The first batch of N800's have a known problem where after a few weeks of use, the right side of the device (left side if you're looking at it) stops responding to touch or can't be calibrated accurately. Since there is no way other than the touchscreen to access many of the device's functions, you then have to send it in for repairs.
Nokia will not reimburse you for the shipping cost, and has a very broken tracking mechanism. As several users at the Internet Table Talk forum have documented, this means that your $400 device goes back to Nokia, and you don't know when/if you'll get it back.
Should also point out there's a whole community of Original English Visual Novels being created by folks using the Ren'Py engine (http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/Home_Page). It's designed to allow authors to produce games for the Mac, Linux, and Windows simultaneously, so most of the games can be played on any of those platforms.
Myself, I used it to produce the first fully-voiced OEL VN - Senior Year. Which you can download for free at www.bklovr.com
So whether you enjoy playing, or would like to write your own, here's your chance:-)
For what it's worth, I'm giving away a free game. Just check out www.bklovr.com for DL and screenshots. Granted it's not as sexy as a free laptop, and I'm making it available to everyone and not just bloggers, but hey - at least it's free:-)
Personally, I think Tivo should be given a special award. Not only have they not produced TivoToGo for the Mac, but a volunteer group has actually produced their own version of the software (TiVo Decode) while waiting for the official Tivo version.
Worse, those new HiDef Tivos don't even support TivoToGo for Windows - so they've actually managed to go backwards in the past year.
I wrote this about two years ago, and I think it's rather applicable to this discussion:
One of the things that Bill Gates has to look "forward" to is his daughters becoming teenagers. Considering they are part of a rather elite community with a heavy tech influence, you have to think that the day will come when the following scenarios come up...
One day Bill gets home from work to find his daughters listening to some rather odd music over the computer system. "Hey, what have you got there?" He'll ask.
"Oh Dad, it's the latest Garabi band. Tommy gave us some MP3s he'd pulled from one of their albums, and then we got online and P2P'd some more."
The color will drain from Bill's face as he realizes the publicity value to the RIAA of taking him and his daughters in.
"How many times have I told you girls that trading P2P files is wrong. You'd be better off doing drugs then stealing like that."
The girls will look at each other, and then the eldest will say, "Dad, you are so 20th century limited. None of the Garabi bands would let those RIAA bandits touch their profits. They rely on file trading to build up a loyal base to go to their concerts, or buy their shirts from their website, or buy a DVD with their music videos."
The youngest will then pipe up with, "Sheesh. Let's get out of here."
As the girls turn off their music and leave the room, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his DRM unit...
Of course it won't stop there. A few days later Bill comes in to see the girls playing a video game he's never seen before on one of the family computers. The fact they're not playing on the latest console is surprising enough, but when they hear him enter the room and leave the game, the desktop doesn't look like anything he's seen before either.
"What the heck is that?" He'll ask.
This time the youngest will explain. "Dad, this is the latest Game distribution of MiniKnopp. It loads the OS and game together to give you an optomized experience. "
The oldest will add, "Yeah. You can install the underlying Debian distribution to the HD, but we figured that you wouldn't want us messing up 'your' computer. And we didn't want to play in our rooms because we don't have as big of screens."
As the girls finish shutting down the computer, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his Game Console unit...
Finally, the weekend comes, and Bill is surprised to see the art screens throughout the house are showing a number of vibrant pictures he's never seen before. And the image loads seem to be much faster than he's seen in a long time. As he makes his way to the living room, a door opens, and his daughters come out from the server room.
"Hey girls, what are you doing?" He'll ask.
"Well Dad, you know how you've been complaining that the home servers are getting so slow even though you upgraded the hardware last year? Well we ran AdAware and found that they've been getting bogged down with adware and malware."
Bill will get a little hot under the collar. "I have a crew come up here each week to make sure we have the latest security patches and to scan for viruses."
The girls will roll their eyes, and then the oldest will explain, "Dad, you can't leave a Windows computer up for a week between patches, and then only scan for viruses."
The youngest will pipe up, "So we installed White Box linux on the servers, setup a proper firewall, and added a link to DeviantArt so we could get some new images from time to time."
As the girls head toward the kitchen for breakfast, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his company...
The problem "I" would see with this is an assumption that folks who edit an article and/or who use their real names are by some definition - good. If I were the members of the Government of some Totalitarian Regime (pick your favorite target), I'd get my Cultural Attaches to sign up, and edit articles about the regime to insure that I could prevent any bad news being added to those articles, or at least have Wikipedia give me the names of people who obviously need re-education.
Given that the reviewer only gave this book a 6 out of 10, I'm wondering if the reviewer or other readers could recommend a book on Photoshop Elements that might be closer to a 10. I've been spending more time with my new camera (Canon 2 IS), and am thinking an upgraded camera should be accompanied by an upgraded user:-)
Alternately, is there anything similar out there for the latest version of the GIMP?
I work as a manager at a not-for-profit (as opposed to non-profit) research organization - Southwest Research Institute (www.swri.edu). We do work for big places like NASA and the Veterans Administration, but we also partner with small firms in just the situation the original poster describes. Sometimes this is to help prepare a proposal for some type of Small Business Grant, and sometimes it's for Angel Investors who are trying to help get a business off the ground. Because we're a not-for-profit, any patents we develop are shared with the company (750 and counting). Any software we write we turn over (no licensing fees). And so on.
We're not the only one of these out here, but I will admit to some bias in thinking we are one of the best:-)
At $14.95 a month I don't really see how this place is any different than Easynews or UseNext. Doesn't seem like all that new an idea, and certainly the price doesn't lead me to believe I'm any better off than these other services.
Is there something that reading the article and checking out the site didn't make obvious?
Personally, I'm rather fond of setting up my laptop with an external Firewire drive (though USB-2 works just as well) connected to my docking station, and then having a program called MirrorFolder (www.techsoftpl.com) setup so that when the laptop sees the drive out there it will sync, and if it's not attached (in true travel mode) it doesn't drop dead.
Seems to be just as good an answer as this is proposing, only it's available now, and somewhat reasonably priced.
No association with the company that makes it, just a satisfied user.
This was way back in the time of double-sided 5 1/4" floppy disks. I was working at the school's computer lab, and was called to help out a professor's admin who was trying to install a program, and it would only get so far.
You can probably see this coming already, but while the disks were double-sided, the data was only on one side, and so when the program asked to "Insert Floppy into Drive A to continue" without suggesting that you first remove the floppy that was already there...
Admin had managed to get about 4 of them lodged in there in the time between the first call and my getting there as she had decided to try it one more time and see if she just pushed a little harder if she couldn't get it to finish.
Easier and Better - Hacked VideoNow Jr
on
Juicebox Hacking
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Rather than hacking the JuiceBox, you might want to consider getting a VideoNow Jr and hacking that instead. There are filters out there for VideoDub, and if you don't mind a bit of dremeling, you can get it to accept a standard CD-R (get the silvery ones like Sony).
You can put up to 35 minutes of encoded video on a CD-R at a decent quality (18fps) and sound.
Why go this route rather than a portable DVD player? Somewhat cheaper, don't have to hold the unit folded open (big plus for my handicapped daughter) and RUGGED (bigger plus for my handicapped daughter). We've dropped ours numerous times on the concrete driveway getting her out of the car, and the unit skips and then keeps playing.
Of course we're not total idiots, so we've bought a backup unit for the eventual day that the driveway is harder than expected:-)
I'm wondering why the preferred rescue scenario is to send up another shuttle? I thought that the station kept a Soyuz module connected at all times as an emergency escape vehicle. So there's three folks who can return. Send up another one shortly thereafter, and there's another three folks. Then you are back to the ISS normal compliment.
Beyond TV and it's associated Media program can record off a PVR 350, but can't play back through the 350's TV Out function, and has only a semi-complete and unsupported interface to the MediaMVP (which is the next best thing to a hacked XBox for a front end and somewhat cheaper). Sage can fully utilize the PVR 350, but does not have any support for the MediaMVP. GBPVR (www.gbpvr.com) supports all the stuff I use, although configuring it is more difficult than the other two programs. Which probably isn't too surprising given that the other two are in the $60 - $100 range while GBPVR is donationware.
MythTV currently doesn't run on Windows - not that I would consider that a knock:-)
First off, TivoToGo doesn't let you DL and Burn files off your TiVO. It lets you DL them so that you can watch them on your computer. To Burn them to DVD you are supposed to buy seperate software at an additional cost.
Second, DL times are slow because the TiVO has to wrap the video stream in DRM, and it can only do that so fast.
So, the average user finds themself having to do all sorts of gymnastics to get the benefits that the marketing material promised would come from TTG. And it STILL doesn't allow you to do useful things like put your Home Movies on (or stream them to) your TiVO.
And they wonder why their subscriber base is declining?
For all the articles on here about the new dual cores, I have seen little that explains how those will actually help the user.
I mean, I assume that unless Windows is rewritten to take advantage of dual cores that you won't see much performance increase. And I assume that just getting OS support won't be enough for applications to really see much improvement either.
SO unless you're a reasonable l33t linux dude/dudette, or I've missed the boat (also possible I'm sure), where do I see the advantage of this system?
First, people put up with this because that's what came on their machine, and so it "must" be what's best for that box.
Second, the average user could no more tell you the difference from an OS and an application than from a Trojan versus a Virus.
Finally, the average user isn't all that clued that there are any other options out there, and there are few if any application or game ads on TV that say "Runs on Mac" or "Runs on Linux" to make them even look.
For crying out loud... doesn't support Linux or Mac. Doesn't have half the functionality of the Gimp. Doesn't have half the functionality of Photoshop Elements for that matter.
But I'm supposed to believe this is one of the best photo editing/sharing apps ever? Please...
Well, considering the amount of geological activity around Iceland, I suppose they could become ice free by 2050 fairly easily if there's any major eruptions in 2049...
Seriously, I wish them the best of luck, and I think that a showcase is always a useful thing. But I suspect that it will be better to see something like this start to show up in China even as a small percentage than to have an Iceland with 100% non-polluting energy reliant.
It's debatable what is considered to be Broadband - with most surveys falling back on "always-on" service. But average American speeds (oh, and what ARE those) compared to South Korean speeds - should that be taken into account?
Then the survey refers to zip codes that have service "available" - which does not seem to take into full account what might be available on the edges, efforts to drive service outside of the normal methods (friend a mile away with a Pringle's can), etc.
And what are we really trying to prove here anyway? That we do (or don't) need government investment in making Broadband more available? Something else?
One theory I've seen for dealing with the impact of increasing robo-industrialization is to help the workers you're displacing to purchase the robots, and then the company rents the robots from them. Even if the rent equals what they used to pay you as a worker, the productivity will be increased because of significantly less down time, and you are less likely to be bothered by being paid even somewhat less to hang around the house or follow your other pursuits.
And of course the "smart" folks will put some of their pay into upgrading their robot to allow it to do higher-paying work or to get more robots to rent out to other companies.
Why not at least look at what we think would make sense? Ok, it's probably not going to have a roll-up screen and a beanie-cap neural interface, but there are some reasonable things we could hope for.
First, I hope this thing is wrong about needing to connect to a computer to "do it's business". There should be a way to support impulse buying - preferably tied into some kind of recognition feature where you could hear something playing on the radio, sample it through the phone, and get a suggestion (or two due to sampling) and then make the purchase.
Next, why not hope for at least a mid-end built-in camera to support the ol' "take a picture of a UPC code on a CD, and offer the music to you for sale" trick that you can somewhat get from Amazon now?
Finally, how about some limited sharing capabilities? If the Tivo "TivoToGo" can let you share with up to 10 friends, why not make it easy to send the song along to your other phone buddies? If the money isn't there for complete sharing, how about for X number of plays and then a link to pay or delete?
Oh, and I "hope" it occurred to these folks to have the billing for the tunes integrated with the service so that folks don't have multiple bills every month. Yuck...
---
Would you believe I've been told I write too much?;-)
I think it would be just as valid to argue that if P2P has gotten this simple that it's time to look for programs that will require more work and produce better results.
Seriously, isn't it time to look for a program that will more intelligently let you find what you're actually looking for, help you get it quickly, and then make it easy for you to share it with your friends? That's where P2P has started, but it seems like we're not making as much progress here as we could given the increased connectivity of our community and the increased performance of our computers.
Of course, considering the legal problems that P2P authors have run into, perhaps the problem is that anyone who comes up with the next best thing has been scared off of releasing? Who do we sue about that?
Slashdot Mirror
Nokia will not reimburse you for the shipping cost, and has a very broken tracking mechanism. As several users at the Internet Table Talk forum have documented, this means that your $400 device goes back to Nokia, and you don't know when/if you'll get it back.
Should also point out there's a whole community of Original English Visual Novels being created by folks using the Ren'Py engine (http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/Home_Page). It's designed to allow authors to produce games for the Mac, Linux, and Windows simultaneously, so most of the games can be played on any of those platforms.
:-)
Myself, I used it to produce the first fully-voiced OEL VN - Senior Year. Which you can download for free at www.bklovr.com
So whether you enjoy playing, or would like to write your own, here's your chance
For what it's worth, I'm giving away a free game. Just check out www.bklovr.com for DL and screenshots. Granted it's not as sexy as a free laptop, and I'm making it available to everyone and not just bloggers, but hey - at least it's free :-)
Personally, I think Tivo should be given a special award. Not only have they not produced TivoToGo for the Mac, but a volunteer group has actually produced their own version of the software (TiVo Decode) while waiting for the official Tivo version.
:-)
Worse, those new HiDef Tivos don't even support TivoToGo for Windows - so they've actually managed to go backwards in the past year.
Me, bitter? Nah...
I wrote this about two years ago, and I think it's rather applicable to this discussion:
One of the things that Bill Gates has to look "forward" to is his daughters becoming teenagers. Considering they are part of a rather elite community with a heavy tech influence, you have to think that the day will come when the following scenarios come up...
One day Bill gets home from work to find his daughters listening to some rather odd music over the computer system. "Hey, what have you got there?" He'll ask.
"Oh Dad, it's the latest Garabi band. Tommy gave us some MP3s he'd pulled from one of their albums, and then we got online and P2P'd some more."
The color will drain from Bill's face as he realizes the publicity value to the RIAA of taking him and his daughters in.
"How many times have I told you girls that trading P2P files is wrong. You'd be better off doing drugs then stealing like that."
The girls will look at each other, and then the eldest will say, "Dad, you are so 20th century limited. None of the Garabi bands would let those RIAA bandits touch their profits. They rely on file trading to build up a loyal base to go to their concerts, or buy their shirts from their website, or buy a DVD with their music videos."
The youngest will then pipe up with, "Sheesh. Let's get out of here."
As the girls turn off their music and leave the room, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his DRM unit...
Of course it won't stop there. A few days later Bill comes in to see the girls playing a video game he's never seen before on one of the family computers. The fact they're not playing on the latest console is surprising enough, but when they hear him enter the room and leave the game, the desktop doesn't look like anything he's seen before either.
"What the heck is that?" He'll ask.
This time the youngest will explain. "Dad, this is the latest Game distribution of MiniKnopp. It loads the OS and game together to give you an optomized experience. "
The oldest will add, "Yeah. You can install the underlying Debian distribution to the HD, but we figured that you wouldn't want us messing up 'your' computer. And we didn't want to play in our rooms because we don't have as big of screens."
As the girls finish shutting down the computer, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his Game Console unit...
Finally, the weekend comes, and Bill is surprised to see the art screens throughout the house are showing a number of vibrant pictures he's never seen before. And the image loads seem to be much faster than he's seen in a long time. As he makes his way to the living room, a door opens, and his daughters come out from the server room.
"Hey girls, what are you doing?" He'll ask.
"Well Dad, you know how you've been complaining that the home servers are getting so slow even though you upgraded the hardware last year? Well we ran AdAware and found that they've been getting bogged down with adware and malware."
Bill will get a little hot under the collar. "I have a crew come up here each week to make sure we have the latest security patches and to scan for viruses."
The girls will roll their eyes, and then the oldest will explain, "Dad, you can't leave a Windows computer up for a week between patches, and then only scan for viruses."
The youngest will pipe up, "So we installed White Box linux on the servers, setup a proper firewall, and added a link to DeviantArt so we could get some new images from time to time."
As the girls head toward the kitchen for breakfast, Bill is left to consider the business viability of his company...
The problem "I" would see with this is an assumption that folks who edit an article and/or who use their real names are by some definition - good. If I were the members of the Government of some Totalitarian Regime (pick your favorite target), I'd get my Cultural Attaches to sign up, and edit articles about the regime to insure that I could prevent any bad news being added to those articles, or at least have Wikipedia give me the names of people who obviously need re-education.
Given that the reviewer only gave this book a 6 out of 10, I'm wondering if the reviewer or other readers could recommend a book on Photoshop Elements that might be closer to a 10. I've been spending more time with my new camera (Canon 2 IS), and am thinking an upgraded camera should be accompanied by an upgraded user :-)
Alternately, is there anything similar out there for the latest version of the GIMP?
You said:
"Firefly, Farscape, Family guy, Futurama
What do these shows have in common?"
They all begin with F.
Seriously. Think about it. They're on the Fox network (begins with F) and they began with F, all of them. Doesn't it seem like a conspiracy to you?
I work as a manager at a not-for-profit (as opposed to non-profit) research organization - Southwest Research Institute (www.swri.edu). We do work for big places like NASA and the Veterans Administration, but we also partner with small firms in just the situation the original poster describes. Sometimes this is to help prepare a proposal for some type of Small Business Grant, and sometimes it's for Angel Investors who are trying to help get a business off the ground. Because we're a not-for-profit, any patents we develop are shared with the company (750 and counting). Any software we write we turn over (no licensing fees). And so on.
:-)
We're not the only one of these out here, but I will admit to some bias in thinking we are one of the best
At $14.95 a month I don't really see how this place is any different than Easynews or UseNext. Doesn't seem like all that new an idea, and certainly the price doesn't lead me to believe I'm any better off than these other services.
Is there something that reading the article and checking out the site didn't make obvious?
Personally, I'm rather fond of setting up my laptop with an external Firewire drive (though USB-2 works just as well) connected to my docking station, and then having a program called MirrorFolder (www.techsoftpl.com) setup so that when the laptop sees the drive out there it will sync, and if it's not attached (in true travel mode) it doesn't drop dead.
Seems to be just as good an answer as this is proposing, only it's available now, and somewhat reasonably priced.
No association with the company that makes it, just a satisfied user.
This was way back in the time of double-sided 5 1/4" floppy disks. I was working at the school's computer lab, and was called to help out a professor's admin who was trying to install a program, and it would only get so far.
You can probably see this coming already, but while the disks were double-sided, the data was only on one side, and so when the program asked to "Insert Floppy into Drive A to continue" without suggesting that you first remove the floppy that was already there...
Admin had managed to get about 4 of them lodged in there in the time between the first call and my getting there as she had decided to try it one more time and see if she just pushed a little harder if she couldn't get it to finish.
Rather than hacking the JuiceBox, you might want to consider getting a VideoNow Jr and hacking that instead. There are filters out there for VideoDub, and if you don't mind a bit of dremeling, you can get it to accept a standard CD-R (get the silvery ones like Sony).
:-)
You can put up to 35 minutes of encoded video on a CD-R at a decent quality (18fps) and sound.
Why go this route rather than a portable DVD player? Somewhat cheaper, don't have to hold the unit folded open (big plus for my handicapped daughter) and RUGGED (bigger plus for my handicapped daughter). We've dropped ours numerous times on the concrete driveway getting her out of the car, and the unit skips and then keeps playing.
Of course we're not total idiots, so we've bought a backup unit for the eventual day that the driveway is harder than expected
I'm wondering why the preferred rescue scenario is to send up another shuttle? I thought that the station kept a Soyuz module connected at all times as an emergency escape vehicle. So there's three folks who can return. Send up another one shortly thereafter, and there's another three folks. Then you are back to the ISS normal compliment.
Right?
Beyond TV and it's associated Media program can record off a PVR 350, but can't play back through the 350's TV Out function, and has only a semi-complete and unsupported interface to the MediaMVP (which is the next best thing to a hacked XBox for a front end and somewhat cheaper). Sage can fully utilize the PVR 350, but does not have any support for the MediaMVP. GBPVR (www.gbpvr.com) supports all the stuff I use, although configuring it is more difficult than the other two programs. Which probably isn't too surprising given that the other two are in the $60 - $100 range while GBPVR is donationware.
:-)
MythTV currently doesn't run on Windows - not that I would consider that a knock
Second, DL times are slow because the TiVO has to wrap the video stream in DRM, and it can only do that so fast.
So, the average user finds themself having to do all sorts of gymnastics to get the benefits that the marketing material promised would come from TTG. And it STILL doesn't allow you to do useful things like put your Home Movies on (or stream them to) your TiVO.
And they wonder why their subscriber base is declining?
----
I talk TiVO and HTPC a bit here too... :-)
I mean, I assume that unless Windows is rewritten to take advantage of dual cores that you won't see much performance increase. And I assume that just getting OS support won't be enough for applications to really see much improvement either.
SO unless you're a reasonable l33t linux dude/dudette, or I've missed the boat (also possible I'm sure), where do I see the advantage of this system?
---
More craziness here too :-)
Second, the average user could no more tell you the difference from an OS and an application than from a Trojan versus a Virus.
Finally, the average user isn't all that clued that there are any other options out there, and there are few if any application or game ads on TV that say "Runs on Mac" or "Runs on Linux" to make them even look.
---
More rants like this on my blog
But I'm supposed to believe this is one of the best photo editing/sharing apps ever? Please...
---
TiVO rants and more here
Seriously, I wish them the best of luck, and I think that a showcase is always a useful thing. But I suspect that it will be better to see something like this start to show up in China even as a small percentage than to have an Iceland with 100% non-polluting energy reliant.
---
I've been told that before...
Wait a second...
---
Watch me prove I'm clueless here
It's debatable what is considered to be Broadband - with most surveys falling back on "always-on" service. But average American speeds (oh, and what ARE those) compared to South Korean speeds - should that be taken into account?
Then the survey refers to zip codes that have service "available" - which does not seem to take into full account what might be available on the edges, efforts to drive service outside of the normal methods (friend a mile away with a Pringle's can), etc.
And what are we really trying to prove here anyway? That we do (or don't) need government investment in making Broadband more available? Something else?
---
See more probing questions here
And of course the "smart" folks will put some of their pay into upgrading their robot to allow it to do higher-paying work or to get more robots to rent out to other companies.
---
Crazy ideas detailed here daily ;-)
First, I hope this thing is wrong about needing to connect to a computer to "do it's business". There should be a way to support impulse buying - preferably tied into some kind of recognition feature where you could hear something playing on the radio, sample it through the phone, and get a suggestion (or two due to sampling) and then make the purchase.
Next, why not hope for at least a mid-end built-in camera to support the ol' "take a picture of a UPC code on a CD, and offer the music to you for sale" trick that you can somewhat get from Amazon now?
Finally, how about some limited sharing capabilities? If the Tivo "TivoToGo" can let you share with up to 10 friends, why not make it easy to send the song along to your other phone buddies? If the money isn't there for complete sharing, how about for X number of plays and then a link to pay or delete?
Oh, and I "hope" it occurred to these folks to have the billing for the tunes integrated with the service so that folks don't have multiple bills every month. Yuck...
---
Would you believe I've been told I write too much? ;-)
Seriously, isn't it time to look for a program that will more intelligently let you find what you're actually looking for, help you get it quickly, and then make it easy for you to share it with your friends? That's where P2P has started, but it seems like we're not making as much progress here as we could given the increased connectivity of our community and the increased performance of our computers.
Of course, considering the legal problems that P2P authors have run into, perhaps the problem is that anyone who comes up with the next best thing has been scared off of releasing? Who do we sue about that?
---
Yeah, I've been told I'm like that on my blog ;-)