My killer app for Windows is Quicken. I've been using it since version 1, back before Linux's kernel hit 1.0 and before GNUcash development was started. My file is something like 12 MB in size. Whenever the topic of "how do I migrate from Quicken for Windows to GNUcash?" comes up, the solution involves a very tedious and lossy export/import of QIF files, usually with some childish jabs as to why I would ever use such a closed platform.
Please provide an example of Wired "redefining what they want vaporware to mean whenever it doesn't fit something they want to put on the list." Please provide an example of Wired using a different definition "for each item they consider." If you're just going to jab at their color scheme and hipster-futurist attitude, that's fine but off-topic.
And the only things Google's good for are serving ads, aggregating your personal information to serve you more ads, and rewriting otherwise-passable native applications in JavaScript. I take Google as seriously as you take Wired nowadays.
According to Wired's definition, it's vaporware. From the article:
Sure, millions of people use these [Google] services every day, but by our definition, they're vaporware: "Any program that's in a never-ending, pre-release, beta-testing stage is considered vaporware, even if it's widely available."
Any negative comments about a Google service are dismissed with "it's in beta, what do you expect?" on Slashdot. Google releases products when they're ready and they take a long time to become ready.
I would still consider Duke Nukem Forever to be vaporware if a demo were leaked to peer-to-peer networks, since it's been promised for years and never delivered in a final shipping version.
(Full disclosure: In the Wired article I was quoted about Google's perpetual beta cycle. Woo hoo! Now I know how pompous blogger who thinks he's a renowned expert on everything because he got one brief quote in an article written by the mainstream media he pretends to hate feels!)
The PSX had a DVD+/-R burner for burning copies of recorded shows. Though there are a number of devices which perform such a function, the only one I know of offhand is the Humax DVD Recorder with TiVo. At $400-$500 plus $300 for a lifetime of TiVo service plus $150 for the separate PlayStation 2 you'd buy, the Humax recorder is comparable to the cost of a PSX (¥79800-¥99800 at launch, about US$670-$840 with the current exchange rate).
If I see some stranger across the street futzing with a metal cylindrical object stopping only to stare at a small computer screen, I'm not calling the cops; I'm calling Jack Bauer.
I tried using my cable modem when I was traveling, but truck drivers complained about the 400-mile length of cable running behind my car. The speeds were awful too.
Then I tried 802.11g, but the cops made me pick up all the Pringles can repeaters I planted on the side of the road.
So $60 a month for wireless access is pretty good.
Verizon Wireless -- Can you read what I'm typing now? Good!
How much memory do you have? I tried running Windows XP in VPC6 on a 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4 with 768 MB RAM, and it was so slow you could watch individual elements of dialog boxes repaint. I didn't even try to install Microsoft Office with that level of responsiveness.
Right, that's why I used the term "argument" instead of "proof." As Snopes points out, a postmark on an envelope only means the envelope went through the postal service on the date indicated. You could always unseal and reseal the envelope later. The postal service didn't inspect or register the contents of the envelope -- for 39 cents I wouldn't expect them to. It doesn't "establish original ownership" since there's no proof that I created or own the rights to the contents of the envelope. All you get with the "poor man's copyright" is a stamp on the front of an envelope.
Yes, those should be forbidden for production work. They are test software only and are subject to break or change at any time in any way. If you rely on Google Base for your custom-built web application, or if you rely on Google Mail for your business e-mail, and either goes down, you get a big fat "I told you so" for relying too heavily on beta software. Sorry.
National postal services can still provide a mark of integrity. In the U.K., although not the U.S., writing a letter to yourself can be used as an argument of prior authorship. Also, registered mail with a return receipt actually works in the US Postal Service: you can get hard proof that a user received a letter, whereas with e-mail who knows what happened to that letter you sent. No e-mail client is required to honor an electronic return receipt request.
In the U.S. opening someone else's mail quickly escalates to the level of a federal crime. Opening someone else's e-mail has fewer legal ramifications, and those idiotic "For the intended recipients only" disclaimers do nothing to protect unencrypted messages. Everyone ought to be taught in E-mail 101 to never send important information through unencrypted e-mail, or at least not to get pissed off when you learn that someone in Eastern Europe just grabbed that "password protected" Excel file you sent yesterday.
And to answer your question, yes, I have sent a friendly letter using the postal service. I wrote a letter to a local police department commending the officer who helped me when I got a flat tire a few years ago. I got an equally friendly response. A friendly letter warms the cockles of one's heart more than a friendly e-mail does.
Yeah, it makes me think how desperate Nintendo DS owners are. They collectively paid millions of dollars to buy a device touted as having "built-in Wi-Fi" only to bore of PictoChat and local apps like the Metroid FPS demo. Now that three current games support Wi-Fi play on the Internet, eager DS owners pony up even more cash to find a system that requires clunky code entry to play against your friends and has all sorts of idiotic connectivity problems.
The two aren't comparable. Xbox Live (no exclamation point) lets you download games, buy extra content, and play any game which supports its APIs. The Nintendo DS requires every application to implement network connectivity in its own way. Your copy of Mario Kart DS won't support WPA because your cartridge didn't come with the appropriate software to do that. On the Xbox, the network is abstracted away: it could be a wired or wireless connection with whatever encryption, and the games will play the same way. It's even possible to patch games or the Xbox Live system over the Internet, though few games have needed patching.
Microsoft is running a buttload of servers to keep everything running, paying a ton of people to handle abuse reports and maintain said servers, and losing money on the hardware as it is. I think $50 a year, or about $4 a month, is reasonable compensation for what is on the whole a very reliable and scalable gaming service where cheating is absolutely forbidden. If you disagree you are free to not use it. Blizzard, EA, etc., run their own servers for free, but they're not selling $400 game consoles at a loss. Furthermore, if you don't feel that a UI skin is worth the 80 cents or so Microsoft sells it for, you are free to not buy it. So far none of the content I've seen on Live marketplace actually has an effect on the gameplay.
Actually, it's both. If you go to http://yro.slashdot.org/ you'll see the Boing Boing story listed. Blocking YRO blocks all stories associated with the topic, even if they're associated with other topics you like.
The update only goes out if you use Live. If you want to hack your Xbox, don't use Live. Microsoft's been pretty quick in disabling accounts of people who have signed on from hacked Xboxes.
It's possible that some new games will surreptitiously install the firmware upgrade upon first boot (as I understand happens with the PSP), but again -- if you're hacking your Xbox, what are you doing spending $60 for games you could be downloading for free?
The word you're looking for is trendy. There is a subset of the on-line population who absolutely must have the newest stuff. Since everything on the web is being rushed to market before it's scalable (perpetual "beta" periods, invitation-only services, etc) it's trendy to be trendy.
As a fellow former BBSer, I find it best not to take the zealots or anti-zealots too seriously. Yes it's annoying to see ten-year-old technologies like RSS pumped up as the Next Big Thing, but I remember when messages were routed by phone lines during Zone Mail Hour.:)
Slashdot Mirror
My killer app for Windows is Quicken. I've been using it since version 1, back before Linux's kernel hit 1.0 and before GNUcash development was started. My file is something like 12 MB in size. Whenever the topic of "how do I migrate from Quicken for Windows to GNUcash?" comes up, the solution involves a very tedious and lossy export/import of QIF files, usually with some childish jabs as to why I would ever use such a closed platform.
I bought a Windows PC specifically to run Quicken after seeing how unbelievably awful Quicken for Mac is: the migration process from Quicken/Windows to Quicken/Mac is nearly as bad as the one from Quicken/Windows to GNUcash.
Show me a program that can import my whole Quicken for Windows file into a Free Libre Software program format, and I'll go down on you.
Please provide an example of Wired "redefining what they want vaporware to mean whenever it doesn't fit something they want to put on the list." Please provide an example of Wired using a different definition "for each item they consider." If you're just going to jab at their color scheme and hipster-futurist attitude, that's fine but off-topic.
And the only things Google's good for are serving ads, aggregating your personal information to serve you more ads, and rewriting otherwise-passable native applications in JavaScript. I take Google as seriously as you take Wired nowadays.
According to Wired's definition, it's vaporware. From the article:
Any negative comments about a Google service are dismissed with "it's in beta, what do you expect?" on Slashdot. Google releases products when they're ready and they take a long time to become ready.
I would still consider Duke Nukem Forever to be vaporware if a demo were leaked to peer-to-peer networks, since it's been promised for years and never delivered in a final shipping version.
(Full disclosure: In the Wired article I was quoted about Google's perpetual beta cycle. Woo hoo! Now I know how pompous blogger who thinks he's a renowned expert on everything because he got one brief quote in an article written by the mainstream media he pretends to hate feels!)
The PSX had a DVD+/-R burner for burning copies of recorded shows. Though there are a number of devices which perform such a function, the only one I know of offhand is the Humax DVD Recorder with TiVo. At $400-$500 plus $300 for a lifetime of TiVo service plus $150 for the separate PlayStation 2 you'd buy, the Humax recorder is comparable to the cost of a PSX (¥79800-¥99800 at launch, about US$670-$840 with the current exchange rate).
If I see some stranger across the street futzing with a metal cylindrical object stopping only to stare at a small computer screen, I'm not calling the cops; I'm calling Jack Bauer.
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I tried using my cable modem when I was traveling, but truck drivers complained about the 400-mile length of cable running behind my car. The speeds were awful too.
Then I tried 802.11g, but the cops made me pick up all the Pringles can repeaters I planted on the side of the road.
So $60 a month for wireless access is pretty good.
Verizon Wireless -- Can you read what I'm typing now? Good!
SPONSORED POST
How much memory do you have? I tried running Windows XP in VPC6 on a 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4 with 768 MB RAM, and it was so slow you could watch individual elements of dialog boxes repaint. I didn't even try to install Microsoft Office with that level of responsiveness.
Right, that's why I used the term "argument" instead of "proof." As Snopes points out, a postmark on an envelope only means the envelope went through the postal service on the date indicated. You could always unseal and reseal the envelope later. The postal service didn't inspect or register the contents of the envelope -- for 39 cents I wouldn't expect them to. It doesn't "establish original ownership" since there's no proof that I created or own the rights to the contents of the envelope. All you get with the "poor man's copyright" is a stamp on the front of an envelope.
Holy crap, Xoom! I thought they were a competitor to Geocities in the free-home-page market.
Remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel?
yes
Yes, those should be forbidden for production work. They are test software only and are subject to break or change at any time in any way. If you rely on Google Base for your custom-built web application, or if you rely on Google Mail for your business e-mail, and either goes down, you get a big fat "I told you so" for relying too heavily on beta software. Sorry.
National postal services can still provide a mark of integrity. In the U.K., although not the U.S., writing a letter to yourself can be used as an argument of prior authorship. Also, registered mail with a return receipt actually works in the US Postal Service: you can get hard proof that a user received a letter, whereas with e-mail who knows what happened to that letter you sent. No e-mail client is required to honor an electronic return receipt request.
In the U.S. opening someone else's mail quickly escalates to the level of a federal crime. Opening someone else's e-mail has fewer legal ramifications, and those idiotic "For the intended recipients only" disclaimers do nothing to protect unencrypted messages. Everyone ought to be taught in E-mail 101 to never send important information through unencrypted e-mail, or at least not to get pissed off when you learn that someone in Eastern Europe just grabbed that "password protected" Excel file you sent yesterday.
And to answer your question, yes, I have sent a friendly letter using the postal service. I wrote a letter to a local police department commending the officer who helped me when I got a flat tire a few years ago. I got an equally friendly response. A friendly letter warms the cockles of one's heart more than a friendly e-mail does.
Well, a "decent mobile phone" could cost you $20,000 -- probably more if you get one of the "diamonds" models.
Yeah, it makes me think how desperate Nintendo DS owners are. They collectively paid millions of dollars to buy a device touted as having "built-in Wi-Fi" only to bore of PictoChat and local apps like the Metroid FPS demo. Now that three current games support Wi-Fi play on the Internet, eager DS owners pony up even more cash to find a system that requires clunky code entry to play against your friends and has all sorts of idiotic connectivity problems.
The two aren't comparable. Xbox Live (no exclamation point) lets you download games, buy extra content, and play any game which supports its APIs. The Nintendo DS requires every application to implement network connectivity in its own way. Your copy of Mario Kart DS won't support WPA because your cartridge didn't come with the appropriate software to do that. On the Xbox, the network is abstracted away: it could be a wired or wireless connection with whatever encryption, and the games will play the same way. It's even possible to patch games or the Xbox Live system over the Internet, though few games have needed patching.
While we're on the topic, let's take a look at the list of games which will work with the DS's wi-fi abilities. Wow, five games, two of which aren't released yet. I bet Tetris DS is going to be a blast, though.
Microsoft is running a buttload of servers to keep everything running, paying a ton of people to handle abuse reports and maintain said servers, and losing money on the hardware as it is. I think $50 a year, or about $4 a month, is reasonable compensation for what is on the whole a very reliable and scalable gaming service where cheating is absolutely forbidden. If you disagree you are free to not use it. Blizzard, EA, etc., run their own servers for free, but they're not selling $400 game consoles at a loss. Furthermore, if you don't feel that a UI skin is worth the 80 cents or so Microsoft sells it for, you are free to not buy it. So far none of the content I've seen on Live marketplace actually has an effect on the gameplay.
Actually, it's both. If you go to http://yro.slashdot.org/ you'll see the Boing Boing story listed. Blocking YRO blocks all stories associated with the topic, even if they're associated with other topics you like.
Just uncheck YRO. If I wanted to see fake lawyers yelling at each other I'd watch The People's Court.
How exactly is the "LUNIX!!! WE WILL LOAD EMULATORZ ON UR CONSOLE! W00T X-CREW F0REVER! GREETZ NA BZ LKS I-0-I" crowd "Microsoft's biggest fans?"
The update only goes out if you use Live. If you want to hack your Xbox, don't use Live. Microsoft's been pretty quick in disabling accounts of people who have signed on from hacked Xboxes.
It's possible that some new games will surreptitiously install the firmware upgrade upon first boot (as I understand happens with the PSP), but again -- if you're hacking your Xbox, what are you doing spending $60 for games you could be downloading for free?
I've invented a new HTML tag that you can use to tag your own web pages! Here's an example:
/>
<meta name="keywords" content="rss,web 2.0,opml,javascript,ajax,css"
I hope all the popular search engines like HotBot pick it up soon.
The word you're looking for is trendy. There is a subset of the on-line population who absolutely must have the newest stuff. Since everything on the web is being rushed to market before it's scalable (perpetual "beta" periods, invitation-only services, etc) it's trendy to be trendy.
:)
As a fellow former BBSer, I find it best not to take the zealots or anti-zealots too seriously. Yes it's annoying to see ten-year-old technologies like RSS pumped up as the Next Big Thing, but I remember when messages were routed by phone lines during Zone Mail Hour.
The warm grip of the squid's mouth enveloped me like a mother's womb.
I must have my cupcakes! My sweet cakey treasures! Piping hot from their 40-Watt womb!!
Only if they could wrap it with some kind of DRM. You wouldn't want people freely copying the music they paid for, would you?