays by virtue of not requiring a backlight.
Personally, I'm looking forward to bypassing the LCD and plasma "revolution," and going straight from CRT to OLED technology for the displays in my home. Considering the heat put out by plasma televisions, and the fact that I live in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona, my air conditioning system will thank me for the transition. And it'll be nice to have a display with a small desktop footprint for my G5 which is also adequate for gaming (and if the color gamut is good, it'll be adequate for Photoshop work too).
I see no misreporting of the facts. The fact is that the person in question downloaded it via limewire. I see no statement that excludes other gnutella clients.
It's nice to see that reading comprehension has dwindled to nothing these days. The article does not say that the file was downloaded "via" Limewire. And I never said that there was a statement excluding other Gnutella clients, but as you know, sometimes what goes unsaid is just as important as what is actually said. It might not occur to less technically inclined people that there is a distinction between Limewire (the client) and Gnutella (the P2P network).
To prove my point, here's a quote from the Slashdot article.
A Macworld reader alerted the magazine to the malware after he
downloaded the file from Limewire.
(Emphasis mine.) You don't download things from Limewire. You download software from the Gnutella network with (or using) Limewire. The distinction is subtle but important.
Well, Halo is a unique example. Bungie was a Mac developer primarily before Microsoft bought them.
I know all this, and fail to see what your point is. My point was simply this: Just because a product is demonstrated first on a Mac doesn't mean it will make it to the Mac, or that it will arrive first on the Mac. I provided a real-world example. Yes, I know Halo is kind of unique because Bungie used to be a Mac developer, and then whored themselves to Microsoft. However, that doesn't make my example any less valid.
Doom 3 was apparently demoed "first" on Mac OS X, according to the poster I was responding to. Their assertion was that this is a guarantee that Doom 3 will be available for the Mac platform. I am simply stating that this is not a guarantee. We'll be very lucky indeed if we see Doom 3 at all on the Mac -- id needs to make a business case to promote a Mac port, and even though they're throwing in a Linux port "for free," that's not a guarantee that anything will make it to the Mac.
Personally, I'm guessing we'll see Doom 3 on OS X within a month or two of the Windows release. A simultaneous release would be nice, but may not happen.
If id doesn't do the OS X port themselves (a possibility, though unlikely as they insisted on doing Quake 3 for the Mac themselves), there are always other Mac software houses that can step into the breech and take over this role. And surely some company would, but then the delay might be measured at far more than two months.
I took the MacCentral website (which is now run by Macworld) to task for this, and I'll take Slashdot to task for the same thing. In some of the more reputable Mac-related news sites, this story was more accurately covered; the Trojan in question was downloaded from the Gnutella network. Limewire is not a network, it's a Gnutella client -- yet sites like MacCentral reported that the file was downloaded from the LimeWire network. Now on Slashdot, we're seeing much the same thing -- as if to imply that this Trojan is somehow only available with Limewire.
Since there are at least 3 other Gnutella clients available for Mac OS X (Phex, Acquisition, and XFactor are the ones I know of), there are many more potential vectors for this Trojan to find its way onto a Mac user's computer.
Yeah, I know, it's asinine to trade warez on any P2P network...
There's nothing to stop this Trojan from making it to other file sharing networks, except perhaps a dose of common sense, so this isn't even a Gnutella-specific problem. I'm just a little peeved with sloppy news reporting.
Indeed, co-op multiplayer for PC is a goner
on
DOOM III This Summer
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· Score: 1
And this is puzzling to me, because early in the development cycle, we were assured by id that there would be some form of multiplayer in Doom 3, albeit not the kind of multiplayer that Quake 3 was famous for (and, frankly, designed for).
Now we find out that multiplayer is Xbox-only... and the article really doesn't give much detail on the real reasons why this decision was made! I think the excuses given in the published interview were lame. Multiplayer (cooperative or not) is what made the original Doom franchise so much fun, and gave it such lasting replay value.
My guess is that Microsoft insisted that the Xbox version have unique features not present in other versions, and since Microsoft is busy pimping Xbox Live, that was a reasonable area for id to concede and focus on for Xbox. I suspect that a lot of gamers are going to cry foul, and id may wind up releasing a patch for the PC, Linux, and Mac versions of Doom 3 that enables multiplayer.
Speaking of the Mac version, that's another thing that's not got a lot of mention lately. Early in the development cycle, we were assured that there would be a Mac version of Doom 3, but nobody's spoken about it much recently. Perhaps this, like PC multiplayer, got dropped from the roadmap?
The first Doom 3 demo may have been at Macworld, but if you go by historical precedent, that's no guarantee that a game will come to the Mac in a timely fashion. I am, of course, referring to Halo.
Halo eventually made it to the Mac, after the PC port made it to market. Yet the first public demo of Halo was at Macworld, on the (then cutting edge) G4 PowerMac.
I'd say the only ones who benefit from this deal is Apple, but that credit card requirement scared away most people. So, other than more awareness, Apple didn't gain much from this.
Funny, but many people are able to get into the iTunes Music Store and make purchases without a credit card. That's why Target is selling stored-value cards for the iTMS starting at $15 a pop.
Also, you can get credit from others as "allowances." It's pretty spiffy, especially for parents. This way, kids who aren't old enough to qualify for a credit card can still make purchases.
His directorial debut was... Star Trek II. He wrote all the script for Star Trek IV that took place in the 20th century. He also directed Star Trek IV and did a great deal of the story, based upon an idea by Nimoy.
Nick Meyer did not direct Star Trek IV. It was directed by Leonard Nimoy, who also directed Star Trek III. (You can see this on the IMDb page for ST IV.) Nicholas Meyer is one of four people with screenplay credits on ST IV.
Incidentally, Star Trek II was not Nicholas Meyer's directorial debut either; that was the movie Time After Time, which is one of my all-time favorites. (Premise: H.G. Wells really builds a time machine, and uses it to pursue Jack the Ripper to the 1970s.)
But yeah, Meyer did a lot of work on Star Trek, both directing and writing. He knows what works and what doesn't. I think he'd be an excellent replacement for Rick-f**king-Berman.
Well, it'd be nice if you could qualify "lots" a bit better. Maybe a real quantitative figure. But then again, you can get that from the product spec sheet. Yeah, Winamp plays more formats than iTunes. But iTunes natively plays the formats I most care about (except for Ogg Vorbis, which requires a plugin).
Video support (including internet TV tuner)
If you want to dick around with video, there's Quicktime Player and a hundred other applications and utilities that let you view it and more. I don't understand why Nullsoft put video capabilities in Winamp. But hey, if it floats your boat, great.
Incidentally, if you want an alternative to iTunes on the Mac that supports skinning and variable opacity and other nifty eye candy, as well as native Ogg Vorbis support, I'd recommend Audion.
Other notes...
Individual parts of the UI (playlist, media library, player) can be undocked, repositioned, opened, closed
I don't consider this to be much of an advantage for Winamp. It's nifty, but the application already has a petite interface by default, so I don't understand what value you get from spreading the pieces apart.
Media library can watch folders instead of how iTunes makes you add thigns to its library and then manages it in its own way somewhere
This is factually incorrect. iTunes defaults to managing your library for you, but you can turn this off and have it simply access the files where you want to keep them.
Look at iTunes. Horrible interface, dumb architecture...it actually insists you store you songs on both the iPod and your hard drive, so if you have a 40G iPod, you can't just rip a CD direct to your ipod...nooooo, you have to rip it to your HD, and then copy it over to your ipod. And then if you want to save some space and delete those songs, next time you sync your ipod, those songs are gone too!
Actually, I know from personal experience that you're wrong. My computer illiterate girlfriend has an iBook (one of the all-white 2001 models with dual USB ports) and a 15 GB iPod. She routinely imports songs from CDs and then moves them into playlists that are hosted only on the iPod; once there, she deletes them from the iBook's local storage. So her iBook's precious hard drive space is conserved, and the music is put exactly where she needs it. And when she synchronizes, the songs that are only on the iPod stay on the iPod; they don't disappear, as you assert.
So if my girlfriend, who is not in any special way computer savvy, but who knows how to experiment with something until it does what she wants (and who isn't paralyzed by the fear of screwing up), can figure this out... then it can't be that non-obvious.
I have to admit, though, I was pretty surprised when I saw that she could do this. I was incredulous, in fact. But she showed me how she did it, and after she showed me, I smacked my forehead. "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Well, it's because most people (like myself) don't bother creating iPod-only playlists inside of iTunes.
Like most Apple software, there are a lot of features in iTunes that aren't exactly hidden, but they're not in-your-face either; these little gems are often discovered by accident, or by reading a book of hints and tips. Many of these features are undocumented or poorly documented, something that is IMHO a flaw, but in keeping with Apple's philosophy that one should not need to read documentation to use a product.
(For those who are curious, I just called my SO to ask her, and she says there's a preference, either in iTunes or in iSync, that lets you turn off automatic music synchronization while separately turning on automatic synchronization of other things, such as contacts and calendars. Once you do that, you can manually copy music to your iPod and manually manage what's on your iPod, including creating iPod-only playlists that have songs not on your host computer's hard drive.)
Slashdot Mirror
Just to clarify, the Mac version of IE has much better PNG support than the Windows version of IE. In fact, Mac IE supports alpha transparency in PNG perfectly. (Even to the point of blending a foreground PNG with alpha transparency with a background graphic!) Too bad Microsoft abandoned IE on the Mac, and even sadder still that the programmers who worked on Mac IE didn't teach a thing or two to their Windows IE counterparts.
I used to work for a company named Mastersoft, which was acquired by Frame, the makers of Frame Maker (the now-discontinued DTP app); Frame was subsequently acquired by Adobe.
While at Mastersoft, I developed an implementation of a PNG reading and writing library for use in various file format conversion products; these reading and writing libraries were also licensed to OEMs for inclusion in other commercial products, so they're in a lot of places. The libraries I wrote used Jean-Loup Gailly's (sp?) zlib (since I didn't want to reinvent the wheel and debug a compression library), but did not rely on the pnglib reference implementation in any way.
I was very proud of the fact that my libraries were the first commercial implementation of PNG, as far as I can tell. However, due to time constraints and some performance requirements, the compression done by my PNG writer libraries wasn't the best. Specifically, I avoided using any scanline filter type other than Paeth for my PNG writing library; most modern PNG writers will try all 5 filter types on each scanline, and see which compresses the best. My choice had the virtue of saving time in writing a PNG file to disk, but doesn't necessarily produce the smallest PNG files. I also used a relatively small PNG chunk size; since each chunk has some overhead, more chunks means larger PNG files. Lastly, the version of zlib that I used was current as of the drafting of the original PNG specification; subsequent versions of zlib were released which were slightly more efficient, and a few nasty bugs were stomped out.
I don't know if Adobe is using my PNG writing code in Photoshop, but since Adobe purchased the IP of Mastersoft in the Frame acquisition, it's not inconceivable that they used my code rather than writing their own. If they used my code, then it's quite possible that I'm to blame for Photoshop saving out crappy PNG files that are too big.
In my defense, though, I should say that many people did manage to compress existing GIF files using my PNG library (which shipped as part of the Mastersoft File Utilities by Adobe, a product that unfortunately didn't last long); one magazine reviewer specifically used this software suite to convert a bunch of GIFs to PNGs, and concluded that in most cases, the PNGs were indeed smaller.
As soon as you start dealing with non-indexed color images, though, PNG is no better than TIFF. Some folks might incorrectly try to take a 24-bit source image and save as PNG, then take the same source and save as GIF, and will note that the GIF is way smaller -- as it should be, since GIF doesn't support 24 bpp images, whereas PNG does. To save a 24-bit source image as GIF, you have to first reduce the color space and convert to an indexed color image, since that's the only type of image that GIF can store. With PNG, the bit depth of the original is preserved. (And since PNG supports up to 16 bits per channel, and supports up to four channels -- R, G, B, and Alpha -- you can see how a PNG image can get obscenely large. This is where it pays to manage your expectations and understand the features and limitations of the file format.)
There's very little difference in storytelling or production quality between SG1 and crap like Andromeda? I beg to differ. SG1 has a bigger budget than a lot of other made-for-cable properties. It also got its start on Showtime, so they had a good seed to start with -- freedom to do storylines that you couldn't get away with on basic cable channels, money to make good sets and props, etc. SG1 also has a lot of very competent people writing for it, and does a much better job of preserving continuity than even shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and its follow-ons.
OK, so this writer is apparently confused enough that he doesn't understand, or care to understand, the internal reality of the show. Fuel? But in addition to that, he takes a swipe at an entire genre of fiction, showing an incredible bias that should have recused him from writing this article in the first place. And what, pray tell, is dumb about a scenario in which scientists and explorers go on a one-way mission? It's been done before, and has been proposed seriously for manned missions to other planets in our own solar system. But since all of science fiction is apparently "silly," any ideas it puts forth must not be worth taking seriously.
Never mind that science fiction has predicted technologies decades in advance of their introduction.
WTF? Seriously, WTF? An inventive mythology has never been the strongest element of the Stargate universe? Gee, that's funny, since the show (and the movie it's based upon) has all of the collective mythology of the entire human race to draw upon, blended together with a sprinkling of SciFi concepts to make something new and (somewhat) original. I'd like to see what this author's idea is of a truly inventive mythology.
And yeah, I know, there's better SciFi out there, most of it in print form, stuff that's really mind-blowing (and some stuff that simply can't be done on SG1's budget, which is why the good SF books never make it to the small screen, let alone the big screen). But I sincerely doubt that this author has read/seen any of that material.
I wouldn't be basing my opinions of Atlantis on the scribblings of one mentally stunted writer from a podunk newspaper who tacitly admits in the first three paragraphs that he despises science fiction.
Incidentally, I love the spin that SunComm put on this:I see this as an attempt to strong-arm Apple into using stronger DRM supplied by the record labels, instead of Apple's own FairPlay DRM.
From what I was reading recently on Blu-Ray, it looks like the cartridges are only needed now for the recordable versions of Blu-Ray media; pre-recorded discs are already sans-cartridge. The Blu-Ray proponents are also working on a way to eliminate the cartridge for the recordable version, though I have my doubts if they'll succeed.
Working demos of Blu-Ray discs were shown in prototype players, and the discs with pre-recorded video had no cartridge or other carrier mechanism; you just put the disc directly in the player.
This was also covered on As the Apple Turns, oddly enough. It seems pretty clear to me that Steve Jobs, in his role as Pixar CEO, is worried about video piracy. It's trivially easy to pirate any DVD, either by ripping to hard disk and compressing using DiVX or another comparable codec, or by burning a copy to DVD-R/DVD+R.
Make no mistake. Jobs isn't complaining that HD-DVD doesn't have adequate copy protection methods. HD-DVD is so new that no standards have really been set in stone, especially not for things like the copy protection. Jobs is cautioning the industry not to jump on the HD-DVD bandwagon until something better than CSS exists for HD-DVD. Jobs specifically is saying that Hollywood shouldn't release movies in the new format until it can be assured that the new format can't be copied.
One such measure that Jobs suggested is to prevent HD-DVD burners from being bundled with computers. But this seems unlikely, and if he were to force Apple to do this, Apple might fall behind the Wintel world, which almost assuredly will start bundling HD-DVD burners with PCs as soon as it's economical to do so. Even jobs admitted this was an extreme scenario and hoped it wouldn't come to pass.
Personally, I don't see how you can meet the mandate of an un-copyable disc. Any encryption that can be decrypted in real time by embedded controllers in appliances like DVD players (or in this case, HD-DVD players) can be cracked by a computer. Most schemes to tie the content to the distribution media can be circumvented somehow. It's possible that video playback from pre-recorded HD-DVD discs might be made impossible (at the drive firmware level) on computers with HD-DVD-ROM drives, which would eliminate one of the easiest exploits for computer piracy... but an enterprising hacker might find a way to flash the drive's firmware to get around this issue, and then you're back where you started from. Yeah, you could simply not make HD-DVD-ROM drives for computers available at all, but that would insure Blu-Ray's success since everyone is hungry for bigger and better removable optical storage -- and Blu-Ray is already poised to make it into computers if Sony has its way.
As long as the content is in the digital domain, someone somewhere will be able to copy it and strip the copy protection. Hollywood waiting for a bulletproof distribution medium? They might as well wait forever, in which case we'll never see high-definition video content for purchase. (I'm sure the broadcasters would love that.)
Then again, there is precedent for creating a disc format that isn't computer readable. SACD has a physical layout that should theoretically be readable in most DVD-ROM drives, but no DVD drive has firmware that can read the high-def layer on a SACD disc, at least not that I'm aware of. In fact, most DVD drives can't even read the low-def, Red Book compliant layer on SACD hybrid discs, because the drives keep trying to read the bits off the high-def layer and get confused. There is a combination of firmware and lack of appropriate file system software for the OS of your choice that's making this an effective lock-out, though I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to read SACD discs on a PC -- assuming that there are enough people using SACD content in the first place who also happen to be hackers and file system gurus to make this happen. The fact that SACD has only found its niche in audiophile applications means this may not happen for some time, if at all!
(Damn, wish I hadn't blown my moderator points for this thread, but I really wanted to answer your question more than I wanted to moderate your question up.)
Which means that, in reality, they didn't "lose" anything. You can't lose something you don't already have. Of course, this doesn't stop the RIAA from bemoaning fictitious "lost profits" due to illegal P2P file trading. Such logic assumes that people will buy the music/video/whatever if no illegal downloads were available, but this is an unwarranted assumption. I rather think most people wouldn't run out and buy music/video if an avenue of piracy were cut off.
Actually, that's a bit misleading. You're the second person today I had to disabuse of this notion... so forgive me if this comes off a bit harsh.
First, look at the very top of the specs page for AirPort Express, and you'll notice a picture of the device with its ports clearly labeled with call-outs. Right next to the ethernet port, it says: "10/100Base-T Ethernet / Intelligent port for connecting to DSL or cable modems or a local network" (emphasis mine)
Yes, this slightly contradicts what's in the features table lower down on the page, but only if you're literal minded. The more expensive AirPort Extreme base stations include two ethernet ports, one designated WAN, the other designated LAN. The purpose of providing two ports is so that you can use an AirPort Extreme base station as a single firewall for both your wired and wireless networks.
The fact is, this device has a single ethernet port, just like the original AirPort base station (which only supported 802.11b, not 802.11g, and only supported 10Base-T and not 100Base-T). That table is therefore simply misleading; they had to list the single port on the AirPort Express device somewhere, so they called it a WAN port, but it can function either way, depending on configuration.
To further support my claims, I recommend that you read this article by Jason Snell. He got a lot of his information directly from Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of hardware product marketing, and he even edited the article once because of Joswiak's input. There are all kinds of nifty wired-wireless bridging capabilities for this device. But you only get a single ethernet port, so it's not quite as flexible as some of its bigger brethren when it comes to configuration. But yes, one of those possible configurations is connection to a wired LAN. One line in the article states: (Again, emphasis mine.) Which implies that the single ethernet port can (and does) serve both functions, but not at the same time obviously.
Incidentally, configuration of this base station is identical to the configuration of any other Apple base station, using the AirPort admin tools. That means you get the same set of options (and fairly advanced ones, at that) for configuration across the entire product line.
Personal aside: This is the second time I've seen someone claiming that the AirPort Express doesn't support LAN connectivity based on what they saw in the product comparison matrix. (The first time was on the MacCentral discussion boards.) What I want to know is, how could you miss the big pretty picture right at the very top of the page? I mean, am I the only person who looks at the picture with call-outs first, and then looks at the table with the specs? Maybe I'm just more visually oriented than most.
The real danger I see here is the possibility that Microsoft ad revenue might become so important to Linux Today (or Slashdot, for that matter, since Slashdot ran the same ads) that if Linux Today ran an article critical of Microsoft, Microsoft might turn around and threaten to pull their ads, and thus force Linux Today to tone down any anti-Microsoft content. Then Microsoft effectively gets editorial control of the site.
Do you honestly think that such Microsoft ads come with no strings attached? Advertising isn't just about buying ad space blindly, people.
And yet, many newspapers and magazines can and do exert editorial control over which ads they accept for publication. You seldom, if ever, see conservative newspapers and magazines giving ad space to liberal concerns. You do not see advertisements for books by Stephen Jay Gould in publications that promote Creationism. You seldom, if ever, see pro-Linux advertising on Microsoft-owned web sites or on MSNBC. You don't see advertisements for abortion clinics in Operation Rescue newsletters.
Please forgive the seemingly inflammatory analogies, but I wanted to take your arguments to their logical extremes to point out the fallacy of expecting any publication, especially a Linux advocacy web site, to run advertising for the "opposition."
But that is public perception, and despite editorial disclaimers to the contrary, running an ad for a certain product or service is a kind of paid endorsement for that product or service. That's why, when Slashdot ran these very same ads a while ago, I was rankled. (I can see from a cursory glance at the discussion threads for this article that I'm not the only one!) What kind of message does this send to readers? Sure, some are going to be infuriated, and will complain to the Editor about the ad content. Others, however, are going to wonder if maybe the site in question is softening its stance regarding Microsoft.
Well, Gentoo ships with the ebuilds for libcss and other stuff already in Portage, and since it doesn't impose limitations on emerging builds based on the locality of the user, it's up to the user to decide whether they want to break the law by building VLC or mplayer with the DeCSS code linked in.
It does suck, though, that most distributions won't provide DVD playback "out of the box," at least here in the States. But since distributions like Gentoo are meta-distributions, they don't have to ship any offending code or binaries on the disc, so they're covered. Just emerge mplayer (or emerge vlc after enabling the experimental ebuilds) and go to town.
Presumably, some company that provides a Linux distribution for commercial sale could pay the appropriate licensing fees to Frauenhofer for Lame and to the DVD-CCA for DeCSS (or some other crypto) so they could ship all these libraries in the box... but these entitites would probably balk at allowing the source code to ship as well, and that is a deal-breaker for most Linux advocates.
He was being sarcastic, I think. He was saying, "Gee, it's a shame that I can no longer do all this stuff," when you know perfectly well that it can be done, and is done... just illegally. I'm personally bemoaning the fact that Fedora Core had to yank a bunch of packages or otherwise cripple them so that they won't run afoul of the law. (Since Fedora Core is being given away for free, not sold in a box, non-free software just can't be included, nor can software that might violate someone's draconian IP laws.)
...neither of them very good.
The first possible outcome is that the rate of hardware development and innovation drops precipitously, and the hardware side of the IT equation stagnates. Release cycles for hardware get very long because there's no incentive to release new hardware with incremental improvements every month/year/whatever.
The other possible outcome is that corporate America buys into this vision and increases the turnover rate for hardware. Companies will stop purchasing hardware, so we'll see corporations treating servers and desktop PCs the way some people now treat their leased cars. This isn't sustainable, though, as someone will have to take the old equipment and do something with it. Wouldn't it be a shame if all that obsolescent equipment just wound up in land fills? Oh, sure, a fair percentage of it will be resold cheaply, just like lease returns get resold in used car lots all the time. But some equipment has a very limited market (e.g., rack mount servers and workstations).
And of course, resales of previously leased hardware will be problematic if there are hardware mechanisms to tie the hardware to a specific software suite or OS.
You're not being pedantic, you're being factual. And I, for one, am glad to see I'm not the only person bothered by this recent trend in elevating LimeWire to the status of being its own file sharing network (when it's clearly a Gnutella client).
This is why reading comprehension is such an important skill, and why you apparently need to brush up on yours.
To make sure we're all on the same page, let me re-quote the sentence in question from the Samsung press release:
The "and" links two separate thoughts in the aforementioned sentence. It is not explicitly stated what kind of 15" display is being talked about. You could claim that they are implying a 15" LCD display, but that's an unwarranted assumption, from a strict grammatical viewpoint. (And just to be clear, the "they" in the previous sentence refers to Samsung's PR/marketing people who put this press release together.)
The reason I brought attention to this is that such weasel tactics have been used in product marketing in the past to hide facts about the product being marketed. Maybe the prototype 17" OLED display had worse power dissipation than a comparable LCD display, so the marketroids compared it to a 15" CRT display. While I doubt this is actually the case, I want people to start reading these press releases with a more critical eye. You might not appreciate the fine hair splitting, but a lawyer sure does.
Ideally, OLED displays should be significantly less power-hungry than LCD displays by virtue of not requiring a backlight.
Personally, I'm looking forward to bypassing the LCD and plasma "revolution," and going straight from CRT to OLED technology for the displays in my home. Considering the heat put out by plasma televisions, and the fact that I live in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona, my air conditioning system will thank me for the transition. And it'll be nice to have a display with a small desktop footprint for my G5 which is also adequate for gaming (and if the color gamut is good, it'll be adequate for Photoshop work too).
It's nice to see that reading comprehension has dwindled to nothing these days. The article does not say that the file was downloaded "via" Limewire. And I never said that there was a statement excluding other Gnutella clients, but as you know, sometimes what goes unsaid is just as important as what is actually said. It might not occur to less technically inclined people that there is a distinction between Limewire (the client) and Gnutella (the P2P network).
To prove my point, here's a quote from the Slashdot article. (Emphasis mine.)
You don't download things from Limewire. You download software from the Gnutella network with (or using) Limewire. The distinction is subtle but important.
For comparison, here's how the MacCentral article read:
By contrast, here's how the incident was reported on Macintouch: This is taken almost verbatim from Intego's own web page detailing the Trojan. Interestingly enough, "Limewire" isn't mentioned once on that page.
I know all this, and fail to see what your point is. My point was simply this: Just because a product is demonstrated first on a Mac doesn't mean it will make it to the Mac, or that it will arrive first on the Mac. I provided a real-world example. Yes, I know Halo is kind of unique because Bungie used to be a Mac developer, and then whored themselves to Microsoft. However, that doesn't make my example any less valid.
Doom 3 was apparently demoed "first" on Mac OS X, according to the poster I was responding to. Their assertion was that this is a guarantee that Doom 3 will be available for the Mac platform. I am simply stating that this is not a guarantee. We'll be very lucky indeed if we see Doom 3 at all on the Mac -- id needs to make a business case to promote a Mac port, and even though they're throwing in a Linux port "for free," that's not a guarantee that anything will make it to the Mac.
Personally, I'm guessing we'll see Doom 3 on OS X within a month or two of the Windows release. A simultaneous release would be nice, but may not happen.
If id doesn't do the OS X port themselves (a possibility, though unlikely as they insisted on doing Quake 3 for the Mac themselves), there are always other Mac software houses that can step into the breech and take over this role. And surely some company would, but then the delay might be measured at far more than two months.
I took the MacCentral website (which is now run by Macworld) to task for this, and I'll take Slashdot to task for the same thing. In some of the more reputable Mac-related news sites, this story was more accurately covered; the Trojan in question was downloaded from the Gnutella network. Limewire is not a network, it's a Gnutella client -- yet sites like MacCentral reported that the file was downloaded from the LimeWire network. Now on Slashdot, we're seeing much the same thing -- as if to imply that this Trojan is somehow only available with Limewire.
Since there are at least 3 other Gnutella clients available for Mac OS X (Phex, Acquisition, and XFactor are the ones I know of), there are many more potential vectors for this Trojan to find its way onto a Mac user's computer.
Yeah, I know, it's asinine to trade warez on any P2P network...
There's nothing to stop this Trojan from making it to other file sharing networks, except perhaps a dose of common sense, so this isn't even a Gnutella-specific problem. I'm just a little peeved with sloppy news reporting.
And this is puzzling to me, because early in the development cycle, we were assured by id that there would be some form of multiplayer in Doom 3, albeit not the kind of multiplayer that Quake 3 was famous for (and, frankly, designed for).
Now we find out that multiplayer is Xbox-only... and the article really doesn't give much detail on the real reasons why this decision was made! I think the excuses given in the published interview were lame. Multiplayer (cooperative or not) is what made the original Doom franchise so much fun, and gave it such lasting replay value.
My guess is that Microsoft insisted that the Xbox version have unique features not present in other versions, and since Microsoft is busy pimping Xbox Live, that was a reasonable area for id to concede and focus on for Xbox. I suspect that a lot of gamers are going to cry foul, and id may wind up releasing a patch for the PC, Linux, and Mac versions of Doom 3 that enables multiplayer.
Speaking of the Mac version, that's another thing that's not got a lot of mention lately. Early in the development cycle, we were assured that there would be a Mac version of Doom 3, but nobody's spoken about it much recently. Perhaps this, like PC multiplayer, got dropped from the roadmap?
The first Doom 3 demo may have been at Macworld, but if you go by historical precedent, that's no guarantee that a game will come to the Mac in a timely fashion. I am, of course, referring to Halo.
Halo eventually made it to the Mac, after the PC port made it to market. Yet the first public demo of Halo was at Macworld, on the (then cutting edge) G4 PowerMac.
Funny, but many people are able to get into the iTunes Music Store and make purchases without a credit card. That's why Target is selling stored-value cards for the iTMS starting at $15 a pop.
Also, you can get credit from others as "allowances." It's pretty spiffy, especially for parents. This way, kids who aren't old enough to qualify for a credit card can still make purchases.
Nick Meyer did not direct Star Trek IV. It was directed by Leonard Nimoy, who also directed Star Trek III. (You can see this on the IMDb page for ST IV.) Nicholas Meyer is one of four people with screenplay credits on ST IV.
Incidentally, Star Trek II was not Nicholas Meyer's directorial debut either; that was the movie Time After Time, which is one of my all-time favorites. (Premise: H.G. Wells really builds a time machine, and uses it to pursue Jack the Ripper to the 1970s.)
But yeah, Meyer did a lot of work on Star Trek, both directing and writing. He knows what works and what doesn't. I think he'd be an excellent replacement for Rick-f**king-Berman.
Well, it'd be nice if you could qualify "lots" a bit better. Maybe a real quantitative figure. But then again, you can get that from the product spec sheet. Yeah, Winamp plays more formats than iTunes. But iTunes natively plays the formats I most care about (except for Ogg Vorbis, which requires a plugin).
If you want to dick around with video, there's Quicktime Player and a hundred other applications and utilities that let you view it and more. I don't understand why Nullsoft put video capabilities in Winamp. But hey, if it floats your boat, great.
Incidentally, if you want an alternative to iTunes on the Mac that supports skinning and variable opacity and other nifty eye candy, as well as native Ogg Vorbis support, I'd recommend Audion.
Other notes...
I don't consider this to be much of an advantage for Winamp. It's nifty, but the application already has a petite interface by default, so I don't understand what value you get from spreading the pieces apart.
This is factually incorrect. iTunes defaults to managing your library for you, but you can turn this off and have it simply access the files where you want to keep them.
Actually, I know from personal experience that you're wrong. My computer illiterate girlfriend has an iBook (one of the all-white 2001 models with dual USB ports) and a 15 GB iPod. She routinely imports songs from CDs and then moves them into playlists that are hosted only on the iPod; once there, she deletes them from the iBook's local storage. So her iBook's precious hard drive space is conserved, and the music is put exactly where she needs it. And when she synchronizes, the songs that are only on the iPod stay on the iPod; they don't disappear, as you assert.
So if my girlfriend, who is not in any special way computer savvy, but who knows how to experiment with something until it does what she wants (and who isn't paralyzed by the fear of screwing up), can figure this out... then it can't be that non-obvious.
I have to admit, though, I was pretty surprised when I saw that she could do this. I was incredulous, in fact. But she showed me how she did it, and after she showed me, I smacked my forehead. "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Well, it's because most people (like myself) don't bother creating iPod-only playlists inside of iTunes.
Like most Apple software, there are a lot of features in iTunes that aren't exactly hidden, but they're not in-your-face either; these little gems are often discovered by accident, or by reading a book of hints and tips. Many of these features are undocumented or poorly documented, something that is IMHO a flaw, but in keeping with Apple's philosophy that one should not need to read documentation to use a product.
(For those who are curious, I just called my SO to ask her, and she says there's a preference, either in iTunes or in iSync, that lets you turn off automatic music synchronization while separately turning on automatic synchronization of other things, such as contacts and calendars. Once you do that, you can manually copy music to your iPod and manually manage what's on your iPod, including creating iPod-only playlists that have songs not on your host computer's hard drive.)