With the iPhone, Apple is attempting to redefine parts of the mobile phone market, not take over certain segments of it. Sort of like throw something at the wall and see if it sticks. Every company does this. I think 10 million is a bit aggressive, but that's why I am a tech guy, not a marketer.
Microsoft can continue to enjoy the business cell market for a while. If the iPhone proves to be successful with the personal market, then SJ will get more leverage to strongarm more networks to accept the "apple way". Then Microsoft will have legitimate reason to worry.
And everybody I know absolutely hates their windows mobile device, be it a phone, pda, or personal computer. The network service is spotty (not Microsoft's fault) but combined with the shoddy OS for these devices, some days it's a freaking miracle they work at all. My MDA frequently won't get email, refuses to sync, and sometimes corrupts messages such that the sync spreads the corruption to outlook on the laptop.
And it's not just a geek thing. Every higher up type hates it and will admit so when asked. That's where the illusion is. These people are used to frustration with technology so they just accept it. Ergo, we don't hear it as often.
If I were a multi-billionaire, I would give nearly all of my wealth to Apple so they could form their own network service and do phone service right. I don't need much: a snappy, reliable phone and service would be worth it.
Because Informative has become the new Funny moderation. The reason this happened over a period of 2-4 years is people figured out that they could pre-mod the "funny" mod'd posts to such a negative number that their own personal reading threshold would never see them. Thus escaping the innane* humor and recycled jokes that appear on Slashdot. And it's a way to game the moderation system because most people aren't going to pre-mod informative posts down to oblivion. Some people's parents, I tell ya.
* I say innane because after reading the same jokes with new trappings really started to impact how often I visited here. So by definition, innane is a point of view thing.
1) The company was formed at the early cusp of when businesses and lawyers started to realize that patents are the new way to do business. Not releasing a product for nearly 10 years is not surprising either. It is easy to get investors to float the company for that long, especially for a disruptive technology that this promises to be
2) Just a general statement about those entrenched or established in a market. Why would HP, whose major revenue comes from printers, endanger their cash flow by making a product that would decimate the current products?
3) a) They didn't think to put blank paper in the video. b) It impossible to know if the paper comes out completely dry when it is running that fast and the not being able to touch it. It may be damp but just look dry. c) A heavier stock, such as photo paper (obvious to see in the video) is being used. d )Somebody is off camera pulling the paper out of the way so the speed the paper comes out looks better.
4) 2 comments hardly make for astroturfing (or whatever the term is, I am not hip)
5) It's typical business to show hardly anything when a product hasn't been released yet.
All that said, it is healthy to show a cautious attitude in this age, when business are more interested in getting money than contributing to the standard of living.
It allows easy and quick modification of the page you are looking at. Most often use I have for it, is to 'Isolate' an article so I don't have to look at all the banners/advertisements/pop-up divs/annoyingly narrow width main content.
I wouldn't be surprised if they go after the ISP, the hosting company, and the doom9 community with DMCA violations. If you can't beat them technically, use the (broken with respect the DMCA) law.
Re:Let it rest in peace!
on
AmigaOS 4
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· Score: 1
Nice! I found 'Demons are Forever - DOC demo' there. I have been wanting that demo again for years. My copy was on a floppy that was corrupted. Time to unpack the A2000 again. Thanks.
Save your money
on
Plasma or LCD?
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Choose neither. If you must choose something then pick a DLP rear projection screen. It might cost a small percentage more for an eqault screen size.
All these display technologies have drawbacks. Price, reliability, viewing angle, color purity, resolution (both kinds) longevitiy, contrast, ambient lighting conditions and space needed. Rate those criteria in order of importance to you and spend your money wisely.
I happen to think that DLP rear projection has the most value given all those criteria and the owner will be the happier longer with their purchase.
Or you could save your money and wait for SED or Laser TV or other new display technologies coming out soon. Or read books. Or spend some quality time with the family / significant other(s). Or play games. Or go meet the neighbors, become friends with them, and enjoy their TV instead.:)
I've been watching Youtube for months now (>6) and I mostly watch the user generated vids. Yes it is nice to watch some copyrighted material, skits from "Whose Line is it Anyway" and "The Daily Show", but seriously I won't miss them. I am going to buy Whose Line anyway, and the other is topical for the most part.
The rest of it is crap anyway. According to me.
You have your own tastes which may involve copyrighted material. Well you really should buy it if you enjoy it. This stuff isn't free. Support what you like and more will be made. Simple economics.
Now I do agree that viral marketing is much more effective these days and the big studios are just now trying to get into the scene. IMO, they are failing badly too. There is a certain allure to being able to watch what some other normal person thinks is good. Not some big company which has been decided by committee what 'the market' wants right now. Have Youtube feed the votes right to the studios. That way it is a direct tie in to the Internet public what they want. They might even figure out how to market to us after seeing a pattern after a while.
Everquest (maybe even EQ2) has an afk mode that could be invoked regardless of the character's actions. Eventually that turned into a 'leave me alone' flag. It was nice because the afk tag could be seen appended to the name floating above the character.
As for the original rant I agree with you. Myself I liked leveling with my friends and doing all kinds of roleplaying. That did get old after a while and I would go on leveling binges. Then go back ro roleplaying and having that type of fun. The real nice thing about Everquest was since absolutely nothing quantifiable was given in the game, it was a very long time before people figured out how the various properties (spells, items, skills, etc) in the game worked. The first 2 years that EQ existed was a glorious time. Very realistic within the EQ world. You guessed most of the time and hoped it worked and eventually you figured out patterns that worked more often. Just like real life.
But I fear that the gaming industry will never see a MMORPOG like that again.:(
I hate these studies. Why? Because it is going to end up that, quote, Internet Addiction, unquote, will be used by people who want to blame their problems on something else out of their control. So they can just sit in some cozy little psychologists office dreaming up whatever they want to say while the lawyers on the case can use it to explain away some crime.
And the cycle repeats. It's just so sickening.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Whatever happened to people owning up to their own actions? Sure people make mistakes, it's called being human. It's also how humans grow. There maybe are are some peopled that are addicted to the Internet, in all the classical ways an addiction manifests themselves. But this so called addiction is so very different from nearly anything else. Can people be addicted to acquiring information? What about Lisa Nova or Numa Numa on You Tube? There are a few people that have natural tendancies to become over-absorbed by fantasy. I submit those proplems can be explained without this so called Internet Addiction.
You know what? For the people that realy do think they have a problem, this study is just another way of saying, "Come in, we know how addictive the Internet can be. We understand." and it will help a few genuine souls out there.
For the rest of the shit that will eventually happen because people love 'gaming' the system, they should be forced to live outside for a year. No house, no family visits, no supplies, just dump them out in some biome somewhere with a book on how best to survive. If they make it for that year, great. Now come back to society because you now know how to be useful. If they don't, inform the parents to their kid was too stupid to live. If they decide to have another, do better next time.
And that's another thing, it should be manadatory that parents take re-occuring classes on how to raise their kids given a geographical region. Just the basic shit. Like how to take care of them and teach them right from wrong according to the law of the day.
You obviously didn't like it or don't think you would like it based on descriptions from others. No harm in that. But for people that can suspend disbelief (like most movies requires) it *IS* pretty engaging.
So my gaming tastes aren't the same as yours. Fine. BG&E has been relegated to word of mouth advertising anyway. So what does it matter? There will be a few that will like it and a few more jaded players that don't.
The game starts with a cinematic sequence. It is pretty engaging. Then all of a sudden, you are thrown into battle with the Doms. These are the ultimate enemy of the planet Hillus and the galaxy. As you play the game, you find out why you are here what you are doing. You are a reporter tasked to expose the real thruth and inform the people. Along the way you actively see that teamwork and caring are rewarded. The cities change based on your progress. There are a very sad moments as well as a quite a few feel good moments. It is easy to identify with the main character.
The ending of the game throws everybody for a loop. It is a cliffhanger of galactic magnitude. On the support forum you'll find an online petition to continue the story in a sequel. http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/908103432 /m/907107432/p/1 It is filled with personal stories of how the game affected them and how much they want the story to continue.
It really is a heartwarming game and once you play it, you realize how much it stands out against your collection of games. If you enjoy adventure cinematic epic stories at all and can put up with somewhat limiting character control, the game is really worth your time. About 10 hours worth of your time.
Who designed or allow to be designed all the software that is used for spam, virus and other technodangerous programs? Sure, all the unwitting unsuspecting people out there that treat their computer as a black box should be ashamed of themselves. To use a windows computer safely these days requires a strong predilection to research and remembering security bulletins and knowing specifically how a computer does things. Which in of itself requires knowing about security models, social engineering, UI design and understaning geek lingo.
In short windows computers are no longer general use. Do you realize the implications of that statement? Well yes, of course you do gentle reader. Just this past month my mother called me her laptop died. Turned out a virus got in and overwrote some system files for Windows 2k. This is after telling her to not click on executables in emails, not answer any emails from banks without calling them, and plenty of other things that I read about daily. Even with constant reminders (voice and email) telling her to push the update button on AVG and looking at the results log and telling me if any red stop signs show up. She is now using a backup computer that I had laying around. This is Windows XP professional, installed with all the security trimmings (which shouldn't even be necessary on some level) of zone alarm, avg, and spybot - all setup to run automatically. I suggested that she get a mac mini for her next computer. She is thinking about it.
Yes windows has gotten better about educating users, but only after the situation is so bad that almost nothing can stop it. Vista betas already have viruses. That's insane!
Face it, this country has the most educated, nothing to do, do anything for business minded people ever. Heck the corporations are willfully fleecing the public and most of the them don't care that it's hapenning! "It's ok coming from us, because we use friendly advertising icons./nod/nod".
Speakers tend to sound better the more emotional attachment we have to them. The more reviews read finding out from somebody else how we shoudl think, our brain tells us that these speakers sound great. Well, that and pumped up bass. One of the many aspects of the psychoacoustic effect. And stereo equipment reviews know it./offtopic
These homemade jobbies look cool as heck. More than functional for background music. Which is all the iPod is for anyway. Def: background music. Music that is listened to while paying attention to another task, eg exercising, talking, or cleaning the house. These are obviously not suitable for critical listening, but then nearly all stereo equipement made these days are not suitable for this task. Although my brain tends to enjoy Martin Logans.:)
This is merely an opinion piece. It's easy to take the pragmatic road and dontate personal computing cycles to cancer research or something as equally earth based - citing return of results arguments.
I postulate that the returns for finding out if there is intelligent life in outer space has greater implications for the world's population. Not immediate concerns mind you (unless something extraordinary happens), but the practical usage will eventually seep out of the acedemic and scientific circles and benefit the population in ways that we cannot possibly imagine.
The opinion the journalist writes is the simple (IMO shallow) doubts of doing science for it's own sake.
Besides, this whole opinion is practically moot. There are MORE than enough extra computing cycles out there. People can choose to which project they wish to donate too. Slow news day perhaps.
I'm with you on Diablo 2. I've had that game ever since it's been released and I still play it at least a couple nights a week. And I still play Single Player! One of these days I should apply to Amazon Basin so my multi player experience will be the best it can be.
I know phones exist that nearly duplicate outlook-like PIM functionality. I own one, hello blackberry. I also know there are at least a couple phones that have the ability to schedule ringer changes (loud and vibrate for example) on a daily basis.
The problem is not one phone exists that has both and not all that extra crap: photo, music, internet, etc. All I want, and I suspect I am not the only one, is a phone with plenty of storage to store contact information in these you-can-reach-me-at-these-5-different-numbers age and ringtone scheduling. I don't need a freaking convergence device that marketing folk screw up and repeatedly dole out mis-functional features like they are dog biscuits.
Poeple wouldn't mind so much if it did all those things well. As it is now, the extra functions are merely toys and hardly funtional. In a lot of cases, businesses are putting the cabash on these picture phones. Theatures don't want picture phones either. Though I believe that's just paranoia since the so called quality of the pictures from a phone are dubious at best in such low lighting conditions.
If any cell phone makers are reading, here is my request: Make a phone that has an excellent PIM with multiple (at least 4) numbers and emails for contacts, with multiple addresses (at least 3) that is accessable from any mode of operation on the phone. Also let us manage rings in such a way that we can program it based on a calendar. Either repeating daily, weekly, monthly, you get the idea. Give the ability to have complete control over the ring. In addition, every cell phone maker should put in the ability to lock the outside buttons to not respond when desired. You know, for those times you have the phone in your pocket or in a less than ideal location (not on the hip clip like most think we need to have).
Scrapbook looks interesting. Looks like a better way to re-visit older pages without using the history. Web Developer is dang near indespensible for anybody who does anything with web development. Not a surprise that Chris got top prize for it. The rest of it - meh - doesn't suit my web habits. Expose for FIrefox, big whoop. I barely use expose on the Mac. The closest thing that I've seen for good tab visual managment is color coding via domain. Some of these extensions probably have that; I didn't look all that hard. Tabbrowser Preferences has it, but that beast of an extension is too top heavy.
Some other/.er mentioned Nextel phone(s) had this capability. I'll have to look that up. Cause I would love that. Currently I have my phone on vibrate as to not disturb my coworkers. When I leave the office I should remember to turn on the ringer, but sometimes do not. Have missed some calls that I should have answered. Contribute it to old age or whatever, but scheduling the ringer type on a daily or weekly basis would be a huge convenience to me.
I also like the idea of putting the cell phone in a 'do not disturb' mode. The caller gets shunted to voice mail immediately without the phone ringing at all. It would be nice if the the caller could hear a pre-recorded message for this mode./off to do research
The original article is an opinion piece. While they bolster their argument with existing AJAX technology pages, it doesn't change the fact that the author is extrapolating in hopes of being correct.
AJAX is a tool like everything else. It is not the end all to be all that some people may think it is. Some existing web based operations benefit from it, but quite a few won't. Security concerns are huge and most people haven't realized that yet. For example, you wouldn't want your online banking information flying around on the Internet in a spiffy new AJAX front end. The client side javascript has nearly all the algorithms to decode the information coming back from the bank servers. Not good.
In my opinion, AJAX works fine in trusted networks (like business intranets) and a few support critical areas. Other than that, it will be a nice tool for web toolkit designers to use when making the next version of blogging software or something like that. Using AJAX effectively requires design knowledge of three tiered systems. Without tools for the greater public to use, AJAX is a non-starter.
Splinter Cell. I enjoy the strategy aspect of the game, so much so that the replay value is quite high for me. It does require a pretty beefy computer and the Starforce copy protection is very annoying. I doubt I will buy the next game because of the CP. I still need to uninstall SC:CT and see if my DVD burner still works. If it doesn't UBI and Starforce are going to get email from me. Not that they'll listen...sigh....rant over.
Anyway, Splinter cell supports many different kinds of play styles. Provided you like the whole spy secret agency thing. Some don't and are even offended by it.
Pardon me for going completely off-topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine.
Why do people continually insist on trying to control the viewing experience of the visitor to their website? A lot of these bother me, but the most egredious one is people who hard code pixel widths in their table tags. http://webtips.dan.info/tables.html (that's just one page, there are many others) It's annoying. Why should I be punished for having a lot of screen real estate? If you must use a table, and until support for CSS3 tables are supported widely we'll be using them a lot, ignore the width setting, or set it to 100%. Only if your design is multi-column should you use defined widths for the tables. All added together they should equal 100%. Heck you shouldn't be using tables anyway. Use CSS instead. http://www.meyerweb.com/ is a good site for learning CSS. But for those lazy web programmers that insist on using tables to control the width of the content rendering,
will set the table widths to 100%. This javascript function doesn't work to well on multi table design or CSS width controlling madness, but every little bit helps. Remove the/. embedded spaces in the javascript function and paste it into a new Firefox bookmark. Then click on that bookmark whenever a site is controlling the viewing experience oh so helpfully./sarcasm (last part).
Slashdot Mirror
With the iPhone, Apple is attempting to redefine parts of the mobile phone market, not take over certain segments of it. Sort of like throw something at the wall and see if it sticks. Every company does this. I think 10 million is a bit aggressive, but that's why I am a tech guy, not a marketer.
Microsoft can continue to enjoy the business cell market for a while. If the iPhone proves to be successful with the personal market, then SJ will get more leverage to strongarm more networks to accept the "apple way". Then Microsoft will have legitimate reason to worry.
And everybody I know absolutely hates their windows mobile device, be it a phone, pda, or personal computer. The network service is spotty (not Microsoft's fault) but combined with the shoddy OS for these devices, some days it's a freaking miracle they work at all. My MDA frequently won't get email, refuses to sync, and sometimes corrupts messages such that the sync spreads the corruption to outlook on the laptop.
And it's not just a geek thing. Every higher up type hates it and will admit so when asked. That's where the illusion is. These people are used to frustration with technology so they just accept it. Ergo, we don't hear it as often.
If I were a multi-billionaire, I would give nearly all of my wealth to Apple so they could form their own network service and do phone service right. I don't need much: a snappy, reliable phone and service would be worth it.
I'll tell you why.
Because Informative has become the new Funny moderation. The reason this happened over a period of 2-4 years is people figured out that they could pre-mod the "funny" mod'd posts to such a negative number that their own personal reading threshold would never see them. Thus escaping the innane* humor and recycled jokes that appear on Slashdot. And it's a way to game the moderation system because most people aren't going to pre-mod informative posts down to oblivion. Some people's parents, I tell ya.
* I say innane because after reading the same jokes with new trappings really started to impact how often I visited here. So by definition, innane is a point of view thing.
My reasons for being less skeptical:
1) The company was formed at the early cusp of when businesses and lawyers started to realize that patents are the new way to do business. Not releasing a product for nearly 10 years is not surprising either. It is easy to get investors to float the company for that long, especially for a disruptive technology that this promises to be
2) Just a general statement about those entrenched or established in a market. Why would HP, whose major revenue comes from printers, endanger their cash flow by making a product that would decimate the current products?
3) a) They didn't think to put blank paper in the video. b) It impossible to know if the paper comes out completely dry when it is running that fast and the not being able to touch it. It may be damp but just look dry. c) A heavier stock, such as photo paper (obvious to see in the video) is being used. d )Somebody is off camera pulling the paper out of the way so the speed the paper comes out looks better.
4) 2 comments hardly make for astroturfing (or whatever the term is, I am not hip)
5) It's typical business to show hardly anything when a product hasn't been released yet.
All that said, it is healthy to show a cautious attitude in this age, when business are more interested in getting money than contributing to the standard of living.
http://karmatics.com/aardvark/
It allows easy and quick modification of the page you are looking at. Most often use I have for it, is to 'Isolate' an article so I don't have to look at all the banners/advertisements/pop-up divs/annoyingly narrow width main content.
I wouldn't be surprised if they go after the ISP, the hosting company, and the doom9 community with DMCA violations. If you can't beat them technically, use the (broken with respect the DMCA) law.
Nice! I found 'Demons are Forever - DOC demo' there. I have been wanting that demo again for years. My copy was on a floppy that was corrupted. Time to unpack the A2000 again. Thanks.
Choose neither. If you must choose something then pick a DLP rear projection screen. It might cost a small percentage more for an eqault screen size.
:)
All these display technologies have drawbacks. Price, reliability, viewing angle, color purity, resolution (both kinds) longevitiy, contrast, ambient lighting conditions and space needed. Rate those criteria in order of importance to you and spend your money wisely.
I happen to think that DLP rear projection has the most value given all those criteria and the owner will be the happier longer with their purchase.
Or you could save your money and wait for SED or Laser TV or other new display technologies coming out soon. Or read books. Or spend some quality time with the family / significant other(s). Or play games. Or go meet the neighbors, become friends with them, and enjoy their TV instead.
I've been watching Youtube for months now (>6) and I mostly watch the user generated vids. Yes it is nice to watch some copyrighted material, skits from "Whose Line is it Anyway" and "The Daily Show", but seriously I won't miss them. I am going to buy Whose Line anyway, and the other is topical for the most part.
The rest of it is crap anyway. According to me.
You have your own tastes which may involve copyrighted material. Well you really should buy it if you enjoy it. This stuff isn't free. Support what you like and more will be made. Simple economics.
Now I do agree that viral marketing is much more effective these days and the big studios are just now trying to get into the scene. IMO, they are failing badly too. There is a certain allure to being able to watch what some other normal person thinks is good. Not some big company which has been decided by committee what 'the market' wants right now. Have Youtube feed the votes right to the studios. That way it is a direct tie in to the Internet public what they want. They might even figure out how to market to us after seeing a pattern after a while.
"Now you can have your cake and eat it too".
All in good fun of course. Good show Microsofties.
Everquest (maybe even EQ2) has an afk mode that could be invoked regardless of the character's actions. Eventually that turned into a 'leave me alone' flag. It was nice because the afk tag could be seen appended to the name floating above the character.
:(
As for the original rant I agree with you. Myself I liked leveling with my friends and doing all kinds of roleplaying. That did get old after a while and I would go on leveling binges. Then go back ro roleplaying and having that type of fun. The real nice thing about Everquest was since absolutely nothing quantifiable was given in the game, it was a very long time before people figured out how the various properties (spells, items, skills, etc) in the game worked. The first 2 years that EQ existed was a glorious time. Very realistic within the EQ world. You guessed most of the time and hoped it worked and eventually you figured out patterns that worked more often. Just like real life.
But I fear that the gaming industry will never see a MMORPOG like that again.
I hate these studies. Why? Because it is going to end up that, quote, Internet Addiction, unquote, will be used by people who want to blame their problems on something else out of their control. So they can just sit in some cozy little psychologists office dreaming up whatever they want to say while the lawyers on the case can use it to explain away some crime.
And the cycle repeats. It's just so sickening.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Whatever happened to people owning up to their own actions? Sure people make mistakes, it's called being human. It's also how humans grow. There maybe are are some peopled that are addicted to the Internet, in all the classical ways an addiction manifests themselves. But this so called addiction is so very different from nearly anything else. Can people be addicted to acquiring information? What about Lisa Nova or Numa Numa on You Tube? There are a few people that have natural tendancies to become over-absorbed by fantasy. I submit those proplems can be explained without this so called Internet Addiction.
You know what? For the people that realy do think they have a problem, this study is just another way of saying, "Come in, we know how addictive the Internet can be. We understand." and it will help a few genuine souls out there.
For the rest of the shit that will eventually happen because people love 'gaming' the system, they should be forced to live outside for a year. No house, no family visits, no supplies, just dump them out in some biome somewhere with a book on how best to survive. If they make it for that year, great. Now come back to society because you now know how to be useful. If they don't, inform the parents to their kid was too stupid to live. If they decide to have another, do better next time.
And that's another thing, it should be manadatory that parents take re-occuring classes on how to raise their kids given a geographical region. Just the basic shit. Like how to take care of them and teach them right from wrong according to the law of the day.
Ok. My bad, rant over.
I still hate these types of studies though.
You obviously didn't like it or don't think you would like it based on descriptions from others. No harm in that. But for people that can suspend disbelief (like most movies requires) it *IS* pretty engaging.
So my gaming tastes aren't the same as yours. Fine. BG&E has been relegated to word of mouth advertising anyway. So what does it matter? There will be a few that will like it and a few more jaded players that don't.
I dare say this is the way the world works.
The game starts with a cinematic sequence. It is pretty engaging. Then all of a sudden, you are thrown into battle with the Doms. These are the ultimate enemy of the planet Hillus and the galaxy. As you play the game, you find out why you are here what you are doing. You are a reporter tasked to expose the real thruth and inform the people. Along the way you actively see that teamwork and caring are rewarded. The cities change based on your progress. There are a very sad moments as well as a quite a few feel good moments. It is easy to identify with the main character.
2 /m/907107432/p/1 It is filled with personal stories of how the game affected them and how much they want the story to continue.
The ending of the game throws everybody for a loop. It is a cliffhanger of galactic magnitude. On the support forum you'll find an online petition to continue the story in a sequel. http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/90810343
It really is a heartwarming game and once you play it, you realize how much it stands out against your collection of games. If you enjoy adventure cinematic epic stories at all and can put up with somewhat limiting character control, the game is really worth your time. About 10 hours worth of your time.
Who designed or allow to be designed all the software that is used for spam, virus and other technodangerous programs? Sure, all the unwitting unsuspecting people out there that treat their computer as a black box should be ashamed of themselves. To use a windows computer safely these days requires a strong predilection to research and remembering security bulletins and knowing specifically how a computer does things. Which in of itself requires knowing about security models, social engineering, UI design and understaning geek lingo.
/nod /nod".
In short windows computers are no longer general use. Do you realize the implications of that statement? Well yes, of course you do gentle reader. Just this past month my mother called me her laptop died. Turned out a virus got in and overwrote some system files for Windows 2k. This is after telling her to not click on executables in emails, not answer any emails from banks without calling them, and plenty of other things that I read about daily. Even with constant reminders (voice and email) telling her to push the update button on AVG and looking at the results log and telling me if any red stop signs show up. She is now using a backup computer that I had laying around. This is Windows XP professional, installed with all the security trimmings (which shouldn't even be necessary on some level) of zone alarm, avg, and spybot - all setup to run automatically. I suggested that she get a mac mini for her next computer. She is thinking about it.
Yes windows has gotten better about educating users, but only after the situation is so bad that almost nothing can stop it. Vista betas already have viruses. That's insane!
Face it, this country has the most educated, nothing to do, do anything for business minded people ever. Heck the corporations are willfully fleecing the public and most of the them don't care that it's hapenning! "It's ok coming from us, because we use friendly advertising icons.
Makes me sick.
Speakers tend to sound better the more emotional attachment we have to them. The more reviews read finding out from somebody else how we shoudl think, our brain tells us that these speakers sound great. Well, that and pumped up bass. One of the many aspects of the psychoacoustic effect. And stereo equipment reviews know it. /offtopic
:)
These homemade jobbies look cool as heck. More than functional for background music. Which is all the iPod is for anyway. Def: background music. Music that is listened to while paying attention to another task, eg exercising, talking, or cleaning the house. These are obviously not suitable for critical listening, but then nearly all stereo equipement made these days are not suitable for this task. Although my brain tends to enjoy Martin Logans.
-FlynnMP3
This is merely an opinion piece. It's easy to take the pragmatic road and dontate personal computing cycles to cancer research or something as equally earth based - citing return of results arguments.
I postulate that the returns for finding out if there is intelligent life in outer space has greater implications for the world's population. Not immediate concerns mind you (unless something extraordinary happens), but the practical usage will eventually seep out of the acedemic and scientific circles and benefit the population in ways that we cannot possibly imagine.
The opinion the journalist writes is the simple (IMO shallow) doubts of doing science for it's own sake.
Besides, this whole opinion is practically moot. There are MORE than enough extra computing cycles out there. People can choose to which project they wish to donate too. Slow news day perhaps.
-FlynnMP3
I'm with you on Diablo 2. I've had that game ever since it's been released and I still play it at least a couple nights a week. And I still play Single Player! One of these days I should apply to Amazon Basin so my multi player experience will be the best it can be.
I know phones exist that nearly duplicate outlook-like PIM functionality. I own one, hello blackberry. I also know there are at least a couple phones that have the ability to schedule ringer changes (loud and vibrate for example) on a daily basis.
/sarcasm
The problem is not one phone exists that has both and not all that extra crap: photo, music, internet, etc. All I want, and I suspect I am not the only one, is a phone with plenty of storage to store contact information in these you-can-reach-me-at-these-5-different-numbers age and ringtone scheduling. I don't need a freaking convergence device that marketing folk screw up and repeatedly dole out mis-functional features like they are dog biscuits.
Capitalism at it's finest.
Poeple wouldn't mind so much if it did all those things well. As it is now, the extra functions are merely toys and hardly funtional. In a lot of cases, businesses are putting the cabash on these picture phones. Theatures don't want picture phones either. Though I believe that's just paranoia since the so called quality of the pictures from a phone are dubious at best in such low lighting conditions.
If any cell phone makers are reading, here is my request: Make a phone that has an excellent PIM with multiple (at least 4) numbers and emails for contacts, with multiple addresses (at least 3) that is accessable from any mode of operation on the phone. Also let us manage rings in such a way that we can program it based on a calendar. Either repeating daily, weekly, monthly, you get the idea. Give the ability to have complete control over the ring. In addition, every cell phone maker should put in the ability to lock the outside buttons to not respond when desired. You know, for those times you have the phone in your pocket or in a less than ideal location (not on the hip clip like most think we need to have).
Thanks.
Yours Truly,
A frustrated cell phone owner.
Some text to phyche out the spam filter.
Scrapbook looks interesting. Looks like a better way to re-visit older pages without using the history. Web Developer is dang near indespensible for anybody who does anything with web development. Not a surprise that Chris got top prize for it. The rest of it - meh - doesn't suit my web habits. Expose for FIrefox, big whoop. I barely use expose on the Mac. The closest thing that I've seen for good tab visual managment is color coding via domain. Some of these extensions probably have that; I didn't look all that hard. Tabbrowser Preferences has it, but that beast of an extension is too top heavy.
Some other /.er mentioned Nextel phone(s) had this capability. I'll have to look that up. Cause I would love that. Currently I have my phone on vibrate as to not disturb my coworkers. When I leave the office I should remember to turn on the ringer, but sometimes do not. Have missed some calls that I should have answered. Contribute it to old age or whatever, but scheduling the ringer type on a daily or weekly basis would be a huge convenience to me.
/off to do research
I also like the idea of putting the cell phone in a 'do not disturb' mode. The caller gets shunted to voice mail immediately without the phone ringing at all. It would be nice if the the caller could hear a pre-recorded message for this mode.
-FlynnMP3
The original article is an opinion piece. While they bolster their argument with existing AJAX technology pages, it doesn't change the fact that the author is extrapolating in hopes of being correct.
AJAX is a tool like everything else. It is not the end all to be all that some people may think it is. Some existing web based operations benefit from it, but quite a few won't. Security concerns are huge and most people haven't realized that yet. For example, you wouldn't want your online banking information flying around on the Internet in a spiffy new AJAX front end. The client side javascript has nearly all the algorithms to decode the information coming back from the bank servers. Not good.
In my opinion, AJAX works fine in trusted networks (like business intranets) and a few support critical areas. Other than that, it will be a nice tool for web toolkit designers to use when making the next version of blogging software or something like that. Using AJAX effectively requires design knowledge of three tiered systems. Without tools for the greater public to use, AJAX is a non-starter.
-FlynnMP3
Splinter Cell. I enjoy the strategy aspect of the game, so much so that the replay value is quite high for me. It does require a pretty beefy computer and the Starforce copy protection is very annoying. I doubt I will buy the next game because of the CP. I still need to uninstall SC:CT and see if my DVD burner still works. If it doesn't UBI and Starforce are going to get email from me. Not that they'll listen...sigh....rant over.
Anyway, Splinter cell supports many different kinds of play styles. Provided you like the whole spy secret agency thing. Some don't and are even offended by it.
Pardon me for going completely off-topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine.
o r(x=0;t[x];x++){if(t[x].width.indexOf(%22%%22)==-1 )t[x].removeAttribute(%22width%22);}t=document.get ElementsByTagName(%22td%22);for(x=0;t[x];x++){if(t [x].width.indexOf(%22%%22)==-1)t[x].removeAttribut e(%22width%22);}t=document.getElementsByTagName(%2 2th%22);for(x=0;t[x];x++){if(t[x].width.indexOf(%2 2%%22)==-1)t[x].removeAttribute(%22width%22);}t=do cument.getElementsByTagName(%22col%22);for(x=0;t[x ];x++){if(t[x].width.indexOf(%22%%22)==-1)t[x].rem oveAttribute(%22width%22);}})();
/. embedded spaces in the javascript function and paste it into a new Firefox bookmark. Then click on that bookmark whenever a site is controlling the viewing experience oh so helpfully. /sarcasm (last part).
Why do people continually insist on trying to control the viewing experience of the visitor to their website? A lot of these bother me, but the most egredious one is people who hard code pixel widths in their table tags. http://webtips.dan.info/tables.html (that's just one page, there are many others) It's annoying. Why should I be punished for having a lot of screen real estate? If you must use a table, and until support for CSS3 tables are supported widely we'll be using them a lot, ignore the width setting, or set it to 100%. Only if your design is multi-column should you use defined widths for the tables. All added together they should equal 100%. Heck you shouldn't be using tables anyway. Use CSS instead. http://www.meyerweb.com/ is a good site for learning CSS. But for those lazy web programmers that insist on using tables to control the width of the content rendering,
javascript:(function (){t=document.getElementsByTagName(%22table%22);f
will set the table widths to 100%. This javascript function doesn't work to well on multi table design or CSS width controlling madness, but every little bit helps. Remove the
-FlynnMP3