Well, you are already wrong about the software, which was updated to 2.0. I never experienced ANY of the problems you just mentioned. While the product's drivers ended with Win98, you should have tried upgrading your software before ditching your phone.
Well, you should also note that this review you posted is 2 1/2 years old, and Linksys has a competing product that is supposedly better. I am wondering exactly how the technologies compare and if they are using the same methods of data transmission. Does anyone know the difference between this and HomePlug 1.0?
I own a Microsoft MP-900 phone and I can tell you that it is one of the best pieces of hardware I have owned. I also purchased the CyberGenie (also discontinued) which offered USB/Outlook integration, multiple handsets, and a slew of other features, but the MP-900 was still a better product overall. It cost me $50 and I still use it today. However, I have to keep a machine running Win9x to make it work correctly (though it still works fine without a PC as a standard 900Mhz phone). The Caller ID voice announcement is CRUCIAL - while it's typical computer voice quality, it is very nice to hear who is calling instead of having to get up and look at the caller ID. Plus it makes my friends go, "HOLY SHIT, YOUR PHONE TALKS!" - they also like it when they hit the voice command button and say "What time is it?" and a magical computer voice gives them the answer. It was a revolutionary product ahead of its time and it's too bad that even with the cybergenie that nobody has come up with another POTS phone that interfaces quite as well.
damn, I've had 2 voip blasters sitting around for over a year not being used since i was using NAT. why didn't anyone tell me there was new software for it and a $200 price tag! damnit!
That's funny, I used to have an Adelphia PowerLink 3Mbps (in Charlottesville, VA) and they could rarely sustain transfer rates higher than 60K/s, which would equal less than 500mbps. I had this problem even during off-peak hours. Hopefully this was isolated to the area I was in. Luckily, I switched to 1.5Mbps DSL and got sustained 1.5Mbps throughput! That beats unreliable 3Mbps connections any day!
Please, NO MORE 9/11 EXCUSES!
on
The Empire Stumbles
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Lucas seemed to fall out of touch with post-9/11 America.
If ATOC had addressed 9/11 in a similar fashion as Spiderman, I would have picked up a light saber myself and done an Anakin-style massacre at Skywalker Ranch. While I personally thought Spiderman was better, I think the 9/11 patriotic stuff is contrived and trite at this point in time. For me, it made the movie worse.
120TB seems like an enormous capacity, but multi-terabyte storage mediums will be a neccessary in the future with REAL streaming media. What I'm worried about is the network connection - that has been my current bottleneck (even at 1.5Mbps). When we eventually combine HDTV PVR's, MP3 players, DVD archives, and pictures into a giant media database, the numbers don't look as staggering. But transferring that much data from one machine to another may prove to be the hardest part of all. 120Tbps network connection -now THAT'S impressive!
The big point here is that Adelphia sucks as a provider. I had them for 4 weeks (in Charlottesville, VA) before I cancelled them for my consistent 5K/sec download speeds (this is what I traded a modem for?). Cox cable in Fairfax has been no better, with weeks of consecutive downtime with no explanation. My DSL at my new place stays up (through Sprint) with consistent advertised uplink and downlink speeds and I have had no problem running an FTP server for friends that need to swap files. My g/f's Verizon DSL account in Fairfax has been great, as well. I recommend getting a DSL connection for the reliability needed for VoIP since cable has just never quite lived up to its promise in my personal experience.
So what happens (in the future) if we are running an "elite" copy of SAMBA that is not in compliance with MS's new scheme? Can they prosecute the users as well as the developers? Does owning a Windows license allow fair-use by connecting through SAMBA? I'm just wondering how far they could take this...
It will be interesting to see how the pricing scheme ends up considering that there will already be a substantial charge to obtain the HD/modem combo in the first place. Some are saying that they will take the X-Box approach and have a service charge which allows access to only a limited number of games and then expand the costs to more "elite" titles. Sega had the right idea by letting users use their network for free with the exception of Phantasy Star Online v2, where they were able to give their v1 addicts a free taste before charging $15 for 3 months of play on the new version. It will also be interesting to see if the games will internetwork across systems (i.e. PSO on the Gamecube). Should be an interesting time, but it's too bad that Sony waited so long. Not only is time against them, but so is the fact that a non-bundled video game accessory has never sold enough to make every game take advantage of it. If people choose not to buy the HD/modem combo, we may only see one generation of online games on PS2.
Unfortunately, my g/f's b-day is the 15th (day after valentine's), so I decided to buy us a weekend vacation to New Orleans! That way we both get something in return!
This is true... I live in Fairfax (Alexandria mailing address) about 7 miles from DC, and we only RECENTLY were able to receive cable modem service from Cox (DSL is still not available through Verizon or Covad). Inadvertantly, the cable modem service has been so terrible (down for days without any explanation) that I wonder what people are truly qualifying as "broadband." While DSL has been nothing but great for me in my experience (I have Sprint DSL at college in Charlottesville, VA and it has been perfect for 2 1/2 years), I do believe that there is a serious problem with penetration for broadband. Satellite services help penetration, but I would settle for nothing less than DSL at this point (Cox and Adelphia cable modem service has made me prefer dial-up over their crappy and unreliable services). As far as other hold-ups, I think people are just too content with dialup since most only use their machines for email anyways. Koreans have a very different phone payment structure, which makes broadband more attractive. The Canadians just don't have anything better to do.
Well, I wouldn't go with a USB solution, since the bus can't handle the bandwidth needed for 24 bit/96 khz recording. I would definitely recommend the MOTU 896 (markoftheunicorn.com) which has a firewire interface and works great with both PC and Mac desktops/laptops. We use it in the VCCM as well as our Portable Audio Workstation (PAWN) (click on the research link) which is a lunchbox-type solution running Linux.
Well, I believe it will have built-in wireless networking (might just be a client though). If it does, I guess it would know if it was part of a wireless network! I'm sure there would be an option to not use wireless networking.
I would see DirecTV picking this up before any cable companies. Since DirecTV is already supporting Tivo AND Ultimate TV, I see it as a logical choice to support Moxi. Cable providers are always more than reluctant to allow any open-ended technology into their closed systems. Perhaps this is why DirecTV is so much better (flames welcome).
I'm talking about the Q, too. I'm just saying that by looking at the pictures there is no difference between the motherboard of a Japanese GC and a Japanese Q.
I modified my Japanese imported GC and I can say that the motherboard and even the outside bracket are identical to the regular version of the GC. The only difference here is the different laser housing, which surprisingly doesn't neccessarily allow for greater piracy. The GC discs are actually burned backwards (from the outside->in), which will make the biggest difference in replicating the discs. While they may not be bringing this product to the US, the modification is a very simple one which I was personally able to do in a matter of minutes. I just wouldn't look at this as the holy grail of GC piracy until there is more research done on the GC optical technology.
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Well, you are already wrong about the software, which was updated to 2.0. I never experienced ANY of the problems you just mentioned. While the product's drivers ended with Win98, you should have tried upgrading your software before ditching your phone.
Well, you should also note that this review you posted is 2 1/2 years old, and Linksys has a competing product that is supposedly better. I am wondering exactly how the technologies compare and if they are using the same methods of data transmission. Does anyone know the difference between this and HomePlug 1.0?
I own a Microsoft MP-900 phone and I can tell you that it is one of the best pieces of hardware I have owned. I also purchased the CyberGenie (also discontinued) which offered USB/Outlook integration, multiple handsets, and a slew of other features, but the MP-900 was still a better product overall. It cost me $50 and I still use it today. However, I have to keep a machine running Win9x to make it work correctly (though it still works fine without a PC as a standard 900Mhz phone). The Caller ID voice announcement is CRUCIAL - while it's typical computer voice quality, it is very nice to hear who is calling instead of having to get up and look at the caller ID. Plus it makes my friends go, "HOLY SHIT, YOUR PHONE TALKS!" - they also like it when they hit the voice command button and say "What time is it?" and a magical computer voice gives them the answer. It was a revolutionary product ahead of its time and it's too bad that even with the cybergenie that nobody has come up with another POTS phone that interfaces quite as well.
damn, I've had 2 voip blasters sitting around for over a year not being used since i was using NAT. why didn't anyone tell me there was new software for it and a $200 price tag! damnit!
That's funny, I used to have an Adelphia PowerLink 3Mbps (in Charlottesville, VA) and they could rarely sustain transfer rates higher than 60K/s, which would equal less than 500mbps. I had this problem even during off-peak hours. Hopefully this was isolated to the area I was in. Luckily, I switched to 1.5Mbps DSL and got sustained 1.5Mbps throughput! That beats unreliable 3Mbps connections any day!
Lucas seemed to fall out of touch with post-9/11 America.
If ATOC had addressed 9/11 in a similar fashion as Spiderman, I would have picked up a light saber myself and done an Anakin-style massacre at Skywalker Ranch. While I personally thought Spiderman was better, I think the 9/11 patriotic stuff is contrived and trite at this point in time. For me, it made the movie worse.
it's 3 am and I just got back from ATOC 12:00 showing - SHOCKER - the matrix trailer was the highlight of my night.
120TB seems like an enormous capacity, but multi-terabyte storage mediums will be a neccessary in the future with REAL streaming media. What I'm worried about is the network connection - that has been my current bottleneck (even at 1.5Mbps). When we eventually combine HDTV PVR's, MP3 players, DVD archives, and pictures into a giant media database, the numbers don't look as staggering. But transferring that much data from one machine to another may prove to be the hardest part of all. 120Tbps network connection -now THAT'S impressive!
The big point here is that Adelphia sucks as a provider. I had them for 4 weeks (in Charlottesville, VA) before I cancelled them for my consistent 5K/sec download speeds (this is what I traded a modem for?). Cox cable in Fairfax has been no better, with weeks of consecutive downtime with no explanation. My DSL at my new place stays up (through Sprint) with consistent advertised uplink and downlink speeds and I have had no problem running an FTP server for friends that need to swap files. My g/f's Verizon DSL account in Fairfax has been great, as well. I recommend getting a DSL connection for the reliability needed for VoIP since cable has just never quite lived up to its promise in my personal experience.
So what happens (in the future) if we are running an "elite" copy of SAMBA that is not in compliance with MS's new scheme? Can they prosecute the users as well as the developers? Does owning a Windows license allow fair-use by connecting through SAMBA? I'm just wondering how far they could take this...
It will be interesting to see how the pricing scheme ends up considering that there will already be a substantial charge to obtain the HD/modem combo in the first place. Some are saying that they will take the X-Box approach and have a service charge which allows access to only a limited number of games and then expand the costs to more "elite" titles. Sega had the right idea by letting users use their network for free with the exception of Phantasy Star Online v2, where they were able to give their v1 addicts a free taste before charging $15 for 3 months of play on the new version. It will also be interesting to see if the games will internetwork across systems (i.e. PSO on the Gamecube). Should be an interesting time, but it's too bad that Sony waited so long. Not only is time against them, but so is the fact that a non-bundled video game accessory has never sold enough to make every game take advantage of it. If people choose not to buy the HD/modem combo, we may only see one generation of online games on PS2.
Unfortunately, my g/f's b-day is the 15th (day after valentine's), so I decided to buy us a weekend vacation to New Orleans! That way we both get something in return!
This is true... I live in Fairfax (Alexandria mailing address) about 7 miles from DC, and we only RECENTLY were able to receive cable modem service from Cox (DSL is still not available through Verizon or Covad). Inadvertantly, the cable modem service has been so terrible (down for days without any explanation) that I wonder what people are truly qualifying as "broadband." While DSL has been nothing but great for me in my experience (I have Sprint DSL at college in Charlottesville, VA and it has been perfect for 2 1/2 years), I do believe that there is a serious problem with penetration for broadband. Satellite services help penetration, but I would settle for nothing less than DSL at this point (Cox and Adelphia cable modem service has made me prefer dial-up over their crappy and unreliable services). As far as other hold-ups, I think people are just too content with dialup since most only use their machines for email anyways. Koreans have a very different phone payment structure, which makes broadband more attractive. The Canadians just don't have anything better to do.
Well, I wouldn't go with a USB solution, since the bus can't handle the bandwidth needed for 24 bit/96 khz recording. I would definitely recommend the MOTU 896 (markoftheunicorn.com) which has a firewire interface and works great with both PC and Mac desktops/laptops. We use it in the VCCM as well as our Portable Audio Workstation (PAWN) (click on the research link) which is a lunchbox-type solution running Linux.
Well, I believe it will have built-in wireless networking (might just be a client though). If it does, I guess it would know if it was part of a wireless network! I'm sure there would be an option to not use wireless networking.
I would see DirecTV picking this up before any cable companies. Since DirecTV is already supporting Tivo AND Ultimate TV, I see it as a logical choice to support Moxi. Cable providers are always more than reluctant to allow any open-ended technology into their closed systems. Perhaps this is why DirecTV is so much better (flames welcome).
I'm talking about the Q, too. I'm just saying that by looking at the pictures there is no difference between the motherboard of a Japanese GC and a Japanese Q.
I modified my Japanese imported GC and I can say that the motherboard and even the outside bracket are identical to the regular version of the GC. The only difference here is the different laser housing, which surprisingly doesn't neccessarily allow for greater piracy. The GC discs are actually burned backwards (from the outside->in), which will make the biggest difference in replicating the discs. While they may not be bringing this product to the US, the modification is a very simple one which I was personally able to do in a matter of minutes. I just wouldn't look at this as the holy grail of GC piracy until there is more research done on the GC optical technology.