Re:Tivo's popular because of non-technical people.
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TiVo to Offer SDK
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True. But if TiVo gets enough street cred, then you will hear comparisons between "TiVo" and the "stuff which came with the Cable". If that comparison is made by the general public, TiVo won.
For that to happen, TiVo needs to provide some cool features to keep the public impressed. Here they simply let the public do the product development, and when something good comes of it, they will support it, and sell it as a feature that "the thing that came with cable" will not have.
Which brings into their long term strategy of having all cable companies license the system in order to stay competitive with satellite, which comes with one.
PS. I am not a TiVo fanboy. I do not have one, and I have barely used one. All I know is that TiVo is less about restricting what can be done with recorded content than Comcast.
I call BS on the Mountain Dew and Victoria's Secret catalog. They may not be the same brands -- but something along those lines is practiced by pretty much all gamers.
That depends on resolution. I believe that if you play a dvd mpeg, then you get hardware acceleration from your video card. However, I believe that the video card does not handle non NTSC/PAL resolution video streams. In other words...it will not touch HD, making the proc do all the work.
A proper MPEG2 decoder however will. You will still be limited by the same bus restriction as for recording however.
I was thinking the same thing in terms of MythTV. The problem is that it will not have a chance to work as a backend -- not enough power and the lack of drivers to drive external tuners will be killer.
However, it can serve as a nice front end, assuming that good video drivers exist. Unfortunately that is a big if.
Unfortunately, it seems that this box will not be a good MythBox for now, and interestingly enough...it seems that this will be something along the lines of a Mac-Box which will probably be more in competition with X-Box and Win Media Center. Not a bad idea, but a bit too proprietary for my tastes.
HDTV encoding is done at the source. If you have an HDTV tuner then what you get is the raw MPEG-2 stream that the station sends -- no need to encode. The camcorders do their own encoding right before they write down the stream, otherwise there would just be no space.
So you do not need a faster processor, just a bus and HD fast enough to get the stream. Playback of HDTV on the other hand may take some juice, but should be easily handled by most modern processors including the mini.
The F10 feature makes sense to me a bit...even though at a first glance it seems like that will not work for me....
But thinking about it more, things like terminals will all stay in the same group...making it easire to switch between them then just switching through all the windows.
This sounds like this will wonderfully work if a task was completely contained in a single app. And that would be how most tasks would be on a mac, but unfortunately I suspect there will be problems, especially as I will venture a guess that I will need X11.
Thanks for your recommendations, and I think they will potentially affect my choices. Unfortunately, there is never a perfect choice.
Personally, I think its a waste anyway. The only viable cable HD PVR solutions are part of the cable box anyway, so all a cable-card TV gets you is the ability to view the TV and not record it.
Are you talking about v1 or CableCard in general. The reason why cable card exists is to specifically remove the ability of the cable company to control the PVR market (among other things). I personally have no desire to give that much control to my cable company, and prefer a homebrew solution.
When CC.v2 will be released, Hauppauge or the PCHDTV people will release an HDTV tuner that will finally be able to read HDTV/DTV of the wire in its proper form. No more of that MPEG2 -> ANALOG -> MPEG2 nonsense. That in my opinion is not a waste.
Buying a TV that is not just a monitor OTOH is a waste. There is no reason why a TV should do decoding, and a whole set of other things. Give me a component analog/s-video/DVI/whatever that other raw digital format was, and that is it. Anything else will be absolete long before the TV is. The more separation of components the better. And CC v2 is in part enabling that.
That is true for some. And in a sense, specific usage would be determined by the rest of the interface as well.
For example -- the infamous one mouse button. Many people here will complain and name the example as an annoyance, but I will not complain about it....why? The reason is that the interface is designed to be usable with the one button mouse. The real problem is with the X-server apps, which do not have a one button mouse in mind. Hence, it is an annoyance to me, but I will not raise any noise, since that is above what OS X is designed for.
But as far as the desktops are concerned...the answer is that I keep multiple windows open. Websites, references, files I work on in full screen, other projects that I plan to return to. The typical number of windows that are open is typically around 20-30, of which a few desire to be full screen. Some of these windows I need to only give a glance before continuing...so I do a quick Win-6 Win-5 to go to desktop 6 then immediately return to desktop 5. I will typically use up about 6-7 desktops on average, but sometimes I use all 10.
Basically what I desire of the interface is complete quick switching between specific windows, and preferably groups of windows. It does not really matter if they are on a 'different' desktop. Is there something like it on OS X, or is there a better method to do what I do.
I am genuinely interested, as the powerbook seems to be the contender for the best laptop for the next few years, and I am considering using it. However, as I am not sure about usability of OS X, I am considering getting linux on it, which immediately causes the annoyance that most apps in linux are not designed with one button in mind... And it is becoming a great possibility that I will need a new laptop within a year.
PS. One thing that feels horribly bad when you return to it is 'click to focus'. I have no clue how people deal with that, it is so not intuitive anymore. I also get annoyed that selection does not immediately set a copy buffer, but that has enough problems that both ways have annoyances.
Apple has provided a lot of functionality in the OS that simply has no GUI interface tied to it. Therefore, a lot of programming on OS X involves writing a front end that ties together a novel collection of features built in to the OS in new ways.
Sure. That is understandable. But most things (such as focus follows mouse and multiple desktops) seem to not be considered in the API, potentially making them incredibly unstable.
Sure there are some interface improvements on top existing API, but they just help you visualize what the OS is doing, but the core functionality is already inside OS. Those are usually not the main issue. For example I am sure that the dock can be replaced by something else without breaking anything. But I doubt I can switch the position of the close button without issues.
BTW sorry for OS and UI interchangably -- but that is almost the case in term of OS X.
It is not the third part that I am annoyed over, but the fact that there are multiple applications competing for the control of one thing -- the window positions/visibility. Any program that modifies how the primary window manager works probably competes with the window manager causing some fun race conditions to show up. This is unless OS X provides a good framework to make sure that competition does not happen. As providiing this feature as difficult...my guess is OS X enhancers just write a competitor program and then test the heck out of it. But I bet it can still be broken -- as there are many things that they did not test for, especially if there are multiple enhancement modules.
For linux this is not the case, as virtual desktops are provided specifically by the windowmanager, and supported by the X11 protocol (I think). There aren't multiple programs competing for determination of window placement. Those programs that display the position of windows and the switching just need to send the requests through X11, and the window manager executes them...not a another program.
Here is a fun thing for a mac user to write....write a simple application that prints out.... I am on a virtual desktop X....and see if it actually gets it right given all the different desktop enhancers. I bet this is impossible unless all of them standardize to yet another protocol, which probably does not exist.
This is what I mean by third party hacks. It is not a real thing.
I will tend to disagree....but then again, it just depends what you are used to.
As for the virtual desktops, I did not care to find out whether or not there are virtual desktops. I actually find it funny that there are third party programs that change little parts of the interface via hacks for multiple reasons. First, all the Mac users out there seem to praise the user interface, and say that they can not find a single flaw in it, and then proceed to tweak the heck out of it by a gazillion third party programs. Second, how can I trust that everything will work with these hacks. Basically these hacks observe what the window manager just did, and then issue commands to it, such as minimize, etc. The window manager will have absolutely no clue that these things are happening, which typically tells me that by doing some stress testing or just using more complex systems will cause problems. This would be much similar to the nvidia / tweakui modifications to windows. These added focus follows mouse, done by invisible clicking and reordering, and window shading to windows, which sets the proper size on the windows. The first one caused immediate problems in office and VS, which immediately started reacting to click events, causing processing on the back end. The window size thing applied to some windows, which did not expect to be resized, causing them to fail.
You will probably say that these things will happen on windows only. My response would be maybe...I have not tried OS X with those hacks, but my guess is if they implemented something the OS X windowmanager and apps did not plan on, then a hackish implementation would be either limited or wil break things. The level of annoyance in that case will depend on how often things break or how important the features that are missing are.
It becomes a tradoff between relying on a hack, not using the feature, or using a different system that has it. Every system tends to lack features and have small annoyances, and implement hacks to fix some others that are not present by design. OS X does not offer the best tradeoff at this point.
You by naming that topic you obviously started the flame. I just added some fuel.:) Add a little carelessness to my post, and all the posts below are turning up the heat.
You are right about that. OS should come into considerations for many. But in general it is a bad idea to make overgeneralized statements about people's preferences. As you have said -- OS X is worth at least $200 to you. For me, the number will be about $0...as both WINXP and OS X are about as easy to remove.
However, the fact that it is a mac that is not designed to be upgradable drives up the cost for me. I always wanted to have a near silent smallish box for a tv controller ala mythtv. Is there a good program that runs on it. Can I add a TV tuner. Some of those $1000 mini-itx boxes can. Even though they are worse than the macmini, if I chuse to build this box, I will have to spend $500 more than they are really worth...only because they lack a small feature (one pci slot). I do not claim that they do not though...I have not researched it...but I am willing to bet that they do not.
You know -- to each his own. If I need to run a certain program -- an OS may be just as much a negative value as it is a positive value. And simply pointing out to the poster that you would not consider the other alternatives that may be even better, just because they are not apple, just sounds a bit foolish....especially as the poster is not asking for your advice on the OS...he is asking you what options are available...and your response was basically: pshhh, who cares.
It is an ask slashdot, it is not "tell me that that is a stupid question" slashdot. Especially when the question was not stupid. I am interested.
Fair enough. I did not want to flame with that specific part.
I just wanted to recall one annoyance when I used a mac. I can not actually remember what caused that. I think I was looking for a program that was in/bin, but it did not show up on ls. I think that is what it was. I am willing to say that whatever that problem was it got stuck in my mind as an annoyance.
The bigger real annoyance that I have experienced in the UI is Expose, which in my opinion is inferior to having multiple desktops. I have worked on a lab machine at that point, and I remember wishing that there were multiple desktops present, but could not find a config option to do so. I also remember wishing for the focus follows mouse but could not find it either. Perhaps it was an artifact of me not being able to administer it.
Thank you for being graphical. And no this is not the only reason, so your comment does not apply. There is also the point of a single menubar, unnecessary transparency, click to focus. I will admit, I hate Expose. Give me multiple desktops, which I can switch between using a single keystroke, and many other examples. Yeah I picked a dumb thing to complain in my original post...but it is just one of the hundreds of little annoyances that are present in OS X. Some can be removed with enough configuration, some can not.
I know that you are about to call me another slew of pleasant words. But before you do please remember...you are not the definition of all that is holy and right.
In fact I am going to claim that if you can find not a single annoyance in any UI, you have either never used that UI, a complete moron, or a fanboy.
As a Hummer owner, I will not even think about dribing those cars more powerful and more fuel efficient than a Hummer, for the simple reason that it will not be a Hummer.
You made an argument that is as dumb as the other one. You do imply that there is some extra value to it...be it ease of use, or set of applications that you like. I will even accept that you like how it looks as a good reason. (Personally, I hate how os x looks and works. I hate the extra layout confusion where some apps are in/bin and some are/Applications. It is not for me. Maybe with enough customization I can make it tolerable...but)
However, if your reason is just it won't be running OS X, you are a dumb fanboy.
Wire coathanger is not illegal, however, if you bend it into the shape that is needed to open a lock, then it becomes a manufactured lockpick, which would be illegal.
Some states regulate the making of burglary tools a well, in which case you may get hit with both posession and manufacturing.
Funny that you mention it, but breaking into your own car may not be wrong, but in many cases it is illegal.
The most legal way to break into your own car is to smash the window on your own property using a rock, because by opening the door with lockpicks, or breaking/cutting the window with specialized equipment, you have used "burglary" equipment, which is illegal to use, carry, and sometimes own without a license.
Check your state or nation's law about "burglary tool" and lockpicks in general. I think you will be surprised. Oh, and please see a lawer if you need real legal advice.
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True. But if TiVo gets enough street cred, then you will hear comparisons between "TiVo" and the "stuff which came with the Cable". If that comparison is made by the general public, TiVo won.
For that to happen, TiVo needs to provide some cool features to keep the public impressed. Here they simply let the public do the product development, and when something good comes of it, they will support it, and sell it as a feature that "the thing that came with cable" will not have.
Which brings into their long term strategy of having all cable companies license the system in order to stay competitive with satellite, which comes with one.
PS. I am not a TiVo fanboy. I do not have one, and I have barely used one. All I know is that TiVo is less about restricting what can be done with recorded content than Comcast.
I call BS on the Mountain Dew and Victoria's Secret catalog. They may not be the same brands -- but something along those lines is practiced by pretty much all gamers.
Implement a firefox extension that will replace a text in a textarea with PGP encrypted / signed text before it is submitted.
Decrypting sounds even easier as long as the messages are not modified by the html renderer.
Sounds like a nice project for the enigmail folks.
That depends on resolution. I believe that if you play a dvd mpeg, then you get hardware acceleration from your video card. However, I believe that the video card does not handle non NTSC/PAL resolution video streams. In other words...it will not touch HD, making the proc do all the work.
A proper MPEG2 decoder however will. You will still be limited by the same bus restriction as for recording however.
Get those RAIDs on PCI Express ready, boys!
I was thinking the same thing in terms of MythTV. The problem is that it will not have a chance to work as a backend -- not enough power and the lack of drivers to drive external tuners will be killer.
However, it can serve as a nice front end, assuming that good video drivers exist. Unfortunately that is a big if.
Unfortunately, it seems that this box will not be a good MythBox for now, and interestingly enough...it seems that this will be something along the lines of a Mac-Box which will probably be more in competition with X-Box and Win Media Center. Not a bad idea, but a bit too proprietary for my tastes.
HDTV encoding is done at the source. If you have an HDTV tuner then what you get is the raw MPEG-2 stream that the station sends -- no need to encode. The camcorders do their own encoding right before they write down the stream, otherwise there would just be no space.
So you do not need a faster processor, just a bus and HD fast enough to get the stream. Playback of HDTV on the other hand may take some juice, but should be easily handled by most modern processors including the mini.
The F10 feature makes sense to me a bit...even though at a first glance it seems like that will not work for me....
But thinking about it more, things like terminals will all stay in the same group...making it easire to switch between them then just switching through all the windows.
This sounds like this will wonderfully work if a task was completely contained in a single app. And that would be how most tasks would be on a mac, but unfortunately I suspect there will be problems, especially as I will venture a guess that I will need X11.
Thanks for your recommendations, and I think they will potentially affect my choices. Unfortunately, there is never a perfect choice.
Thanks again.
There is the same problem with the current boxes as well. If you want multiple TV's -- you have to pay for multiple cable boxes.
Thus all that you are complaining about can be remdied by getting multiple cable cards.
Personally, I think its a waste anyway. The only viable cable HD PVR solutions are part of the cable box anyway, so all a cable-card TV gets you is the ability to view the TV and not record it.
Are you talking about v1 or CableCard in general. The reason why cable card exists is to specifically remove the ability of the cable company to control the PVR market (among other things). I personally have no desire to give that much control to my cable company, and prefer a homebrew solution.
When CC.v2 will be released, Hauppauge or the PCHDTV people will release an HDTV tuner that will finally be able to read HDTV/DTV of the wire in its proper form. No more of that MPEG2 -> ANALOG -> MPEG2 nonsense. That in my opinion is not a waste.
Buying a TV that is not just a monitor OTOH is a waste. There is no reason why a TV should do decoding, and a whole set of other things. Give me a component analog/s-video/DVI/whatever that other raw digital format was, and that is it. Anything else will be absolete long before the TV is. The more separation of components the better. And CC v2 is in part enabling that.
But you ask most iPod users what AAC is and they have no clue.
That is true for some. And in a sense, specific usage would be determined by the rest of the interface as well.
For example -- the infamous one mouse button. Many people here will complain and name the example as an annoyance, but I will not complain about it....why? The reason is that the interface is designed to be usable with the one button mouse. The real problem is with the X-server apps, which do not have a one button mouse in mind. Hence, it is an annoyance to me, but I will not raise any noise, since that is above what OS X is designed for.
But as far as the desktops are concerned...the answer is that I keep multiple windows open. Websites, references, files I work on in full screen, other projects that I plan to return to. The typical number of windows that are open is typically around 20-30, of which a few desire to be full screen. Some of these windows I need to only give a glance before continuing...so I do a quick Win-6 Win-5 to go to desktop 6 then immediately return to desktop 5. I will typically use up about 6-7 desktops on average, but sometimes I use all 10.
Basically what I desire of the interface is complete quick switching between specific windows, and preferably groups of windows. It does not really matter if they are on a 'different' desktop. Is there something like it on OS X, or is there a better method to do what I do.
I am genuinely interested, as the powerbook seems to be the contender for the best laptop for the next few years, and I am considering using it. However, as I am not sure about usability of OS X, I am considering getting linux on it, which immediately causes the annoyance that most apps in linux are not designed with one button in mind... And it is becoming a great possibility that I will need a new laptop within a year.
PS. One thing that feels horribly bad when you return to it is 'click to focus'. I have no clue how people deal with that, it is so not intuitive anymore. I also get annoyed that selection does not immediately set a copy buffer, but that has enough problems that both ways have annoyances.
Reminds me of the "Crash Reducers" for windows. :)
Apple has provided a lot of functionality in the OS that simply has no GUI interface tied to it. Therefore, a lot of programming on OS X involves writing a front end that ties together a novel collection of features built in to the OS in new ways.
Sure. That is understandable. But most things (such as focus follows mouse and multiple desktops) seem to not be considered in the API, potentially making them incredibly unstable.
Sure there are some interface improvements on top existing API, but they just help you visualize what the OS is doing, but the core functionality is already inside OS. Those are usually not the main issue. For example I am sure that the dock can be replaced by something else without breaking anything. But I doubt I can switch the position of the close button without issues.
BTW sorry for OS and UI interchangably -- but that is almost the case in term of OS X.
Are they souping up the window manager or competing with it? See my cousin post.
It is not the third part that I am annoyed over, but the fact that there are multiple applications competing for the control of one thing -- the window positions/visibility. Any program that modifies how the primary window manager works probably competes with the window manager causing some fun race conditions to show up. This is unless OS X provides a good framework to make sure that competition does not happen. As providiing this feature as difficult...my guess is OS X enhancers just write a competitor program and then test the heck out of it. But I bet it can still be broken -- as there are many things that they did not test for, especially if there are multiple enhancement modules.
.... I am on a virtual desktop X....and see if it actually gets it right given all the different desktop enhancers. I bet this is impossible unless all of them standardize to yet another protocol, which probably does not exist.
For linux this is not the case, as virtual desktops are provided specifically by the windowmanager, and supported by the X11 protocol (I think). There aren't multiple programs competing for determination of window placement. Those programs that display the position of windows and the switching just need to send the requests through X11, and the window manager executes them...not a another program.
Here is a fun thing for a mac user to write....write a simple application that prints out
This is what I mean by third party hacks. It is not a real thing.
Where are you from. In a lot of places in the US it is illegal to own and sell bongs. See criminal code for drug paraphenalia.
Kicking the cop is a separate offense too.
BTW, having one menu bar is far more efficient.
I will tend to disagree....but then again, it just depends what you are used to.
As for the virtual desktops, I did not care to find out whether or not there are virtual desktops. I actually find it funny that there are third party programs that change little parts of the interface via hacks for multiple reasons. First, all the Mac users out there seem to praise the user interface, and say that they can not find a single flaw in it, and then proceed to tweak the heck out of it by a gazillion third party programs. Second, how can I trust that everything will work with these hacks. Basically these hacks observe what the window manager just did, and then issue commands to it, such as minimize, etc. The window manager will have absolutely no clue that these things are happening, which typically tells me that by doing some stress testing or just using more complex systems will cause problems. This would be much similar to the nvidia / tweakui modifications to windows. These added focus follows mouse, done by invisible clicking and reordering, and window shading to windows, which sets the proper size on the windows. The first one caused immediate problems in office and VS, which immediately started reacting to click events, causing processing on the back end. The window size thing applied to some windows, which did not expect to be resized, causing them to fail.
You will probably say that these things will happen on windows only. My response would be maybe...I have not tried OS X with those hacks, but my guess is if they implemented something the OS X windowmanager and apps did not plan on, then a hackish implementation would be either limited or wil break things. The level of annoyance in that case will depend on how often things break or how important the features that are missing are.
It becomes a tradoff between relying on a hack, not using the feature, or using a different system that has it. Every system tends to lack features and have small annoyances, and implement hacks to fix some others that are not present by design. OS X does not offer the best tradeoff at this point.
You by naming that topic you obviously started the flame. I just added some fuel. :) Add a little carelessness to my post, and all the posts below are turning up the heat.
:)
You are right about that. OS should come into considerations for many. But in general it is a bad idea to make overgeneralized statements about people's preferences. As you have said -- OS X is worth at least $200 to you. For me, the number will be about $0...as both WINXP and OS X are about as easy to remove.
However, the fact that it is a mac that is not designed to be upgradable drives up the cost for me. I always wanted to have a near silent smallish box for a tv controller ala mythtv. Is there a good program that runs on it. Can I add a TV tuner. Some of those $1000 mini-itx boxes can. Even though they are worse than the macmini, if I chuse to build this box, I will have to spend $500 more than they are really worth...only because they lack a small feature (one pci slot). I do not claim that they do not though...I have not researched it...but I am willing to bet that they do not.
You know -- to each his own. If I need to run a certain program -- an OS may be just as much a negative value as it is a positive value. And simply pointing out to the poster that you would not consider the other alternatives that may be even better, just because they are not apple, just sounds a bit foolish....especially as the poster is not asking for your advice on the OS...he is asking you what options are available...and your response was basically: pshhh, who cares.
It is an ask slashdot, it is not "tell me that that is a stupid question" slashdot. Especially when the question was not stupid. I am interested.
Post friendly!
Fair enough. I did not want to flame with that specific part.
/bin, but it did not show up on ls. I think that is what it was. I am willing to say that whatever that problem was it got stuck in my mind as an annoyance.
I just wanted to recall one annoyance when I used a mac. I can not actually remember what caused that. I think I was looking for a program that was in
The bigger real annoyance that I have experienced in the UI is Expose, which in my opinion is inferior to having multiple desktops. I have worked on a lab machine at that point, and I remember wishing that there were multiple desktops present, but could not find a config option to do so. I also remember wishing for the focus follows mouse but could not find it either. Perhaps it was an artifact of me not being able to administer it.
Thank you for being graphical. And no this is not the only reason, so your comment does not apply. There is also the point of a single menubar, unnecessary transparency, click to focus. I will admit, I hate Expose. Give me multiple desktops, which I can switch between using a single keystroke, and many other examples. Yeah I picked a dumb thing to complain in my original post...but it is just one of the hundreds of little annoyances that are present in OS X. Some can be removed with enough configuration, some can not.
I know that you are about to call me another slew of pleasant words. But before you do please remember...you are not the definition of all that is holy and right.
In fact I am going to claim that if you can find not a single annoyance in any UI, you have either never used that UI, a complete moron, or a fanboy.
I am not a normal user, and it annoys me.
However, if your reason is just it won't be running OS X, you are a dumb fanboy.
Is coathanger.com registered?
Actually never mind, I bet the anti-abortionists already have it.
Wire coathanger is not illegal, however, if you bend it into the shape that is needed to open a lock, then it becomes a manufactured lockpick, which would be illegal.
Some states regulate the making of burglary tools a well, in which case you may get hit with both posession and manufacturing.
Funny that you mention it, but breaking into your own car may not be wrong, but in many cases it is illegal.
The most legal way to break into your own car is to smash the window on your own property using a rock, because by opening the door with lockpicks, or breaking/cutting the window with specialized equipment, you have used "burglary" equipment, which is illegal to use, carry, and sometimes own without a license.
Check your state or nation's law about "burglary tool" and lockpicks in general. I think you will be surprised. Oh, and please see a lawer if you need real legal advice.