I have a friend who works for a company who sells the whole spectrum of mobile phone gimmicks from ringtones to games. The general consensus is that despite the fact that we have lovely things such as symbian - there are so many different types of phone and OS that the write once, deploy everywhere concept falls on its back. Unless of course you start looking at the J2ME stuff. Which while maybe not as powerful as writing for the native platform means you are not as hindered when it comes to moving onto different handsets.
You really dont need to look to the PSP to see what ordinary nokia's are capable of with a bit of skill decent 3d games are here now the N-Gage for example I've been able to play several N-Gage games on other nokia's such as the 6680. Elite fan's should check out Darxide if you have a series 60 phone! While not quite as wonderful as the PSP , being able to play Tomb-Raider and Tony Hawks in 3d on a phone still impresses friends down the pub especially when they realise that you dont need a silly looking n-gage to play them. These games have staying power and are worth playing.
The trouble is that most of the "really cool stuff" is not written using j2me . Most of the java games i've seen are just crap by comparison! Compare Tiger Woods for symbian (N-gage) to the java version for example. The other problem is that it simply isnt worth the time or effort for these companies to do anything more. The latest java game has about as much lasting power as the latest Crazy Frog ringtone. For the people that sell this shit at £1.50 a throw they are guaranteed a good return. But little jonny is'nt going to complain when he finds out that the game has jonly 3 levels and is exactly the same as the sideways scrolling batman platformer he downloaded last month but with a different tile-set. Its a license to print money really . Fashion concious teenagers will be taken in by it every time just like they will with the latest boy/girl band single (tm) out on monday at leading record stores.
Thing is nvidia have something in the pipeline called goForce, its going to end up in lots of mobile devices and phones (almost certainly the next generation of nokia's). What remains to be seen is how much market penetration it's going to have and if it will fragment the mobile gaming camps or bring them together.
Another problem with gaming on phones are not the development issues they are the form-factor, screen-size/orientation and button configuration. Nokia tried to address these issues with the N-Gage but the design was slated, we all remember the "Taco Shell" comments. I think a landscape clamshell design might perhaps be a better idea - something that looks / acts like a phone when i'ts shut - but open up the clam and there something really funky inside.
We will all just have to wait and see what the future holds.
Oh Microsoft , Thankyou - for being so nice. I worship you now - im going to format all my linux boxes and install Windows, im so touched by this that rather than download cracked versions of windows im actually going to purchase legitimate copies of your operating system and spread it all over my Linux boxes. I apologise for misinterpreting your organisation as being evil or monopolistic and constituting all that i despise - forgive me ! . Now that I have RTFA I have changed my religion - wow you are so good i've just cum in my pants!
What an excellent choice by mister Spielberg. While he might be a great movie director, albeit slightly formulaic from time to time. Im sure the Electronic Arts will be producing original and innovative games based on these film licenses. Its about time someone put an end to the crappy film licenced video games that have been churned out since the days of Ocean and the C64.
This is fantasic news and im looking forward to seeing the results of this escapade.
Not only does it support MSN and Yahoo, its also supports others like irc and icq transparently from within the same application. That makes it even better in my book!
with these types of chargers is that the charging pad needs a wire connecting it to the mains. Im not saying its not a fantastic idea , but to really make benefit of these things they need to be concealed in furniture and surfaces such as desks and kitchen worktops. Integration and ubiquity is the stumbling block that we will have to overcome.
In reality portable devices have already overcome the problem of needing a wire once charged we are good to go. Its TV's , consoles, vcrs, hifi's and speakers are where I would be applying this type of technology. Plugging my phone into a convenient socket does not fill me with dread quite like the prospect of having to reach around the back of my computer or the spaghetti junction behind the TV. The person who solves these nightmares is the one that's going to make the real megabucks, because thats a problem that really needs to be solved.
"While a video-capable iPod remains in development, without the agreements nor infrastructure in place to deliver movies to customers through a store-like interface, Apple sees little value in releasing such an iPod at this time"
80gb ? Im crazy about music and I've got roughly 350 cd albums I've hand ripped and encoded at a high bitrate. Last time I checked my 30gb iPod has about 7gb free. I wanted a 40gb model but at the time I bought mine the next size up was the 60gb model - that just seemed excessive so i went with the lower model. Im curious does anyone actually have 80gb of legal mp3's or better still a CD collection large enough to fill one of these up? I can see the advantage of this for people who rip to lossless format. But I would imagine most people a reasonable compression/quality for a portable device like the iPod?
Personally I cant see a lot of people forking out for an 80gb model. Joe public seems happy enough with the 4 and 6gb models. Video iPod is much more likely to get people spending (especially when apple have perfected whatever magical hardware/software interface they have in the pipeline)
I would like to find out more about getting involved in these kind of initiatives , perhaps as a change career direction. I've heard of similar government and local council initiatives in the UK where I live. I've got an excellent background with linux and opensource technologies but want possibly to move away from Web Development and do something where im working with what I love and perhaps branch out and gain some more skills along the way.
The music industry needs to realise that iTunes - perhaps the most popular legal song trading network. Might actually be beneficial to them.
In response to this Apple should quit playing fair and its DRM game and just concentrate on selling the thing that makes the money - the iPod. Remove the DRM from the player and add the functionality to play other formats such as ogg.
Quite frankly Apple shouldnt allow themselves to be bullied like this when they are one of the few legal music distribution networks out there playing fair.
nick...
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W3C QA Markup Validation Service v0.7.0
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Result: Failed validation, 56 errors File: upload://Form Submission Modified: Server: Size: Content-Type: Encoding: iso-8859-1 Doctype: HTML 4.01 Strict This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Strict!
Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.
1. Error Line 21 column 40: there is no attribute "LANGUAGE"./. ! At least with the old design the font wa
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
3. Error Line 543 column 27: element "WBR" undefined.
Great design,/. ! At least with the old design the font wa
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
4. Error Line 543 column 324: element "NOBR" undefined.... default font for the benefit of/. Serif and sans-serif do
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
5. Error Line 543 column 330: element "WBR" undefined....lt font for the benefit of/. Serif and sans-serif do not w
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document ty
You are certainly right in some respects. But google are probably about the only company at the moment who have enough respect, trust and power to actually change that!
Strangely (sideline) I typed into google "when did man first land on the moon?" the first 9 results related to articles relating to theorys about it being a hoax, and the last was about a film in 1964. -- google needs to give better results than that!
Anyhow... my point was the Space Race which started ~1957 by 1969 the first mission to the moon began. From basically having little or no technology to do so resulted in Armstrong planting his footsteps on our lunar friend and quoting those famous words. It took 12 years for us to achieve such a wondrous goal. So how come its going to take us 15 years (goal being 2020) to do it again? (considering we are so much more technologically advanced than we were back then)
Symantec's business os based upon the fact that software has security issues - they sell software to fill the holes. Perhaps the fact that so many people are switching from IE to Firefox is affecting their bottom line.
Is there a good howto for people with a LAMP background? This news is enough to make me switch from mySQL to postgreSQL. I've looked at it a number of times before but could never figure it out.
Firstly - you can insert tags into your website that prevent search engines from spidering your pages.
If the website in question has not added these tags into the pages well its there own darned fault.
But honestly the only loser in this game is the porn site Google should just remove them from the results entirely then watch their visitor logs go right down. I dont see how there can ever be a case for a a website to sue google succesfully on these kinds of grounds. That is provided Google are going by the book and parsing those "dont spider this site" tags.
Will the promise of the same feature set and the same tools (for Windows, Mac and Linux) mean the future of cross-platform development is here?
Get real! this aint gonna happen while people continue to lock themselves into Microsoft.
Think about it - cross platform development is not just about the compiler used - Its about the libraries and API's you are using. For example - If you were to build a video game that relied on DirectX and compiled it with intels compiler the chances of it working with Linux or MacOS will be Zero. Unless MS ports their libs to Linux and MacOS. That will never happen in a million years.
Perhap - just maybe WINE may get to a stage where you can drop in replacements but its a HUGE gamble.
Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?"
Unlikely no-one would switch to IE on the basis of security given its long standing reputation.
RTFA. It is useful and relevant for his wife who finds using a typewriter more comfortable than a standard computer keyboard due to her long term suffering RSI condition. I think "labour of love" was a term the modder used.
I think your comment under the circumstances was a cruel and heartless one.
I agree somewhat. We use it however if our clients state its requirement. It is however always the last test in the chain. Getting W3C passes being the first.Bobby checks are always an annoyance and a lot of its checks are a matter of opinion.
Also if you make good use of CSS, use "div" tags instead of tables where possible you can largely eliminate the need for spurious alt and title parameters. Its always a good idea to populate "alt" and "title" parameters. anyway it saves going back later when doing your SEO.
My initial point was that going for a W3C check would inherently prevent the IE only development and also be pointing the institution in the direction they should be going down anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a friend who works for a company who sells the whole spectrum of mobile phone gimmicks from ringtones to games. The general consensus is that despite the fact that we have lovely things such as symbian - there are so many different types of phone and OS that the write once, deploy everywhere concept falls on its back. Unless of course you start looking at the J2ME stuff. Which while maybe not as powerful as writing for the native platform means you are not as hindered when it comes to moving onto different handsets.
...
You really dont need to look to the PSP to see what ordinary nokia's are capable of with a bit of skill decent 3d games are here now the N-Gage for example I've been able to play several N-Gage games on other nokia's such as the 6680. Elite fan's should check out Darxide if you have a series 60 phone! While not quite as wonderful as the PSP , being able to play Tomb-Raider and Tony Hawks in 3d on a phone still impresses friends down the pub especially when they realise that you dont need a silly looking n-gage to play them. These games have staying power and are worth playing.
The trouble is that most of the "really cool stuff" is not written using j2me . Most of the java games i've seen are just crap by comparison! Compare Tiger Woods for symbian (N-gage) to the java version for example. The other problem is that it simply isnt worth the time or effort for these companies to do anything more. The latest java game has about as much lasting power as the latest Crazy Frog ringtone. For the people that sell this shit at £1.50 a throw they are guaranteed a good return. But little jonny is'nt going to complain when he finds out that the game has jonly 3 levels and is exactly the same as the sideways scrolling batman platformer he downloaded last month but with a different tile-set. Its a license to print money really . Fashion concious teenagers will be taken in by it every time just like they will with the latest boy/girl band single (tm) out on monday at leading record stores.
Thing is nvidia have something in the pipeline called goForce, its going to end up in lots of mobile devices and phones (almost certainly the next generation of nokia's). What remains to be seen is how much market penetration it's going to have and if it will fragment the mobile gaming camps or bring them together.
Another problem with gaming on phones are not the development issues they are the form-factor, screen-size/orientation and button configuration. Nokia tried to address these issues with the N-Gage but the design was slated, we all remember the "Taco Shell" comments. I think a landscape clamshell design might perhaps be a better idea - something that looks / acts like a phone when i'ts shut - but open up the clam and there something really funky inside.
We will all just have to wait and see what the future holds.
Nick
"Mac OS X has the Unix Window System X11/Free86 built in so all unix programs will run fine."
Providing you have the source code compiled for the right processor and architecture.
Oh Microsoft , Thankyou - for being so nice. I worship you now - im going to format all my linux boxes and install Windows, im so touched by this that rather than download cracked versions of windows im actually going to purchase legitimate copies of your operating system and spread it all over my Linux boxes. I apologise for misinterpreting your organisation as being evil or monopolistic and constituting all that i despise - forgive me ! . Now that I have RTFA I have changed my religion - wow you are so good i've just cum in my pants!
What an excellent choice by mister Spielberg. While he might be a great movie director, albeit slightly formulaic from time to time. Im sure the Electronic Arts will be producing original and innovative games based on these film licenses. Its about time someone put an end to the crappy film licenced video games that have been churned out since the days of Ocean and the C64.
This is fantasic news and im looking forward to seeing the results of this escapade.
Am i being to subtle for an american audience ?
"I've always wanted to install Yahoo Messenger because I don't want to limit my contact list to MSN Messenger only."
Have you tried GAIM ?
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Not only does it support MSN and Yahoo, its also supports others like irc and icq transparently from within the same application. That makes it even better in my book!
Okay so who's the Ned's Atomic Dustbin fan?
with these types of chargers is that the charging pad needs a wire connecting it to the mains. Im not saying its not a fantastic idea , but to really make benefit of these things they need to be concealed in furniture and surfaces such as desks and kitchen worktops. Integration and ubiquity is the stumbling block that we will have to overcome.
...
In reality portable devices have already overcome the problem of needing a wire once charged we are good to go. Its TV's , consoles, vcrs, hifi's and speakers are where I would be applying this type of technology. Plugging my phone into a convenient socket does not fill me with dread quite like the prospect of having to reach around the back of my computer or the spaghetti junction behind the TV. The person who solves these nightmares is the one that's going to make the real megabucks, because thats a problem that really needs to be solved.
Nick
"While a video-capable iPod remains in development, without the agreements nor infrastructure in place to deliver movies to customers through a store-like interface, Apple sees little value in releasing such an iPod at this time"
80gb ? Im crazy about music and I've got roughly 350 cd albums I've hand ripped and encoded at a high bitrate. Last time I checked my 30gb iPod has about 7gb free. I wanted a 40gb model but at the time I bought mine the next size up was the 60gb model - that just seemed excessive so i went with the lower model. Im curious does anyone actually have 80gb of legal mp3's or better still a CD collection large enough to fill one of these up? I can see the advantage of this for people who rip to lossless format. But I would imagine most people a reasonable compression/quality for a portable device like the iPod?
Personally I cant see a lot of people forking out for an 80gb model. Joe public seems happy enough with the 4 and 6gb models. Video iPod is much more likely to get people spending (especially when apple have perfected whatever magical hardware/software interface they have in the pipeline)
I would like to find out more about getting involved in these kind of initiatives , perhaps as a change career direction. I've heard of similar government and local council initiatives in the UK where I live. I've got an excellent background with linux and opensource technologies but want possibly to move away from Web Development and do something where im working with what I love and perhaps branch out and gain some more skills along the way.
...
Nick
The music industry needs to realise that iTunes - perhaps the most popular legal song trading network. Might actually be beneficial to them.
In response to this Apple should quit playing fair and its DRM game and just concentrate on selling the thing that makes the money - the iPod. Remove the DRM from the player and add the functionality to play other formats such as ogg.
Quite frankly Apple shouldnt allow themselves to be bullied like this when they are one of the few legal music distribution networks out there playing fair.
nick...
W3C QA Markup Validation Service
/. ! At least with the old design the font wa
/. ! At least with the old design the font wa
... default font for the benefit of /. Serif and sans-serif do
...lt font for the benefit of /. Serif and sans-serif do not w
v0.7.0
* Skip Navigation | Home
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Jump To:
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Result: Failed validation, 56 errors
File: upload://Form Submission
Modified:
Server:
Size:
Content-Type:
Encoding: iso-8859-1
Doctype: HTML 4.01 Strict
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Strict!
Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.
1. Error Line 21 column 40: there is no attribute "LANGUAGE".
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
3. Error Line 543 column 27: element "WBR" undefined.
Great design,
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
4. Error Line 543 column 324: element "NOBR" undefined.
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document type you are using does not define an element of that name. This error is often caused by:
* incorrect use of the "Strict" document type with a document that uses frames (e.g. you must use the "Frameset" document type to get the "" element),
* by using vendor proprietary extensions such as "" or "" (this is usually fixed by using CSS to achieve the desired effect instead).
* by using upper-case tags in XHTML (in XHTML attributes and elements must be all lower-case.
5. Error Line 543 column 330: element "WBR" undefined.
You have used the element named above in your document, but the document ty
You are certainly right in some respects. But google are probably about the only company at the moment who have enough respect, trust and power to actually change that!
Does it have such a vile looking case? I know it doesnt affect performance but why would I want i ricer nightmare under my desk ? yuck!
Strangely (sideline) I typed into google "when did man first land on the moon?" the first 9 results related to articles relating to theorys about it being a hoax, and the last was about a film in 1964. -- google needs to give better results than that!
...
Anyhow... my point was the Space Race which started ~1957 by 1969 the first mission to the moon began. From basically having little or no technology to do so resulted in Armstrong planting his footsteps on our lunar friend and quoting those famous words. It took 12 years for us to achieve such a wondrous goal. So how come its going to take us 15 years (goal being 2020) to do it again? (considering we are so much more technologically advanced than we were back then)
Nick
Symantec's business os based upon the fact that software has security issues - they sell software to fill the holes. Perhaps the fact that so many people are switching from IE to Firefox is affecting their bottom line.
Whoa! I've never come accross this before. Have you any experience using it? Im sorely tempted to give this a try!
Nick...
Where is the wish for Elite ?
There is a serious hole in the market for a port of Elite, a seminal game!
Nick...
Is there a good howto for people with a LAMP background? This news is enough to make me switch from mySQL to postgreSQL. I've looked at it a number of times before but could never figure it out.
Nick
That you might as well eat and drink whatever you like 'cept do it in moderation. Like mother always said - you should eat a balanced diet.
...
Nick
Firstly - you can insert tags into your website that prevent search engines from spidering your pages.
If the website in question has not added these tags into the pages well its there own darned fault.
But honestly the only loser in this game is the porn site Google should just remove them from the results entirely then watch their visitor logs go right down. I dont see how there can ever be a case for a a website to sue google succesfully on these kinds of grounds. That is provided Google are going by the book and parsing those "dont spider this site" tags.
Will the promise of the same feature set and the same tools (for Windows, Mac and Linux) mean the future of cross-platform development is here?
Get real! this aint gonna happen while people continue to lock themselves into Microsoft.
Think about it - cross platform development is not just about the compiler used - Its about the libraries and API's you are using. For example - If you were to build a video game that relied on DirectX and compiled it with intels compiler the chances of it working with Linux or MacOS will be Zero. Unless MS ports their libs to Linux and MacOS. That will never happen in a million years.
Perhap - just maybe WINE may get to a stage where you can drop in replacements but its a HUGE gamble.
The big linux-based companies pay a comparatively small fee for a name they built their entire business around
True, but would linux be what it is today without the likes of IBM , Red-Hat and others?
Is there anything stopping you or anyone else from producing a linux distro but not calling it linux or making any reference to it.
Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?"
Unlikely no-one would switch to IE on the basis of security given its long standing reputation.
RTFA. It is useful and relevant for his wife who finds using a typewriter more comfortable than a standard computer keyboard due to her long term suffering RSI condition. I think "labour of love" was a term the modder used.
I think your comment under the circumstances was a cruel and heartless one.
I agree somewhat. We use it however if our clients state its requirement. It is however always the last test in the chain. Getting W3C passes being the first.Bobby checks are always an annoyance and a lot of its checks are a matter of opinion.
Also if you make good use of CSS, use "div" tags instead of tables where possible you can largely eliminate the need for spurious alt and title parameters. Its always a good idea to populate "alt" and "title" parameters. anyway it saves going back later when doing your SEO.
My initial point was that going for a W3C check would inherently prevent the IE only development and also be pointing the institution in the direction they should be going down anyway.