Who the hell builds 5 acre properties and then rents them for 2000 a month?
You build 1/20th acre properties and rent them for 2000 a month.
150 sq metres? That's around 1500 square foot. At least where I live you can rent out a 3 bed 800 square foot house for £800 a month, and that's on grounds of around 20ftx50ft. That's 1/40th of an acre. Such a house, ready built, will cost you £200,000 to buy. You usually use the rent to offset the mortgage payments (zero cost, as long as there are people who need to rent), giving you an entire property you own in 30 years time (equity) with an income (albeit £800 a month, non-inflation adjusted).
But this is something that 12 year olds learn... it isn't "little details of life".
Not knowing stuff like this really shows the shallowness of someone's education.
Also it is "privilege", not "privledge". "Asphalt", not "asphault". "didn't stagnate", not "didn't stagnant".
What are you, some kind of retardo-jock? Maybe you don't need to know this stuff to live, but if your mind isn't curious then what is the worth of your life?
After reading your post, I looked up and down the entire page twice before finding it.
That's after finding it.
Sorry, I see that the Slashdot moderators are moderating criticism of their new system down rather than taking it on board, and expect this comment to be at -1 soon too, but for the love of chocolate eclairs, please make these things more obvious.
I'm still looking for the different view methods as well - seems to be nested by posting time only. Admittedly doing this in Javascript to avoid a page reload could be quite interesting, but it's not exactly new code, the testing option has been available for months so you would expect it to be done by now. I don't know what the Slashdot day jobs are, but if they're full time they do work quite slowly (probably due to the ancient codebase and old cruft that needs to be worked around).
The threshold slider thing, ONCE DISCOVERED, is quite nice - I moved it to the top of the threads rather than in the non-article-related column to the left, and then found out that to make it non-sticky you had to click that little wierd icon on it again. It's also pointless compared to the old drop-down combo-box, but I guess it is prettier, and that's what Web 2.0 is all about, eh?
As a device the PS3 is very nice - BluRay player, quite quiet, integrated PSU.
As a gaming platform it leaves a lot to be desired due to there not being many great titles available for it.
By the time it is $399 there will probably be far more good titles available, and it will be far more compelling.
I don't think I'd want to risk a 360 right now - I'm hoping the 65nm shrink later this year will solve the RROD issue and there will also be GTA4 by then. I'll play with my Wii in the meantime.
The interesting thing is that it uses the same connector as any iPod in the past 3 years.
I'm going to suggest that your typical iPhone buyer owns an iPod already.
So the person will have: 1 dock (with iPhone), 1 iPod cable, possible iPod docks and speaker systems, possible Bluetooth iPhone headset (comes with another dock), possible in-car iPod charger. Their household probably has multiple iPod USB cables for multiple iPods anyway.
Even if they don't own an iPod, docks, speaker systems, cables, etc, are quite cheap, so you can buy one to enable you to recharge at work, home, car...
If your iPhone runs out of battery life ever, you've done something wrong or you went on a trip to a place without electrical outlets. I can see the bluetooth earpiece running out of battery as that can only charge in the dock it comes with, but the phone will still be fine.
Up until the early 80s, national tabloid newspapers in England would put topless pictures of girls as young as 16 on Page 3. I can only presume that the porn mags at the time took it further than just topless.
How's your stomach?
I'm really surprised that people will develop their personal porn photos at a high street photo store myself. Surely that's what Polaroids were developed for?! And as for developing child porn there, that's a completely new level of retardation.
The law is meant to reflect the general morality of the society it serves. Sadly the people in power these days are often conservative puritans, so laws often reflect the morality of that subsection of society that define it. Don't let your personal morality be defined by the law, let it be defined by society, reality, sensibility, empathy, appreciation of consequences,...
Geeks deal with the number of functions, even if you need to break your fingers to use them.
People in the real world deal with the quality of the implementation of the functions.
Geeks hate the iPhone - can't hack it, can't replace the battery, can't easily take it apart, can't install software. Sure, it's a cool OS based around a BSD core, but BSD is dying so that does not compute.
Everyone else is happy that it does what it does with the most intuitive and usable interface available. It's also got a screen twice the resolution of the HTC Wizard, and it doesn't run that bloated shitware called Windows Mobile (why are so many Slashdot users fawning over this? I've had to use it on an almost daily basis for over a year, and it really is dire even compared to my old PalmIIIc). It is an acceptable compromise for them.
The iPhone's LiPoly battery is rated for 300 - 400 recharge cycles (before death? or half-life/power?). A full recharge every day would mean you would be getting a replacement battery every year - that would be with heavy use. After paying $600 + $720 (to $1200) in that first year for the phone and service, $87 is nothing. Most likely for most people it will be 2 years before they need a replacement battery - that's an outlay of $2000 - $3000 before that $87 battery is required. By that time they'll be getting a new revision 4 iPhone.
But whahahahhhhhh I can't replace the battery on long business trips. Dude, get an external recharge pack. They're cheap and in terms of bulk they're around the same size as a replacement battery anyway. Also because the iPhone is iPod interface compatible you can use any iPod recharge pack (or cable). That USB-iPod cable is a lot of weight to add to your luggage and is hard to find USB ports...
Pick on the iPhone for real issues: can't be used as a bluetooth modem, can't use a bluetooth keyboard, no AIM/MSN/etc (yet), no native third party applications (i.e., no doom, quake, DocumentsToGo, etc), no MMS.
Given that Apple have sold a million iPhones (give or take), and that the typical failure rate within warranty for your average consumer electronics is 5%, and that the vast majority of these failures occurs within the first few days according to the bathtub model (where the other vast majority of failures will occur after the warranty has expired), we should have seen 20,000 - 40,000 dead iPhones by now. Never mind having activation issues that seem to stem from number portability implementation issues in many cases.
Not a peep.
So either Apple's hardware reliability is good with a failure rate more like 1%, or they're covering it up well, or it's just not quite old enough yet to get statistics for failure (give it a few weeks). Or it will be a product that bucks the bathtub model, like the XBox360 where failures start occurring some time into the product's lifespan (but these types of failures are usually stress or environmental (heat) in nature than component, I imagine).
You might like that Mercury Revolution game on the Wii then. Very simple interface, simple game, that has very good reviews, and is also quite cheap.
As for RayMan, it is awesome. The toilet doors are a bit hard for a couple of goes, but after that it is fine. The later toilet doors + walking scuba rabbids is much harder, but still doable within 10 tries.
The biggest issue is the 50Hz/60Hz bug on the stereo rabbids level. PAL gamers need to switch the game to 60Hz to complete those levels.
The rest of the game has so many rewarding areas that you are missing out a lot by giving up so early.
I read that Safari, due to its full featuredness on the iPhone, supported the web client for Exchange / Outlook completely.
I do know that many companies do not turn on the POP3 or IMAP options in Exchange (I can understand POP3, but why not IMAP?) which would be a block for those companies. Until the boss said "I want my email" anyway.
What I think the big fear is that Apple are renowned for taking Open Standards (I'm sure it can sync with an iCal server, for calendars, IMAP, POP3, XHTML, AAC,...) and packaging them with a proprietary but very usable interface. They have back end servers for all of the above, and a desktop client, and now they will have a mobile client.
I believe IMAP servers are adding the Push IMAP functionality, Dovecot I believe is. Regardless, they will all have it within a short time, and another proprietary plus for Blackberry, etc, will have been negated by an open standard.
The article points out that websites that have certain interests (ZdNet, CNET are Microsoft biased - do Microsoft have shares in them) are arguing against the iPhone because it doesn't support the proprietary standards of Microsoft, RIM, etc, and thus is useless. Whilst the article itself isn't non-biased, it does make some worthy points that should be considered.
I agree. It's why the concept behind a device like the Foléo is good, even if the device itself and the price point aren't. On the other hand, people don't want to carry two devices around, even if there is an option for phone-only when you're in a bar or pub, you might as well use that notebook you carry most places innit!
The iPhone quite possibly will be slim enough to stick into smaller pockets than a Treo, but we will see. Remember that it offers the possibility of removing the iPod from the pocket, although I don't know many people who would want to drop down from their 30GB/80GB iPod to an 8GB iPhone, so they'll still be carrying both anyway - but only one set of headphones if they're sensible.
Maybe the iPhone will be a hit with women - it's a good size for handbags, and no where near as geeky as a Treo.
If everything goes wrong in life, I'll ensure I have enough money to buy an area of land in the middle of nowhere, and a couple of these containers to live in once I'm there! I'll half-bury them in a slope, so I get some natural insulation from the elements (and this makes planning permission easier in some areas). I guess I'd have to coat them with a load of sealant beforehand... might have to use a 40ft container for a personal bowling alley too!
With your plan of course you will need to use the smaller 10ft containers alongside your spokes for toilets, closets, computer rooms, facilities. I think I should factor that into my plan as well. As well as a watchout tower made from those large 10ft diameter concrete cylinders.
It doesn't even look that bad - a little industrial maybe but I have no issue with that. I guess you stick soundproofing on all four walls before putting the plasterboard on, and possibly between the containers as well for insulation.
They could really solve the low-end housing crisis / homeless issues in the UK with a solution like that - if someone was brave enough anyway. The sad thing is that within 10 years they'd be on the market for £100k each, even if they only have 200ft^2 or so of flooring per container.
Because there's precious few cables going into or out of those boxes in that picture.
If they're cheap (the containers, not the Sun Blackboxes), can you build a house out of them. Those containers must be pretty weatherproof I imagine. Several of those and some welding and you'd have an awesome place. With no windows. As I said, awesome, I'd sell them as "Overground Basements" to geeks.
I don't think it will be a failure, likewise I don't think it will be something that redefines the entire arena. In fact, I expect it will probably sell roughly in line with Apple's sales predictions. There are plenty of people who can drop the money required for this device - that's why there are other similer devices at the same pricepoint or higher.
I expect the on-board software to surpass other offerings, but the lack of custom applications apart from via AJAX will negate a lot of these advantages. However for the vast majority of people, the on-board apps will by far surpass offerings on other devices, and also be sufficient for their needs (although GPS + Google Maps would have been killer, that's a major downer, I expect that Bluetooth GPS units won't work either).
I find it rather sad that here we have a phone that is essentially running Unix at its core, that looks good, etc, and people on Slashdot are hating on it (because it is Apple). In the meantime they're loving Windows Mobile, despite the fact that it is basically a pile of crap (I work with the devices on a daily basis unfortunately, they're constantly crashing, or failing to do basic tasks like connect to a WPA network despite apparently supporting them, and let's not get onto the C-grade applications that ship with it). I can understand annoyance at the vast amount of hype and articles about the damn device, but that's because there is always a lot of expectation around Apple to redefine usability and style in a market segment - e.g., the iPod - and reap the benefits when the majority say "fuck this other shit, I've had enough of faffing about, this just does it without hassle".
He's correct though. This isn't related to Apple in any way, it's related to mature, professional disclosure of computer software bugs, holes and issues to the maintaining company so that they can fix it, and thus keep computers secure.
I found Trillian to be a horribly bloated, very unstylish, and difficult to configure application.
It seems that the only pluses it has is that it does modern internet communications media (voice and video) on these networks. I'm hoping that they've fixed the configuration system too since I last tried it.
Adium on the Mac is pretty damn good, and deserves the 8/10. 9/10 and 10/10 would be Adium with voice and video support respectively. The interface styles are all very sophisticated and configurable, and it's simply very usable.
And that's what matters, usability. I'd far rather have fewer features that I can use simply, quickly, and easily rather than more features that are exposed poorly via the interface. Of course I'd rather have usability and all the features, but I think that Adium (and the libpurple it's based around) will get voice, video and other proprietary features support at some point.
Get the employees to log the calls. (Optional) Record a call where someone tells them "i'm going to have to invoice you for these calls at our standard rates" or similar. Or get your lawyer to draft a letter telling them of the rates for receiving phone calls from them, and send it to them with guaranteed delivery.
After that, for each call, invoice them at contractor rates for half an hour.
Send the invoice at the end of each month with a full itinery of phone calls received.
After a few months take them to court for non-payment of invoices, with full logs of the 'contractual phone call handling' you've undertaken for them, and the original recording as evidence that they knew they would be billed.
Half an hour for a 3 minute call? Yes. At least. A phone call in the office interrupts the person for 15 minutes afterwards apparently, because it is distracting. Most likely it will distract someone else nearby equally, possibly more. I think it is perfectly fair to invoice for all the lost productivity.
You never know, they might just have a 'pay all bills' type system where they never actually check the veracity of the bill. You might end up making an income.
Somebody else posted that it was a Freescale i.MX31 with 256MB RAM. Size of built-in flash memory is unknown, I'd be hoping for at least a couple of GB in a $499 device.
The i.MX31 is an interesting beast. It has an ARM11 core with 128KB L2 cache, and a pile of other useful things. I don't know the clock speed, but let's assume it's at least 300MHz, probably performing like a 500MHz+ XScale.
It had a vector FP unit and can do H.264 decoding and encoding (SP) at VGA resolutions. Palm should have stuck a camera in the unit and let it be used for Skype...
I like the hardware aspect of this device, but I don't think it will be that compelling as a product unless they give them away to their most productive third party software producers to create a compelling platform.
I have a Wii, and I like it, but I don't play it nearly enough - mostly due to my internet addiction I guess, rather than watching TV instead as I never do that either.
I find that once I've bothered to turn the Wii on and play something, I can play for quite a while, casual bowling, tennis, etc. I sometimes browse YouTube with it to watch the videos on the TV from my sofa, which is fine regardless of the YouTube video quality. I need to dedicate a few hours a week to the Wii really, finish Zelda,...
I have longer term aims to buy virtual console games and play them.
I want a Wii Kart type game. Maybe if Excite Truck drops in price a bit more....
Oh, and Resident Evil 4 will be out on the Wii soon, that will be fun.
My parents played Wii Sports the other day. They loved it, and it's probably the first time they've ever tried playing a video game. It brings to mind the old folks homes and centres with Wiis that have bowling leagues based upon a video game.
And on top of it all, Nintendo are making money on everything Wii related. Even if the Wii was dead in 2 years time and topped out at 20 million consoles sold, they'd have made so much money on it in the meantime to equal the profit on the 360 or PS3 over its lifetime.
I'd have liked a 720P option for the web browser and other non-game interfaces. Maybe if they release a Wii+ in the future... on the other hand I don't have a HDTV, so what do I care?!
I think I could buy an 802.11n router w/firewall for less to protect all my home systems. Since I'm not using a portable system on the road, it would seem like a better buy.
You don't say! Duh!
This is a product for mobile professionals. The IT department can stick this cheap (for a multinational) dongle into their laptops and guarantee that the professional person, who probably isn't too bright in terms of IT, won't get owned on their round the world trips with their various different types of connectivity that they will employ. I'm only surprised that it isn't also available in ExpressCard and PCMCIA formats.
I find it astonishing that we have a tiny Linux based computer running at 520MHz with 128MB RAM fitting into a miniature hardware device, and everyone on Slashdot it dissing it. Didn't anyone read the article (all the people complaining about the device not having ethernet ports clearly didn't read the article or they would have seen the companion product that has them)?
Think of the future possibilities - hijack the file system stack and implement hardware security on the filesystem. If the laptop is stolen (as if that would happen, why, if it did we'd see stories about it... wait) then the data is safe.
Slashdot Mirror
Who the hell builds 5 acre properties and then rents them for 2000 a month?
You build 1/20th acre properties and rent them for 2000 a month.
150 sq metres? That's around 1500 square foot. At least where I live you can rent out a 3 bed 800 square foot house for £800 a month, and that's on grounds of around 20ftx50ft. That's 1/40th of an acre. Such a house, ready built, will cost you £200,000 to buy. You usually use the rent to offset the mortgage payments (zero cost, as long as there are people who need to rent), giving you an entire property you own in 30 years time (equity) with an income (albeit £800 a month, non-inflation adjusted).
But this is something that 12 year olds learn ... it isn't "little details of life".
Not knowing stuff like this really shows the shallowness of someone's education.
Also it is "privilege", not "privledge". "Asphalt", not "asphault". "didn't stagnate", not "didn't stagnant".
What are you, some kind of retardo-jock? Maybe you don't need to know this stuff to live, but if your mind isn't curious then what is the worth of your life?
"That's after finding it." should have been "That's after being told where it is!"
Also, where is my lovely "Top" link when I post a reply?
After reading your post, I looked up and down the entire page twice before finding it.
That's after finding it.
Sorry, I see that the Slashdot moderators are moderating criticism of their new system down rather than taking it on board, and expect this comment to be at -1 soon too, but for the love of chocolate eclairs, please make these things more obvious.
I'm still looking for the different view methods as well - seems to be nested by posting time only. Admittedly doing this in Javascript to avoid a page reload could be quite interesting, but it's not exactly new code, the testing option has been available for months so you would expect it to be done by now. I don't know what the Slashdot day jobs are, but if they're full time they do work quite slowly (probably due to the ancient codebase and old cruft that needs to be worked around).
The threshold slider thing, ONCE DISCOVERED, is quite nice - I moved it to the top of the threads rather than in the non-article-related column to the left, and then found out that to make it non-sticky you had to click that little wierd icon on it again. It's also pointless compared to the old drop-down combo-box, but I guess it is prettier, and that's what Web 2.0 is all about, eh?
As a device the PS3 is very nice - BluRay player, quite quiet, integrated PSU.
As a gaming platform it leaves a lot to be desired due to there not being many great titles available for it.
By the time it is $399 there will probably be far more good titles available, and it will be far more compelling.
I don't think I'd want to risk a 360 right now - I'm hoping the 65nm shrink later this year will solve the RROD issue and there will also be GTA4 by then. I'll play with my Wii in the meantime.
It's $599. I know a mere 25% less than you said, when you made it 33% more expensive.
It's also very cheap for the form factor. However the form factor is quite extreme.
Apple's issue is that they need that mini-tower that you mention.
The interesting thing is that it uses the same connector as any iPod in the past 3 years.
I'm going to suggest that your typical iPhone buyer owns an iPod already.
So the person will have: 1 dock (with iPhone), 1 iPod cable, possible iPod docks and speaker systems, possible Bluetooth iPhone headset (comes with another dock), possible in-car iPod charger. Their household probably has multiple iPod USB cables for multiple iPods anyway.
Even if they don't own an iPod, docks, speaker systems, cables, etc, are quite cheap, so you can buy one to enable you to recharge at work, home, car...
If your iPhone runs out of battery life ever, you've done something wrong or you went on a trip to a place without electrical outlets. I can see the bluetooth earpiece running out of battery as that can only charge in the dock it comes with, but the phone will still be fine.
Up until the early 80s, national tabloid newspapers in England would put topless pictures of girls as young as 16 on Page 3. I can only presume that the porn mags at the time took it further than just topless.
...
How's your stomach?
I'm really surprised that people will develop their personal porn photos at a high street photo store myself. Surely that's what Polaroids were developed for?! And as for developing child porn there, that's a completely new level of retardation.
The law is meant to reflect the general morality of the society it serves. Sadly the people in power these days are often conservative puritans, so laws often reflect the morality of that subsection of society that define it. Don't let your personal morality be defined by the law, let it be defined by society, reality, sensibility, empathy, appreciation of consequences,
Geeks deal with the number of functions, even if you need to break your fingers to use them.
People in the real world deal with the quality of the implementation of the functions.
Geeks hate the iPhone - can't hack it, can't replace the battery, can't easily take it apart, can't install software. Sure, it's a cool OS based around a BSD core, but BSD is dying so that does not compute.
Everyone else is happy that it does what it does with the most intuitive and usable interface available. It's also got a screen twice the resolution of the HTC Wizard, and it doesn't run that bloated shitware called Windows Mobile (why are so many Slashdot users fawning over this? I've had to use it on an almost daily basis for over a year, and it really is dire even compared to my old PalmIIIc). It is an acceptable compromise for them.
The iPhone's LiPoly battery is rated for 300 - 400 recharge cycles (before death? or half-life/power?). A full recharge every day would mean you would be getting a replacement battery every year - that would be with heavy use. After paying $600 + $720 (to $1200) in that first year for the phone and service, $87 is nothing. Most likely for most people it will be 2 years before they need a replacement battery - that's an outlay of $2000 - $3000 before that $87 battery is required. By that time they'll be getting a new revision 4 iPhone.
But whahahahhhhhh I can't replace the battery on long business trips. Dude, get an external recharge pack. They're cheap and in terms of bulk they're around the same size as a replacement battery anyway. Also because the iPhone is iPod interface compatible you can use any iPod recharge pack (or cable). That USB-iPod cable is a lot of weight to add to your luggage and is hard to find USB ports...
Pick on the iPhone for real issues: can't be used as a bluetooth modem, can't use a bluetooth keyboard, no AIM/MSN/etc (yet), no native third party applications (i.e., no doom, quake, DocumentsToGo, etc), no MMS.
Given that Apple have sold a million iPhones (give or take), and that the typical failure rate within warranty for your average consumer electronics is 5%, and that the vast majority of these failures occurs within the first few days according to the bathtub model (where the other vast majority of failures will occur after the warranty has expired), we should have seen 20,000 - 40,000 dead iPhones by now. Never mind having activation issues that seem to stem from number portability implementation issues in many cases.
Not a peep.
So either Apple's hardware reliability is good with a failure rate more like 1%, or they're covering it up well, or it's just not quite old enough yet to get statistics for failure (give it a few weeks). Or it will be a product that bucks the bathtub model, like the XBox360 where failures start occurring some time into the product's lifespan (but these types of failures are usually stress or environmental (heat) in nature than component, I imagine).
You might like that Mercury Revolution game on the Wii then. Very simple interface, simple game, that has very good reviews, and is also quite cheap.
As for RayMan, it is awesome. The toilet doors are a bit hard for a couple of goes, but after that it is fine. The later toilet doors + walking scuba rabbids is much harder, but still doable within 10 tries.
The biggest issue is the 50Hz/60Hz bug on the stereo rabbids level. PAL gamers need to switch the game to 60Hz to complete those levels.
The rest of the game has so many rewarding areas that you are missing out a lot by giving up so early.
I read that Safari, due to its full featuredness on the iPhone, supported the web client for Exchange / Outlook completely.
...) and packaging them with a proprietary but very usable interface. They have back end servers for all of the above, and a desktop client, and now they will have a mobile client.
I do know that many companies do not turn on the POP3 or IMAP options in Exchange (I can understand POP3, but why not IMAP?) which would be a block for those companies. Until the boss said "I want my email" anyway.
What I think the big fear is that Apple are renowned for taking Open Standards (I'm sure it can sync with an iCal server, for calendars, IMAP, POP3, XHTML, AAC,
I believe IMAP servers are adding the Push IMAP functionality, Dovecot I believe is. Regardless, they will all have it within a short time, and another proprietary plus for Blackberry, etc, will have been negated by an open standard.
The article points out that websites that have certain interests (ZdNet, CNET are Microsoft biased - do Microsoft have shares in them) are arguing against the iPhone because it doesn't support the proprietary standards of Microsoft, RIM, etc, and thus is useless. Whilst the article itself isn't non-biased, it does make some worthy points that should be considered.
I agree. It's why the concept behind a device like the Foléo is good, even if the device itself and the price point aren't. On the other hand, people don't want to carry two devices around, even if there is an option for phone-only when you're in a bar or pub, you might as well use that notebook you carry most places innit!
The iPhone quite possibly will be slim enough to stick into smaller pockets than a Treo, but we will see. Remember that it offers the possibility of removing the iPod from the pocket, although I don't know many people who would want to drop down from their 30GB/80GB iPod to an 8GB iPhone, so they'll still be carrying both anyway - but only one set of headphones if they're sensible.
Maybe the iPhone will be a hit with women - it's a good size for handbags, and no where near as geeky as a Treo.
If everything goes wrong in life, I'll ensure I have enough money to buy an area of land in the middle of nowhere, and a couple of these containers to live in once I'm there! I'll half-bury them in a slope, so I get some natural insulation from the elements (and this makes planning permission easier in some areas). I guess I'd have to coat them with a load of sealant beforehand... might have to use a 40ft container for a personal bowling alley too!
With your plan of course you will need to use the smaller 10ft containers alongside your spokes for toilets, closets, computer rooms, facilities. I think I should factor that into my plan as well. As well as a watchout tower made from those large 10ft diameter concrete cylinders.
That's really quite cool.
It doesn't even look that bad - a little industrial maybe but I have no issue with that. I guess you stick soundproofing on all four walls before putting the plasterboard on, and possibly between the containers as well for insulation.
They could really solve the low-end housing crisis / homeless issues in the UK with a solution like that - if someone was brave enough anyway. The sad thing is that within 10 years they'd be on the market for £100k each, even if they only have 200ft^2 or so of flooring per container.
presenting your spouse with a jet-black engagement ring
Dude, that's not the correct order to do things in, or you're being highly presumptuous.
Do the containers have generators in them?
Because there's precious few cables going into or out of those boxes in that picture.
If they're cheap (the containers, not the Sun Blackboxes), can you build a house out of them. Those containers must be pretty weatherproof I imagine. Several of those and some welding and you'd have an awesome place. With no windows. As I said, awesome, I'd sell them as "Overground Basements" to geeks.
I don't think it will be a failure, likewise I don't think it will be something that redefines the entire arena. In fact, I expect it will probably sell roughly in line with Apple's sales predictions. There are plenty of people who can drop the money required for this device - that's why there are other similer devices at the same pricepoint or higher.
I expect the on-board software to surpass other offerings, but the lack of custom applications apart from via AJAX will negate a lot of these advantages. However for the vast majority of people, the on-board apps will by far surpass offerings on other devices, and also be sufficient for their needs (although GPS + Google Maps would have been killer, that's a major downer, I expect that Bluetooth GPS units won't work either).
I find it rather sad that here we have a phone that is essentially running Unix at its core, that looks good, etc, and people on Slashdot are hating on it (because it is Apple). In the meantime they're loving Windows Mobile, despite the fact that it is basically a pile of crap (I work with the devices on a daily basis unfortunately, they're constantly crashing, or failing to do basic tasks like connect to a WPA network despite apparently supporting them, and let's not get onto the C-grade applications that ship with it). I can understand annoyance at the vast amount of hype and articles about the damn device, but that's because there is always a lot of expectation around Apple to redefine usability and style in a market segment - e.g., the iPod - and reap the benefits when the majority say "fuck this other shit, I've had enough of faffing about, this just does it without hassle".
He's correct though. This isn't related to Apple in any way, it's related to mature, professional disclosure of computer software bugs, holes and issues to the maintaining company so that they can fix it, and thus keep computers secure.
I found Trillian to be a horribly bloated, very unstylish, and difficult to configure application.
It seems that the only pluses it has is that it does modern internet communications media (voice and video) on these networks. I'm hoping that they've fixed the configuration system too since I last tried it.
Adium on the Mac is pretty damn good, and deserves the 8/10. 9/10 and 10/10 would be Adium with voice and video support respectively. The interface styles are all very sophisticated and configurable, and it's simply very usable.
And that's what matters, usability. I'd far rather have fewer features that I can use simply, quickly, and easily rather than more features that are exposed poorly via the interface. Of course I'd rather have usability and all the features, but I think that Adium (and the libpurple it's based around) will get voice, video and other proprietary features support at some point.
Get the employees to log the calls. (Optional) Record a call where someone tells them "i'm going to have to invoice you for these calls at our standard rates" or similar. Or get your lawyer to draft a letter telling them of the rates for receiving phone calls from them, and send it to them with guaranteed delivery.
After that, for each call, invoice them at contractor rates for half an hour.
Send the invoice at the end of each month with a full itinery of phone calls received.
After a few months take them to court for non-payment of invoices, with full logs of the 'contractual phone call handling' you've undertaken for them, and the original recording as evidence that they knew they would be billed.
Half an hour for a 3 minute call? Yes. At least. A phone call in the office interrupts the person for 15 minutes afterwards apparently, because it is distracting. Most likely it will distract someone else nearby equally, possibly more. I think it is perfectly fair to invoice for all the lost productivity.
You never know, they might just have a 'pay all bills' type system where they never actually check the veracity of the bill. You might end up making an income.
Somebody else posted that it was a Freescale i.MX31 with 256MB RAM. Size of built-in flash memory is unknown, I'd be hoping for at least a couple of GB in a $499 device.
The i.MX31 is an interesting beast. It has an ARM11 core with 128KB L2 cache, and a pile of other useful things. I don't know the clock speed, but let's assume it's at least 300MHz, probably performing like a 500MHz+ XScale.
It had a vector FP unit and can do H.264 decoding and encoding (SP) at VGA resolutions. Palm should have stuck a camera in the unit and let it be used for Skype...
I like the hardware aspect of this device, but I don't think it will be that compelling as a product unless they give them away to their most productive third party software producers to create a compelling platform.
I have a Wii, and I like it, but I don't play it nearly enough - mostly due to my internet addiction I guess, rather than watching TV instead as I never do that either.
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... on the other hand I don't have a HDTV, so what do I care?!
I find that once I've bothered to turn the Wii on and play something, I can play for quite a while, casual bowling, tennis, etc. I sometimes browse YouTube with it to watch the videos on the TV from my sofa, which is fine regardless of the YouTube video quality. I need to dedicate a few hours a week to the Wii really, finish Zelda,
I have longer term aims to buy virtual console games and play them.
I want a Wii Kart type game. Maybe if Excite Truck drops in price a bit more
Oh, and Resident Evil 4 will be out on the Wii soon, that will be fun.
My parents played Wii Sports the other day. They loved it, and it's probably the first time they've ever tried playing a video game. It brings to mind the old folks homes and centres with Wiis that have bowling leagues based upon a video game.
And on top of it all, Nintendo are making money on everything Wii related. Even if the Wii was dead in 2 years time and topped out at 20 million consoles sold, they'd have made so much money on it in the meantime to equal the profit on the 360 or PS3 over its lifetime.
I'd have liked a 720P option for the web browser and other non-game interfaces. Maybe if they release a Wii+ in the future
I think I could buy an 802.11n router w/firewall for less to protect all my home systems. Since I'm not using a portable system on the road, it would seem like a better buy.
You don't say! Duh!
This is a product for mobile professionals. The IT department can stick this cheap (for a multinational) dongle into their laptops and guarantee that the professional person, who probably isn't too bright in terms of IT, won't get owned on their round the world trips with their various different types of connectivity that they will employ. I'm only surprised that it isn't also available in ExpressCard and PCMCIA formats.
I find it astonishing that we have a tiny Linux based computer running at 520MHz with 128MB RAM fitting into a miniature hardware device, and everyone on Slashdot it dissing it. Didn't anyone read the article (all the people complaining about the device not having ethernet ports clearly didn't read the article or they would have seen the companion product that has them)?
Think of the future possibilities - hijack the file system stack and implement hardware security on the filesystem. If the laptop is stolen (as if that would happen, why, if it did we'd see stories about it... wait) then the data is safe.
Basically adding a real ethernet interface to this gadget would have increased its value by at least a factor of two.
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and useless when the laptop user connects to the internet via their GPRS card, or their Bluetooth enabled phone, or via wireless
This device works with all of them, it could only be better if they made it in an ExpressCard format, which I'm sure is in their plans.