Ha! Hardly. Many times the Flash player does not even render the same in different browsers on the same machine.
Although it has its flaws, Flash filled a gap that existed when there were few to no alternatives to producing content rich websites. As the web has matured there has become to exist more of a desire to have such dynamic content become standards based, thus supported and developed by the web community as a whole, without the need for additional plug-ins and players implementing proprietary technology.
I liken this to FAX vs e-mail. Online FAX providers aside, for the common user, most of the time its infinitely more convenient to simply scan and e-mail a document than it is to use a FAX machine to transmit the same document. With traditional land lines disappearing, this is becoming even more the case.
We always seem to drag legacy technology into the future and complain about how hard or how much of a burden it is to learn new technologies, which usually provide many benefits over the older technology. As fundamental human nature, people are simply resistant to change and stick with what they know. Look for this battle to drag on for some time to come.
The usual FUD here. Whitelists and blacklists already exist in packages such as Asterisk and aren't remotely difficult to setup and administer. Your VoIP network is only as succeptable to spit as you let it be. I suppose telemarketing calls to regular PSTN numbers don't qualify as "junk" as do unwanted calls to VoIP numbers all of a sudden?
As with anything running over the public Internet, there will, at times, be issues which cause disruptions in service; ie. a M$ worm sucking bandwidth, neighbor downloading lots of pr0n and slowing down your cable modem connection, etc.
The key to voice quality with VoIP is latency. Most VoIP endpoints have a built in jitter buffer which is able to recover from some latency, usually around 3ms, but after that is begins to be difficult to carry on a conversation. The latency here is the latency between you and the provider's media gateway, such as an Asterisk box. Normally if you have less than 50ms of latency, then you'll notice no degradation in call quality. If you begin to have more latency, the quality of the call will begin to drop off.
I've been using Nuvio for almost 6 months and it rocks! Latency on my cable modem is around 30ms back to their servers so I rarely, if ever, have a quality issue. Their web interface is pretty cool and they do some cool stuff you can do with regard to voicemail and e-mail. Plus it's not PC based, just plug your regular phone into the adaptor they send you and you can take your adaptor with you when you travel, plug it into any broadband connection and still make and receive calls just like you never left home. This is pretty cool because I travel a lot and if the hotel has broadband in the room, it works great. I even have a few virtual phone numbers across the country so people I know in those cities can call me for free.
As someone mentioned before, it's a lot like cell phones. You just have to look at what you're getting and decide if it's right for you. If you'd rather pay less than with a regular phone provider and be able to make TONS of long distance calls where an occasional dropped call is ok, then go sign up with Nuvio. It's really as good as the reception is with a cell phone, and most of the time lots better. It all depends on the latency.
There is a current trend of people calling themselves engineers when, in actuality, they are not, technically. Many projects which involve life and death consequences, such as power systems, bridges, etc. require a "real" engineer, one who has an engineering degree from an ABET accredited engineering program. Many times the project will even require a certified engineer, a Professional Engineer, PE. This is not unlike being licensed to be a doctor or lawyer. I can't just walk in off of the street and say that I'm a doctor and have the authority to practice medicine just because I've taken a few CPR classes, even though I may know as much as a licensed doctor. It's all about the credentials for liability purposes. The same should go for the engineering profession.
Not to sound elitist, but engineers are held to higher standards over run of the mill programmers for these reasons. Having said this, I'm a computer engineer and have a degree from an ABET accredited engineering program and I'd wager to say that there are MANY people who are much better programmers than I. I have no problem with computer science people or even self taught people being great programmers, what I do have a problem with is someone saying they are something which they are not.
They're using a Sun/Oracle cluster to power these things???
http://www.esuds.net/technology.html
I suppose it would be too late for the "Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?" comment...
AOL/Time-Warner already owns pretty much all sources of media so this could be a way for them to really compete with the leviathan that is Microsoft. I suppose 2 can play at this game.
I don't know what you may have experienced with Atipa in the past but I can definitely assure you that things are on the right track now. With a team of engineers, of which I am one, who actually have engineering degrees from accredited schools, many things are in the works behind the scenes. Keep an eye on us over the next few months and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I am from one of the schools on the cutting edge of Beowulf which worked with Becker when he was at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and more recently all of the guys at Scyld, so I can assure you that Atipa and its partners are working harder than ever to become the premiere Beowulf provider.
I posted an article a few months ago about academic dishonesty at Clemson University. I can vouch from personal experience, all that it takes is a gratuitous "threat" and that pretty much takes care of any issues of dishonesty; being in the position of getting brought up on these charges is deterrent enough. Even as someone who was almost brought up on dishonesty charges, I do agree that there needs to be some way of catching those who always seem to slip though by "borrowing" work from others. I personally know many people who always wait until the last minute to do assignments and then try to bum stuff off of others; ironically these slackers have some of the highest GPAs in the major. Bottom line, cheating has always gone on and will continue, until it one day catches up with those who can't do anything themselves; these people eventually just end up cheating themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha! Hardly. Many times the Flash player does not even render the same in different browsers on the same machine.
Although it has its flaws, Flash filled a gap that existed when there were few to no alternatives to producing content rich websites. As the web has matured there has become to exist more of a desire to have such dynamic content become standards based, thus supported and developed by the web community as a whole, without the need for additional plug-ins and players implementing proprietary technology.
I liken this to FAX vs e-mail. Online FAX providers aside, for the common user, most of the time its infinitely more convenient to simply scan and e-mail a document than it is to use a FAX machine to transmit the same document. With traditional land lines disappearing, this is becoming even more the case.
We always seem to drag legacy technology into the future and complain about how hard or how much of a burden it is to learn new technologies, which usually provide many benefits over the older technology. As fundamental human nature, people are simply resistant to change and stick with what they know. Look for this battle to drag on for some time to come.
The usual FUD here. Whitelists and blacklists already exist in packages such as Asterisk and aren't remotely difficult to setup and administer. Your VoIP network is only as succeptable to spit as you let it be. I suppose telemarketing calls to regular PSTN numbers don't qualify as "junk" as do unwanted calls to VoIP numbers all of a sudden?
As with anything running over the public Internet, there will, at times, be issues which cause disruptions in service; ie. a M$ worm sucking bandwidth, neighbor downloading lots of pr0n and slowing down your cable modem connection, etc.
The key to voice quality with VoIP is latency. Most VoIP endpoints have a built in jitter buffer which is able to recover from some latency, usually around 3ms, but after that is begins to be difficult to carry on a conversation. The latency here is the latency between you and the provider's media gateway, such as an Asterisk box. Normally if you have less than 50ms of latency, then you'll notice no degradation in call quality. If you begin to have more latency, the quality of the call will begin to drop off.
I've been using Nuvio for almost 6 months and it rocks! Latency on my cable modem is around 30ms back to their servers so I rarely, if ever, have a quality issue. Their web interface is pretty cool and they do some cool stuff you can do with regard to voicemail and e-mail. Plus it's not PC based, just plug your regular phone into the adaptor they send you and you can take your adaptor with you when you travel, plug it into any broadband connection and still make and receive calls just like you never left home. This is pretty cool because I travel a lot and if the hotel has broadband in the room, it works great. I even have a few virtual phone numbers across the country so people I know in those cities can call me for free.
As someone mentioned before, it's a lot like cell phones. You just have to look at what you're getting and decide if it's right for you. If you'd rather pay less than with a regular phone provider and be able to make TONS of long distance calls where an occasional dropped call is ok, then go sign up with Nuvio. It's really as good as the reception is with a cell phone, and most of the time lots better. It all depends on the latency.
There is a current trend of people calling themselves engineers when, in actuality, they are not, technically. Many projects which involve life and death consequences, such as power systems, bridges, etc. require a "real" engineer, one who has an engineering degree from an ABET accredited engineering program. Many times the project will even require a certified engineer, a Professional Engineer, PE. This is not unlike being licensed to be a doctor or lawyer. I can't just walk in off of the street and say that I'm a doctor and have the authority to practice medicine just because I've taken a few CPR classes, even though I may know as much as a licensed doctor. It's all about the credentials for liability purposes. The same should go for the engineering profession.
Not to sound elitist, but engineers are held to higher standards over run of the mill programmers for these reasons. Having said this, I'm a computer engineer and have a degree from an ABET accredited engineering program and I'd wager to say that there are MANY people who are much better programmers than I. I have no problem with computer science people or even self taught people being great programmers, what I do have a problem with is someone saying they are something which they are not.
They're using a Sun/Oracle cluster to power these things??? http://www.esuds.net/technology.html I suppose it would be too late for the "Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?" comment...
AOL/Time-Warner already owns pretty much all sources of media so this could be a way for them to really compete with the leviathan that is Microsoft. I suppose 2 can play at this game.
I don't know what you may have experienced with Atipa in the past but I can definitely assure you that things are on the right track now. With a team of engineers, of which I am one, who actually have engineering degrees from accredited schools, many things are in the works behind the scenes. Keep an eye on us over the next few months and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I am from one of the schools on the cutting edge of Beowulf which worked with Becker when he was at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and more recently all of the guys at Scyld, so I can assure you that Atipa and its partners are working harder than ever to become the premiere Beowulf provider.
I posted an article a few months ago about academic dishonesty at Clemson University. I can vouch from personal experience, all that it takes is a gratuitous "threat" and that pretty much takes care of any issues of dishonesty; being in the position of getting brought up on these charges is deterrent enough. Even as someone who was almost brought up on dishonesty charges, I do agree that there needs to be some way of catching those who always seem to slip though by "borrowing" work from others. I personally know many people who always wait until the last minute to do assignments and then try to bum stuff off of others; ironically these slackers have some of the highest GPAs in the major. Bottom line, cheating has always gone on and will continue, until it one day catches up with those who can't do anything themselves; these people eventually just end up cheating themselves.