If you're getting results from blogs that you don't like, then Google needs to improve their search / ranking algorithm more - or you need to stop prepending your searches with "current mood"
Re:Bad solution to a problem which is already solv
on
New Keyboard Technology
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· Score: 2, Informative
Argh - I wish you'd have looked harder sooner.
Touchstream LP http://www.fingerworks.com/ http://www.google.com/search?q=touchstream&safe=ac tive... they recently ceased operations. Maybe you can still get one. Reconfigurable with their Java tool, huge touchscream, low force needed, etc. I only have their iGesture - I didn't want to fork over the cash for the keyboard untested, but after realizing that I still need a general purpose mouse but at least the keyboard would have reduced that need - I went back looking, and found they'd closed shop.
I don't know the situation behind it all, but it seems like they could've lowered their pricing before going out of business and saved their butts - maybe they never really broke even so they couldn't.
In fairness, you make good points - but I fail to see how Slashdot serving up a RSS feed of its headlines is anywhere near as bad as someone checking the homepage frequently, bandwidth/etc. wise.
A better solution is to only request the RSS feed when the user initiates it, or has the feed visible (in their browser / other). A feed that's not visible doesn't need to be updated.
As an example for Firefox - instead of updating every hour or however (and throughout the night for those who leave their browsers open) - have it only update when the user clicks the live bookmark. You can always force an update.
If you look at it that way, you get all the content from the homepage without the fluff, or ads, and they cut their bandwidth down by 75% (at time of writing, the RSS is 14kb and the index is 64) - and that says nothing of images and the ilk.
I suspect it's actually a somewhat unique problem.
Yes - lots of notebooks come with bluetooth. Lots of desktops and notebooks also don't.
So, do we make two versions, one that comes with a bluetooth usb dongle, and one without? Or do we sell it as just the one set, and people who have bluetooth grumble because they're paying for something they don't need?
What about support issues, where the problem is their existing bluetooth dongle doesn't actually work right. Okay, those are mostly thwarted by including the (extra $) transmitter.
I think it comes down to this: Using their own RF and sending standard HID mouse commands as if it were wired is a much smaller support headache than using a bluetooth HID profile and trying to muscle around that. It's possible there are other concerns - size, licensing, etc. - after all, 2.4ghz is what bluetooth operates on, so why aren't they using it?
If someone buys product X, and tries to use it under - say - Linux, and it:
doesn't work: figures "tough luck, next time I'll research more - stupid me stupid me. Still, it works great under those supported OS's!"
it works: thinks "great, kickass - this is awesome, this company is pretty cool. Oh, it was written by a third party - still cool"
it works - sorta / mostly / woops data corruption: thinks "mother&!^$@( I'm never buying X again - screw company Y!" and the product is returned.
Yes - it's nice to provide support - but the first option costs them nothing and they make their sale. The other two cost - either in support, published public docs, or lost buyers.
Word of caution to your friend. I was considering a Touchstream LP but wasn't ready to shell out $330 when I wasn't sure it would be useful as keyboard OR mouse, so I bit down and ordered an iGesture.
I find it useful as a general purpose 'web browsing' mouse - but for anything where the commands 'stack' (e.g. select 20 emails, then ctrl-select out the non-spams) I find all manner of frustration - mainly misclicks that ruin the whole operation. It is *nowhere* near as functionally useful as a normal mouse for such operations. I do a lot of cut and pasting and moving around, and it's a bit troublesome on this too.
I gave it a month, and still own it since I gave it too long and couldn't return it, but I can't really recommend it. I could see it being useful if the LP keyboard is as good as many people think, if you use it to *supplement* your mouse - so the minor stuff you can still do off your keyboard, but you have a proper mouse nearby for the more complex stuff.
Actually, that's a pretty good idea...
Still searching for a halfway decent mouse though.
Re:Only going to work if it became standard
on
Advocating Dvorak
·
· Score: 1
Unless you have the "Essential" - all the contoured Kinesis keyboards can be switched between Dvorak and QWERTY on the fly.
One of the coolest thing about the Kinesis keyboards, on top of actually spreading your hands apart properly instead of the angled halfassed attempt of your average 'natural keyboard' is that they're so easily reprogrammed in hardware. If you want to switch your backspace and space key, do it. Takes about 8 keypresses (2 into reprogram, 2 per key, 2 out).
And - of course - the earlier point, is they have dedicated preprogrammed layouts for Windows, Mac, "PC" (no windows keys), and then switching between QWERTY and Dvorak.
If you have the split keyboard, you didn't contact Kinesis, as they don't really recommend it "only if you don't presently have problems" - hardly worth the price tag, if problems do show up they'd recommend the upgrade anyway.
My company is interested in buying one of your "premium advertisements". We were curious whether we should write the 'article' blurb ourselves, or if you have templates from which we can borrow. If you do not have any official templates, we see there are many examples already on your site and we will likely just model ours after one of them.
I neglected to mention, and it should be noted, that the Blackberrys do have one important feature going for them, and that's push mail. The Treo has to be explicitly told to check for mail at intervals - so you do lose out there.
Also, since they are more closed and limited - you probably would run into fewer support costs if implemented at a business or the likes - since people wouldn't be installing 3rd party software on them like they would with a Palm PDA like the Treo.
It should be noted that you have to pay for that data channel with either device. In fact, with tmobile for example - you pay a flat fee of $40 USD for your Blackberry, with no calling time. If you have a Treo - you pay $30 for a data plan with no calling time.
With the Treo, you can use their standard voice plans (and then the data plan is only $20 a month) - with the Blackberry, you have a $70 and a $90 1000 and 1500 minute plan. The Blackberry *does* include 300 text messages a month in the base plan, which you'd have to pay extra for with the Treo - but I don't imagine anyone with these devices will be sending many when they have real internet/email available.
All of this is just based off an example of tmobile (obviously) - but it comes down to the fact that you have to have a Blackberry server to handle the proxying/etc. for the Blackberry devices, and that's always going to cost extra. Both devices will still always need a cellular data plan to actually receive the data features they provide.
tmobile's Blackberry plan is more expensive because tmobile has to own a Blackberry server for their devices (no doubt more than one) - plus it's traditionally a business oriented device so they can gouge you a bit more.
my vote is for the Treo. Wait for the 650 though, the screen upgrade alone is worth it (bluetooth DUN needs enabling though).
the old adage - 20% effort = 80% features. You're better off getting one that mostly fits, then carrying a spare tool or two. If you make it fully interchangable with all pieces, you'll easily increase its bulk beyond what people want to be carrying anyway.
incidentally, I still find the leatherman wave (recently tweaked) to be my perfect match - though there are two titanium models out based on its design. They have some upgraded blade specs as well, but IIRC the main cutting blade is still the same metal as before, all depends on what you want.
Begging the question - how many mail clients, when presented with a recognizable (assuming you tack the protocol on the front) URL inside a text-only message make it clickable?
It would suck to have to make it multipart just to make a link clickable. Hell, my vote is on the user choosing *when they opt-in*
C'mon - yes they're light and portable... but unless this was a shuffle I just can't respect that. I notice anything bigger than a quarter when it's in my pocket and I'm doing laundry.
Some mother - does laundry for a kid old enough to own an ipod and attempt to dissect it, but never learned to check pockets! The most cursory of pad downs or shakes would have prevented this.
Slashdot Mirror
Go into any store (we'll use electronics as an example).
Look at a small television.
Look at some RCA cables.
Watch as salespeople try to sell you a huge plasma tv and/or component cables.
[ profit? ]
If you're getting results from blogs that you don't like, then Google needs to improve their search / ranking algorithm more - or you need to stop prepending your searches with "current mood"
Argh - I wish you'd have looked harder sooner.
c tive ... they recently ceased operations. Maybe you can still get one. Reconfigurable with their Java tool, huge touchscream, low force needed, etc. I only have their iGesture - I didn't want to fork over the cash for the keyboard untested, but after realizing that I still need a general purpose mouse but at least the keyboard would have reduced that need - I went back looking, and found they'd closed shop.
Touchstream LP
http://www.fingerworks.com/
http://www.google.com/search?q=touchstream&safe=a
I don't know the situation behind it all, but it seems like they could've lowered their pricing before going out of business and saved their butts - maybe they never really broke even so they couldn't.
2 liters? Please - true haxors finish 2 liters of mountain dew in the time it would take their computer to boot.
Not that a true haxor ever *ever* reboots.
In fairness, you make good points - but I fail to see how Slashdot serving up a RSS feed of its headlines is anywhere near as bad as someone checking the homepage frequently, bandwidth/etc. wise.
A better solution is to only request the RSS feed when the user initiates it, or has the feed visible (in their browser / other). A feed that's not visible doesn't need to be updated.
As an example for Firefox - instead of updating every hour or however (and throughout the night for those who leave their browsers open) - have it only update when the user clicks the live bookmark. You can always force an update.
If you look at it that way, you get all the content from the homepage without the fluff, or ads, and they cut their bandwidth down by 75% (at time of writing, the RSS is 14kb and the index is 64) - and that says nothing of images and the ilk.
I suspect it's actually a somewhat unique problem.
Yes - lots of notebooks come with bluetooth. Lots of desktops and notebooks also don't.
So, do we make two versions, one that comes with a bluetooth usb dongle, and one without? Or do we sell it as just the one set, and people who have bluetooth grumble because they're paying for something they don't need?
What about support issues, where the problem is their existing bluetooth dongle doesn't actually work right. Okay, those are mostly thwarted by including the (extra $) transmitter.
I think it comes down to this: Using their own RF and sending standard HID mouse commands as if it were wired is a much smaller support headache than using a bluetooth HID profile and trying to muscle around that. It's possible there are other concerns - size, licensing, etc. - after all, 2.4ghz is what bluetooth operates on, so why aren't they using it?
Would you rather they create the nukes then test them to determine how well they'll work?
If you're going to troll, at least do so intelligently. Complain about them cracking encryption or something with that horsepower.
If someone buys product X, and tries to use it under - say - Linux, and it:
doesn't work:
figures "tough luck, next time I'll research more - stupid me stupid me. Still, it works great under those supported OS's!"
it works:
thinks "great, kickass - this is awesome, this company is pretty cool. Oh, it was written by a third party - still cool"
it works - sorta / mostly / woops data corruption:
thinks "mother&!^$@( I'm never buying X again - screw company Y!" and the product is returned.
Yes - it's nice to provide support - but the first option costs them nothing and they make their sale. The other two cost - either in support, published public docs, or lost buyers.
All we have is this crummy journal. Which is totally not the same thing.
really.
it's accurately named
it's not disabled, it's mapped to other things (spare meta keys - ctrl or alt or w/e)
Word of caution to your friend. I was considering a Touchstream LP but wasn't ready to shell out $330 when I wasn't sure it would be useful as keyboard OR mouse, so I bit down and ordered an iGesture.
I find it useful as a general purpose 'web browsing' mouse - but for anything where the commands 'stack' (e.g. select 20 emails, then ctrl-select out the non-spams) I find all manner of frustration - mainly misclicks that ruin the whole operation. It is *nowhere* near as functionally useful as a normal mouse for such operations. I do a lot of cut and pasting and moving around, and it's a bit troublesome on this too.
I gave it a month, and still own it since I gave it too long and couldn't return it, but I can't really recommend it. I could see it being useful if the LP keyboard is as good as many people think, if you use it to *supplement* your mouse - so the minor stuff you can still do off your keyboard, but you have a proper mouse nearby for the more complex stuff.
Actually, that's a pretty good idea...
Still searching for a halfway decent mouse though.
Unless you have the "Essential" - all the contoured Kinesis keyboards can be switched between Dvorak and QWERTY on the fly.
One of the coolest thing about the Kinesis keyboards, on top of actually spreading your hands apart properly instead of the angled halfassed attempt of your average 'natural keyboard' is that they're so easily reprogrammed in hardware. If you want to switch your backspace and space key, do it. Takes about 8 keypresses (2 into reprogram, 2 per key, 2 out).
And - of course - the earlier point, is they have dedicated preprogrammed layouts for Windows, Mac, "PC" (no windows keys), and then switching between QWERTY and Dvorak.
If you have the split keyboard, you didn't contact Kinesis, as they don't really recommend it "only if you don't presently have problems" - hardly worth the price tag, if problems do show up they'd recommend the upgrade anyway.
Sidekick only I'm afraid, though you might be able to fight it, I wouldn't bank on it - terms are terms...
:)
Enjoy it
My company is interested in buying one of your "premium advertisements". We were curious whether we should write the 'article' blurb ourselves, or if you have templates from which we can borrow. If you do not have any official templates, we see there are many examples already on your site and we will likely just model ours after one of them.
Sincerely,
AnyGivenDotCom.com
I neglected to mention, and it should be noted, that the Blackberrys do have one important feature going for them, and that's push mail. The Treo has to be explicitly told to check for mail at intervals - so you do lose out there.
Also, since they are more closed and limited - you probably would run into fewer support costs if implemented at a business or the likes - since people wouldn't be installing 3rd party software on them like they would with a Palm PDA like the Treo.
It should be noted that you have to pay for that data channel with either device. In fact, with tmobile for example - you pay a flat fee of $40 USD for your Blackberry, with no calling time. If you have a Treo - you pay $30 for a data plan with no calling time.
With the Treo, you can use their standard voice plans (and then the data plan is only $20 a month) - with the Blackberry, you have a $70 and a $90 1000 and 1500 minute plan. The Blackberry *does* include 300 text messages a month in the base plan, which you'd have to pay extra for with the Treo - but I don't imagine anyone with these devices will be sending many when they have real internet/email available.
All of this is just based off an example of tmobile (obviously) - but it comes down to the fact that you have to have a Blackberry server to handle the proxying/etc. for the Blackberry devices, and that's always going to cost extra. Both devices will still always need a cellular data plan to actually receive the data features they provide.
tmobile's Blackberry plan is more expensive because tmobile has to own a Blackberry server for their devices (no doubt more than one) - plus it's traditionally a business oriented device so they can gouge you a bit more.
my vote is for the Treo. Wait for the 650 though, the screen upgrade alone is worth it (bluetooth DUN needs enabling though).
the old adage - 20% effort = 80% features. You're better off getting one that mostly fits, then carrying a spare tool or two. If you make it fully interchangable with all pieces, you'll easily increase its bulk beyond what people want to be carrying anyway.
incidentally, I still find the leatherman wave (recently tweaked) to be my perfect match - though there are two titanium models out based on its design. They have some upgraded blade specs as well, but IIRC the main cutting blade is still the same metal as before, all depends on what you want.
Amen brother.
/. accounts should get a "no dupes!" option, so they don't have to deal with respostings, at least not on the frontpage.
Paid
Do they already have an option that prevents the articletisements from showing up?
is masochism.
Windows does it for me every time.
Thank you Windows.
Thank you my canadian bretheren, I was font pwned.
No, it doesn't.
.sig
Why don't you try reading the page that is returned when you click his
I've seen pages on trolling on wikipedia, so its strange that it isn't there... perhaps more searching would yield it.
Hmmm... personally I just develop to the standards. HTML/CSS, DOM depending on browser level or need.
If you need glitz above and beyond that, suck it up and admit you just want to use (Adobe, heh) Flash.
I don't have kids - but you're wrong that it's obvious from this.
mom did the laundry.
Begging the question - how many mail clients, when presented with a recognizable (assuming you tack the protocol on the front) URL inside a text-only message make it clickable?
It would suck to have to make it multipart just to make a link clickable. Hell, my vote is on the user choosing *when they opt-in*
C'mon - yes they're light and portable... but unless this was a shuffle I just can't respect that. I notice anything bigger than a quarter when it's in my pocket and I'm doing laundry.
Some mother - does laundry for a kid old enough to own an ipod and attempt to dissect it, but never learned to check pockets! The most cursory of pad downs or shakes would have prevented this.