I'd agree in the general case. Except in this particular case, the schools know something we don't - namely, the candidates.
And therefore, it's hard to know, on a case-by-case basis, if their judgement was well-founded. In the end, it likely didn't matter because you need both a kick-ass application and kick-ass connections to make it into these programs.
In totally unrelated news, Microsoft improved its DRM - and now it's only $1.99 for a song encoded with Microsoft's technology.
"Our customers wanted rights, and we delivered where others have failed. For a nominal $1.99 per song going to Microsoft, you can rest assured that Redmond will have the finances to continue to innovate"
The study may be right, but the explanation is total crap.
The Sunday Times quoted a specialist in evolutionary psychology as saying it could be because the children of "systemiser" parents appeared to encounter more testosterone in the womb, making their gender more likely to be male.
Yeah, but there is no evidence to support that.
Instead, it could be that engineers, who are obviously well educated (and thus the head of the family) and more likely to be men, favor boys. and so if the first kid is a boy, they say "enough kids! One is enough". And if the first kid is a girl, they say "let's go for another kid until we have a boy!"
On the flip side, the same may be true for the nurses: Most nurses are women, and nurses are well-educated, and therefore are more likely to be the de facto head of the family. If the first kid is a boy, they say "let's go for another kid until we have a girl".
I think it's a wild leap to assume that there is some genetic predisposition involved here. Maybe there is, but this study doesn't show it.
Your point is well stated - dirt cheap labor is what companies like IBM or whatever want.
Of course, since IBM and the like are claiming that they need new CS grads, Universities must be willing to supply them with educated graduates. Sadly, the universities are getting screwed, because IBM doesn't really want expensive US labor - they want cheap labor.
But it isn't just that simple. If IBM doesn't play the "global outsourcing game", corporations operating overseas and misusing H1B visas will kick IBM in the butt. Therefore, IBM has to do something to reduce it's labor costs.
Currently, the only answer without H1B is to over-produce US labor, forcing labor rates down. This sounds like a solution, but it is not. What student wants to go into an industry where labor rates are tanking?
Currently there is a no-win situation unless congress gets a wakeup call and realizes that the global "correction of cost-of-living" is negatively impacting the vast majority of Americans. This isn't to say that it should stop. Instead, congress should develop controls so that balancing the "global cost of living" doesn't do so much harm with its chaos.
OK. I admit that I was playing devil's advocate. But those who claimed "troll" didn't want to read the argument I laid out. THe argument I wrote is good (but somewhat easy to challenge).
Sadly, most have failed to counter my argument. Sure, people have said that those H1B types don't have the right skills, and that CEOs get paid way to much... but most completely failed to come straight out against at the arguments I laid out. Those folks should be labeled "troll", in my humble opinion.
In any case, here is how I would counter my own argument:
1. the labor cost deltas are not merely coincidental, but by design. 2. no IT skills are lacking in the US, except on a $ per person basis. 3. most skilled IT employees may be employed, but MANY are not 4. I claimed that there is a "real need" for H1B imports, but I didn't back it with anything 5. Congress should support the American people, not business or the economy except to support the people. 6. Americans should "realize" that they are threatened by fewer wages and benefits, not "compete".
How many defense firms do you think hire foreign engineers? I'll give you a hint, it is bigger than -1, but less than 1.
Wow, you clearly don't work in the defense industry. I worked for a large American aerospace defense company that you've heard of for many many years.
There is a huge amount of outsourcing going on, and a huge amount of foreign engineers. Sure, some sub-projects require very special security clearances for both the engineers and the factory floor workers. But the vast majority of defense-related engineering and manufacturing can be done by engineers without any special clearances or restrictions.
I can say with confidence that the number of US defense firms that hire foreign engineers or contract with companies that hire foreign engineers is almost exactly equal to the number of US defense firms.
Congress could allow for more H1B visas, permitting high-quality IT professionals to be brought into the USA where skills are lacking.
To be honest, most skilled American IT employees are gainfully employed now (with some exceptions in some areas). Some will look at H1Bs as just a way to hire cheap overseas labor to replace current "living wage" American jobs, but in reality there is a real need despite the coincidental labor cost differences.
Americans should realize that they need to compete in this new world economy by either working for fewer wages and benefits, or by offering much higher skills and capabilities. Or both. Congress realizes this, and should take action to support American business, the economy, and people.
I know all about Subversion and its advertised benefits, but then again, my organization is centered around CVS and it works for us (despite its well known limitations).
But since I need to reorganize my development environment (new development machines, etc), I'm curious - should I switch now?
My development environment consists of CVS and Eclipse on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac (an amalgam, eh?)... a small group of distributed developers working on a (currently) proprietary product based around Java and Perl.
I'd only like to convert and clean up my source code repository once every 5 years or so... so is this the time to do it, or am I just looking for trouble?
"While studies have shown that spying on workers tends to make them less productive, that hasn't stopped approximately 1/3 of all U.S. companies from employing email monitoring tools. 43% of those companies employ staff to check outgoing emails.
The "study" referenced does not address eletronic monitoring of employees.
The paper is about trusting employees to work from home and other "remote" locations. Evidently, Microsoft doesn't feel that employers should feel the need to physically watch over their employees - perhaps because remote office work could be beneficial to Microsoft's bottom line.
To claim that this paper is an academic study referring to the negative aspects of corporate electronic monitoring is way off base. Instead, it smells like a Microsoft whitepaper promoting Microsoft products within UK employees' homes.
It was a fair laptop... not the best, not the worst, but not worth the $$$. I'm glad work bought it for me.
As a tablet? Well, it wasn't useful for me. Maybe it's good for people who need to stand and write (and digitize!) at the same time, or those who need to do light-weight doodles without the need for a graphic designer's high-quality tablet & display. But since I code, create presentations, do word processing, excel, etc, the tablet feature is next to useless.
But I'm sure some will find use for it. For now, I'll keep my smart phone and my traditional Dell laptop.
Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed Thursday.
As a Windows user and fan, I have to take exception to the "XP service packs are more substantial than the OS X upgrade".
This is far from the truth. In my experience, Windows XP is just a facelift of Windows 2000. Sure, the default colors are different and the buttons look different, but it's all the same stuff - just a minor upgrade to colors and a bunch of bug/feature fixes.
XP service packs are just that - they fix stuff that is totally broken or flawed, or worse, they layer in new software that I don't want or that break my older apps.
So although I agree with him that Windows XP is a good and solid OS, touting the transition from Windows 2000 to XPsp2 as multiple "major upgrades" looks just like fantasy. I consider them all to be in the "minor bug/feature/UI fix" category.
Dell Motto: We're fairly good.
on
Dell Might do AMD
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· Score: 4, Funny
"We are still looking at AMD; they have fairly good technology," said Rollins.
He went on to say that "Dell excels to use as many fairly good components as possible. Dell strives for mediocre computers, and that can only be done by using adequate, middling componentry sourced from the most average manufactures in the world"
Mr. Rollins went on to attack other vendors. "IBM and Apple, well, they think they produce pretty good products too. But the public knows better - excellent design, manufacturing, componentry, and software does not make for a pretty good product. That's why Dell is the market leader".
Many consumers agree. In recent reports, Dell consistently hits the "adequate" mark in customer satisfaction. "We don't want our customers to think we're better than anyone else - people are put off by that kind of talk. It's kind of like the Bush/Kerry campaigns. We have to work very hard to be average in this business."
Dell is now considering AMD, but Dell still has some concern that AMD processors may not be average enough. Rollins says that Dell looked at AMD's products a few years back, and "they kicked some butt. But that's not the Dell way. We're hoping that now their products are getting a little dull - but only some fairly standard analysis will tell. We hope that they'll hit our mark, more or less."
Other than the same old arguments (you can't make it proprietary later)
This is incorrect. Of course you can make your GPL'd code proprietary if you decide to retain copyright ownership of your IP. You may and can release your code as GPL, and later release it as closed-source, proprietary work.
Of course, you can't license someone else's IP. That's a different ball of wax. Exactly like I can't license Michael Jackson's Thriller album to EMI.
GPL imposes on developing nations "a rather predatory obligation to disgorge all their IP back to the wealthiest nation in the world"
Again, this is incorrect to the point where it's either a gross misquote, or complete lack of understanding of IP.
The GPL does not in any way coerce any non-GPL license into the GPL. There may be financial benefits to licensing a product under the GPL license. On the flip side, there may be financial benefits to not license a product under the GPL. There is absolutely no obligation, preditorially or otherwise, to license your own IP under the GPL. The only exception is if you've agreed to a contract which stipulates that you must release your work under the GPL - and clearly agreeing to such a contract implies that there is some advantage to you to do so.
So in a nutshell, this is not an issue. And the fact that no cases were described suggests that this is just can't happen.
Tiger timeline and iSync supported devices
on
10.4 on Display at FOSE
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· Score: 4, Informative
It isn't a surprise that Apple is now touting 10.4 (aka "Tiger") at the trade shows. It is very close to release - and although it has rumored to have "gone gold", its availability is still rumored to be several weeks away.
In terms of iSync, it has been rumored that it will be upgraded to support more devices, but the precise list has not been made available. Hopefully device manufacturers are smart enough to get their (favored) phones represented in the list of devices they sell... but clearly, some manufacturers are sunsetting a bunch of devices - and so the financial advantage of iSync support for end-of-life products is dubious.
This would be amazing. Then I could leave my house on time, regardless of how not-in-time the green line is running.
The tricky bit: I'd want to see the general direction of the vehicle too. Who wants to run to the bus or trolley only to implicitly find that it must have been going the other way?
I'd rather spend $180 on something else. I don't spend close to $180 per year on music... and if I quit or if Napster goes out of business, then I have zero to show for it.
Or, even worse, Napster could raise it's rates after I'm pretty committed.... or introduce higher-priced music categories that don't fit into the $15/month category.
The BBC is reporting that Ireland will be the first country in the world to have their traditional 35mm film projectors replaced with digital projectors.
Since there are many more than 500 35mm projectors in Ireland, it seems a bit of a fantasy to imply that the entire country will have digital-only screens.
My question of interest is... what are the economics of giving away 500 projectors? Are the 500 projectors "gifts", or are they leased or under loan? Is the goal to reduce the costs, or reduce the damage to the film, prevent piracy somehow, or what?
If a 2000-styled election cliffhanger happens again, perhaps we'll have USC to thank for it.
Gee, sounds like you flunked out of USC.
In any case, the idea isn't to put non-working components in your home computer. Instead, the goal is to use some rejected components for other uses where they can still succeed.
A good example is your favorite HDD. Does it have bit errors? Yep! But can you tell? Nope! Because the supporting hardware is able to detect and correct the errors without you ever knowing about it.
So why not apply the same principles to other computer components? The short answer is cost. It costs money to build more fault-tolerant devices. But the paper advocates reducing the costs of such fault-tolerance, and using the 2nd class componentry only where one can.
Daimaou wrote some code derived from GPLed sources. Now his company wants to take control over what he's written.
The company has to decide to either dispose of the GPL-licensed code, or accept the GPL'd pieces and keep Daimaou's efforts. (Or, I suppose, attempt to obtain alternative licenses from the copyright owners).
My question is: did he have permission from his company to introduce the GPL code?
It sounds like either the company is "stealing" from the GPL, or that he secretly introduced the GPL into the company's software.
If the first case is true, (where the company knew what he was doing), then it looks like the company may be trying to break the GPL contract.
If the 2nd case is true, (where the company was blindsided by his introduction of code from the outside) then the question is how they might decide to reprimand Daimaou.
I don't think there are any trademarks that have been hit and other than that they just kind of look the same and have similar functionality.
It appears that they copied the package design of the iPod Shuffle, along with the term"Shuffle" in relation to a brand of music players.
Apple has trademark on the term "Shuffle" when used in relation with portable music players. Dell can't sell the "Dell Shuffle" music player unless they ask Apple first. (On the flip side, maybe they could sell the Dell Shuffle Picture Frame Series, or the Dell Shuffle card shuffler)
The design of the iPod shuffle's case is also protected. Apple's design is owned by Apple. It'd be wise to mix it up (pun!) instead of releasing a device that is clearly identical in appearance.
All this is exactly why Ford never produced a car called "The Camaro", and never produced a car looked strikingly similar to a Chevy Camaro. Among other reasons related to the fact that the Camaro sucked.
In the same way, Dell doesn't have a "Super Armada" series of laptops.
---
In any case, I think there's an IP lesson in the making here - you may be finding legal trouble if you copy the name of a similar product, or the physical look of a product. Instead, think of your own name and create your own packaging.
Here's what I'd advise: I'd call it the "Mini Mixer", paint it with chrome-like reflective paint, make the device 1/3rd the size, have it accept voice commands (and lose the buttons), and advertise it with a 500 hour battery life.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd agree in the general case. Except in this particular case, the schools know something we don't - namely, the candidates.
And therefore, it's hard to know, on a case-by-case basis, if their judgement was well-founded. In the end, it likely didn't matter because you need both a kick-ass application and kick-ass connections to make it into these programs.
In totally unrelated news, Microsoft improved its DRM - and now it's only $1.99 for a song encoded with Microsoft's technology.
"Our customers wanted rights, and we delivered where others have failed. For a nominal $1.99 per song going to Microsoft, you can rest assured that Redmond will have the finances to continue to innovate"
The study may be right, but the explanation is total crap.
The Sunday Times quoted a specialist in evolutionary psychology as saying it could be because the children of "systemiser" parents appeared to encounter more testosterone in the womb, making their gender more likely to be male.
Yeah, but there is no evidence to support that.
Instead, it could be that engineers, who are obviously well educated (and thus the head of the family) and more likely to be men, favor boys. and so if the first kid is a boy, they say "enough kids! One is enough". And if the first kid is a girl, they say "let's go for another kid until we have a boy!"
On the flip side, the same may be true for the nurses: Most nurses are women, and nurses are well-educated, and therefore are more likely to be the de facto head of the family. If the first kid is a boy, they say "let's go for another kid until we have a girl".
I think it's a wild leap to assume that there is some genetic predisposition involved here. Maybe there is, but this study doesn't show it.
Your point is well stated - dirt cheap labor is what companies like IBM or whatever want.
Of course, since IBM and the like are claiming that they need new CS grads, Universities must be willing to supply them with educated graduates. Sadly, the universities are getting screwed, because IBM doesn't really want expensive US labor - they want cheap labor.
But it isn't just that simple. If IBM doesn't play the "global outsourcing game", corporations operating overseas and misusing H1B visas will kick IBM in the butt. Therefore, IBM has to do something to reduce it's labor costs.
Currently, the only answer without H1B is to over-produce US labor, forcing labor rates down. This sounds like a solution, but it is not. What student wants to go into an industry where labor rates are tanking?
Currently there is a no-win situation unless congress gets a wakeup call and realizes that the global "correction of cost-of-living" is negatively impacting the vast majority of Americans. This isn't to say that it should stop. Instead, congress should develop controls so that balancing the "global cost of living" doesn't do so much harm with its chaos.
Damn, I have 64 cycles, and my battery is only 3 months old.
And not involved in the recall. Sadness.
OK. I admit that I was playing devil's advocate. But those who claimed "troll" didn't want to read the argument I laid out. THe argument I wrote is good (but somewhat easy to challenge).
Sadly, most have failed to counter my argument. Sure, people have said that those H1B types don't have the right skills, and that CEOs get paid way to much... but most completely failed to come straight out against at the arguments I laid out. Those folks should be labeled "troll", in my humble opinion.
In any case, here is how I would counter my own argument:
1. the labor cost deltas are not merely coincidental, but by design.
2. no IT skills are lacking in the US, except on a $ per person basis.
3. most skilled IT employees may be employed, but MANY are not
4. I claimed that there is a "real need" for H1B imports, but I didn't back it with anything
5. Congress should support the American people, not business or the economy except to support the people.
6. Americans should "realize" that they are threatened by fewer wages and benefits, not "compete".
How many defense firms do you think hire foreign engineers? I'll give you a hint, it is bigger than -1, but less than 1.
Wow, you clearly don't work in the defense industry. I worked for a large American aerospace defense company that you've heard of for many many years.
There is a huge amount of outsourcing going on, and a huge amount of foreign engineers. Sure, some sub-projects require very special security clearances for both the engineers and the factory floor workers. But the vast majority of defense-related engineering and manufacturing can be done by engineers without any special clearances or restrictions.
I can say with confidence that the number of US defense firms that hire foreign engineers or contract with companies that hire foreign engineers is almost exactly equal to the number of US defense firms.
Congress could allow for more H1B visas, permitting high-quality IT professionals to be brought into the USA where skills are lacking.
To be honest, most skilled American IT employees are gainfully employed now (with some exceptions in some areas). Some will look at H1Bs as just a way to hire cheap overseas labor to replace current "living wage" American jobs, but in reality there is a real need despite the coincidental labor cost differences.
Americans should realize that they need to compete in this new world economy by either working for fewer wages and benefits, or by offering much higher skills and capabilities. Or both. Congress realizes this, and should take action to support American business, the economy, and people.
Most all batteries - from in your car, to your watch, could potentially explode if you short it.
Trust me, a broken battery makes quite a mess.
I know all about Subversion and its advertised benefits, but then again, my organization is centered around CVS and it works for us (despite its well known limitations).
... a small group of distributed developers working on a (currently) proprietary product based around Java and Perl.
But since I need to reorganize my development environment (new development machines, etc), I'm curious - should I switch now?
My development environment consists of CVS and Eclipse on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Mac (an amalgam, eh?)
I'd only like to convert and clean up my source code repository once every 5 years or so... so is this the time to do it, or am I just looking for trouble?
"While studies have shown that spying on workers tends to make them less productive, that hasn't stopped approximately 1/3 of all U.S. companies from employing email monitoring tools. 43% of those companies employ staff to check outgoing emails.
The "study" referenced does not address eletronic monitoring of employees.
The paper is about trusting employees to work from home and other "remote" locations. Evidently, Microsoft doesn't feel that employers should feel the need to physically watch over their employees - perhaps because remote office work could be beneficial to Microsoft's bottom line.
To claim that this paper is an academic study referring to the negative aspects of corporate electronic monitoring is way off base. Instead, it smells like a Microsoft whitepaper promoting Microsoft products within UK employees' homes.
I had a Toshiba Tablet PC.
It was a fair laptop... not the best, not the worst, but not worth the $$$. I'm glad work bought it for me.
As a tablet? Well, it wasn't useful for me. Maybe it's good for people who need to stand and write (and digitize!) at the same time, or those who need to do light-weight doodles without the need for a graphic designer's high-quality tablet & display. But since I code, create presentations, do word processing, excel, etc, the tablet feature is next to useless.
But I'm sure some will find use for it. For now, I'll keep my smart phone and my traditional Dell laptop.
this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor.
The application development group still has a job! You're doing great!
The management that was involved in choosing the vendor has been sacked.
Those responsible for letting this leak into public view have been "reassigned", and will be terminated once the heat dies down.
Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed Thursday.
That's funny... given Comcast's poor reliability this week, I find it shocking that she'd be able to upload or download anything.
As a Windows user and fan, I have to take exception to the "XP service packs are more substantial than the OS X upgrade".
This is far from the truth. In my experience, Windows XP is just a facelift of Windows 2000. Sure, the default colors are different and the buttons look different, but it's all the same stuff - just a minor upgrade to colors and a bunch of bug/feature fixes.
XP service packs are just that - they fix stuff that is totally broken or flawed, or worse, they layer in new software that I don't want or that break my older apps.
So although I agree with him that Windows XP is a good and solid OS, touting the transition from Windows 2000 to XPsp2 as multiple "major upgrades" looks just like fantasy. I consider them all to be in the "minor bug/feature/UI fix" category.
"We are still looking at AMD; they have fairly good technology," said Rollins.
He went on to say that "Dell excels to use as many fairly good components as possible. Dell strives for mediocre computers, and that can only be done by using adequate, middling componentry sourced from the most average manufactures in the world"
Mr. Rollins went on to attack other vendors. "IBM and Apple, well, they think they produce pretty good products too. But the public knows better - excellent design, manufacturing, componentry, and software does not make for a pretty good product. That's why Dell is the market leader".
Many consumers agree. In recent reports, Dell consistently hits the "adequate" mark in customer satisfaction. "We don't want our customers to think we're better than anyone else - people are put off by that kind of talk. It's kind of like the Bush/Kerry campaigns. We have to work very hard to be average in this business."
Dell is now considering AMD, but Dell still has some concern that AMD processors may not be average enough. Rollins says that Dell looked at AMD's products a few years back, and "they kicked some butt. But that's not the Dell way. We're hoping that now their products are getting a little dull - but only some fairly standard analysis will tell. We hope that they'll hit our mark, more or less."
Other than the same old arguments (you can't make it proprietary later)
This is incorrect. Of course you can make your GPL'd code proprietary if you decide to retain copyright ownership of your IP. You may and can release your code as GPL, and later release it as closed-source, proprietary work.
Of course, you can't license someone else's IP. That's a different ball of wax. Exactly like I can't license Michael Jackson's Thriller album to EMI.
GPL imposes on developing nations "a rather predatory obligation to disgorge all their IP back to the wealthiest nation in the world"
Again, this is incorrect to the point where it's either a gross misquote, or complete lack of understanding of IP.
The GPL does not in any way coerce any non-GPL license into the GPL. There may be financial benefits to licensing a product under the GPL license. On the flip side, there may be financial benefits to not license a product under the GPL. There is absolutely no obligation, preditorially or otherwise, to license your own IP under the GPL. The only exception is if you've agreed to a contract which stipulates that you must release your work under the GPL - and clearly agreeing to such a contract implies that there is some advantage to you to do so.
So in a nutshell, this is not an issue. And the fact that no cases were described suggests that this is just can't happen.
It isn't a surprise that Apple is now touting 10.4 (aka "Tiger") at the trade shows. It is very close to release - and although it has rumored to have "gone gold", its availability is still rumored to be several weeks away.
In terms of iSync, it has been rumored that it will be upgraded to support more devices, but the precise list has not been made available. Hopefully device manufacturers are smart enough to get their (favored) phones represented in the list of devices they sell... but clearly, some manufacturers are sunsetting a bunch of devices - and so the financial advantage of iSync support for end-of-life products is dubious.
Yay! Please put this on MBTA busses and trolleys.
This would be amazing. Then I could leave my house on time, regardless of how not-in-time the green line is running.
The tricky bit: I'd want to see the general direction of the vehicle too. Who wants to run to the bus or trolley only to implicitly find that it must have been going the other way?
I suggest 1 Hz.
I'd rather spend $180 on something else. I don't spend close to $180 per year on music... and if I quit or if Napster goes out of business, then I have zero to show for it.
Or, even worse, Napster could raise it's rates after I'm pretty committed.... or introduce higher-priced music categories that don't fit into the $15/month category.
The BBC is reporting that Ireland will be the first country in the world to have their traditional 35mm film projectors replaced with digital projectors.
Since there are many more than 500 35mm projectors in Ireland, it seems a bit of a fantasy to imply that the entire country will have digital-only screens.
My question of interest is... what are the economics of giving away 500 projectors? Are the 500 projectors "gifts", or are they leased or under loan? Is the goal to reduce the costs, or reduce the damage to the film, prevent piracy somehow, or what?
If a 2000-styled election cliffhanger happens again, perhaps we'll have USC to thank for it.
Gee, sounds like you flunked out of USC.
In any case, the idea isn't to put non-working components in your home computer. Instead, the goal is to use some rejected components for other uses where they can still succeed.
A good example is your favorite HDD. Does it have bit errors? Yep! But can you tell? Nope! Because the supporting hardware is able to detect and correct the errors without you ever knowing about it.
So why not apply the same principles to other computer components? The short answer is cost. It costs money to build more fault-tolerant devices. But the paper advocates reducing the costs of such fault-tolerance, and using the 2nd class componentry only where one can.
Learn to RTFA, and maybe USC will take you back!
Daimaou wrote some code derived from GPLed sources. Now his company wants to take control over what he's written.
The company has to decide to either dispose of the GPL-licensed code, or accept the GPL'd pieces and keep Daimaou's efforts. (Or, I suppose, attempt to obtain alternative licenses from the copyright owners).
My question is: did he have permission from his company to introduce the GPL code?
It sounds like either the company is "stealing" from the GPL, or that he secretly introduced the GPL into the company's software.
If the first case is true, (where the company knew what he was doing), then it looks like the company may be trying to break the GPL contract.
If the 2nd case is true, (where the company was blindsided by his introduction of code from the outside) then the question is how they might decide to reprimand Daimaou.
I don't think there are any trademarks that have been hit and other than that they just kind of look the same and have similar functionality.
It appears that they copied the package design of the iPod Shuffle, along with the term"Shuffle" in relation to a brand of music players.
Apple has trademark on the term "Shuffle" when used in relation with portable music players. Dell can't sell the "Dell Shuffle" music player unless they ask Apple first. (On the flip side, maybe they could sell the Dell Shuffle Picture Frame Series, or the Dell Shuffle card shuffler)
The design of the iPod shuffle's case is also protected. Apple's design is owned by Apple. It'd be wise to mix it up (pun!) instead of releasing a device that is clearly identical in appearance.
All this is exactly why Ford never produced a car called "The Camaro", and never produced a car looked strikingly similar to a Chevy Camaro. Among other reasons related to the fact that the Camaro sucked.
In the same way, Dell doesn't have a "Super Armada" series of laptops.
---
In any case, I think there's an IP lesson in the making here - you may be finding legal trouble if you copy the name of a similar product, or the physical look of a product. Instead, think of your own name and create your own packaging.
Here's what I'd advise: I'd call it the "Mini Mixer", paint it with chrome-like reflective paint, make the device 1/3rd the size, have it accept voice commands (and lose the buttons), and advertise it with a 500 hour battery life.