Mozilla and Thunderbird, and Netscape Communicator before that, all use the mbox mail format. What this means is that importing mail stored as mbox should be decently easy on all three of those. You might have to do some steps manually, but it'll work.
However, I'm pretty sure they're wanting to test out the automated importers, which is all a consumer wants to use anyway:)
As always, remember to backup your emails before beta testing like this.
Considering that RealPlayer 10 for windows has a "realaudio 2.0" codec for download, I'm willing to bet that RP for linux doesn't have that codec installed.
Keep in mind that the last RealAudio release was version 8, so RA2 is pretty old (and shitty in terms of quality nowadays):)
If you have RealPlayer 10 media player classic will make use of the already installed DLLs as well.
You might want to note that you're violating the EULA when you use Real Alternative, as they redistribute the DLLs without the player (and for the same reason, mplayer also violates quite a few EULAs;). While this might not actually be a cause for concern, it's important to note that if you ever do install the full RealPlayer it seems RealAlternative causes major conflicts.
This is all stuff that Real engineers that work on the video codecs have mentioned publicly (I am not an engineer for Real)
This is an area where you might find Apple excelling. As laptops have always been a strong point of theirs, it's no surprise that they pay good attention to battery life.
Both iBooks and pbooks are designed to get quite a bit of battery life (I'm sure you can find the marketing numbers on the website). Let me just say that in my usage of 12" iBooks with G3s of varying speed, I was able to get 3 hours easy. Of course, this was with doing nothing terribly intensive. I imagine that with DVD watching and a low backlight you'd get just as good results.
Recent pentium Ms have done quite well as well. IBMs are a leader here, as I believe the T40 series have quite a decent battery life without being/too/ heavy. My Dell 600m gets about 2.5-3 hours of mixed use with wireless but no DVD. If I force it to use the lowest speed all the time (600mhz) then I get acceptable performance with about 3.5 hours life. Dell also lets you buy a modular battery to stick in the CD drive bay for about 7 hours of life if you don't plan on using the cd drive.
Man, I thought the Sony ones would suck (ATRAC3 being the principle reason why) but this sounds really bad:)
Obviously it doesn't play ogg:)
Rio Karma, iRiver, and Neuros all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.
This is probably a useless release to most/. readers, as we already know about Mozilla Seamonkey (aka everything but the kitchen sink) and then Firefox and Thunderbird, all of which are more regularly updated and less AOL-whoring.
What this release is REALLY good for is for those mothers, grandmothers, and other uninterested people who know what Netscape is but can't be bothered to try this 'other' lizard. Arguably this market is small, as you can slip Mozilla right by them pretty easily anyway, but I'm sure someone has a use for it somewhere. If these users stick with Netscape 7.1, they're going to continue to be vulnerable to all those little security issues that have been discovered in Mozilla since then, and miss out on all the speed and new features released since then.
I for one won't use Netscape 7.x, as I already changed to a different AIM client (the integrated usage was a neat idea, but doesn't really work as everyone lies about their email address to AIM anyway) and use Firefox and Thunderbird anyway.
After reading the article (yeah yeah I know) it sounds like they did a bit of work on their DRM. The system's called Harmony now, they're claiming compatibility with over 70 devices (press release here).
According to the CNET article, the system will "change the song into Windows Media format if necessary," so in that case it sounds like it's doing a transparent reencode of the track, which isn't much different from burning it to CD and reripping it yourself, except they slap on some Microsoft DRM for you.
If you've got a palm OS 5 machine, it sounds like it'll stay as a Helix DRMed file, since those PDAs already had a native realplayer.
For the ipod: "Harmony also will automatically change songs into an iPod-compatible format. But because Apple has not licensed its FairPlay copy-protection software to anyone, RealNetworks executives said its engineers had to re-create their own version in their labs in order to make the device play them back."
Considering that Real and Apple players already used AAC to begin with, as long as they don't do any reencoding those players will probably have the best quality. That all depends though; seeing as how Real already knows how to manipulate itunes into letting realplayer play ITMS files, this might succeed by manipulating QT/itunes into reripping the original AAC file, though I doubt it; that would take too much time and I don't even know if it's possible.
Real uses 192kbps AAC wrapped with their own Helix DRM (realplayer 10 says it's "RA10," but I don't think such a codec exists). Apple uses 128kbps AAC wrapped with their PlayFair DRM. Both places sell for 99c for each track.
Considering both use AAC, maybe it was simply a matter of fooling the ipod into thinking Helix DRM was PlayFair DRM. And even though Real's choice of AAC seemed strange way back when RP10 was released, I think now it's starting to become clear why they chose that...:)
Strategically, this doesn't seem out of place with what Real's been doing recently. They seem to want to become the endall beall solution for Internet media: releasing Helix Player under GPL, making RealPlayer able to play QT, ITMS, and WM in the same player, and now this.
True, the R3x0 series (9500-9800) "only" support PS2.0. The significance of this though, is that PS2.0 was a major leap forward from PS1.x, so much so that it's starting to become the new baseline.
Part of nvidia's marketing campaign with the nv4x series is to try and convince you that PS3.0 is yet another huge leap forward. But by all accounts, it doesn't look like it will be. The GF6 series is the only one that supports PS3.0 in any regard. If this were 2001 that would be enough to help drive it forward, but the game's changed now: there are two very capable, major players that aren't going away anytime soon.
As for longer shaders, that was more or less fixed with the PS2.0a (for gffx series) or PS2.0b (R420/X800) profiles in DX9. Admittedly, the DX bit means little to Carmack, the OGL master that he is, but that doesn't mean the capability isn't there.
GLSL was implemented in ATI's Catalyst 4.1 driver set (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_41_Release_N otes.html), which means January of this year. You used the qualifier "fully" which might make a difference, but the fact is GLSL support is there.
And before you start telling me that PS3.0 really *is* going to be that huge, look around. The number one graphics provider will not be supporting it. Intel's new integrated graphics systems support the DX9 baseline, which basically means that a target baseline for most game devs in the future will be, tada, PS2.0! Keep in mind that the proliferation of Intel Integrated Graphics in workstations everywhere is what helped keep a lot of games targeting DX7 as their baseline. Yes, true gamers won't ever use such things, but publishers would rather be able to sell to as many people as they can.
To write ATI off so easily would be rather silly. Do you think that those silly Canucks are honestly sitting around, twiddling their thumbs and raking in the cash? ATI chose to extend their existing architecture simply because it was so good the first time around. Nvidia couldn't really do that with the FX series because they, well, sucked. ATI just won a bunch of OEM PCIexpress design wins, and they hold the XBOX and Nintendo console contracts. I think they know more about their business than you do.
Personally, I'd say what these results mean is just further proof that ATI needs a lot more work in the OpenGL department, as their DX support is already quite good./. users probably won't notice anyway, as nvidia's drivers in linux and OGL are quite good, which sounds perfect for D3.
Uhh, the whole point of firefox is so all of that isnt tied all into one thing. In fact, you might find that Firefox won't be doing *any* of your calendering for you, as a browser I wouldnt expect it to:)
Thunderbird is coming along (and is just plain mail). Sunbird is the calender app (and is moving slowly).
Just to let everyone know, the Rio Karma's still alive and kickin', and so is the iRiver H series. Both play Ogg Vorbis files quite well (and as an owner of the former, I'm incredibly pleased with my purchase). IMHO, the Rio Karma's the closest so far towards a true ipod competitor (USB2/Ethernet, 20GB, easy menu system, easy syncing, MP3/OGG/WMA/FLAC), with the notable exception of USB2 not working on mac or linux yet (use the dock's ethernet connection to sync up).
As an aside, an engineer from Rio (name changed in the article) posted his unofficial postulations on why the iPod has yet to materialize with Ogg support to Gizmodo. Essentially, his answer is that the processor originally used in the iPods just aren't powerful enough for it. There's also a rebuttal from a xiph.org guy, so I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle. In any case, if the 4g ipods use the same processor as the mini (looking likely) then Ogg support just might be coming yet, though Apple still may not do it for the same political reasons as before (mp3 good enough, aac just the same or better, blah blah blah)
I'm not so sure that sp2 is actually going to fix it. Running XPSP2 RC2 here, and 3 out of 4 demonstrations on 0.9.1 unpatched (found here) actually work (didn't run the 4th, not going to crash my system just yet).
It was my understanding that SP2 fixed this so that it didn't work on Firefox before the patch. Unless I heard wrong, this is not the case with RC2. Final bits are in August obviously.
It kept getting marked as "wontfix" because there wasn't a reason to fix it yet. There was no demonstratable exploit, back in 2002 it could be described as an 'academic discussion.' Of course it turns out they were right on the money, but when that happened it only took a day to fix too.
And a bunch of microsoft-hatin' companies are already attempting to do it in a semi-open way: Liberty Alliance Project
. Whitepapers and guidelines are already available from them.
Note that when the whole passport thing fizzled (have *you* seen anyone use it other than MSN and ebay?), the Liberty Alliance doesn't seem to have gotten much more steam either.
Companies listed as members of the Liberty Alliance include AOL, Sun, Novell, Oracle, HP, etc. (full list here)I would say that if anyone's going to pull it off, it would be these guys and not a random/. poster.
I do actually, though it's more like use Rhapsody to discover new stuff, and buy the CDs of the good stuff.
Of course, RealNetworks would much rather you make it "use rhapsody for everything, and buy the tracks you absolutely gotta have from the Real music store." The fact that currently Rhapsody and RealPlayer Music Store are two different programs makes this a little more difficult though. That 'integration' scheme might work better if they merged the two.
It's good to see that as dumbed down as this article was, they got the Rhapsody definitions correct.
ITMS uses 128kbps AAC, wrapped with Apple DRM Real Music Store uses 192kbps AAC, wrapped with Helix/Real DRM As of a year ago, Rhapsody used 128kbps WMA, which is only streamed to you in a protected format, so that it is only cached and not in a saveable format. I doubt this has changed much.
The underlying idea behind Rhapsody is kinda cool. Think of the entire ITMS minus the exclusives, and then think of that being streamed to you at $10/month. That's basically what you have. It's an awesome service for discovering new music (just like any CD store, who's going to put down a lot of money on music that sucks? Just use the subscription service to give it a try before buying the CD-quality, well, CD).
Of course, the giant and huge drawback of Rhapsody is that you don't to keep any of the music if you cancel your subscription. In this respect, it's a bit like cable TV or the premium movie channels.
This plug-in is not part of the Mozilla distribution and even if it were it would be disabled by default. It is extremely, hell-freezing-overly, unlikely that Mozilla is ever going to support ActiveX by default. This plug-in is designed for custom, legacy and intranet solutions and nothing else.
If you want scripting in Mozilla then the use of XPConnect via the NPAPI is the only recommended method and strongly encouraged - it's actually a lot more powerful and tightly coupled to Mozilla (e.g. complete and full access to the DOM, cross platform support etc.). Go here for more info. The ActiveX plug-in will always be a poor second best.
The fact that mozilla isn't tied into the OS by default kinda helps too.
Which violates the terms of the RealPlayer license agreement. Now that Helix Player is 100% GPL (or will be, it was already open source under an OSI-approved RealNetworks license before), there isn't anything preventing someone from taking Helix and porting it to windows.
AFAICT, this still doesn't affect the RealVideo and RealAudio codecs. Those are still binary-only distribution, and are not going to be GPL. But if someone can make Helix player damn good without RealVideo (and there's no reason not), that shouldn't be an issue.
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The fact remains that you DON'T buy Apples to play games on, as nice as the OS and/or systems might be.
Mozilla and Thunderbird, and Netscape Communicator before that, all use the mbox mail format. What this means is that importing mail stored as mbox should be decently easy on all three of those. You might have to do some steps manually, but it'll work.
:)
However, I'm pretty sure they're wanting to test out the automated importers, which is all a consumer wants to use anyway
As always, remember to backup your emails before beta testing like this.
Considering that RealPlayer 10 for windows has a "realaudio 2.0" codec for download, I'm willing to bet that RP for linux doesn't have that codec installed.
:)
Keep in mind that the last RealAudio release was version 8, so RA2 is pretty old (and shitty in terms of quality nowadays)
If you have RealPlayer 10 media player classic will make use of the already installed DLLs as well.
;). While this might not actually be a cause for concern, it's important to note that if you ever do install the full RealPlayer it seems RealAlternative causes major conflicts.
You might want to note that you're violating the EULA when you use Real Alternative, as they redistribute the DLLs without the player (and for the same reason, mplayer also violates quite a few EULAs
This is all stuff that Real engineers that work on the video codecs have mentioned publicly (I am not an engineer for Real)
This is an area where you might find Apple excelling. As laptops have always been a strong point of theirs, it's no surprise that they pay good attention to battery life.
/too/ heavy. My Dell 600m gets about 2.5-3 hours of mixed use with wireless but no DVD. If I force it to use the lowest speed all the time (600mhz) then I get acceptable performance with about 3.5 hours life. Dell also lets you buy a modular battery to stick in the CD drive bay for about 7 hours of life if you don't plan on using the cd drive.
Both iBooks and pbooks are designed to get quite a bit of battery life (I'm sure you can find the marketing numbers on the website). Let me just say that in my usage of 12" iBooks with G3s of varying speed, I was able to get 3 hours easy. Of course, this was with doing nothing terribly intensive. I imagine that with DVD watching and a low backlight you'd get just as good results.
Recent pentium Ms have done quite well as well. IBMs are a leader here, as I believe the T40 series have quite a decent battery life without being
Obviously it doesn't play ogg :)
Rio Karma, iRiver, and Neuros all play Ogg well. I would definitely qualify my Rio Karma as a worthy iPod competitor; I won't post a review here because there's enough out there on the Internet.
This is probably a useless release to most /. readers, as we already know about Mozilla Seamonkey (aka everything but the kitchen sink) and then Firefox and Thunderbird, all of which are more regularly updated and less AOL-whoring.
What this release is REALLY good for is for those mothers, grandmothers, and other uninterested people who know what Netscape is but can't be bothered to try this 'other' lizard. Arguably this market is small, as you can slip Mozilla right by them pretty easily anyway, but I'm sure someone has a use for it somewhere. If these users stick with Netscape 7.1, they're going to continue to be vulnerable to all those little security issues that have been discovered in Mozilla since then, and miss out on all the speed and new features released since then.
I for one won't use Netscape 7.x, as I already changed to a different AIM client (the integrated usage was a neat idea, but doesn't really work as everyone lies about their email address to AIM anyway) and use Firefox and Thunderbird anyway.
I don't see how that's a major PR victory, that's just not being evil assholes.
We're already screwed if we think it's a PR win when someone *doesn't* wave the big stick of DMCA.
According to the CNET article, the system will "change the song into Windows Media format if necessary," so in that case it sounds like it's doing a transparent reencode of the track, which isn't much different from burning it to CD and reripping it yourself, except they slap on some Microsoft DRM for you.
If you've got a palm OS 5 machine, it sounds like it'll stay as a Helix DRMed file, since those PDAs already had a native realplayer.
For the ipod: "Harmony also will automatically change songs into an iPod-compatible format. But because Apple has not licensed its FairPlay copy-protection software to anyone, RealNetworks executives said its engineers had to re-create their own version in their labs in order to make the device play them back."
Considering that Real and Apple players already used AAC to begin with, as long as they don't do any reencoding those players will probably have the best quality. That all depends though; seeing as how Real already knows how to manipulate itunes into letting realplayer play ITMS files, this might succeed by manipulating QT/itunes into reripping the original AAC file, though I doubt it; that would take too much time and I don't even know if it's possible.
Real uses 192kbps AAC wrapped with their own Helix DRM (realplayer 10 says it's "RA10," but I don't think such a codec exists). Apple uses 128kbps AAC wrapped with their PlayFair DRM. Both places sell for 99c for each track.
:)
Considering both use AAC, maybe it was simply a matter of fooling the ipod into thinking Helix DRM was PlayFair DRM. And even though Real's choice of AAC seemed strange way back when RP10 was released, I think now it's starting to become clear why they chose that...
Strategically, this doesn't seem out of place with what Real's been doing recently. They seem to want to become the endall beall solution for Internet media: releasing Helix Player under GPL, making RealPlayer able to play QT, ITMS, and WM in the same player, and now this.
Bullshit.
N otes.html), which means January of this year. You used the qualifier "fully" which might make a difference, but the fact is GLSL support is there.
/. users probably won't notice anyway, as nvidia's drivers in linux and OGL are quite good, which sounds perfect for D3.
True, the R3x0 series (9500-9800) "only" support PS2.0. The significance of this though, is that PS2.0 was a major leap forward from PS1.x, so much so that it's starting to become the new baseline.
Part of nvidia's marketing campaign with the nv4x series is to try and convince you that PS3.0 is yet another huge leap forward. But by all accounts, it doesn't look like it will be. The GF6 series is the only one that supports PS3.0 in any regard. If this were 2001 that would be enough to help drive it forward, but the game's changed now: there are two very capable, major players that aren't going away anytime soon.
As for longer shaders, that was more or less fixed with the PS2.0a (for gffx series) or PS2.0b (R420/X800) profiles in DX9. Admittedly, the DX bit means little to Carmack, the OGL master that he is, but that doesn't mean the capability isn't there.
GLSL was implemented in ATI's Catalyst 4.1 driver set (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/Catalyst_41_Release_
And before you start telling me that PS3.0 really *is* going to be that huge, look around. The number one graphics provider will not be supporting it. Intel's new integrated graphics systems support the DX9 baseline, which basically means that a target baseline for most game devs in the future will be, tada, PS2.0! Keep in mind that the proliferation of Intel Integrated Graphics in workstations everywhere is what helped keep a lot of games targeting DX7 as their baseline. Yes, true gamers won't ever use such things, but publishers would rather be able to sell to as many people as they can.
To write ATI off so easily would be rather silly. Do you think that those silly Canucks are honestly sitting around, twiddling their thumbs and raking in the cash? ATI chose to extend their existing architecture simply because it was so good the first time around. Nvidia couldn't really do that with the FX series because they, well, sucked. ATI just won a bunch of OEM PCIexpress design wins, and they hold the XBOX and Nintendo console contracts. I think they know more about their business than you do.
Personally, I'd say what these results mean is just further proof that ATI needs a lot more work in the OpenGL department, as their DX support is already quite good.
I know you're joking, but yes, Camino 0.8 bookmark manager actually uses Rendezvous/Opentalk (http://www.mozilla.org/products/camino/releases/0 .8.html) :)
Uhh, the whole point of firefox is so all of that isnt tied all into one thing. In fact, you might find that Firefox won't be doing *any* of your calendering for you, as a browser I wouldnt expect it to :)
Thunderbird is coming along (and is just plain mail). Sunbird is the calender app (and is moving slowly).
As long as no one cues the banjo music I think we'll be ok. :)
Just to let everyone know, the Rio Karma's still alive and kickin', and so is the iRiver H series. Both play Ogg Vorbis files quite well (and as an owner of the former, I'm incredibly pleased with my purchase). IMHO, the Rio Karma's the closest so far towards a true ipod competitor (USB2/Ethernet, 20GB, easy menu system, easy syncing, MP3/OGG/WMA/FLAC), with the notable exception of USB2 not working on mac or linux yet (use the dock's ethernet connection to sync up).
As an aside, an engineer from Rio (name changed in the article) posted his unofficial postulations on why the iPod has yet to materialize with Ogg support to Gizmodo. Essentially, his answer is that the processor originally used in the iPods just aren't powerful enough for it. There's also a rebuttal from a xiph.org guy, so I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle. In any case, if the 4g ipods use the same processor as the mini (looking likely) then Ogg support just might be coming yet, though Apple still may not do it for the same political reasons as before (mp3 good enough, aac just the same or better, blah blah blah)
Take elements from MIB, Bad Boys, Independence Day, Terminator, Paycheck, and Minority Report, mix in a blender, and you have I, Robot.
Not kidding. The storyline actually reminds me of Terminator a lot. Won't say more though, since I'm not a fan of spoilers.
It was my understanding that SP2 fixed this so that it didn't work on Firefox before the patch. Unless I heard wrong, this is not the case with RC2. Final bits are in August obviously.
It kept getting marked as "wontfix" because there wasn't a reason to fix it yet. There was no demonstratable exploit, back in 2002 it could be described as an 'academic discussion.' Of course it turns out they were right on the money, but when that happened it only took a day to fix too.
Similarly equipped? In the range of 11b, isn't that going to be all of...well, you?
;)
As if you weren't lonely enough
. Whitepapers and guidelines are already available from them. Note that when the whole passport thing fizzled (have *you* seen anyone use it other than MSN and ebay?), the Liberty Alliance doesn't seem to have gotten much more steam either.
Companies listed as members of the Liberty Alliance include AOL, Sun, Novell, Oracle, HP, etc. (full list here)I would say that if anyone's going to pull it off, it would be these guys and not a random /. poster.
I got bit by a radioactive spider once. Didn't get any special powers, but I did lose a lot of hair.
(note to mods: this is a haha-funny attempt)
I do actually, though it's more like use Rhapsody to discover new stuff, and buy the CDs of the good stuff.
Of course, RealNetworks would much rather you make it "use rhapsody for everything, and buy the tracks you absolutely gotta have from the Real music store." The fact that currently Rhapsody and RealPlayer Music Store are two different programs makes this a little more difficult though. That 'integration' scheme might work better if they merged the two.
It's good to see that as dumbed down as this article was, they got the Rhapsody definitions correct.
ITMS uses 128kbps AAC, wrapped with Apple DRM
Real Music Store uses 192kbps AAC, wrapped with Helix/Real DRM
As of a year ago, Rhapsody used 128kbps WMA, which is only streamed to you in a protected format, so that it is only cached and not in a saveable format. I doubt this has changed much.
The underlying idea behind Rhapsody is kinda cool. Think of the entire ITMS minus the exclusives, and then think of that being streamed to you at $10/month. That's basically what you have. It's an awesome service for discovering new music (just like any CD store, who's going to put down a lot of money on music that sucks? Just use the subscription service to give it a try before buying the CD-quality, well, CD).
Of course, the giant and huge drawback of Rhapsody is that you don't to keep any of the music if you cancel your subscription. In this respect, it's a bit like cable TV or the premium movie channels.
In fact, on the activex plugin homepage, it says the following:
The fact that mozilla isn't tied into the OS by default kinda helps too.Which violates the terms of the RealPlayer license agreement. Now that Helix Player is 100% GPL (or will be, it was already open source under an OSI-approved RealNetworks license before), there isn't anything preventing someone from taking Helix and porting it to windows.
AFAICT, this still doesn't affect the RealVideo and RealAudio codecs. Those are still binary-only distribution, and are not going to be GPL. But if someone can make Helix player damn good without RealVideo (and there's no reason not), that shouldn't be an issue.