Agreed. Reading that gave me a worse perception of ESR than it did of Microsoft.
Re:Microsoft BlueTooth Mouse? Meh!
on
Hardware Bytes
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· Score: 2
I bet you were just hoping to get upmodded because of the Microsoft flaming, but instead you revealed yourself as an ignorant troll. Must be why you posted AC.
As I've understood it, it's not the device that only works with Windows, it's the drivers that only exist for Windows. Same problem as with so many other pieces of hardware out there. Given proper drivers and possibly a bit of kernel hacking, it should be quite compatible with a *nix-based OS.
I got Robyn's latest album, "Don't Stop The Music". Great disc. BMG records have their own little copy protection mechanism it seems, the disc plays fine on ordinary CD players, but upon putting it into my CD-ROM, it autoruns and automatically installs a player which apparently uses Windows Media technology to play the (compressed) tracks from a data track on the CD. I was later able to uninstall this player, it left an uninstaller (UNWISE.EXE) and an install log in my C:\.
Winamp and Windows Media Player both lock up trying to play the CD as an ordinary audio CD. When I opened exact Exact Audio Copy, it couldn't make out the tracks on the CD. When I put the disc into my CD burner (HP CD-Writer 9310i Plus) the tracks were properly recognized, though marked "Copy Protected", and I could play the CD as a normal audio CD from within EAC (WA and WMP still hung). This allowed me to rip the disc to MP3 by playing it in EAC, while simultaneously recording in SoundForge. So the ripping was a bit more troublesome than usual, but no sweat. The quality of the rip was excellent, despite the slightly weird ripping method.
Microsoft users are an interesting lot. They have systems that they have NO control over. They have systems they have to reboot every sixteen minutes. They freely pay Bill Gates obscene amounts of money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade to the next operating system. It's almost laughable.
That bit of the article alone reduces it to mere flamebait.
Firstly, I have every bit as much control over my Windows-powered computers (two XP Pro, one 2k Server) as I need, with more control waiting to be seized should I ever need it. No, I can't modify every little detail about the OS the way I could if I had the full source, AND intimate knowledge about each bit, AND the time and patience to hack it (the way the Linux elitists seem to think everyone should have). I don't need to. Windows just works, on every computer I've tried it on so far, with the exception of one 2k Pro install which took a few retries due to buggy third-party RAID drivers. In contrast, the only Linux distro that "just worked" on any of my machines was Mandrake (8.1) and I removed it almost right away, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here.
Second, I very rarely have to reboot my XP boxes, and when I do (for installing new drivers etc), it's maybe 30-45 secs of downtime, which I don't really mind. The server, I haven't had to reboot in weeks. I know "weeks" doesn't compare to the years that some people have had *nix (and NT) servers up, but for an amateur like me who's almost 100% self-taught, it's just fine.
Third, I'd hardly call the sum I shelled out for XP "obscene", especially not if you split it out on all the hours I've had it running for (on all the computers I've run it on). And hey, if it's still too expensive for you, borrow a CD from work/school or simply warez it. Something tells me that's the way about half of all XP users got their hands on it in the first place.
Oh and hang on, did I read that right? Freely pay Bill Gates money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade their OS? That must refer to Microsoft's applications (Office, Visual Studio, games, and such) rather than the OS's themselves. Strange how I haven't percieved either Office XP or Visual Studio (the two Microsoft app suites that I use - can't speak for any others) as buggy or incompatible with older OS's... sure, you can't run VS.NET on Windows 95/98, but if you still run either OS, well, you probably have bigger concerns than not being able to run VS.NET. And Microsoft games from the mid- and late nineties still run fine on Windows XP.
Oh, and before someone points out MSIE as a typical case of "buggy Microsoft app", I agree. It is a piece of crap, at least security-wise. I switched to Mozilla long ago, though more for the features (tabbed browsing, mmm) than for the hightened sense of safety that it brought.
Having just re-read the above, I get the feeling this is going to be a "-1, Flamebait" posting pretty soon. Okay, no problem, I've got karma to burn. But I know that there are lots of people out there who share my experiences when it comes to Windows and Microsoft products in general. Okay, there are some less desirable aspects to using them, but overall, they do get the job done. The article from which the paragraph at the beginning of this posting does little but expose the author as the pitiful troll which he obviously is.
AudioGalaxy seem to be doing their best to resurrect themselves, though of course, the old AG will never be back; it was simply too good
to last for very long. Here's what's good and bad about the new system:
Good: Well, from the screenshots at AG's site, the interface looks well designed, though it does fill the entire screen in a manner
which is ill-suited for those who just want a music player. Like me. There better be a "compact" mode.
Bad: From the list of available artists, I'd say they have a rather impressive collection for a RIAA-stomped file sharing service
making a comeback. Except of course we're now limited to a mere 300000 or so (probably fewer) tracks, and it's not possible to add your
own music to the mix anymore, download remixes, or download rare tracks that are hard to find elsewhere, legally or illegally - just the
stuff I used to use AG for.
Good: They've got a free preview period. Which doesn't require you to give away CC details. I figure lots of people will sign up for
the preview only to dump it 2-20 hours later or when the preview runs out, whichever is sooner.
Bad: It's no longer free. Well of course it's not, the users aren't providing the content anymore! Though $9.95/mo would be quite
nice provided the downloads were high-quality MP3 or OGG's - heck, even WMA's (wo DRM) would be preferable to the streaming shit they
currently offer. Which brings us right down to...
Bad: STREAMS! God, don't we all hate those things? Can't save them. Will definately require a special program to download and play, which means bugging down our systems with even more apps, probably loaded with DRM. Also, most of us aren't on connections that can handle a constant speed of 128-192kbps, especially not people living far away from the servers (which will be centralized, no doubt).
Bad: No way to burn music to a CD (apart from analog copying - if I can hear it, I can record it) or otherwise get those streams to somewhere without an Internet connection. That thing alone renders the service utterly and completely useless to me as a music consumer. I believe I'm not alone in feeling that way.
Bad: It's Windows only. No further explanation or comment req'd on that one...
Bad: It's only available in the US due to licensing restrictions. I mentioned above that not being able to carry stream music with rendered the service useless to me - well, since I live in Sweden, this "US only" thing kind of ruins it a little more.
Conclusion: This will crash and burn. It doesn't even try very hard to succeed, the people running AG know what it takes to please the crowds who want UNRESTRICTED, FREE FILE SHARING, not limited access to a closed library of songs from a relatively small selection of artists. This will fail, unless lots of people figure the music that's available is enough for them, and that they can live with the obvious drawbacks and restrictions - in the light that it is still quite possible and easy to get those very same tracks in MP3 or OGG format through any of the file sharing services still available and thriving. I might mention Gnutella, I might mention Direct Connect.
CodeGuru and CodeProject - both EXCELLENT sources of information, especially for MFC stuff. CodeProject also has lots on C#.
Microsoft Developer Network is a great source of support (especially the KB) and the MSDN library holds a full reference for the Microsoft implementations of C/C++, C#, Visual Basic, et al. MSDN is also integrated into Visual Studio.NET, so I rarely feel the need to visit the website directly.
Finally, lots of programmers gather in Usenet newsgroups and on IRC. I can recommend the channel #c++ on Quakenet (irc.quakenet.org) as a great source of help for Windows programmers, so long as you follow the (rather strict) channel rules. Don't miss the #c++ n00blist of people who have failed to observe these rules...:)
I hope this helps...
No WMP support - Media XW is dead
on
Ogg Vorbis 1.0
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· Score: 2
Since I normally use Windows Media Player, I went looking for DirectShow filters to let me play OGG files in WMP. I was somewhat surprised to find that the only such filters are part of Media XW, an abandoned SourceForge project. The latest files are three month old development files which, according to the site, "can damage your whole DirectShow system and probably requires a complete Windows reinstallation". The latset non-dev release is from sept -01.
If adoption is what we want, someone should get on the job of coding proper DirectShow filters for OGG, and fast. I installed WinAmp just for the OGG support, but I doubt that everyone who uses WMP regularly will be so tolerant. If I didn't have so many OGG files already, I never would have bothered.
a) I find it interesting how the "friend" mentioned in the article only specifies the brand and FSB frequency of the CPU of the system he wants. Most people would be more interested in things like the CPU clock speed, hard drive size, amount of RAM, et cetera. Also, having a high-speed front side bus does in no way gurantee a fast system.
b) The link to the A7V333. Maybe I just had bad luck with my A7V, but I have woved never to buy an Asus product again after experiencing their horrible drivers, horrible support and in many cases badly designed products. My friends have had similar experiences, mostly with Asus 3D cards. I would not recommend Asus products to my worst enemy, and I would NOT put an Asus motherboard in a computer I built for a friend.
c) Windows has excellent multi-language input support. Refusing to use Microsoft software is not in the best interest of someone who wants his chinese input support as good as possible. Not that there can't be good Chinese support in a Linux distro (I wouldn't know, having never researched the subject) but there is always the ease-of-use problem, which the posting also mentions.
d) Finally, I'd say the OS Sucks-Rules-O-Meter is more of an indication of the amount of zealots for any given operating system than anything else. Also, it'd be interesting to see how much overlap there is between the "linux rules" and "windows sucks" result. I'm guessing quite a bit.
Speaking of the OSSROM, if it is to be believed, then apart from Windows, MacOS, OS/400, Solaris and Unix are all operating systems that suck.
a) Screwing their customers by overcharging for stuff which doesn't hold up to the advertised quality in the first place. Think boy bands and CD's with 2 good songs and 18 filler tracks here...
b) Labeling their customers criminals by introducing copy-protected formats which do more harm than good. The DMCA. The SSSCA.
c) Failing to adapt to worldwide changes, such as the arrival of the Internet, home broadband, P2P technology. Attempts to fight the future rather than embrace it.
d) Pathetically holding on to their old business model, despite telltale signs that it's already outdated.
The list can go on for pages, and the four main points above can be split into several sub-points for those slow understanding the magnitude of this...
I was expecting to see "This article sponsored by Opera Software" at the end of that posting. Has Slashdot started taking cash for posting articles that are little more than advertisments for a particular product? Or in this case, a link to a review which is as far from "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" as can be?
In either case, I read the review, and it beautifully disproves Opera Software's claim of making "the world's fastest web browser", with load times varying between 50% and 300% of IE's on the pages that were tested.
Opera also displays ads unless you register it (for $39!) -- why bother when it doesn't offer any major advantages over another non-MS browser like Mozilla?
It should also be noted that Opera has had some Microsoft-esque security holes in the past...
This is pure idiocy. Firstly, shutting out XP users from FreeCraft will not make people ditch XP, it will make them ditch FreeCraft (and any game which uses it). Thus, game developers who use FreeCraft will undoubtably want to remove the XP block, and if that's not possible for some reason, many will choose another engine. There are a LOT of XP users, and a lot of people who will be upgrading to XP from 95/98/Me/2000 soon. Shutting them all out is stupid, stupid, stupid, no matter what you personally think about Microsoft or Windows XP as an OS.
Second, while I have not personally seen the source of FreeCraft, I doubt that what's keeping the engine from working with XP is hard to fix (it works under Win2000!) - I wouldn't be suprised if there's just a bit that says "if( bWindowsXP ) Crash();" at the beginning. Isn't the FreeCraft team just lowering itself to Microsoft's level (remember how early versions of Windows purposefully wouldn't work on DR-DOS?) by doing this?
Anyway, let's hope that for some future release, the FreeCraft team stop with this silliness and more importantly, stop discriminating against the thousands of people who have chosen to use Windows XP - or, maybe more commonly, had it pre-installed on a new computer.
I'm reading lots of posts saying people should get it even though they've never heard of the artist before; well, I for one would love to be able to get a good song legally for $0.99 but I am not rich enough to spend money without sampling the product first. Especially when it comes to something like music, where the quality of a song varies with the listener. (Ie, the same song is one person's jewel and another's garbage)
Luckily, neither I nor you need shell out our $0.99 before having listened to a sample, conveniently linked from the front page of MP3.com.
Now even if you don't like the song, you should still consider shelling out for it as a sign of support for the business model. But if you're a cheapskate like me, try the sample first.
The article cunningly doesn't mention how much a fair amount (say - a bucket:) - enough to paint a wall with) would cost. If it's $50 for a square metre's worth of LCD, then fine; if it's £500, it's practically useless.
I do see interesting applications for this though - like interating an LCD into your sleeve or backpack. We'll see in 6 months if this is all it's cracked up to be:)
Nice to see that Mr. Lucas realizes what a mess Episode One became - hopefully, this will mean a major improvement, both story- and character-wise, for Episode Two. Good for George, good for us, maybe some seven-year olds who never saw the originals will be disappointed that the film now lacks anyone they can identify with, but what the heck, I don't care.
The article (at MSNBC) does spoil some of the story but also sheds some interesting light. I don't think we can bet on Anakin killing Jar Jar for us just yet, though the co-writer, Jonathan Hales, promises no silly characters or kids. Personally, I expect Jar Jar to get screen time in Ep 2 as Natalie Portman's boobs, meaning a few seconds at most.
Re:This brings to mind that Metallica Flash movie.
on
Spriggan Released On DVD
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually, ADV have more redeeming qualities to them than just not being an MPAA member. I own a couple of their DVD's, which imported from the USA - so at first, I was expecting them to give me a load of trouble in my (region 2) DVD player.
However, as I soon found out, the discs were region 0 (as in, no region coding) and I were able to watch (and rip, cough cough) them all with a minimum of fuss. I don't know if ADV still sells their DVD's w/o region coding, but if they do, more power to them.
If anyone cares, the discs were Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 1 through 4 and the first Slayers movie (which is even funnier dubbed than subbed fsr).
The article was all about C#-related myths, but you seem to have found one which the author missed. C# has been out of beta for a while now, I think Visual Studio.NET (which includes Visual C#.NET) was released in february, and I'm using it for some minor programming work already (not C# - just C++ for now). So that it would still be in beta is, to put it simply, not true.
Well, the author does a good job of debunking some of the myths about C# that have been floating around, but he seems a bit too optimistic in my opinion. Sure, there are efforts underway to port the C# CLR to "alternative" OS'es, but last I heard, it's not quite there yet. He also makes the claim that C# is not inferior to Java, without really telling us why - just that it'll be easy for Java developers to switch over, which is prolly what MS intended in the first place. No surprises there.
What is interesting about the article is that the author makes a U-turn on page three, shifting his writing from "here's why and how C# will own" to a more "we must combat the Evil Microsoft":ish stance, which is more along the lines of what one would expect from a Java developer.
The article ends on page 4 (of 5 - where did page 5 go?). The pages are loading slowly now, a slashdotting is probably taking place.. read it while you can. It is interesting, though some die-hard pro-Java anti-MS fanatics will no doubt feel offended by it. Also interesting are the reader comments already posted.
He's right, as usual, and the column was an interesting read, although sadly, I think what Ebert has to say is little news to the average Slashdot reader. He talks about the failure of DivX, the new CD copy protection schemes, and how they're bound to fail, because those who are l33t enough will still find ways to get what they want - the way he mentiones in the column is hooking your PC up to your stereo set, yielding a good-enough-for-MP3 copy of the previously copyrighted disc.
And of course, need I remind you, if ONE person does this, then theoretically no-one else has to, they can just leech the song via Audiogalaxy, like the song was never copy-protected in the first place. What this will lead to - and Ebert points this out, as well - is legitimate customers getting upset because the music they paid for won't work in the playback device they want to use. If you ask me, this will boost piracy, not vice versa.
Anyway, the short summary of the column is, interesting read, but nothing new. Always good to see articles in the "mainstream" press about stuff like this.
While it is completely and true that some Microsoft applications - mainly the Office and Visual Studio appsuites - update the operating system to extend the API, add new DLLs, and so on, I fail to understand what the problem you see in this is.
True, Office doesn't ask you for permission, but then again it's targeted at (stupid) end users. End users don't care, they just want Office up and running. Visual Studio, which is targeted at developers, does ask for permission before installing its updates. In either case, the application won't run without the OS updates, so if you want to install it (something you've clearly demonstrated that you want to by starting the setup program) you've got no choice but to install them. And I've never heard of a case where a computer broke down because the Office installer put in some little feature like mousewheel drivers or whatnot.
If you really need to be able to manipulate every bit of your OS, and want software that's pretty much all written with advanced users in mind, use Linux, BSD or whatever. Windows is targeted at consumers, and therefore will do stuff differently, and limit (somewhat) the user's influence. Live with it, or use something else.
Let's keep in mind that the PS3 is probably still some time away; 1000 times the performance is not as stupid as it sounds, only almost. There's also the question of what Mr. Okamoto (Sony's CTO in case you didn't read the article) really means by "performance" - CPU speed? HDD capacity? Screen resolution? Frames-per-sec? Or some mysterious combination of them all? Most likely, he was just trying to build up some hype - same as the fantasy that PS6/7 will be based on biotechnology. Yeah, right.
Also, I don't see distributed computing as something which will be very useful for playing games; sure, with a high-speed link between several PS3's you might be able to fake SMP, but the games would have to be optimized for it, or the performance increase would be abysmal compared to the extra cost of having to buy two PS3's. You might as well just get yourself a PC and have a gaming rig that's easier to upgrade, runs a wider variety of apps, has a decent-resolution monitor and gives you a choice of what OS you want to run. Of course, the PS3 might have all this, but don't bet on it.
Btw, I wonder what Pete Isensee (the Xbox developer guy) means by saying that Microsoft can't get stuff right until version three. Windows is WAY beyond 3.0, and there's still plenty of room for improvement (note the careful wording there).
You could always use Sneakemail - gets you a (virtually unlimited) number of e-mail adresses in the format of [random letters/digits]@sneakemail.com. See my e-mail as an example. Sneakemail is free, and the addresses all redirect into one account. You can specify filtering for each addy, and remove/replace one if the spam load gets annoying despite the filters. More info on their homepage.
(And no, I just work for them. But I do think the service rocks.)
Firstly, just because "a lot" of GPL fans are pacifists or hippies or whatever doesn't give you the right to tell someone whether or not they can use the GPL for their software. That's like telling someone they're not allowed to listen to certain types of music because they listen to it in a way that you think is wrong. We want MORE people to adopt the GPL, not fewer.
Second, what do you mean by the statement "I don't want you using my software..."? The software which he creates, GPL or no GPL, is still the intellectual property of him, or in this case, his employer (the military). It's not "your software", and therefore you clearly have no say in how it should be used, or any claims to ownership of it.
Third, a "no military applications" clause in the GPL would probably be a Very Bad Idea(TM) for reasons many Slashdot posters can probably agree with me on - one of which you mention in your own post, it would affect peacekeeping forces as well. It would probably also have a negative (limited, but negative) effect on spread of open source. Also, there's really nothing keeping someone else from coming up with a modified GPL which doesn't have that clause, and call it MPL or whatever. I would certainly stop using the GPL if such a change occured, I don't mind if the US military uses my free software, I'd consider it an honour (and I'm not even a US citizen).
This works well until we get to media files. How would you store a GIF/MPEG/AVI/MOV/RM/* file as ASCII without making it an utter pain to read?
Also, say what you want about DOC/PDF, but they have supports for these new and fancy things called fonts and something called layout, which makes them slightly more useful for serious stuff. Storing all your text docs as HTML is a Very Stupid Thing(TM).
Hey trollie, read the article. Or better yet, the Slashdot posting. This file system has nothing to do with DRM.
Firstly, there is no such thing as "Microsoft Digital Rights Management Software" (Media Player supports DRM, but only for WMA's) and Microsoft has nothing what-so-ever to gain from including DRM features into the file system. They know and we know that Longhorn with DRM will go down the toilet, while Longhorn without DRM will sell just as well as WinXP, probably better.
The second thing you got wrong is that this system is not (just) about speeding up searches. It's about replacing an antiquated system that's been around since MS-DOS with something future-proof, faster, and more reliable. Considering they've been working on this for 10+ years, they'll probably succeed eventually. And when they do.. boy, don't even get me started on that.
Now, for something constructive. When will we see this in Linux? Surely, if Microsoft can do this, so can the people working on Linux. Riiight?
Windows 2000 waits for drivers to finish their thing before shutting down. This is what's causing the wait, it happens on some systems whose drivers don't clean up their act properly, so the OS takes ages waiting for them before finally shutting down anyway. My last computer had that problem, I then upgraded it to XP and the problem went away.. oh well. I think it was the VIA 4-in-1 drivers that caused it.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Reading that gave me a worse perception of ESR than it did of Microsoft.
I bet you were just hoping to get upmodded because of the Microsoft flaming, but instead you revealed yourself as an ignorant troll. Must be why you posted AC.
As I've understood it, it's not the device that only works with Windows, it's the drivers that only exist for Windows. Same problem as with so many other pieces of hardware out there. Given proper drivers and possibly a bit of kernel hacking, it should be quite compatible with a *nix-based OS.
I got Robyn's latest album, "Don't Stop The Music". Great disc. BMG records have their own little copy protection mechanism it seems, the disc plays fine on ordinary CD players, but upon putting it into my CD-ROM, it autoruns and automatically installs a player which apparently uses Windows Media technology to play the (compressed) tracks from a data track on the CD. I was later able to uninstall this player, it left an uninstaller (UNWISE.EXE) and an install log in my C:\.
Winamp and Windows Media Player both lock up trying to play the CD as an ordinary audio CD. When I opened exact Exact Audio Copy, it couldn't make out the tracks on the CD. When I put the disc into my CD burner (HP CD-Writer 9310i Plus) the tracks were properly recognized, though marked "Copy Protected", and I could play the CD as a normal audio CD from within EAC (WA and WMP still hung). This allowed me to rip the disc to MP3 by playing it in EAC, while simultaneously recording in SoundForge. So the ripping was a bit more troublesome than usual, but no sweat. The quality of the rip was excellent, despite the slightly weird ripping method.
Firstly, I have every bit as much control over my Windows-powered computers (two XP Pro, one 2k Server) as I need, with more control waiting to be seized should I ever need it. No, I can't modify every little detail about the OS the way I could if I had the full source, AND intimate knowledge about each bit, AND the time and patience to hack it (the way the Linux elitists seem to think everyone should have). I don't need to. Windows just works, on every computer I've tried it on so far, with the exception of one 2k Pro install which took a few retries due to buggy third-party RAID drivers. In contrast, the only Linux distro that "just worked" on any of my machines was Mandrake (8.1) and I removed it almost right away, for various reasons which I can't be bothered to elaborate upon here.
Second, I very rarely have to reboot my XP boxes, and when I do (for installing new drivers etc), it's maybe 30-45 secs of downtime, which I don't really mind. The server, I haven't had to reboot in weeks. I know "weeks" doesn't compare to the years that some people have had *nix (and NT) servers up, but for an amateur like me who's almost 100% self-taught, it's just fine.
Third, I'd hardly call the sum I shelled out for XP "obscene", especially not if you split it out on all the hours I've had it running for (on all the computers I've run it on). And hey, if it's still too expensive for you, borrow a CD from work/school or simply warez it. Something tells me that's the way about half of all XP users got their hands on it in the first place.
Oh and hang on, did I read that right? Freely pay Bill Gates money for buggy programs that they can't use when they upgrade their OS? That must refer to Microsoft's applications (Office, Visual Studio, games, and such) rather than the OS's themselves. Strange how I haven't percieved either Office XP or Visual Studio (the two Microsoft app suites that I use - can't speak for any others) as buggy or incompatible with older OS's
Oh, and before someone points out MSIE as a typical case of "buggy Microsoft app", I agree. It is a piece of crap, at least security-wise. I switched to Mozilla long ago, though more for the features (tabbed browsing, mmm) than for the hightened sense of safety that it brought.
Having just re-read the above, I get the feeling this is going to be a "-1, Flamebait" posting pretty soon. Okay, no problem, I've got karma to burn. But I know that there are lots of people out there who share my experiences when it comes to Windows and Microsoft products in general. Okay, there are some less desirable aspects to using them, but overall, they do get the job done. The article from which the paragraph at the beginning of this posting does little but expose the author as the pitiful troll which he obviously is.
I rest my case.
- Good: Well, from the screenshots at AG's site, the interface looks well designed, though it does fill the entire screen in a manner
which is ill-suited for those who just want a music player. Like me. There better be a "compact" mode.
- Bad: From the list of available artists, I'd say they have a rather impressive collection for a RIAA-stomped file sharing service
making a comeback. Except of course we're now limited to a mere 300000 or so (probably fewer) tracks, and it's not possible to add your
own music to the mix anymore, download remixes, or download rare tracks that are hard to find elsewhere, legally or illegally - just the
stuff I used to use AG for.
- Good: They've got a free preview period. Which doesn't require you to give away CC details. I figure lots of people will sign up for
the preview only to dump it 2-20 hours later or when the preview runs out, whichever is sooner.
- Bad: It's no longer free. Well of course it's not, the users aren't providing the content anymore! Though $9.95/mo would be quite
nice provided the downloads were high-quality MP3 or OGG's - heck, even WMA's (wo DRM) would be preferable to the streaming shit they
currently offer. Which brings us right down to
...
- Bad: STREAMS! God, don't we all hate those things? Can't save them. Will definately require a special program to download and play, which means bugging down our systems with even more apps, probably loaded with DRM. Also, most of us aren't on connections that can handle a constant speed of 128-192kbps, especially not people living far away from the servers (which will be centralized, no doubt).
- Bad: No way to burn music to a CD (apart from analog copying - if I can hear it, I can record it) or otherwise get those streams to somewhere without an Internet connection. That thing alone renders the service utterly and completely useless to me as a music consumer. I believe I'm not alone in feeling that way.
- Bad: It's Windows only. No further explanation or comment req'd on that one
...
- Bad: It's only available in the US due to licensing restrictions. I mentioned above that not being able to carry stream music with rendered the service useless to me - well, since I live in Sweden, this "US only" thing kind of ruins it a little more.
Conclusion: This will crash and burn. It doesn't even try very hard to succeed, the people running AG know what it takes to please the crowds who want UNRESTRICTED, FREE FILE SHARING, not limited access to a closed library of songs from a relatively small selection of artists. This will fail, unless lots of people figure the music that's available is enough for them, and that they can live with the obvious drawbacks and restrictions - in the light that it is still quite possible and easy to get those very same tracks in MP3 or OGG format through any of the file sharing services still available and thriving. I might mention Gnutella, I might mention Direct Connect.My sources for programming info and help/support:
... :)
CodeGuru and CodeProject - both EXCELLENT sources of information, especially for MFC stuff. CodeProject also has lots on C#.
Microsoft Developer Network is a great source of support (especially the KB) and the MSDN library holds a full reference for the Microsoft implementations of C/C++, C#, Visual Basic, et al. MSDN is also integrated into Visual Studio.NET, so I rarely feel the need to visit the website directly.
Finally, lots of programmers gather in Usenet newsgroups and on IRC. I can recommend the channel #c++ on Quakenet (irc.quakenet.org) as a great source of help for Windows programmers, so long as you follow the (rather strict) channel rules. Don't miss the #c++ n00blist of people who have failed to observe these rules
I hope this helps...
Since I normally use Windows Media Player, I went looking for DirectShow filters to let me play OGG files in WMP. I was somewhat surprised to find that the only such filters are part of Media XW, an abandoned SourceForge project. The latest files are three month old development files which, according to the site, "can damage your whole DirectShow system and probably requires a complete Windows reinstallation". The latset non-dev release is from sept -01.
If adoption is what we want, someone should get on the job of coding proper DirectShow filters for OGG, and fast. I installed WinAmp just for the OGG support, but I doubt that everyone who uses WMP regularly will be so tolerant. If I didn't have so many OGG files already, I never would have bothered.
A few things I mentally noted while reading this:
a) I find it interesting how the "friend" mentioned in the article only specifies the brand and FSB frequency of the CPU of the system he wants. Most people would be more interested in things like the CPU clock speed, hard drive size, amount of RAM, et cetera. Also, having a high-speed front side bus does in no way gurantee a fast system.
b) The link to the A7V333. Maybe I just had bad luck with my A7V, but I have woved never to buy an Asus product again after experiencing their horrible drivers, horrible support and in many cases badly designed products. My friends have had similar experiences, mostly with Asus 3D cards. I would not recommend Asus products to my worst enemy, and I would NOT put an Asus motherboard in a computer I built for a friend.
c) Windows has excellent multi-language input support. Refusing to use Microsoft software is not in the best interest of someone who wants his chinese input support as good as possible. Not that there can't be good Chinese support in a Linux distro (I wouldn't know, having never researched the subject) but there is always the ease-of-use problem, which the posting also mentions.
d) Finally, I'd say the OS Sucks-Rules-O-Meter is more of an indication of the amount of zealots for any given operating system than anything else. Also, it'd be interesting to see how much overlap there is between the "linux rules" and "windows sucks" result. I'm guessing quite a bit.
Speaking of the OSSROM, if it is to be believed, then apart from Windows, MacOS, OS/400, Solaris and Unix are all operating systems that suck.
a) Screwing their customers by overcharging for stuff which doesn't hold up to the advertised quality in the first place. Think boy bands and CD's with 2 good songs and 18 filler tracks here...
b) Labeling their customers criminals by introducing copy-protected formats which do more harm than good. The DMCA. The SSSCA.
c) Failing to adapt to worldwide changes, such as the arrival of the Internet, home broadband, P2P technology. Attempts to fight the future rather than embrace it.
d) Pathetically holding on to their old business model, despite telltale signs that it's already outdated.
The list can go on for pages, and the four main points above can be split into several sub-points for those slow understanding the magnitude of this...
I was expecting to see "This article sponsored by Opera Software" at the end of that posting. Has Slashdot started taking cash for posting articles that are little more than advertisments for a particular product? Or in this case, a link to a review which is as far from "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" as can be?
...
In either case, I read the review, and it beautifully disproves Opera Software's claim of making "the world's fastest web browser", with load times varying between 50% and 300% of IE's on the pages that were tested. Opera also displays ads unless you register it (for $39!) -- why bother when it doesn't offer any major advantages over another non-MS browser like Mozilla?
It should also be noted that Opera has had some Microsoft-esque security holes in the past
This looked like a cool little project, shitty graphics nonwithstanding, but then I read (in the FAQ):
Q: Why is Windows XP not supported?
A: Because I decided it. I do not support any product, that forces anybody to register it. Please read the FreeCraft (GPL) license and visit www.boycottxp.com (down) and more boycott.
This is pure idiocy. Firstly, shutting out XP users from FreeCraft will not make people ditch XP, it will make them ditch FreeCraft (and any game which uses it). Thus, game developers who use FreeCraft will undoubtably want to remove the XP block, and if that's not possible for some reason, many will choose another engine. There are a LOT of XP users, and a lot of people who will be upgrading to XP from 95/98/Me/2000 soon. Shutting them all out is stupid, stupid, stupid, no matter what you personally think about Microsoft or Windows XP as an OS.
Second, while I have not personally seen the source of FreeCraft, I doubt that what's keeping the engine from working with XP is hard to fix (it works under Win2000!) - I wouldn't be suprised if there's just a bit that says "if( bWindowsXP ) Crash();" at the beginning. Isn't the FreeCraft team just lowering itself to Microsoft's level (remember how early versions of Windows purposefully wouldn't work on DR-DOS?) by doing this?
Anyway, let's hope that for some future release, the FreeCraft team stop with this silliness and more importantly, stop discriminating against the thousands of people who have chosen to use Windows XP - or, maybe more commonly, had it pre-installed on a new computer.
I'm reading lots of posts saying people should get it even though they've never heard of the artist before; well, I for one would love to be able to get a good song legally for $0.99 but I am not rich enough to spend money without sampling the product first. Especially when it comes to something like music, where the quality of a song varies with the listener. (Ie, the same song is one person's jewel and another's garbage)
Luckily, neither I nor you need shell out our $0.99 before having listened to a sample, conveniently linked from the front page of MP3.com.
Now even if you don't like the song, you should still consider shelling out for it as a sign of support for the business model. But if you're a cheapskate like me, try the sample first.
The article cunningly doesn't mention how much a fair amount (say - a bucket :) - enough to paint a wall with) would cost. If it's $50 for a square metre's worth of LCD, then fine; if it's £500, it's practically useless.
I do see interesting applications for this though - like interating an LCD into your sleeve or backpack. We'll see in 6 months if this is all it's cracked up to be :)
Nice to see that Mr. Lucas realizes what a mess Episode One became - hopefully, this will mean a major improvement, both story- and character-wise, for Episode Two. Good for George, good for us, maybe some seven-year olds who never saw the originals will be disappointed that the film now lacks anyone they can identify with, but what the heck, I don't care.
The article (at MSNBC) does spoil some of the story but also sheds some interesting light. I don't think we can bet on Anakin killing Jar Jar for us just yet, though the co-writer, Jonathan Hales, promises no silly characters or kids. Personally, I expect Jar Jar to get screen time in Ep 2 as Natalie Portman's boobs, meaning a few seconds at most.
Actually, ADV have more redeeming qualities to them than just not being an MPAA member. I own a couple of their DVD's, which imported from the USA - so at first, I was expecting them to give me a load of trouble in my (region 2) DVD player.
However, as I soon found out, the discs were region 0 (as in, no region coding) and I were able to watch (and rip, cough cough) them all with a minimum of fuss. I don't know if ADV still sells their DVD's w/o region coding, but if they do, more power to them.
If anyone cares, the discs were Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 1 through 4 and the first Slayers movie (which is even funnier dubbed than subbed fsr).
Well, the author does a good job of debunking some of the myths about C# that have been floating around, but he seems a bit too optimistic in my opinion. Sure, there are efforts underway to port the C# CLR to "alternative" OS'es, but last I heard, it's not quite there yet. He also makes the claim that C# is not inferior to Java, without really telling us why - just that it'll be easy for Java developers to switch over, which is prolly what MS intended in the first place. No surprises there.
.. read it while you can. It is interesting, though some die-hard pro-Java anti-MS fanatics will no doubt feel offended by it. Also interesting are the reader comments already posted.
What is interesting about the article is that the author makes a U-turn on page three, shifting his writing from "here's why and how C# will own" to a more "we must combat the Evil Microsoft":ish stance, which is more along the lines of what one would expect from a Java developer.
The article ends on page 4 (of 5 - where did page 5 go?). The pages are loading slowly now, a slashdotting is probably taking place
He's right, as usual, and the column was an interesting read, although sadly, I think what Ebert has to say is little news to the average Slashdot reader. He talks about the failure of DivX, the new CD copy protection schemes, and how they're bound to fail, because those who are l33t enough will still find ways to get what they want - the way he mentiones in the column is hooking your PC up to your stereo set, yielding a good-enough-for-MP3 copy of the previously copyrighted disc.
And of course, need I remind you, if ONE person does this, then theoretically no-one else has to, they can just leech the song via Audiogalaxy, like the song was never copy-protected in the first place. What this will lead to - and Ebert points this out, as well - is legitimate customers getting upset because the music they paid for won't work in the playback device they want to use. If you ask me, this will boost piracy, not vice versa.
Anyway, the short summary of the column is, interesting read, but nothing new. Always good to see articles in the "mainstream" press about stuff like this.
While it is completely and true that some Microsoft applications - mainly the Office and Visual Studio appsuites - update the operating system to extend the API, add new DLLs, and so on, I fail to understand what the problem you see in this is.
True, Office doesn't ask you for permission, but then again it's targeted at (stupid) end users. End users don't care, they just want Office up and running. Visual Studio, which is targeted at developers, does ask for permission before installing its updates. In either case, the application won't run without the OS updates, so if you want to install it (something you've clearly demonstrated that you want to by starting the setup program) you've got no choice but to install them. And I've never heard of a case where a computer broke down because the Office installer put in some little feature like mousewheel drivers or whatnot.
If you really need to be able to manipulate every bit of your OS, and want software that's pretty much all written with advanced users in mind, use Linux, BSD or whatever. Windows is targeted at consumers, and therefore will do stuff differently, and limit (somewhat) the user's influence. Live with it, or use something else.
Let's keep in mind that the PS3 is probably still some time away; 1000 times the performance is not as stupid as it sounds, only almost. There's also the question of what Mr. Okamoto (Sony's CTO in case you didn't read the article) really means by "performance" - CPU speed? HDD capacity? Screen resolution? Frames-per-sec? Or some mysterious combination of them all? Most likely, he was just trying to build up some hype - same as the fantasy that PS6/7 will be based on biotechnology. Yeah, right.
Also, I don't see distributed computing as something which will be very useful for playing games; sure, with a high-speed link between several PS3's you might be able to fake SMP, but the games would have to be optimized for it, or the performance increase would be abysmal compared to the extra cost of having to buy two PS3's. You might as well just get yourself a PC and have a gaming rig that's easier to upgrade, runs a wider variety of apps, has a decent-resolution monitor and gives you a choice of what OS you want to run. Of course, the PS3 might have all this, but don't bet on it.
Btw, I wonder what Pete Isensee (the Xbox developer guy) means by saying that Microsoft can't get stuff right until version three. Windows is WAY beyond 3.0, and there's still plenty of room for improvement (note the careful wording there).
You could always use Sneakemail - gets you a (virtually unlimited) number of e-mail adresses in the format of [random letters/digits]@sneakemail.com. See my e-mail as an example. Sneakemail is free, and the addresses all redirect into one account. You can specify filtering for each addy, and remove/replace one if the spam load gets annoying despite the filters. More info on their homepage.
(And no, I just work for them. But I do think the service rocks.)
Firstly, just because "a lot" of GPL fans are pacifists or hippies or whatever doesn't give you the right to tell someone whether or not they can use the GPL for their software. That's like telling someone they're not allowed to listen to certain types of music because they listen to it in a way that you think is wrong. We want MORE people to adopt the GPL, not fewer.
Second, what do you mean by the statement "I don't want you using my software..."? The software which he creates, GPL or no GPL, is still the intellectual property of him, or in this case, his employer (the military). It's not "your software", and therefore you clearly have no say in how it should be used, or any claims to ownership of it.
Third, a "no military applications" clause in the GPL would probably be a Very Bad Idea(TM) for reasons many Slashdot posters can probably agree with me on - one of which you mention in your own post, it would affect peacekeeping forces as well. It would probably also have a negative (limited, but negative) effect on spread of open source. Also, there's really nothing keeping someone else from coming up with a modified GPL which doesn't have that clause, and call it MPL or whatever. I would certainly stop using the GPL if such a change occured, I don't mind if the US military uses my free software, I'd consider it an honour (and I'm not even a US citizen).
Peace is fine, what about freedom?
This works well until we get to media files. How would you store a GIF/MPEG/AVI/MOV/RM/* file as ASCII without making it an utter pain to read?
Also, say what you want about DOC/PDF, but they have supports for these new and fancy things called fonts and something called layout, which makes them slightly more useful for serious stuff. Storing all your text docs as HTML is a Very Stupid Thing(TM).
Hey trollie, read the article. Or better yet, the Slashdot posting. This file system has nothing to do with DRM.
.. boy, don't even get me started on that.
Firstly, there is no such thing as "Microsoft Digital Rights Management Software" (Media Player supports DRM, but only for WMA's) and Microsoft has nothing what-so-ever to gain from including DRM features into the file system. They know and we know that Longhorn with DRM will go down the toilet, while Longhorn without DRM will sell just as well as WinXP, probably better.
The second thing you got wrong is that this system is not (just) about speeding up searches. It's about replacing an antiquated system that's been around since MS-DOS with something future-proof, faster, and more reliable. Considering they've been working on this for 10+ years, they'll probably succeed eventually. And when they do
Now, for something constructive. When will we see this in Linux? Surely, if Microsoft can do this, so can the people working on Linux. Riiight?
Windows 2000 waits for drivers to finish their thing before shutting down. This is what's causing the wait, it happens on some systems whose drivers don't clean up their act properly, so the OS takes ages waiting for them before finally shutting down anyway. My last computer had that problem, I then upgraded it to XP and the problem went away .. oh well. I think it was the VIA 4-in-1 drivers that caused it.