It relies on the fact that the delete portion of the trash doesn't actually touch the disk so much as it tells the computer those areas of disk are free to be used. I heard that Windows tends not to touch those regions for a while while Linux usually makes use of those first. But I don't remember if the issue was FAT/NTFS vs ext2/3 specific.
Setting a drive up on its side and whacking it is usually enough to bust it and get the platters out. 8-9 years ago, the platters melted easily enough under flame of a plumber's propane torch, it was some type of pot/white metal I suppose. Last time, they didn't melt so I put them on against a sand belt grinder.
Taking a peek at the Dvorak layout and then imagining typing in it, I prefer qwerty because I'm not a "proper" keyboardist.
WTF sense does that make? Just be honest: you learned qwerty and that's what you want to stick with. You have muscle memory because you use it. Great for you. Once I decided to really learn dvorak (stopped qwerty cold turkey), I was typing at 75% speed within 3 hours using an online typing tutor. And it went up from there.
Imagine typing on dvorak. Pshaw! Imagine typing on qwerty! Every year, I still get asked by some older people, hunt and peckers, "Why are these all mixed up! Why don't they make them alphabetical" in frustration. Their level of ignorance is higher than yours, as they at least used the system, albeit incorrectly. I never used chorded keyboards, but I don't dump on them when I never tried them out.
Anyway, for those a little more adventurous, I recommend reading up on the Neo-Layout (Tastatur). It's angled for german users, but besides the 3 umlaut letters, it's pretty much the same alphabet and a brother to english: http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout/index_us.html
The statistics are interesting. Google for more resources on the net, but be ready more more German websites than english. I'm not sure if I buy into the new "more travel" is better mantra echoed on this board, this layout is designed to minimize travel.
As for retaining qwerty, it depends on the person. I haven't fared particularly well. When I'm on another computer, I usually can change layouts within 30 seconds if it's not locked down like a public terminal. Otherwise, for those, I use an online javascript to type longer things that interpret it as dvorak strokes. I do wish for a USB dongle attachment to go between the keyboard and computer sometimes, or perhaps auto-launch some program. But in the age of notebooks and netbooks, it's not really an issue. Only when I'm stuck fixing someone else's computer, which I would rather avoid anyway.
Robots as we imagine them haven't really evolved. I think the number 1 advancement in robotics of 2008 will be the memristor, if it delivers what some say it will to artificial intelligence (will programming languages fundamentally change considering that, new keywords and all?)
The synchronized robots are nice, but besides the lack of muscle (being worked upon), it seems the lack of brain is holding back robotics indefinitely. It seems as if would be like the car industry trying to advance in the late 1800s and early 1900s without a suitable motor to power everything else about the vehicle.
and not just Vista SP3 or 4, with the shit stripped away like some 3rd party apps already do.
People are out celebrating in the streets as if Windows 7 is the greatest thing since sliced bread and all I have to ask is "O rly?" Unless it has a much better security model, and kills off the registry or something - what exactly is the big deal here?
This just highlights one of the negative aspects of using services out there on the net - if it's not running on your physical hardware it can be closed when the company decides it's not profitable to carry on with it. In the case of these services I doubt there's anyone relying on them to do business, but that definitely isn't the case for things that run in the various compute clouds, or small companies migrating to things like Google Docs, GMail or Google Calendar.
In the case of gmail and those apps, since it's out for domains that actually pay Google for the service - I suppose the risk isn't as severe at all and I would definitely recommend using Google to host school email (not all business for other reasons) as it can save a lot of money and provide much better end user experience.
It's about calculated risk and perspective. The specific google services you mentioned are very low risk of being discontinued. The actual ones being discontinued had good reasons: Google Video was redundant with Google owning youtube. Google notebook seems redundant with Google Docs imo. I don't know enough about the others, but they are not in the same league as gmail, which probably is almost as important to google as is its search in some ways.
All I see such a bill doing is create a short-term bump in car sales on the backs of taxpayers. Following that bump might be a slump, since it will only draw in the people who were going to go for a new car the next 2 or so years anyway.
I would much rather have the Fed just mandate higher mpg or give a 10k credit for buying an Aptera (hybrid version) to get that jumpstarted, so people can get over themselves and the slightly quirky look of the thing and just drive something that is really economical - not just something that's 5% better in mpg: http://www.aptera.com/
The thing is a lot of this stuff, I'm thinking especially of microblogging since that has really been something I've been interested in a quite a bit recently, will not go away because a lot of people really enjoy using the technology. That it is difficult to turn that into a way to make money makes me happy. So what if twitter fails?
While I agree with your sentiment, I don't see the use of microblogs such as twitter. Regular blogs attract me as a possible source of information and well written information from someone more informed than a journalist at times.
All I see in microblogs is the internet version of that person calling home from the supermarket asking their insignificant other whether to get 1% or skim milk and other such nonsense.
Which isn't to say whether it has any real social value or not will make it fail as a business... it's just that I don't think it will really matter.
It's not like America with a puritanical past, Communist regimes actually tend to suppress religion. Not that most eastern religions were like the western ones. I think the Soviet Union didn't care about that stuff, but am not entirely sure.
Removing IE breaks a lot of functionality in XP, so I doubt they can simply have bundled and unbundled product lines like they do with WMP. Windows would require massive retrofitting to make IE that replacable.
They tried that defense (intimately tied to the OS) at the original antitrust trials and an expert was able to remove IE back then in less than an hour.
The FACT that Microsoft has made IE more indespensable to windows, not less, pretty much is giving the Justice Department a big middle finger. No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's OS to do updates or anything like that. It's just BS on MS's part.
I hope they get shafted by the EU, since I feel shafted everytime MS forces me to use IE for one of their piddly little tasks.
* Folks play the demo and realize they probably won't like the game
We live in an age with media saturation. If Game Company A offers no demos, Companies B, C... X, Y, Z will be more than happy to.
Unless the game A releases has some type of buzz then, B-Z get the sale.
* Folks play the demo and have "had enough," feeling no need to purchase the full version
This is easy to fix. I ran into demos like that. The point is to give a taste, not a meal.
Just like a restuarant shouldn't stuff you with free appetizers if it wants to sell product.
* Folks play the demo and realize their system can't handle it, so they'll wait until they have a new system that can handle it (and by then have forgotten about the game)
I'm not sure how significant this is. Software requirements and all.
Although I can see how owning a game that doesn't run fast enough may prompt someone to buy a better video card since they're already invested in the game.
No idiot. The Constitutions defines the US Government and therein always binds the US Government when it acts, no matter what, where, or when. At least that's the theory.
Just because the government is acting outside of state boundaries, doesn't give it the means to do whatever the hell it pleases.
Or, you could actually take a few minutes to look up online what the good games are which aren't. Or just grab a top 10 list from someplace. Just the same concept of using rotten tomatoes to avoid dropping money on bad movies.
I don't think ignorance is really a valid excuse anymore. At least 90% of any media has always been crap.
A lot of those symptoms sound like the natural tendency of wanting to do whatever interests you at the moment and it just being hard to pull away. I think a lot of smart kids, because of a slow public school system (for instance, I didn't have to study at all until 12th grade), simply never developed the self-control earlier in scholastic life due to this type of thing. It sort of becomes an ingrained, doing well up to a certain grade/level despite bad habits that never recieved significant negative feedback before, so that failure eventually (inevitably) occurs and often triggers an exploration into what the cause is with ADHD or the like being a nice culprit because you can medicate it (pills) versus a tougher solution. Of course, I don't want to downplay the severity of breaking a habit that may have been with a person the majority of their life and the system/parents sometimes actively foster the situation and this type of solution as being most convenient to them. Although that is my take on the skyrocketing rates of ADHD, perhaps it's just an observation of the faked cases masquerading as ADHD.
But what would you say leaps such behavior from perhaps something beyond a learned habit into something needing outside intervention like ADHD?
The article speculates that an iPhone nano may be in the works due to economic downturn (although I fail to see where the great savings lie, and how such a device would be in the works just scant months after the big crash...) but if Apple comes out with it, it still doesn't address the reason I won't buy an iPhone: lock-in.
It's been said millions of times already, but I would like to point out the prepaid market is currently booming. I'd rather spend $500 on the iPhone upfront, get an unlimited monthly data plan cheap ($30 or less) and not have a monthly talk plan - just prepay that part as I need it.
I don't see how a slight change in hardware will change AT&T's rates which is what hurts long term more than the cost of the phone itself. I believe Apple wants to address the lowend of the market (which is does with it's iPods, although imo the shuffle is a poor attempt without any lcd/oled at all), I just don't see it being effective.
Right now, I can go out and buy a prepaid phone for $10. It has a decent color lcd screen, actually, and probably is better/as good as a Razr in many respects (which is piss poor at anything but being a phone out of the box). Coupled with an iPod Touch - it can do about 75% of the iPhone. I won't pretend it is as good as the iPhone unless you're near wifi access at the moment.
But still, when I look at the iPod Touch vs iPhone, I feel like I'm paying through the nose for a gps and phone chipsets added on because of ATT and adding models won't change that component.
*(Everyone is different. ATT's plans are decent for already heavy callers, but I'm not one and there are many other people who just want mobile internet+ipod and don't care about the phone component to the point of thinning the wallet).
This taxpayer advocate in the link sounds like anything but. I agree with you, in that the current laws are sufficient. You sell "Virtual Item" on ebay for $500, you pay taxes on those $500 (minus expenses such as game purchase, subscription, etc). It's really not that confusing. They also want enhanced implementation techniques (monitoring) so that happens.
On top of that, it also sounds like they want to figure out a way to tax virtual-only transactions, which is about as inane as finding a way to tax small-time bartering in real life. Well, if the IRS wants to accept virtual currency, let them. Perhaps the US Military wants to upgrade their swords of summoning or whatever.
Everytime I hear of this bloated, useless bureacratic nonsense, I feel obligated to mention the APT-Tax. http://www.apttax.com/
but rather the overflow, with miscommunication thrown in.
Years ago, when they were talking about information overload - I suppose the people were thinking of individuals. But I'm sure it applies to governments as well.
And with the governments seeming to get more petty all the time, I suppose that the actual important things are getting implemented poorly or wholly ignored.
schools. Particularly grade schools and middle schools. A laptop that doesn't need maintenance. They launched that initiative 1 year back, but it was too little too late. They were actually quite hostile toward selling it in America or developed world.
Now, I don't believe computers are all that great in the classroom, but if they wanted economies of scale, it would make more sense to sell to the rich, gadget-happy country first to build up production and also legitimacy in the eyes of 3rd worlders. I imagine if MIT pushed it, some Massachusetts area schools might have adopted. Then the OLPC project could have put that on their resume as well.
No one got fired for buying Microsoft/IBM is true, and if the competitor is a relatively unknown, untested entity, doubly so. I think the move to Windows just killed it though, since it didn't differentiate OLPC laptop from any other to the casual observer.
Considering that incandescent lightbulbs, on a dimmer, save next to nothing because dim bulbs use almost as much electricity as the full brightness they are rated for (since the tungsten is still heated up, just a few degrees less to make it glow not so much) - I don't think it will save much. Not sure about Plasma TVs, but I'm reasonably sure fluorescent lights in LCD can't really dim, so it's probably just the Color filter letting less light pass through when dimming the brightness setting. LEDs can dim, so new LED LCD may save a minimum of electricity.
Plasma is also an energy hog - typical 42" Plasma can suck 400w down, while same LCD takes 180w or so. What I would think they target would be vampire sets - those that are always "on", most today actually, ready to get remote input.
I miss the days of a real "off" button. If they need to save state, and don't want to wait for memristor technology, why not just a tiny bit of flash memory with the settings saved in them?
Here, I believe you are wrong. Apple means easy to use electronics people want.
That's a powerful image. When I go to Walmart, I see an entire row of 25+ mp3 players. The only ones people are eyeing are the iPods. The closest, a Zune, I have never seen in the wild. It's also extensible: they just moved into phones 1.5 years ago. With iTunes they'll become the defacto music, movie/video, and, if they play their cards right, book store in the future. That is pretty good too. They're becoming a real media hub.
Right now, they can say to themselves: "What devices supplied by their current industry is deficient, ugly, and/or hard to use, which we, can make easy?" I have one: e-ink based book readers. I'm sure there are many others, but they want the profitable opportunities - thus the small line of computers unlike what confusing line of products in the 90s. Plus new devices not out yet but made possible soon through emerging technology.
The downside, which you touched upon, is that they can't rest on their laurels. That they need to churn out new things. BUT, stagnation like that isn't good for Apple anyway. The artistic types always want to tackle something new, not just rehash the same old thing.
But they do have an imag which means something. The fact that it's not something as definite as you say is a double-edged sword. Look at Polaroid? They, too, meant instant photos once. It only hindered them in a market that they should be more dominant in (as they couldn't let go of the exact method of "instant", being addicted to the old revenue stream). Microsoft may mean "Windows" but what happens why Adobe and Intuit start compiling against Wine 1.xx?
Slashdot Mirror
It relies on the fact that the delete portion of the trash doesn't actually touch the disk so much as it tells the computer those areas of disk are free to be used. I heard that Windows tends not to touch those regions for a while while Linux usually makes use of those first. But I don't remember if the issue was FAT/NTFS vs ext2/3 specific.
Setting a drive up on its side and whacking it is usually enough to bust it and get the platters out. 8-9 years ago, the platters melted easily enough under flame of a plumber's propane torch, it was some type of pot/white metal I suppose. Last time, they didn't melt so I put them on against a sand belt grinder.
A little paranoid I suppose.
WTF sense does that make? Just be honest: you learned qwerty and that's what you want to stick with. You have muscle memory because you use it. Great for you. Once I decided to really learn dvorak (stopped qwerty cold turkey), I was typing at 75% speed within 3 hours using an online typing tutor. And it went up from there.
Imagine typing on dvorak. Pshaw! Imagine typing on qwerty! Every year, I still get asked by some older people, hunt and peckers, "Why are these all mixed up! Why don't they make them alphabetical" in frustration. Their level of ignorance is higher than yours, as they at least used the system, albeit incorrectly. I never used chorded keyboards, but I don't dump on them when I never tried them out.
Anyway, for those a little more adventurous, I recommend reading up on the Neo-Layout (Tastatur). It's angled for german users, but besides the 3 umlaut letters, it's pretty much the same alphabet and a brother to english:
http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout/index_us.html
The statistics are interesting. Google for more resources on the net, but be ready more more German websites than english. I'm not sure if I buy into the new "more travel" is better mantra echoed on this board, this layout is designed to minimize travel.
As for retaining qwerty, it depends on the person. I haven't fared particularly well. When I'm on another computer, I usually can change layouts within 30 seconds if it's not locked down like a public terminal. Otherwise, for those, I use an online javascript to type longer things that interpret it as dvorak strokes. I do wish for a USB dongle attachment to go between the keyboard and computer sometimes, or perhaps auto-launch some program. But in the age of notebooks and netbooks, it's not really an issue. Only when I'm stuck fixing someone else's computer, which I would rather avoid anyway.
Robots as we imagine them haven't really evolved. I think the number 1 advancement in robotics of 2008 will be the memristor, if it delivers what some say it will to artificial intelligence (will programming languages fundamentally change considering that, new keywords and all?)
The synchronized robots are nice, but besides the lack of muscle (being worked upon), it seems the lack of brain is holding back robotics indefinitely. It seems as if would be like the car industry trying to advance in the late 1800s and early 1900s without a suitable motor to power everything else about the vehicle.
and not just Vista SP3 or 4, with the shit stripped away like some 3rd party apps already do.
People are out celebrating in the streets as if Windows 7 is the greatest thing since sliced bread and all I have to ask is "O rly?" Unless it has a much better security model, and kills off the registry or something - what exactly is the big deal here?
Stripped down Vista SP3/4, wow. Who cares.
In the case of gmail and those apps, since it's out for domains that actually pay Google for the service - I suppose the risk isn't as severe at all and I would definitely recommend using Google to host school email (not all business for other reasons) as it can save a lot of money and provide much better end user experience.
It's about calculated risk and perspective. The specific google services you mentioned are very low risk of being discontinued. The actual ones being discontinued had good reasons: Google Video was redundant with Google owning youtube. Google notebook seems redundant with Google Docs imo. I don't know enough about the others, but they are not in the same league as gmail, which probably is almost as important to google as is its search in some ways.
All I see such a bill doing is create a short-term bump in car sales on the backs of taxpayers. Following that bump might be a slump, since it will only draw in the people who were going to go for a new car the next 2 or so years anyway.
I would much rather have the Fed just mandate higher mpg or give a 10k credit for buying an Aptera (hybrid version) to get that jumpstarted, so people can get over themselves and the slightly quirky look of the thing and just drive something that is really economical - not just something that's 5% better in mpg:
http://www.aptera.com/
While I agree with your sentiment, I don't see the use of microblogs such as twitter. Regular blogs attract me as a possible source of information and well written information from someone more informed than a journalist at times.
All I see in microblogs is the internet version of that person calling home from the supermarket asking their insignificant other whether to get 1% or skim milk and other such nonsense.
Which isn't to say whether it has any real social value or not will make it fail as a business... it's just that I don't think it will really matter.
It's not like America with a puritanical past, Communist regimes actually tend to suppress religion. Not that most eastern religions were like the western ones. I think the Soviet Union didn't care about that stuff, but am not entirely sure.
So what's the deal?
No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's BROWSER to do updates or anything like that. Fixed that.
They tried that defense (intimately tied to the OS) at the original antitrust trials and an expert was able to remove IE back then in less than an hour.
The FACT that Microsoft has made IE more indespensable to windows, not less, pretty much is giving the Justice Department a big middle finger. No Linux distro I know of nor OS X fundamentally needs it's OS to do updates or anything like that. It's just BS on MS's part.
I hope they get shafted by the EU, since I feel shafted everytime MS forces me to use IE for one of their piddly little tasks.
How about this, run the numbers:
Sell 1 million songs vs 1 million CDs.
I found, about 5 out of 100 CDs are worth buying the album for. The rest of I would snap up 1, maybe 2-3 max songs for.
We live in an age with media saturation. If Game Company A offers no demos, Companies B, C... X, Y, Z will be more than happy to.
Unless the game A releases has some type of buzz then, B-Z get the sale.
This is easy to fix. I ran into demos like that. The point is to give a taste, not a meal.
Just like a restuarant shouldn't stuff you with free appetizers if it wants to sell product.
I'm not sure how significant this is. Software requirements and all.
Although I can see how owning a game that doesn't run fast enough may prompt someone to buy a better video card since they're already invested in the game.
No idiot. The Constitutions defines the US Government and therein always binds the US Government when it acts, no matter what, where, or when. At least that's the theory.
Just because the government is acting outside of state boundaries, doesn't give it the means to do whatever the hell it pleases.
Exactly. I'm surprise those computers got infected with Windows in the first place. Usually it takes a CD to spread that virus.
Why, will his text-to-speech clonk out soon?
Or, you could actually take a few minutes to look up online what the good games are which aren't. Or just grab a top 10 list from someplace. Just the same concept of using rotten tomatoes to avoid dropping money on bad movies.
I don't think ignorance is really a valid excuse anymore. At least 90% of any media has always been crap.
Options:
Lo-tech:
RFID tag tracking system, so it never moves beyond a certain range:
http://www.remoteplay.com/TagAlertHome.asp
Hi-tech:
Some type of optical scanner, like iris recognition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_recognition
A lot of those symptoms sound like the natural tendency of wanting to do whatever interests you at the moment and it just being hard to pull away. I think a lot of smart kids, because of a slow public school system (for instance, I didn't have to study at all until 12th grade), simply never developed the self-control earlier in scholastic life due to this type of thing. It sort of becomes an ingrained, doing well up to a certain grade/level despite bad habits that never recieved significant negative feedback before, so that failure eventually (inevitably) occurs and often triggers an exploration into what the cause is with ADHD or the like being a nice culprit because you can medicate it (pills) versus a tougher solution. Of course, I don't want to downplay the severity of breaking a habit that may have been with a person the majority of their life and the system/parents sometimes actively foster the situation and this type of solution as being most convenient to them. Although that is my take on the skyrocketing rates of ADHD, perhaps it's just an observation of the faked cases masquerading as ADHD.
But what would you say leaps such behavior from perhaps something beyond a learned habit into something needing outside intervention like ADHD?
The article speculates that an iPhone nano may be in the works due to economic downturn (although I fail to see where the great savings lie, and how such a device would be in the works just scant months after the big crash...) but if Apple comes out with it, it still doesn't address the reason I won't buy an iPhone: lock-in.
It's been said millions of times already, but I would like to point out the prepaid market is currently booming. I'd rather spend $500 on the iPhone upfront, get an unlimited monthly data plan cheap ($30 or less) and not have a monthly talk plan - just prepay that part as I need it.
I don't see how a slight change in hardware will change AT&T's rates which is what hurts long term more than the cost of the phone itself. I believe Apple wants to address the lowend of the market (which is does with it's iPods, although imo the shuffle is a poor attempt without any lcd/oled at all), I just don't see it being effective.
Right now, I can go out and buy a prepaid phone for $10. It has a decent color lcd screen, actually, and probably is better/as good as a Razr in many respects (which is piss poor at anything but being a phone out of the box). Coupled with an iPod Touch - it can do about 75% of the iPhone. I won't pretend it is as good as the iPhone unless you're near wifi access at the moment.
But still, when I look at the iPod Touch vs iPhone, I feel like I'm paying through the nose for a gps and phone chipsets added on because of ATT and adding models won't change that component.
*(Everyone is different. ATT's plans are decent for already heavy callers, but I'm not one and there are many other people who just want mobile internet+ipod and don't care about the phone component to the point of thinning the wallet).
This taxpayer advocate in the link sounds like anything but. I agree with you, in that the current laws are sufficient. You sell "Virtual Item" on ebay for $500, you pay taxes on those $500 (minus expenses such as game purchase, subscription, etc). It's really not that confusing. They also want enhanced implementation techniques (monitoring) so that happens.
On top of that, it also sounds like they want to figure out a way to tax virtual-only transactions, which is about as inane as finding a way to tax small-time bartering in real life. Well, if the IRS wants to accept virtual currency, let them. Perhaps the US Military wants to upgrade their swords of summoning or whatever.
Everytime I hear of this bloated, useless bureacratic nonsense, I feel obligated to mention the APT-Tax.
http://www.apttax.com/
but rather the overflow, with miscommunication thrown in.
Years ago, when they were talking about information overload - I suppose the people were thinking of individuals. But I'm sure it applies to governments as well.
And with the governments seeming to get more petty all the time, I suppose that the actual important things are getting implemented poorly or wholly ignored.
schools. Particularly grade schools and middle schools. A laptop that doesn't need maintenance. They launched that initiative 1 year back, but it was too little too late. They were actually quite hostile toward selling it in America or developed world.
Now, I don't believe computers are all that great in the classroom, but if they wanted economies of scale, it would make more sense to sell to the rich, gadget-happy country first to build up production and also legitimacy in the eyes of 3rd worlders. I imagine if MIT pushed it, some Massachusetts area schools might have adopted. Then the OLPC project could have put that on their resume as well.
No one got fired for buying Microsoft/IBM is true, and if the competitor is a relatively unknown, untested entity, doubly so. I think the move to Windows just killed it though, since it didn't differentiate OLPC laptop from any other to the casual observer.
Considering that incandescent lightbulbs, on a dimmer, save next to nothing because dim bulbs use almost as much electricity as the full brightness they are rated for (since the tungsten is still heated up, just a few degrees less to make it glow not so much) - I don't think it will save much. Not sure about Plasma TVs, but I'm reasonably sure fluorescent lights in LCD can't really dim, so it's probably just the Color filter letting less light pass through when dimming the brightness setting. LEDs can dim, so new LED LCD may save a minimum of electricity.
Plasma is also an energy hog - typical 42" Plasma can suck 400w down, while same LCD takes 180w or so. What I would think they target would be vampire sets - those that are always "on", most today actually, ready to get remote input.
I miss the days of a real "off" button. If they need to save state, and don't want to wait for memristor technology, why not just a tiny bit of flash memory with the settings saved in them?
Here, I believe you are wrong. Apple means easy to use electronics people want.
That's a powerful image. When I go to Walmart, I see an entire row of 25+ mp3 players. The only ones people are eyeing are the iPods. The closest, a Zune, I have never seen in the wild. It's also extensible: they just moved into phones 1.5 years ago. With iTunes they'll become the defacto music, movie/video, and, if they play their cards right, book store in the future. That is pretty good too. They're becoming a real media hub.
Right now, they can say to themselves: "What devices supplied by their current industry is deficient, ugly, and/or hard to use, which we, can make easy?" I have one: e-ink based book readers. I'm sure there are many others, but they want the profitable opportunities - thus the small line of computers unlike what confusing line of products in the 90s. Plus new devices not out yet but made possible soon through emerging technology.
The downside, which you touched upon, is that they can't rest on their laurels. That they need to churn out new things. BUT, stagnation like that isn't good for Apple anyway. The artistic types always want to tackle something new, not just rehash the same old thing.
But they do have an imag which means something. The fact that it's not something as definite as you say is a double-edged sword. Look at Polaroid? They, too, meant instant photos once. It only hindered them in a market that they should be more dominant in (as they couldn't let go of the exact method of "instant", being addicted to the old revenue stream). Microsoft may mean "Windows" but what happens why Adobe and Intuit start compiling against Wine 1.xx?