I've been using Primus' TalkBroadband for about 2 months now, and the only problems I've encountered occur when I've got a torrent running--the bandwidth strain degrades the sound quality considerably. Still, a small price to pay considering what I'm saving by getting rid of Bell.
Question is, what's better for the RIAA? Smaller margins on WalMart-sold CDs, or smaller market by eliminating WalMart entirely? I have no idea, but I bet that's the first thing the RIAA will want to study.
Don't forget that in many places, WalMart is the best alternative to shop for everything, including music. Sure, this may be because the smaller players have been forced out by the retial giant, but apparently people get over it.
That advice is so obvious that it makes you wonder what the hell Apple's thinking (including myself). My guess is that by doing so, the company's entire strategy would change, and either they're not ready for such a huge shift, or it doesn't fit in to their long-term goals. Moving from a niche market to vying for larger marketshare is a major step.
Maybe they're not ready because such a strategy shift is expensive and risky. Yes, they've got a boatload of cash, but again, we don't know the company's long-term plans. It's a big risk to be a first-to-market innovator as Apple often is--succeed, and every competitor will imitate, eventually leading to price wars and a defensive position. Fail, and lose the money spent on developing, building, and promoting that product. Either way, it's an expensive and risky affair.
Maybe G5 supply won't be able to meet a large increase in demand. Again, it would be a huge risk to forecast a demand increase to IBM with an aggressive new switch campaign and have it fail.
Right now, Apple's a niche player, and seem to be content with that. They're also riding off the (unexpected?) runaway success of iPod/iTunes, in a rapidly changing music market. Maybe they're waiting to see where that goes.
Or maybe they're just waiting for the right moment in the market. People are getting fed up with MS more and more these days, maybe Apple's waiting for a certain threshold to make a move.
Point is, anyone can speculate and advise as I and the parent have done, but nobody knows what Apple has in store. We can only hope it's something good.
It's not even funny how much the site resembles iTMS, right down to the colors, look, and feel of the page. There's even a link with a small pic of an iPod imposter with the caption "hold 10000 songs."
Seems that MS can't even design a retail website without plagerizing Apple's UI.
I couldn't agree with you more. I've had plenty of mcjobs in my day, and these bullshit policies come from the very top. These half-wit CEOs probably don't even shop at their own store (rather, they hire consultants to not shop there for them) because if they did, they'd have a clue as to just how terrible an experience it can be. Point is, don't ever argue with a salesrep--you're just wasting your time. They have neither the knowledge nor the authority to do anything beyond what management tells them.
Companies like BestBuy save a lot of money by training their employees half-assed, and then try to make up for lost revenue from shitty service by firing customers. Rather than deal with this managerial genius, just shop somewhere else. Fire your electronics supplier instead.
Yeah, the Rotman building is pretty good, but I'm not sure it helps get any actual school work done. And what's the deal with one student setting up a p2p connection with the same SSID as the university's and messing up everyone's connection?
Wholeheartedly agreed. I hated using it so much, i returned my Sony "mp3" player to Circuit City (which wasn't easy, mind you; but the morons at that store are a whole other topic...). Sony's ACRAP3 compression churns out more snaps, crackles, and pops than those 3 rice-eating elves.
I did this a year ago in my post-grad program: every student is required to own a laptop and a copy of MS Orifice. I am one of 2 Mac users in a class of 240.
When I registered and asked if it was okay to use a Mac, I got the same runaround: "We won't be able to provide tech support, we can't guarantee compatibility, blah blah." So I bought a Mac anyways, knowing that I could always use Virtual PC if necessary, and knowing how helpful and willing Apple tech support is, even if the problem is not directly related to Apple products.
After over a year, I have had no difficulties using my PB G4 in this Windows-dominated enviroment. I did have to explain how to ignore resource forks when sending email attachments to a couple of people, but that's about it. VPC was perfect when a certain professor demanded that we use a Windows-only statistics app. Wireless networking is flawless, and I get greater range then my PC-using counterparts.
Not to mention all of the positive attention I receive when toting a Mac around. All of the Dell/Toshiba/Sony/etc. users just want to touch it. And this year's incoming class even has a few more Macheads (I like to think that I had something to do with this)--so bring your Mac to work and spread the good user experience!
At least they got rid of the brushed metal button bar for "tech specs-graphics-wireless-software." It was difficult to read with the new font Apple's recently adopted.
I actually like the look of the new store--it's a little brighter, cleaner, and more aquaesque.
I fully agree. Chimera, even in its beta form, is infinitely faster than Opera. I haven't used Opera or Omniweb in months, and I still use Chimera when Safari bugs out.
...when the big developers sign up (e.g., sega, square, rockstar, etc.). i'm really not interested in playing some shareware version of dope wars or casinorama, thanks. it's the games, stupid.
yeah, communism. no such thing as intellectual property to the reds--just talk to the foreign students at my university who photocopy all the textbooks. (not to say that the state of affairs is much better here, though).
I ran into the same problem with my Nomad player. An easy way to circumvent it was to reconvert the downloaded mp3 within iTunes, so the player couldn't tell the difference between a file ripped from a CD and one that wasn't. It's a little lossy, but you get what you pay for...
Would some graphics person out there please do some pro-bono work and design Arty a new website? That flash page is what the web would be if it was still 1975...
Slashdot Mirror
Primus also offers VoIP, and it seems their rates http://primus.ca/en/residential/talkbroadband/bund les.html are in line with AOL's.
I've been using Primus' TalkBroadband for about 2 months now, and the only problems I've encountered occur when I've got a torrent running--the bandwidth strain degrades the sound quality considerably. Still, a small price to pay considering what I'm saving by getting rid of Bell.
here either...same config
Question is, what's better for the RIAA? Smaller margins on WalMart-sold CDs, or smaller market by eliminating WalMart entirely? I have no idea, but I bet that's the first thing the RIAA will want to study.
Don't forget that in many places, WalMart is the best alternative to shop for everything, including music. Sure, this may be because the smaller players have been forced out by the retial giant, but apparently people get over it.
That advice is so obvious that it makes you wonder what the hell Apple's thinking (including myself). My guess is that by doing so, the company's entire strategy would change, and either they're not ready for such a huge shift, or it doesn't fit in to their long-term goals. Moving from a niche market to vying for larger marketshare is a major step.
Maybe they're not ready because such a strategy shift is expensive and risky. Yes, they've got a boatload of cash, but again, we don't know the company's long-term plans. It's a big risk to be a first-to-market innovator as Apple often is--succeed, and every competitor will imitate, eventually leading to price wars and a defensive position. Fail, and lose the money spent on developing, building, and promoting that product. Either way, it's an expensive and risky affair.
Maybe G5 supply won't be able to meet a large increase in demand. Again, it would be a huge risk to forecast a demand increase to IBM with an aggressive new switch campaign and have it fail.
Right now, Apple's a niche player, and seem to be content with that. They're also riding off the (unexpected?) runaway success of iPod/iTunes, in a rapidly changing music market. Maybe they're waiting to see where that goes.
Or maybe they're just waiting for the right moment in the market. People are getting fed up with MS more and more these days, maybe Apple's waiting for a certain threshold to make a move.
Point is, anyone can speculate and advise as I and the parent have done, but nobody knows what Apple has in store. We can only hope it's something good.
It's not even funny how much the site resembles iTMS, right down to the colors, look, and feel of the page. There's even a link with a small pic of an iPod imposter with the caption "hold 10000 songs."
Seems that MS can't even design a retail website without plagerizing Apple's UI.
I couldn't agree with you more. I've had plenty of mcjobs in my day, and these bullshit policies come from the very top. These half-wit CEOs probably don't even shop at their own store (rather, they hire consultants to not shop there for them) because if they did, they'd have a clue as to just how terrible an experience it can be. Point is, don't ever argue with a salesrep--you're just wasting your time. They have neither the knowledge nor the authority to do anything beyond what management tells them.
Companies like BestBuy save a lot of money by training their employees half-assed, and then try to make up for lost revenue from shitty service by firing customers. Rather than deal with this managerial genius, just shop somewhere else. Fire your electronics supplier instead.
Yeah, the Rotman building is pretty good, but I'm not sure it helps get any actual school work done. And what's the deal with one student setting up a p2p connection with the same SSID as the university's and messing up everyone's connection?
Isn't that the same idea as "piles"? Rumor had it that the piles feature would show up in Panther, so maybe by the time 10.4 rolls around...
Wholeheartedly agreed. I hated using it so much, i returned my Sony "mp3" player to Circuit City (which wasn't easy, mind you; but the morons at that store are a whole other topic...).
Sony's ACRAP3 compression churns out more snaps, crackles, and pops than those 3 rice-eating elves.
I did this a year ago in my post-grad program: every student is required to own a laptop and a copy of MS Orifice. I am one of 2 Mac users in a class of 240.
When I registered and asked if it was okay to use a Mac, I got the same runaround: "We won't be able to provide tech support, we can't guarantee compatibility, blah blah." So I bought a Mac anyways, knowing that I could always use Virtual PC if necessary, and knowing how helpful and willing Apple tech support is, even if the problem is not directly related to Apple products.
After over a year, I have had no difficulties using my PB G4 in this Windows-dominated enviroment. I did have to explain how to ignore resource forks when sending email attachments to a couple of people, but that's about it. VPC was perfect when a certain professor demanded that we use a Windows-only statistics app. Wireless networking is flawless, and I get greater range then my PC-using counterparts.
Not to mention all of the positive attention I receive when toting a Mac around. All of the Dell/Toshiba/Sony/etc. users just want to touch it. And this year's incoming class even has a few more Macheads (I like to think that I had something to do with this)--so bring your Mac to work and spread the good user experience!
Maybe I'm missing something, but can someone post a link to the OS X port?
and don't forget to visit the "Canadian Ballet" while you're there. Some of the best in North America, from what I've seen...
oh yeah? then why does .ogg sound like shite?
At least they got rid of the brushed metal button bar for "tech specs-graphics-wireless-software." It was difficult to read with the new font Apple's recently adopted.
I actually like the look of the new store--it's a little brighter, cleaner, and more aquaesque.
One of my favorites, to be sure. But have you seen Welsh's The Acid House? It was only released in a handful of US theaters, but the DVD is available.
My personal favorite:
Microsoft still builds the world's best client software [...]
This may help:
http://www.macmerc.com/article.php?sid=536
I fully agree. Chimera, even in its beta form, is infinitely faster than Opera. I haven't used Opera or Omniweb in months, and I still use Chimera when Safari bugs out.
...when the big developers sign up (e.g., sega, square, rockstar, etc.). i'm really not interested in playing some shareware version of dope wars or casinorama, thanks. it's the games, stupid.
yeah, communism. no such thing as intellectual property to the reds--just talk to the foreign students at my university who photocopy all the textbooks. (not to say that the state of affairs is much better here, though).
I ran into the same problem with my Nomad player. An easy way to circumvent it was to reconvert the downloaded mp3 within iTunes, so the player couldn't tell the difference between a file ripped from a CD and one that wasn't. It's a little lossy, but you get what you pay for...
Would some graphics person out there please do some pro-bono work and design Arty a new website? That flash page is what the web would be if it was still 1975...