I was a subscriber to the old emusic years ago, and I still listen to many of the songs I downloaded. And I downloaded LOTS.
The new emusic with the download restrictions isn't as attractive to me because I like to download entire albums, but I see they've added a 90 downloads for $19.95 a month option, that's not too bad. I might subscribe again for a few months.
Well obviously it depends on how many bells & whistles you want. Personally I want none of the bundled software. DVD is useful for a home machine but not so much for a work machine.
Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs.
That's a dumb statement. What does the price of a PC have to do with anything? A $400 e-Machine runs the same Intel or AMD chip and same Windows XP that a $2000 Sony Vaio does.
They didn't seem to have much trouble with Best Buy. Yes, the trouble finding a salesperson, but not the during and after sales trouble. This was my Best Buy computer buying experience a few years ago:
I bought an $400 eMachines computer for my mom at Best Buy. I swear, they said they weren't on commission, but it took me 45 minutes to an hour to buy the computer. First, they said the eMachines aren't reliable and they break down a lot. Well I knew that was BS because we have 5 or 6 at work and they're all 100% reliable. I wanted to ask the girl why BB would sell them if they were crap, but I didn't want to open an alternate avenue of discussion. Anyway, by the time I was juggled among 2 or 3 different sales people and pounded with the SAME pitches for software, cables, printers, and of course the DREADED EXTENDED WARRANTY, it was almost an hour before I got out of ther. So I finally made it through the checkout and then the asst. manager chases me out the door telling me I forgot to get the free system test. There was no way in hell I was going to stand around another 10 or 15 minutes watching them plug the thing up.
The sales drones say they aren't on commission, but they must be threatened with major bodily harm if they don't sell enough software and extended warranties!
I went back a month or 2 later to buy another eMachine for my mom's office computer and I managed to get out in 30 minutes or so since I already knew what to expect, and it was during the day on a weekday.
Oh, BTW, a good tip I heard: To get the salesmen to notice you, study the most expensive computer thoughtfully. Then when they ask if they can help you tell them what you really want to buy.:)
There is no compelling reason that I should want a Mac to play games on. Why pay twice as much for hardware? WinXP works better for gaming than any Windows before it, once you reign in System Restore and things like that.
About the only way OSX will gain market share is by running on non-Apple hardware, or if there are some very sought-after games that only run on OSX. And I doubt Apple would want to give up their hardware biz, that's what NeXT did before they went under.
None of the displays have HDMI connectors and none of them support HDCP. This means you're not going to get a digital connection to your HD-DVD movies, but there is currently very little on the market that will.
That's too bad for those companies that are exclusively HDCP. I for one do not bow to the HDCP overlords.
Games are developed by different companies. What is the motivation for companies to work together on any sort of standard? Sony wouldn't particularly want Everquest players to pay for other online RPGs.
If it's going to happen, I think it will first happen between games made by the same company.
The problem is that we don't want that sh*t! We want our cellphones to to be used as tools not toys. Be that adding a camera was a good idea, despite the charges we have to pay for downloading and uploading photos. Heaven forbid we might use a USB cable and download these photos directly or upload our own ringtones that don't suck! Oh, that right, we have to buy [sh*t] music from iTunes.
You & I might not want ringtones but Young America(tm) sure as hell does. My GF thought it was cool she could buy snippets of songs for $2 each. All I could think is somebody was screwing my GF and it wasn't me.
When people pay $199.00 for the phone, $2 for a snippet of "My Humps", and $59.95 a month on top of all that I don't think things in the cellular market are going to get better any time soon. If people would stop paying out the ass for cell phones maybe they'd get cheaper.
Right now the cheapest option seems to be the Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go phones. All they require you to do is buy a $20 card every 90 days, so it's ~$6.66 a month if you don't talk much (which I don't.) The problem is their rural coverage isn't that good where I live.
I'm the "webmaster" of our domain(s). Our websites are fugly, but functional. I'm primarily a programmer. I can do HTML and I know what I like, but I'm not good at website design. We've been around since ~1994 when our first website was hosted on a NeXT workstation.
I think if you're offering something unique it really doesn't matter whether your site is pretty or ugly, as long as it's informative, functional, and you treat your customers right people will keep coming back.
-Who don't want to get viruses -Who don't want to get spam -Who don't want to pay $50 a month for fast Internet -Who don't want to mess with computers at all
When someone's computer gets all screwed up with viruses they often buy another computer to work around the problem. Maybe it's time to upgrade anyway, but sheesh that's a big investment just to surf the net.
The biggest thing that would get *me* off the Internet is the monthly $50 cost. Cable is the only option where I live, and Adelphia won't give us a break.
Yeah the ads piss me off majorly. I pay ~$22 for the tickets and there were ~10 minutes of ads before the previews. A lot of Coke ads. Blog at mycoke.com. Who the fuck would want to do that? Ads in movie theatres, great idea, they can piss off a whole theatre of paying customers that have already been majorly gouged for the tickets and snacks.
And it's even worse with kids. Taking my GF and our 2 kids to the movies cost ~$22 for the tickets (this was early-afternoon prices) and ~$15 for 2 kid's packs with SMALL drinks and a small (no I don't want the large for a quarter extra, it's already $3.85!!!) Dr Pep for me and the GF to share. That's $37 when we could have bought a 2-liter soda for.99, microwave popcorn for ~$3, and rented a movie for $3. $37 versus $7.
I will say the experience of actually going out and watching a movie in a theatre is good, but the economics just don't work.
A lifetime subscription is a good deal for many people. If you anticipate having your Tivo for more than 2 years, it would pay you to get the lifetime. ASSUMING nothing happens to the hardware. Most people don't.
I assume you mean Tivo, not TV. Apparently those that already own Tivos can continue to pay the $12.95 per month. Hopefully they won't raise that, they should lower it a bit if anything.
I don't know what TV listings the free PVRs use, but the way I see it the Tivo monthly service fee gives me (mostly accurate) schedules and with season passes Tivo will keep recording a show even when it moves to a different time and/or day. That and the very stable, well-designed interface are worth $12 a month to me.
Don't know how I'd feel about $19.95 a month, even if the hardware was free.
I'm not a Mac fan but why encourage people to hack Macs? This is almost like someone wants to destroy the smug "unhackable" world that Mac users live in.
People start hacking Macs and the next thing you know Mac viruses and worms are commonplace. Even if I don't hang out with my Mac neighbours, I don't wish them any harm.
If your kid has Internet access, yes he can download the Hot Coffee mod. It takes a deliberate action though. It's not something that gets accidentally enabled. It's something that Rockstar was working on but didn't become part of the final game. I don't see this as much differnet than buying a car with the build sheet left under the carpet.
But hell if he can download Hot Coffee, he can download tons of mods/skins/pictures/dirty stories/whatever. Nude skins for Lara Croft. Nude skins for The Sims. Just because part of Hot Coffee was already buried in the game, the distinction is minor when you can download tons of sex/nudity from the Internet.
After all this time when you hit Reply you don't have the quoted text of what you're replying to in the compose box. You have to hit Options then hit Reply to get quoted text. Who made that decision?
But the 360 costs $400 (if you could find it for that price), plus $60(!) for each game. Then they want $20 a month to play online!?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
My 3 year old souped-up gaming PC is looking better and better. Hell I just bought my sister a bare-bones computer to upgrade her current one for $300 from Newegg. AMD Sempron 64 2600+, MSI K8MM-V motherboard, eVGA 256MB FX 5500 video card, a nice case, and 1 GB of memory. $300!
I'll buy a 360 when they're $200 which will probably be 3 years from now.
Whatever the reason, hopefully the other networks will follow suit, and not just exclusively with Apple. I would be more likely to buy a TV show for $1.99 than a single song for $0.99.
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I was a subscriber to the old emusic years ago, and I still listen to many of the songs I downloaded. And I downloaded LOTS.
The new emusic with the download restrictions isn't as attractive to me because I like to download entire albums, but I see they've added a 90 downloads for $19.95 a month option, that's not too bad. I might subscribe again for a few months.
Well obviously it depends on how many bells & whistles you want. Personally I want none of the bundled software. DVD is useful for a home machine but not so much for a work machine.
Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs.
That's a dumb statement. What does the price of a PC have to do with anything? A $400 e-Machine runs the same Intel or AMD chip and same Windows XP that a $2000 Sony Vaio does.
They didn't seem to have much trouble with Best Buy. Yes, the trouble finding a salesperson, but not the during and after sales trouble. This was my Best Buy computer buying experience a few years ago:
I bought an $400 eMachines computer for my mom at Best Buy. I
swear, they said they weren't on commission, but it took me 45 minutes
to an hour to buy the computer. First, they said the eMachines aren't
reliable and they break down a lot. Well I knew that was BS because
we have 5 or 6 at work and they're all 100% reliable. I wanted to ask
the girl why BB would sell them if they were crap, but I didn't want
to open an alternate avenue of discussion. Anyway, by the time I was
juggled among 2 or 3 different sales people and pounded with the SAME
pitches for software, cables, printers, and of course the DREADED
EXTENDED WARRANTY, it was almost an hour before I got out of ther. So
I finally made it through the checkout and then the asst. manager
chases me out the door telling me I forgot to get the free system
test. There was no way in hell I was going to stand around another 10
or 15 minutes watching them plug the thing up.
The sales drones say they aren't on commission, but they must be
threatened with major bodily harm if they don't sell enough software
and extended warranties!
I went back a month or 2 later to buy another eMachine for my mom's
office computer and I managed to get out in 30 minutes or so since I
already knew what to expect, and it was during the day on a weekday.
Oh, BTW, a good tip I heard: To get the salesmen to notice you,
study the most expensive computer thoughtfully. Then when they ask if
they can help you tell them what you really want to buy.
There is no compelling reason that I should want a Mac to play games on. Why pay twice as much for hardware? WinXP works better for gaming than any Windows before it, once you reign in System Restore and things like that.
About the only way OSX will gain market share is by running on non-Apple hardware, or if there are some very sought-after games that only run on OSX. And I doubt Apple would want to give up their hardware biz, that's what NeXT did before they went under.
None of the displays have HDMI connectors and none of them support HDCP. This means you're not going to get a digital connection to your HD-DVD movies, but there is currently very little on the market that will.
That's too bad for those companies that are exclusively HDCP. I for one do not bow to the HDCP overlords.
I just ordered one of these babys from Newegg for $415, free 3-day shipping too.
Now I can get rid of my big old wood-burning monitor and get me some desktop space back.
Just had to share. Widescreen baby!
Games are developed by different companies. What is the motivation for companies to work together on any sort of standard? Sony wouldn't particularly want Everquest players to pay for other online RPGs.
If it's going to happen, I think it will first happen between games made by the same company.
Now Christmas is ruined!
The problem is that we don't want that sh*t! We want our cellphones to to be used as tools not toys. Be that adding a camera was a good idea, despite the charges we have to pay for downloading and uploading photos. Heaven forbid we might use a USB cable and download these photos directly or upload our own ringtones that don't suck! Oh, that right, we have to buy [sh*t] music from iTunes.
You & I might not want ringtones but Young America(tm) sure as hell does. My GF thought it was cool she could buy snippets of songs for $2 each. All I could think is somebody was screwing my GF and it wasn't me.
When people pay $199.00 for the phone, $2 for a snippet of "My Humps", and $59.95 a month on top of all that I don't think things in the cellular market are going to get better any time soon. If people would stop paying out the ass for cell phones maybe they'd get cheaper.
Right now the cheapest option seems to be the Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go phones. All they require you to do is buy a $20 card every 90 days, so it's ~$6.66 a month if you don't talk much (which I don't.) The problem is their rural coverage isn't that good where I live.
I'm the "webmaster" of our domain(s). Our websites are fugly, but functional. I'm primarily a programmer. I can do HTML and I know what I like, but I'm not good at website design. We've been around since ~1994 when our first website was hosted on a NeXT workstation.
I think if you're offering something unique it really doesn't matter whether your site is pretty or ugly, as long as it's informative, functional, and you treat your customers right people will keep coming back.
You're a programmer and you run Linux. You're not at all a typical computer user.
The Internet has to be worth it for those:
-Who don't want to get viruses
-Who don't want to get spam
-Who don't want to pay $50 a month for fast Internet
-Who don't want to mess with computers at all
When someone's computer gets all screwed up with viruses they often buy another computer to work around the problem. Maybe it's time to upgrade anyway, but sheesh that's a big investment just to surf the net.
The biggest thing that would get *me* off the Internet is the monthly $50 cost. Cable is the only option where I live, and Adelphia won't give us a break.
Yeah the ads piss me off majorly. I pay ~$22 for the tickets and there were ~10 minutes of ads before the previews. A lot of Coke ads. Blog at mycoke.com. Who the fuck would want to do that? Ads in movie theatres, great idea, they can piss off a whole theatre of paying customers that have already been majorly gouged for the tickets and snacks.
.99, microwave popcorn for ~$3, and rented a movie for $3. $37 versus $7.
And it's even worse with kids. Taking my GF and our 2 kids to the movies cost ~$22 for the tickets (this was early-afternoon prices) and ~$15 for 2 kid's packs with SMALL drinks and a small (no I don't want the large for a quarter extra, it's already $3.85!!!) Dr Pep for me and the GF to share. That's $37 when we could have bought a 2-liter soda for
I will say the experience of actually going out and watching a movie in a theatre is good, but the economics just don't work.
A lifetime subscription is a good deal for many people. If you anticipate having your Tivo for more than 2 years, it would pay you to get the lifetime. ASSUMING nothing happens to the hardware. Most people don't.
I assume you mean Tivo, not TV. Apparently those that already own Tivos can continue to pay the $12.95 per month. Hopefully they won't raise that, they should lower it a bit if anything.
I don't know what TV listings the free PVRs use, but the way I see it the Tivo monthly service fee gives me (mostly accurate) schedules and with season passes Tivo will keep recording a show even when it moves to a different time and/or day. That and the very stable, well-designed interface are worth $12 a month to me.
Don't know how I'd feel about $19.95 a month, even if the hardware was free.
I'm not a Mac fan but why encourage people to hack Macs? This is almost like someone wants to destroy the smug "unhackable" world that Mac users live in.
People start hacking Macs and the next thing you know Mac viruses and worms are commonplace. Even if I don't hang out with my Mac neighbours, I don't wish them any harm.
Yeah I'm sick of hearing about this too.
If your kid has Internet access, yes he can download the Hot Coffee mod. It takes a deliberate action though. It's not something that gets accidentally enabled. It's something that Rockstar was working on but didn't become part of the final game. I don't see this as much differnet than buying a car with the build sheet left under the carpet.
But hell if he can download Hot Coffee, he can download tons of mods/skins/pictures/dirty stories/whatever. Nude skins for Lara Croft. Nude skins for The Sims. Just because part of Hot Coffee was already buried in the game, the distinction is minor when you can download tons of sex/nudity from the Internet.
That's just a complicated way of saying "Keep an open mind and don't jump to conclusions."
After all this time when you hit Reply you don't have the quoted text of what you're replying to in the compose box. You have to hit Options then hit Reply to get quoted text. Who made that decision?
I'm starting to get the uneasy feeling that Google may be the anti-christ.
Just a theory.
No, it will be pr0n. ;)
Buy it for the pr0n.
Reading the review almost made me want a 360.
But the 360 costs $400 (if you could find it for that price), plus $60(!) for each game. Then they want $20 a month to play online!?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
My 3 year old souped-up gaming PC is looking better and better. Hell I just bought my sister a bare-bones computer to upgrade her current one for $300 from Newegg. AMD Sempron 64 2600+, MSI K8MM-V motherboard, eVGA 256MB FX 5500 video card, a nice case, and 1 GB of memory. $300!
I'll buy a 360 when they're $200 which will probably be 3 years from now.
Granted, it was only a matter of time, but someone had to go first, and it is apparently ABC.
. aspx?type=hotStocksNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reu ters.com:20051012:MTFH94947_2005-10-12_22-32-00_N1 2587305:1
The reason ABC went first is they're owned by Disney, and Disney is dying for a new deal with Steve Job's Pixar.
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle
Whatever the reason, hopefully the other networks will follow suit, and not just exclusively with Apple. I would be more likely to buy a TV show for $1.99 than a single song for $0.99.