With a quick mental calculation, I believe there's around 10,000 man hours of work in the software of this product - not counting the hardware design and the ID, and not counting the significant code re-use from our common codebase. I guess some of you here will have a basic concept of the hourly rate of a good programmer.
When you put it that way, it's a total steal at $1500.00--when you divide the cost by the six units you'll sell.
The article says that not only the commercial skip is at issue, but also the sharing over the internet. This is something that TiVo can't do, but Replay intends to provide out of the box. Unless Replay/Sonicblue has a bigger agenda, they were morons for trying to go forward with this--it was a lawsuit magnet from the get-go.
Lots of people are suggesting that you use a large tape robot or some monstrous disk array. Don't. It's expensive and you don't need it.
Use small, discrete, but identical systems. It's more easily scalable, more reliable, and easier to implement. A 1U server with 72GB of internal disk and four-drive, 20-slot rackmount DLT autoloader gets you a well-buffered 12 MB/sec and 800GB of storage for under $30k. You can fit 14 of these systems in two 2.0M racks. For about $400k, you've got 168 MB/sec, 11.2 TB, and if one or two crap out you don't care.
There's no doubt it's a cool device. They'll just never sell any of them. The intersection of people who a) have firewire b) have $400 to spend on yet another way to play music and c) are willin g to listen to music on headphones is very small.
Don't get it for Christmas--get it in January when it will be down to $199.
Of course there are lots of reasons not to like this , but I think one selling point they would have would be better reception. Here in the hills of San Diego, lots of people can't get any sort of radio reception in their homes because they can't cover the valleys adequately. Driving around, reception drops in and out all the time. Personally I wouldn't shell out the bucks because I don't listen to that much music, but I can think of a lot of people around here who would.
Re:Good or bad... - in all seriousness
on
HP Buys Compaq
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· Score: 1
This merger is between two companies that sell into numerous related markets, where there are so many legitimate players in each market. In PC's Dell is #1 and they have 13% share. The "monopoly" created by merging any of the players doesn't limit the choices of personal or enterprise customers in any meaningful way. If HP can pull this off and make money in PC's it will only be better for the tech economy.
Microsoft doesn't have to buy anyone; they're already the huge share leader in every market they're in.
The .com business model is so over
on
Webvan Out Of Gas
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· Score: 1
Here in San Diego, I've used Webvan on numerous occasions. I found that their service was great; but with just about every order, something was missing, and the perishable items weren't nearly as good quality as I would choose at the grocery store.
The worse-business-model-than-webvan goes to whyrunout.com, which set up shop out here looking to be bought by someone else. They initially were giving out $50 in free groceries over the first four deliveries, would shop at your local grocery store (!), and didn't mark up their prices or charge a delivery fee (!!). I'm surprised they're still around (though they do charge a delivery fee).
A business model that would really work would be to bolt-on a webfront to your local grocery chain so that you could shop online, pay your $5.00 for some teenager to put your order together, and go pick it up. If there was a drive-through window where said teenager would drop the goods in your trunk, so much the better--mom doesn't have to let the kids out of the car. If someone makes money with this model I want a cut.
This keyboard is made by Kinesis Corporation, maker of other excellent ergonomic products like the Maxim keyboard I'm using right now. I've coveted the Evolution for some time now, but as the reviewer says, the trackpad sucks, and because the keyboard is so wide, your mouse is far enough away to become an ergo issue in itself. My Maxim doesn't have a pesky numeric keypad, so my trackball can snug in close where I don't have to reach to far for it.
This was done many many years ago. The Comfort Keyboard can be horizontal, vertical, or anything in between. A friend of mine broke his arm and used one of these because his cast confined his arm to handshaking position.
A coworker of mine had prints developed from several different print houses. Ofoto and Shutterfly seem to be the best, with a slight edge in color accuracy to Ofoto.
Here are some things I have learned from using various sites:
Shutterfly ships overseas.
Cartogra sells Ofoto prints and Yahoo Photos sells Shutterfly prints. Make sure you get your free prints from Cartogra when the free prints at Ofoto run out.
Yahoo's photo sharing lets you upload and download the full res images, but access controls are only public or Yahoo-id
Cartogra won't let you download the full image, but they will let you zoom in for detail. Ofoto only lets you see a small preview
Shutterfly lets you print, frame, & gift wrap photos as convenient, classy gifts
Shutterfly has an option to not do automatic color correction on your image, but I have not been able to calibrate myself to the results.
Shutterfly's interface for image editing on the web seems to be the best. You might not think it's important, but when you decide to order a 5x7 and a 4x6 from the same print it's nice to control the cropping yourself. Also, you can mock up matting for those classy photo gifts.
I second the recommendation of Amanda... I have used it for three years to back up 1TB on 25 machines and 300+ filesystems. I use a a 588-slot library with 4 DLT4k's and can produce any file from any night of the last 90 inside of 15 minutes. I have never been unable to fulfill a restore request.
As a Fitaly and FitalyStamp user, I can say that the Fitaly keyboard is great, and it enables the palm to be useful for things like note-taking that Graffiti is IMO too slow for. I can manage 50+ wpm with my palm down on a table and typing english prose.
However, it does have its drawbacks:
No more "no look" writing like you can do with graffiti
Hard to enter many nonalphanumeric symbols, eg. @
FitalyStamp prevents other graffiti-area hacks from working, eg. SwitchHack
My brain seems to remember how to type whole words, so when I type non-words I slow down to hunting and pecking again.
Sony already has the worst possible MP3 players--using the "Magic Gate" version of their already useless Memory Stick technology. They won't ever be a player in the MP3 space as long as they're part of RIAA.
When I bought mine in June, TiVo was cheaper, had more capacity, had better features, and better backers.
Today, the features and prices are converging, but TiVo still has the best array of alliances with media companies. This is why I think it will flourish. ReplayTV can hope to be bought by Microsoft, but I'd say its chances of flourishing on its own are small.
I don't know why you're seeing a 4 second delay, but I only see about 1/2 second. I've set up my cable feed and TiVo's output into PIP on my TV and can see only the 1/2 second delay between the two. Of course, if I pause the TiVo for a little bit I can get 4 seconds.
The question is not "Will MS be broken up?" but rather "What will the baby Bills be called?" It would be interesting to speculate on what they will be name. If they get Landor involved, maybe we'll end up with Officent, Internent, and Crashilent.
You definitely need a subscription to set it up and get it working, but the device would not croak if you didn't have one--it would just be much less interesting.
While I fully believe CNN can be a mouthpiece for TW's interests, the article was written by Emily Vander Veer, who is an author of various web books and does not appear to be affiliated with CNN/TW at all.
You're missing the point. Don't think of it so much as a digital VCR as much as your own personal TV network that only broadcasts the shows you like, whenever you want, without commercials. I never watch anything 'live' anymore, and I haven't seen a commercial in two months.. and I watch 4-5 hours of TV a week.
NBC, et al, if you're reading, disregard the previous, I watch each commercial several times over.
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With a quick mental calculation, I believe there's around 10,000 man hours of work in the software of this product - not counting the hardware design and the ID, and not counting the significant code re-use from our common codebase. I guess some of you here will have a basic concept of the hourly rate of a good programmer.
When you put it that way, it's a total steal at $1500.00--when you divide the cost by the six units you'll sell.
Sorry guys! I'm just the messenger.
Sonicblue: Hi, Tivo, we were thinking you might want to license this patent from us for $X.
Tivo: But that's not a valid patent, we've been doing that for years.
Sonicblue: Well, you can fight us if you'd like. I'm sure your lawyers will only charge you 10-100 times $X.
Tivo: hmmmm... okay, where do we send the money. We can always pass the cost on to the customer anyhow
The alternate ending is:
Tivo: Well, you can sue us if you like, but our investors will in fact pay our lawyers. Who is going to pay yours?
The article says that not only the commercial skip is at issue, but also the sharing over the internet. This is something that TiVo can't do, but Replay intends to provide out of the box. Unless Replay/Sonicblue has a bigger agenda, they were morons for trying to go forward with this--it was a lawsuit magnet from the get-go.
Lots of people are suggesting that you use a large tape robot or some monstrous disk array. Don't. It's expensive and you don't need it.
Use small, discrete, but identical systems. It's more easily scalable, more reliable, and easier to implement. A 1U server with 72GB of internal disk and four-drive, 20-slot rackmount DLT autoloader gets you a well-buffered 12 MB/sec and 800GB of storage for under $30k. You can fit 14 of these systems in two 2.0M racks. For about $400k, you've got 168 MB/sec, 11.2 TB, and if one or two crap out you don't care.
There's no doubt it's a cool device. They'll just never sell any of them. The intersection of people who a) have firewire b) have $400 to spend on yet another way to play music and c) are willin g to listen to music on headphones is very small.
Don't get it for Christmas--get it in January when it will be down to $199.
Of course there are lots of reasons not to like this , but I think one selling point they would have would be better reception. Here in the hills of San Diego, lots of people can't get any sort of radio reception in their homes because they can't cover the valleys adequately. Driving around, reception drops in and out all the time. Personally I wouldn't shell out the bucks because I don't listen to that much music, but I can think of a lot of people around here who would.
This merger is between two companies that sell into numerous related markets, where there are so many legitimate players in each market. In PC's Dell is #1 and they have 13% share. The "monopoly" created by merging any of the players doesn't limit the choices of personal or enterprise customers in any meaningful way. If HP can pull this off and make money in PC's it will only be better for the tech economy.
Microsoft doesn't have to buy anyone; they're already the huge share leader in every market they're in.
Here in San Diego, I've used Webvan on numerous occasions. I found that their service was great; but with just about every order, something was missing, and the perishable items weren't nearly as good quality as I would choose at the grocery store.
The worse-business-model-than-webvan goes to whyrunout.com, which set up shop out here looking to be bought by someone else. They initially were giving out $50 in free groceries over the first four deliveries, would shop at your local grocery store (!), and didn't mark up their prices or charge a delivery fee (!!). I'm surprised they're still around (though they do charge a delivery fee).
A business model that would really work would be to bolt-on a webfront to your local grocery chain so that you could shop online, pay your $5.00 for some teenager to put your order together, and go pick it up. If there was a drive-through window where said teenager would drop the goods in your trunk, so much the better--mom doesn't have to let the kids out of the car. If someone makes money with this model I want a cut.
This keyboard is made by Kinesis Corporation, maker of other excellent ergonomic products like the Maxim keyboard I'm using right now. I've coveted the Evolution for some time now, but as the reviewer says, the trackpad sucks, and because the keyboard is so wide, your mouse is far enough away to become an ergo issue in itself. My Maxim doesn't have a pesky numeric keypad, so my trackball can snug in close where I don't have to reach to far for it.
This was done many many years ago. The Comfort Keyboard can be horizontal, vertical, or anything in between. A friend of mine broke his arm and used one of these because his cast confined his arm to handshaking position.
A coworker of mine had prints developed from several different print houses. Ofoto and Shutterfly seem to be the best, with a slight edge in color accuracy to Ofoto.
Here are some things I have learned from using various sites:
www.ofoto.com
www.cartogra.com
www.shutterfly.com
photos.yahoo.com
I second the recommendation of Amanda... I have used it for three years to back up 1TB on 25 machines and 300+ filesystems. I use a a 588-slot library with 4 DLT4k's and can produce any file from any night of the last 90 inside of 15 minutes. I have never been unable to fulfill a restore request.
As a Fitaly and FitalyStamp user, I can say that the Fitaly keyboard is great, and it enables the palm to be useful for things like note-taking that Graffiti is IMO too slow for. I can manage 50+ wpm with my palm down on a table and typing english prose.
However, it does have its drawbacks:
Sony already has the worst possible MP3 players--using the "Magic Gate" version of their already useless Memory Stick technology. They won't ever be a player in the MP3 space as long as they're part of RIAA.
When I bought mine in June, TiVo was cheaper, had more capacity, had better features, and better backers.
Today, the features and prices are converging, but TiVo still has the best array of alliances with media companies. This is why I think it will flourish. ReplayTV can hope to be bought by Microsoft, but I'd say its chances of flourishing on its own are small.
I don't know why you're seeing a 4 second delay, but I only see about 1/2 second. I've set up my cable feed and TiVo's output into PIP on my TV and can see only the 1/2 second delay between the two. Of course, if I pause the TiVo for a little bit I can get 4 seconds.
The question is not "Will MS be broken up?" but rather "What will the baby Bills be called?" It would be interesting to speculate on what they will be name. If they get Landor involved, maybe we'll end up with Officent, Internent, and Crashilent.
You definitely need a subscription to set it up and get it working, but the device would not croak if you didn't have one--it would just be much less interesting.
TiVo is $400 after the current $100 rebate, and I doubt you would say that if you'd ever used one.
While I fully believe CNN can be a mouthpiece for TW's interests, the article was written by Emily Vander Veer, who is an author of various web books and does not appear to be affiliated with CNN/TW at all.
You're missing the point. Don't think of it so much as a digital VCR as much as your own personal TV network that only broadcasts the shows you like, whenever you want, without commercials. I never watch anything 'live' anymore, and I haven't seen a commercial in two months.. and I watch 4-5 hours of TV a week.
NBC, et al, if you're reading, disregard the previous, I watch each commercial several times over.