If your not going to use it and it will stay in a drawer forever, it must be worthless to you. Can I have it? I will pay for the shipping so there is no cost to you.
You can use the 770 like a speaker phone quite nicely with the Gizmo software.
It doesn't have a lot of built in memory but it is sufficient. You can also expand the flash memory via the RS-MMC port.
You can also connect it to a specially powered USB hub and connect USB media/peripherals not to mention Bluetooth peripherals.
But the real beauty of the 770 is that the platform is open and Nokia encourages people to hack away on it. They *want* people to customize it and make new apps for it and help devs along with a development platform for your PC (Scratchbox) and a forge-based software repository (garage.maemo.org).
These are things I don't see Sony doing any time soon and this that add real value and lifetime to the 770.
1. While annoying, I would much rather them spend the time to put out the new 2006 firmware release that is scheduled to include VoIP and a proper update manager than make generic ("fixed a few bugs in component x" release notes for a simple bugfix release.
2. I have never had any problems with WPA-PSK and my 770... you may be using an odd configuration.
3. I'll bet those "random" disconnects coincide with you (or your neighbour) talking on a 2.4 GHz cordless phone or using a 2.4 GHz microwave oven and also coinice with all your other wireless gear dumping their connection too. At least that is the only time my 770 has any connectivity problems.
While I will agree that some of the included and third-party software is not mature, I am finding my 770 extremely useful and it is getting better on a daily basis as I find new utilities and learn the best way to use it.
So what will happen when the following common and inevitable scenarios arise? 1) A security vulnerability that requires an update 2) The OS is unsupported and needs to be updated 3) The harddrive is filling up and more space needs to be added 4) All their data needs to be backed up in case of a hardware failure
Sure... you can plop down a preconfigured OS in some preapproved hardware and never connect it to the Internet and even the most novice of computer users is not going to have a problem. This is true of many configurations... not just OSX. But the reality is typically much more complicated.
So while you may be a Apple fan and it may be working out in your situation, it is not yet the ultimate solution with respect to simplicity vs. usefulness. It is a great solution for a limited number of usage cases and a crappy solution for some others... and this is, of course, very subjective.
I got tired of supporting Windows so I figured that I would give Linspire a try since it advertised user-friendliness. I was a bit disappointed with it and didn't want to pay for another OS (and keep on paying for updates and keep paying more of the apps to do what she needed to do) so I switched her to Ubuntu. I have been fairly pleased since thenand most of the calls these days are dealing with ISP outages. I am not sure how your suggesting of throwing out all her hardware and moving to a Mac would help.
Actually she is older than me... in the 39 and holding age range:]
The things that have bitten me so far: - not being able to use a Sony Minidisc player (stupid DRM-encumbered crap) she had bought without asking me which player to buy first - running her version of QuickBooks (v4 IIRC)... *nearly* everything works under wine, except printing oddly enough. I haven't tried with recent updates though. This is the one thing causing the old computer to persist. - slight font size differences causing massive page reflows in crowded.docs that look normal in MSOffice (though likely shouldn't) and get chopped up in OO.o. While you can always mess around and make it look normal again, it takes some time and knowledge of fine tuning documents. - flaky USB Palm Pilot syncing. I have had the best luck with JPilot but unfortunately filled her Visor up with gibberish one time when there was an accidental transition to UTF-8 encoding:] - there is some persistent suspend issues
The things that have surprised me: - she managed to independently download and install an online poker application and run it fine using wine in Ubuntu for a while before it died on a wine update and she called me wondering why it doesn't work anymore. So much for package management. I asked her to use one of the web based ones that advertise Linux-friendliness. - not too many printer or scanner problems. There was a bit of set up and picking of rational defaults but after that smoother sailing than I thought - remote VNC desktop tunneled through an ssh connection was a snap to set up eventhough she is behind a NAT router. This makes troubleshooting *sooo* much easier when I can see what she is talking when she refers to "the square thing in the corner thing with the blue thing":]
The #1 thing that I am happy about: - Never having to run any more stupid spyware cleaning utilities and virus checkers on her system. I don't miss that futile exercise.
There are a few factors at play here... and none of them are retardation:]
1) scope of usage: If your 2 yr old is writing letters, emailing, printing, transferring pictures from their camera, burning music CDs, balancing their bank account, tracking their stocks, etc. then I will be impressed by your superior genes. However, many people have no problems doing the simple things like finding a game and playing it. Yet with complexity comes difficulty.
2) familiarity If someone has learned a particular way of doing things, they have a tough time switching gears into a new paradigm/UI/menu structure. Your kid benefits from having a clean slate and will probably be hesitant to switch to anything else later on.
3) inflexibility The older you get, the more inflexible you brain seems to get. You want things *your* way... just like the good ol' days! Some people manage to keep a nimble brain as they age but it takes mental exercise to do so and the vast majority of people let their brain get flabby. I don't blame them as the work environment is structured to flabbify your brain as you advance through it. Less precarious due to more power, less challenging, more specialization and leaning on previous experience, etc. Your kids' brain is still a knowledge sponge.:]
I thought of that but stand by my statement. Apple hasn't achieved that ultimate status either.
While problems occur more rarely due to Apple's narrrow variety of hardware/software vs. higher stability trade-off, when problems do occur, or when you want to do something outside of Apple's scope of applications, *no one* can help you.
So while Apple's method may be good for many people you have to realize that you are sacrificing something (choice) to get something (stability).
Most of the problems that I have experienced with my sister's migration stem from her wanting to use particular apps (retraining issues) and particular hardware (compatibility issues). Things where choosing Apple wouldn't have helped me one bit and, in fact, would have limited her significantly. There is no doubt that she could have lived without some of her wants (and she ends up having to do so even now) but I was trying to find the best fit for her; not fit her to something.
In reality, no OS has achieved the status of so simple yet so useful that grandma/sister/computer-novice can use without assistance.
I have some experience being the family IT support guy and got so sick of cleaning our viruses, spyware and other junk from my sister's computer that I bough her a computer with Linspire 4 on it thinking that it was the easiest Linux for her to adapt to. In the end, I can't say that it was any better or worse than any other distro. The Click-N-Run concept is a good one but it is was very poorly executed. It certainly *did* encourage users to run as root and was a PITA to set up as a multi-user system.
However, when things went wrong (as they do with any OS/Distro/computerized thing), I found that Linspire did things differently enough that it was very difficult to troubleshoot the problem, find help online and you ended up fighting with a system that tried to second guess you with automated scripts... sort of like dealing with Windows sometimes.
In the end I switched her to another distro (Ubuntu) and now have just as many problems but I don't have to pay a subscription fee and, if I don't know the answer myself, I can find answers online extremely quickly since it doesn't deviate too far from upstream.
So all the power to Linspire in achieving that "easy enough for a novice to use" status but since we're not there yet, I would stick with a more maintainable distro like Ubuntu or Fedora Core.
'Microsoft's own blogger Robert Scoble checked into the story and got a denial from an executive at Microsoft's PR firm, who says he's not aware of any Xbox programmers working on Windows.'... because an executive from MS's PR firm is the *first* person I would go to for the "truth"... : /
They are likely not aware of a lot of things... that doesn't make them untrue.
You should bug Nvidia to make a driver that impliments ALSA since that is the standard these days whereas OSS was the standard 10 years ago.
Or even better, try to convince them to contribute directly to the open source drivers for their boards.
Ekiga supporting OSS would be a giant leap backwards and I'm glad they don't. Hauling around code to support an obsolete legacy interface is just a drain on developer time and asking for trouble as the code rots.
Any such side-by-side comparison would be like comparing shiny red buttons to nuclear bombs.
Ekiga is the end client that would connect to Asterisk which would provide the PBX and infrustructure to route your call. Not exactly the same animal and the only comparison that could be usefully drawn is that they communicate with one another.
Re:Does it interoperate with...
on
Ekiga 2.0 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Ekiga should work with and SIP service that openly peers to other networks. I have personally used it with Gizmo for voice-only chat and it works fine. Unfortunately, the text chat does not work with Gizmo. Gizmo is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
In my experience, Ekiga is better than Gizmo in that: - it is open source - it can register with multiple providers simultaneously - integrates with your Evolution contact list - has support for more codecs - is not tied to a particular SIP provider so you can use it as your Gizmo voice client and access all the features of the Gizmo SIP provider - has video - communicates with old and new NetMeeting
Gizmo client is better than Ekiga in that: - it has built-in Jabber presence and messaging although you can use Gaim as your Gizmo Jabber client - has a mapping button to see where your caller is calling from
How quickly perception changes. What ICraveTV was doing was/is legal in Canada and is the basis for the Canadian cable TV industry (rebroadcast now, pay copyright holders later). Searching back in the Slashdot archives is illuminating as to how quickly and agressively the video entertainment industry moved to squash this. If the audio entertainment industry had the same response against Napster, I doubt there would be such a thing as an mp3 player. Innovation is only acceptable/allowed if the current stakeholders are making money off it. Otherwise it is piracy and unholy.
They should hire the ICraveTV guy who got clobbered by the entertainment industry lawyers years ago. He was ahead of the times and had a very functional IPTV system going. Maybe Google has the money to protect the concept this time.
I third that. Those flat little Canon scanners are pretty robust, simple, quality and the software that comes with them is decent.
I am dead set against anything Umax now. They charged my Dad $30 for XP drivers for a scanner that had w2k drivers available for free. When the drivers came, they were a load of crap that required technical support and work-arounds to make them work properly. You'd think that if they were charging you for something that should have been free in the first place, what they provide should have been bullet-proof.
This is the MS way and this interview reaks of it. It always has been MS's way to denounce, embrace and extend technologies.
So far they seem to be through their denouncing (Linux is a buggy, communist, viral plague that will get you thrown in jail for using it due to all the IP violation) stage.
Now they seem to be firmly into the embracing stage.
I truly fear the extending stage. Hopefully the GPL can stand up to the massive chaos that will result as I believe that it is the only thing holding the current chaotic community together.
The ANIK-F2 has antennas that will cover both North and South America. So you can probably expect them to offer high-speed internet services to any market that will pay for them:]
Slashdot Mirror
If your not going to use it and it will stay in a drawer forever, it must be worthless to you. Can I have it? I will pay for the shipping so there is no cost to you.
What *is* clear is that you don't have a 770 because nearly every comment you made about the 770 is false.
6 /2/
You can play videos at CIF.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/content/view/15
You can use the 770 like a speaker phone quite nicely with the Gizmo software.
It doesn't have a lot of built in memory but it is sufficient. You can also expand the flash memory via the RS-MMC port.
You can also connect it to a specially powered USB hub and connect USB media/peripherals not to mention Bluetooth peripherals.
But the real beauty of the 770 is that the platform is open and Nokia encourages people to hack away on it. They *want* people to customize it and make new apps for it and help devs along with a development platform for your PC (Scratchbox) and a forge-based software repository (garage.maemo.org).
These are things I don't see Sony doing any time soon and this that add real value and lifetime to the 770.
Why are the authorities not involved in raiding the MPAA offices in this case? That seems to be the *first* step when the MPAA are after someone else.
There aren't really any machines that "just work". Except possibly with MacOS in some cases...
;]
I suspect that MacOS will have some trouble running on a Sony Vaio laptop also
1. While annoying, I would much rather them spend the time to put out the new 2006 firmware release that is scheduled to include VoIP and a proper update manager than make generic ("fixed a few bugs in component x" release notes for a simple bugfix release.
... you may be using an odd configuration.
2. I have never had any problems with WPA-PSK and my 770
3. I'll bet those "random" disconnects coincide with you (or your neighbour) talking on a 2.4 GHz cordless phone or using a 2.4 GHz microwave oven and also coinice with all your other wireless gear dumping their connection too. At least that is the only time my 770 has any connectivity problems.
While I will agree that some of the included and third-party software is not mature, I am finding my 770 extremely useful and it is getting better on a daily basis as I find new utilities and learn the best way to use it.
So what will happen when the following common and inevitable scenarios arise?
... you can plop down a preconfigured OS in some preapproved hardware and never connect it to the Internet and even the most novice of computer users is not going to have a problem. This is true of many configurations ... not just OSX. But the reality is typically much more complicated.
... and this is, of course, very subjective.
1) A security vulnerability that requires an update
2) The OS is unsupported and needs to be updated
3) The harddrive is filling up and more space needs to be added
4) All their data needs to be backed up in case of a hardware failure
Sure
So while you may be a Apple fan and it may be working out in your situation, it is not yet the ultimate solution with respect to simplicity vs. usefulness. It is a great solution for a limited number of usage cases and a crappy solution for some others
I got tired of supporting Windows so I figured that I would give Linspire a try since it advertised user-friendliness. I was a bit disappointed with it and didn't want to pay for another OS (and keep on paying for updates and keep paying more of the apps to do what she needed to do) so I switched her to Ubuntu. I have been fairly pleased since thenand most of the calls these days are dealing with ISP outages. I am not sure how your suggesting of throwing out all her hardware and moving to a Mac would help.
Actually she is older than me ... in the 39 and holding age range :]
... *nearly* everything works under wine, except printing oddly enough. I haven't tried with recent updates though. This is the one thing causing the old computer to persist. .docs that look normal in MSOffice (though likely shouldn't) and get chopped up in OO.o. While you can always mess around and make it look normal again, it takes some time and knowledge of fine tuning documents. :]
:]
The things that have bitten me so far:
- not being able to use a Sony Minidisc player (stupid DRM-encumbered crap) she had bought without asking me which player to buy first
- running her version of QuickBooks (v4 IIRC)
- slight font size differences causing massive page reflows in crowded
- flaky USB Palm Pilot syncing. I have had the best luck with JPilot but unfortunately filled her Visor up with gibberish one time when there was an accidental transition to UTF-8 encoding
- there is some persistent suspend issues
The things that have surprised me:
- she managed to independently download and install an online poker application and run it fine using wine in Ubuntu for a while before it died on a wine update and she called me wondering why it doesn't work anymore. So much for package management. I asked her to use one of the web based ones that advertise Linux-friendliness.
- not too many printer or scanner problems. There was a bit of set up and picking of rational defaults but after that smoother sailing than I thought
- remote VNC desktop tunneled through an ssh connection was a snap to set up eventhough she is behind a NAT router. This makes troubleshooting *sooo* much easier when I can see what she is talking when she refers to "the square thing in the corner thing with the blue thing"
The #1 thing that I am happy about:
- Never having to run any more stupid spyware cleaning utilities and virus checkers on her system. I don't miss that futile exercise.
There are a few factors at play here ... and none of them are retardation :]
... just like the good ol' days! Some people manage to keep a nimble brain as they age but it takes mental exercise to do so and the vast majority of people let their brain get flabby. I don't blame them as the work environment is structured to flabbify your brain as you advance through it. Less precarious due to more power, less challenging, more specialization and leaning on previous experience, etc. Your kids' brain is still a knowledge sponge. :]
1) scope of usage:
If your 2 yr old is writing letters, emailing, printing, transferring pictures from their camera, burning music CDs, balancing their bank account, tracking their stocks, etc. then I will be impressed by your superior genes. However, many people have no problems doing the simple things like finding a game and playing it. Yet with complexity comes difficulty.
2) familiarity
If someone has learned a particular way of doing things, they have a tough time switching gears into a new paradigm/UI/menu structure. Your kid benefits from having a clean slate and will probably be hesitant to switch to anything else later on.
3) inflexibility
The older you get, the more inflexible you brain seems to get. You want things *your* way
So, sorry, you are not super-human.
I thought of that but stand by my statement. Apple hasn't achieved that ultimate status either.
While problems occur more rarely due to Apple's narrrow variety of hardware/software vs. higher stability trade-off, when problems do occur, or when you want to do something outside of Apple's scope of applications, *no one* can help you.
So while Apple's method may be good for many people you have to realize that you are sacrificing something (choice) to get something (stability).
Most of the problems that I have experienced with my sister's migration stem from her wanting to use particular apps (retraining issues) and particular hardware (compatibility issues). Things where choosing Apple wouldn't have helped me one bit and, in fact, would have limited her significantly. There is no doubt that she could have lived without some of her wants (and she ends up having to do so even now) but I was trying to find the best fit for her; not fit her to something.
In reality, no OS has achieved the status of so simple yet so useful that grandma/sister/computer-novice can use without assistance.
... sort of like dealing with Windows sometimes.
I have some experience being the family IT support guy and got so sick of cleaning our viruses, spyware and other junk from my sister's computer that I bough her a computer with Linspire 4 on it thinking that it was the easiest Linux for her to adapt to. In the end, I can't say that it was any better or worse than any other distro. The Click-N-Run concept is a good one but it is was very poorly executed. It certainly *did* encourage users to run as root and was a PITA to set up as a multi-user system.
However, when things went wrong (as they do with any OS/Distro/computerized thing), I found that Linspire did things differently enough that it was very difficult to troubleshoot the problem, find help online and you ended up fighting with a system that tried to second guess you with automated scripts
In the end I switched her to another distro (Ubuntu) and now have just as many problems but I don't have to pay a subscription fee and, if I don't know the answer myself, I can find answers online extremely quickly since it doesn't deviate too far from upstream.
So all the power to Linspire in achieving that "easy enough for a novice to use" status but since we're not there yet, I would stick with a more maintainable distro like Ubuntu or Fedora Core.
'Microsoft's own blogger Robert Scoble checked into the story and got a denial from an executive at Microsoft's PR firm, who says he's not aware of any Xbox programmers working on Windows.' ... because an executive from MS's PR firm is the *first* person I would go to for the "truth" ... : /
... that doesn't make them untrue.
They are likely not aware of a lot of things
You should bug Nvidia to make a driver that impliments ALSA since that is the standard these days whereas OSS was the standard 10 years ago.
Or even better, try to convince them to contribute directly to the open source drivers for their boards.
Ekiga supporting OSS would be a giant leap backwards and I'm glad they don't. Hauling around code to support an obsolete legacy interface is just a drain on developer time and asking for trouble as the code rots.
Any such side-by-side comparison would be like comparing shiny red buttons to nuclear bombs.
Ekiga is the end client that would connect to Asterisk which would provide the PBX and infrustructure to route your call. Not exactly the same animal and the only comparison that could be usefully drawn is that they communicate with one another.
Ekiga should work with and SIP service that openly peers to other networks. I have personally used it with Gizmo for voice-only chat and it works fine. Unfortunately, the text chat does not work with Gizmo. Gizmo is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.
In my experience, Ekiga is better than Gizmo in that:
- it is open source
- it can register with multiple providers simultaneously
- integrates with your Evolution contact list
- has support for more codecs
- is not tied to a particular SIP provider so you can use it as your Gizmo voice client and access all the features of the Gizmo SIP provider
- has video
- communicates with old and new NetMeeting
Gizmo client is better than Ekiga in that:
- it has built-in Jabber presence and messaging although you can use Gaim as your Gizmo Jabber client
- has a mapping button to see where your caller is calling from
So pick whichever suits your needs.
Along with the currently existing Foxpose mentioned above there is also the currently existing Reveal
p ?application=firefox&id=1942
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
How quickly perception changes. What ICraveTV was doing was/is legal in Canada and is the basis for the Canadian cable TV industry (rebroadcast now, pay copyright holders later).
Searching back in the Slashdot archives is illuminating as to how quickly and agressively the video entertainment industry moved to squash this. If the audio entertainment industry had the same response against Napster, I doubt there would be such a thing as an mp3 player.
Innovation is only acceptable/allowed if the current stakeholders are making money off it.
Otherwise it is piracy and unholy.
They should hire the ICraveTV guy who got clobbered by the entertainment industry lawyers years ago. He was ahead of the times and had a very functional IPTV system going. Maybe Google has the money to protect the concept this time.
I third that. Those flat little Canon scanners are pretty robust, simple, quality and the software that comes with them is decent.
I am dead set against anything Umax now. They charged my Dad $30 for XP drivers for a scanner that had w2k drivers available for free. When the drivers came, they were a load of crap that required technical support and work-arounds to make them work properly. You'd think that if they were charging you for something that should have been free in the first place, what they provide should have been bullet-proof.
Do not buy Umax.
This is the MS way and this interview reaks of it.
It always has been MS's way to denounce, embrace and extend technologies.
So far they seem to be through their denouncing (Linux is a buggy, communist, viral plague that will get you thrown in jail for using it due to all the IP violation) stage.
Now they seem to be firmly into the embracing stage.
I truly fear the extending stage. Hopefully the GPL can stand up to the massive chaos that will result as I believe that it is the only thing holding the current chaotic community together.
Wouldn't that just be pop-ups all over again?
http://www.google.ca/search?q=psf
Python Software Foundation would be my guess since it comes up first in Google.
Sure they'll fix it ... by silently uninstalling Firefox using their next IE "this fixes numerous security flaws" super-updates.
The ANIK-F2 has antennas that will cover both North and South America. So you can probably expect them to offer high-speed internet services to any market that will pay for them :]
... from the unsecured wifi router down the hall.
Corporate secrets be damned!
So that was what they are talking about in the "right to bare ARMs" ... computer processors "exposed" on the net via P2P ...