I realize I'm late to post, but I couldn't resist putting my 2 cents in. I acquired a free series 2 Tivo from a friend, and tried to use it as a local media server (I already have a directv tivo). I had plans to just use the Tivo desktop software to push my movies and such onto the Tivo, maybe download a few shows via Amazon, play some music through Rhapsody, etc.
What a pain in the butt. In order to do any of that kind of stuff, you need a "media key". I had to subscribe to activate my Tivo just to be able to put my own content on the box. I even contacted them and asked if they had a discounted plan since I wasn't using their scheduling information for any recording whatsoever. No luck, I tried it for a bit, and it was somewhat nice, but not worth it in the end (~$100/year).
I really think Tivo is missing out on an entire different model for the after-life of these boxes. I would totally pay for an upgrade to disable recording and just use it as a media box, music server, security camera, etc. It always annoys me when hardware companies just move on and dump older hardware. Seriously, why can't HP just sell a new printer driver for that older printer rather than just give up and no longer support it. Microsoft should have opened up the original xbox to allow the same kind of modifications. It would be a great PR move to show that they are truly environmentally conscious.
I would recommend finding a multi-purpose printer. Something that can print/scan/photo-copy etc, with duplex capabilities and a paper feeder.
I got a refurbished Brother MFC-8860DN Printer, and I have to say it's the best printer I've ever owned. All the extra built-in features just make me glad I put in the extra money upfront instead of wasting my time with single purpose printers.
Just yesterday I scanned in a 5 page document from the tray feed into a PDF on my computer. It's also great when I want to make a quick photo copy of something.
The software is decent, but could be better. It is a network printer, but you obviously need to use their software for scanning and such. Overall, I would still recommend it as a solid multi-purpose printer.
As much as I don't like the price and lock-in of the iPhone, I have to admit my Blackberry takes at least 3 or 4 memorized button combinations more than a similar function on the iPhone. It simply has too high of a learning curve.
I don't like the at&t + iPhone lock-in, but I think it's the only thing that could have opened the cell industry. I can't forget how many Palm devices weren't allowed to have wifi simply b/c the cell company wouldn't allow it. Now it seems like they can't live without it.
I completely agree, I like having a normal title bar. Then again, I still use the "classic theme" in Windows. I like the current UI as it is, and have even been a bit annoyed in some of the tweaks they've made over the past few releases.
I'd like to see these features as options or themes. Maybe even make an easy option to go into "support mode" which will provide a unified standard UI.
Marvel has been the little darling of the media recently. They took that loan to be able to create their own movies (instead of licensing deals with Sony, etc), and have more creative control over their properties. I think Iron Man was the first fruits of their efforts (that, or the 2nd Hulk, I can't remember).
Seeing how well they did with Iron Man, I would completely understand why Disney would want to get in on the action. With the financial backing of Disney, Marvel can take more risks and could produce a lot more mega-hits.
Of course, this all assumes Disney doesn't mess it all up.
I used dvrupgrade to upgrade our hard drive, but I could never get the MRV/HMO stuff to work correctly.
I eventually got tired messing around with the thing. We lost all our recordings after the drive failed (covered under their warranty), and had issues after the last big DirecTV Tivo update.
I've been tempted to try to re-enable all the hacks again, but I'm kind of tired of messing around with it.
Still have our DirectTV Tivo. Wish I could put my own content on it, or download content from the web, or even update it (330 days since our last successful update) over the network or VOIP. Still, I prefer it to anything else I've seen.
When the time comes to go to HD, unless something drastically changes in the meantime, I'll be following Tivo, not DirectTV.
Thank you for saying this, I was just going to mod you up, but I thought a reply would emphasize the point further.
I'd feel much better about what the FSF is doing if they weren't so intent on one target. Apple does just as much lock-in as it can and always seems to get a free pass. I seem to remember a new version of OSX is coming out, why no page about it's sins? iPhone? iTunes? Amazon's Kindle?
I'm not the biggest Microsoft fan, and they've been the bunt of many of my jokes, but it's hard to ignore the simple outright hate. From what I understand, the FSF is an organization that supposed to encourage positive growth in open software, not encourage negative hate towards certain companies.
I've been trying it out, and so far I'm liking it for the most part. I completely skipped Vista, so I must admit some of the features are new to me.
I do have some gripes here and there, but I can't help but think back to the days when I hated XP and swore I would never use that crayon-colored bloated OS. Eventually I had to use it, and I discovered the Windows Classic theme (is also included in Win7).
My biggest fear so far has been the upgrade policy for the RC. I know that it's a beta product, but from what I understand you have to reinstall the entire OS once the final product comes out. I would really love to see a simple upgrade path - enter a new license number, upgrade a few files, etc.
There always seems to be new breakthroughs in solar technology all the time. I wonder how much the cost of his original equipment is going to go down over the new few years. How much his original setup cost today?
He is obviously an early adopter, so I also wonder if he'll continue to just upgrade his equipment before getting a return from his investment. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but the person who might best benefit from this experiment is his neighbor (assuming they get any old equipment).
I wouldn't consider this post Flamebait. The parent pretty much described Office 2007's interface, which everyone was complaining about when it first came out.
On the subject of ribbons and tabs, I would favor the ribbon interface similar to Photoshop. For example, when you choose the cropping tool, there is a ribbon with all the options for cropping. However, I'm not too much of a fan of the Office 2007 interface. I think they did a poor job in the organization of the functions, and didn't even offer an option to switch interfaces.
How about an easier development platform for building cross-platform applications. That would make it easier for developers to sell apps that work for a larger audience. Why work so hard to move Windows apps over to Linux when you could encourage builders to build a dedicated-platform application with an environment that has this cross-platform functionality built in from the start.
I think it would be interesting to see a competition where the goal would be to provide a practical efficient 4 door hatchback (i.e. Rabbit, Matrix, etc).
Each team would have certain rules to follow, such as limited to a 4-cylinder 120-hp engine, 4 seats, etc. Then they could be rated on a combination of efficiency, speed, comfort, and a number of other factors.
My point is that this seems to be the model that Lotus uses - put together the lightest car with a 4-cylinder engine. I love to see companies like Tesla challenging the market, but I'd also like to see challengers pushing what we currently have to it's limits.
My guess is that they are taking the advice of a bunch of head hunters searching for "COBOL" in their list of resumes, and assuming that if you have a few years of programming experience in another language that you can't possibility learn another.
SAP (ABAP/4) is also based on COBOL, so you might even look towards gathering some newer SAP programmers.
I'm not sure how you got modded "funny"... maybe it should be "So painfully that all you can do is laugh".
I've almost given up on Tivo like I have given up on Palm. They just don't seem to be doing anything to move the product forward. I'd like to say it was because they got too big, but they're not. For a device that costs $129/year to use, I've come to expect more than just updated schedules. Especially since I have an extra Tivo that I just wanted to use for downloaded content.
I bought the Tivo Desktop Plus, and I've been waiting for days for one video podcast to download and transfer onto my Tivo. I'm not even sure why I accepted the notion that a web-enabled device has to connect to my PC to download content. Is it too much to ask it to download content directly? As in from an RSS feed? Could you maybe work a deal with Amazon to download content through their interface? I might even be willing to buy a cheap subscription to some of the Revision 3 content.
I'll start by saying that I also use this service, and for the most part I like it. However, there are some downsides:
If you use Google Apps, you do not have as easy access to: Reader, Photos, and other Google utilities that are provided with a general GMail account.
You could use a regular GMail account, using POP/IMAP and have it send mail as if it was coming from that server. However, if you send an email to someone who uses Outlook - a message is tagged to the email (ex: from person@example.com on behalf of person@gmail.com). This is very annoying.
Considering you seem to have a somewhat good understanding of financial responsibility and are posting Insightful comments on Slashdot, I would plead for you to considering have children in the future to offset those who do not possess these skills.
Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, this album is just an instrumental album. No lyrics... I'm happy to see the ability to listen to some of the tracks before I decide to buy, but I don't think I'll be buying this one.
A bit off topic, but I never liked the name "Pidgin". I would have rather they stayed with GAIM or better yet "gaim" (no acronym). Maybe AOL wouldn't have sued with the lower-case variant.
From their FAQ:
"...In the passenger compartment, flight crews can better monitor safety conditions to prevent an incident, and can access fire extinguishers, if an incident does happen."
I'd say the real reason is that they don't want a fire to start in the luggage compartment.
Slashdot Mirror
I realize I'm late to post, but I couldn't resist putting my 2 cents in. I acquired a free series 2 Tivo from a friend, and tried to use it as a local media server (I already have a directv tivo). I had plans to just use the Tivo desktop software to push my movies and such onto the Tivo, maybe download a few shows via Amazon, play some music through Rhapsody, etc.
What a pain in the butt. In order to do any of that kind of stuff, you need a "media key". I had to subscribe to activate my Tivo just to be able to put my own content on the box. I even contacted them and asked if they had a discounted plan since I wasn't using their scheduling information for any recording whatsoever. No luck, I tried it for a bit, and it was somewhat nice, but not worth it in the end (~$100/year).
I really think Tivo is missing out on an entire different model for the after-life of these boxes. I would totally pay for an upgrade to disable recording and just use it as a media box, music server, security camera, etc. It always annoys me when hardware companies just move on and dump older hardware. Seriously, why can't HP just sell a new printer driver for that older printer rather than just give up and no longer support it. Microsoft should have opened up the original xbox to allow the same kind of modifications. It would be a great PR move to show that they are truly environmentally conscious.
I would recommend finding a multi-purpose printer. Something that can print/scan/photo-copy etc, with duplex capabilities and a paper feeder.
I got a refurbished Brother MFC-8860DN Printer, and I have to say it's the best printer I've ever owned. All the extra built-in features just make me glad I put in the extra money upfront instead of wasting my time with single purpose printers.
Just yesterday I scanned in a 5 page document from the tray feed into a PDF on my computer. It's also great when I want to make a quick photo copy of something.
The software is decent, but could be better. It is a network printer, but you obviously need to use their software for scanning and such. Overall, I would still recommend it as a solid multi-purpose printer.
grabbed the closest Windows Mobile phone, threw it on the floor and smashed it with his foot!
As much as I don't like the price and lock-in of the iPhone, I have to admit my Blackberry takes at least 3 or 4 memorized button combinations more than a similar function on the iPhone. It simply has too high of a learning curve.
I don't like the at&t + iPhone lock-in, but I think it's the only thing that could have opened the cell industry. I can't forget how many Palm devices weren't allowed to have wifi simply b/c the cell company wouldn't allow it. Now it seems like they can't live without it.
I completely agree, I like having a normal title bar. Then again, I still use the "classic theme" in Windows. I like the current UI as it is, and have even been a bit annoyed in some of the tweaks they've made over the past few releases.
I'd like to see these features as options or themes. Maybe even make an easy option to go into "support mode" which will provide a unified standard UI.
Marvel has been the little darling of the media recently. They took that loan to be able to create their own movies (instead of licensing deals with Sony, etc), and have more creative control over their properties. I think Iron Man was the first fruits of their efforts (that, or the 2nd Hulk, I can't remember).
Seeing how well they did with Iron Man, I would completely understand why Disney would want to get in on the action. With the financial backing of Disney, Marvel can take more risks and could produce a lot more mega-hits.
Of course, this all assumes Disney doesn't mess it all up.
I used dvrupgrade to upgrade our hard drive, but I could never get the MRV/HMO stuff to work correctly.
I eventually got tired messing around with the thing. We lost all our recordings after the drive failed (covered under their warranty), and had issues after the last big DirecTV Tivo update.
I've been tempted to try to re-enable all the hacks again, but I'm kind of tired of messing around with it.
Still have our DirectTV Tivo. Wish I could put my own content on it, or download content from the web, or even update it (330 days since our last successful update) over the network or VOIP. Still, I prefer it to anything else I've seen.
When the time comes to go to HD, unless something drastically changes in the meantime, I'll be following Tivo, not DirectTV.
Thank you for saying this, I was just going to mod you up, but I thought a reply would emphasize the point further.
I'd feel much better about what the FSF is doing if they weren't so intent on one target. Apple does just as much lock-in as it can and always seems to get a free pass. I seem to remember a new version of OSX is coming out, why no page about it's sins? iPhone? iTunes? Amazon's Kindle?
I'm not the biggest Microsoft fan, and they've been the bunt of many of my jokes, but it's hard to ignore the simple outright hate. From what I understand, the FSF is an organization that supposed to encourage positive growth in open software, not encourage negative hate towards certain companies.
I'd settle for just adding the ability to stream my own content onto the box.
Napster is only $5/month. No ads, unlimited listening, and I can choose which songs I want to play.
I like Pandora, but I'd rather have a couple extra audio ads inserted in for the free version.
I've been trying it out, and so far I'm liking it for the most part. I completely skipped Vista, so I must admit some of the features are new to me.
I do have some gripes here and there, but I can't help but think back to the days when I hated XP and swore I would never use that crayon-colored bloated OS. Eventually I had to use it, and I discovered the Windows Classic theme (is also included in Win7).
My biggest fear so far has been the upgrade policy for the RC. I know that it's a beta product, but from what I understand you have to reinstall the entire OS once the final product comes out. I would really love to see a simple upgrade path - enter a new license number, upgrade a few files, etc.
There always seems to be new breakthroughs in solar technology all the time. I wonder how much the cost of his original equipment is going to go down over the new few years. How much his original setup cost today?
He is obviously an early adopter, so I also wonder if he'll continue to just upgrade his equipment before getting a return from his investment. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but the person who might best benefit from this experiment is his neighbor (assuming they get any old equipment).
It prints on 2x3" full-color, sticky-back prints
I doubt anyone will take this camera seriously until it prints at least 4x6, non-sticky-back prints
(grammar corrected)
I wouldn't consider this post Flamebait. The parent pretty much described Office 2007's interface, which everyone was complaining about when it first came out.
On the subject of ribbons and tabs, I would favor the ribbon interface similar to Photoshop. For example, when you choose the cropping tool, there is a ribbon with all the options for cropping. However, I'm not too much of a fan of the Office 2007 interface. I think they did a poor job in the organization of the functions, and didn't even offer an option to switch interfaces.
How about an easier development platform for building cross-platform applications. That would make it easier for developers to sell apps that work for a larger audience. Why work so hard to move Windows apps over to Linux when you could encourage builders to build a dedicated-platform application with an environment that has this cross-platform functionality built in from the start.
(I have no intentions of starting a Java debate)
I think it would be interesting to see a competition where the goal would be to provide a practical efficient 4 door hatchback (i.e. Rabbit, Matrix, etc).
Each team would have certain rules to follow, such as limited to a 4-cylinder 120-hp engine, 4 seats, etc. Then they could be rated on a combination of efficiency, speed, comfort, and a number of other factors.
My point is that this seems to be the model that Lotus uses - put together the lightest car with a 4-cylinder engine. I love to see companies like Tesla challenging the market, but I'd also like to see challengers pushing what we currently have to it's limits.
From the cnet article: The software is said to support up to four TV tuners.
My guess is that they are taking the advice of a bunch of head hunters searching for "COBOL" in their list of resumes, and assuming that if you have a few years of programming experience in another language that you can't possibility learn another. SAP (ABAP/4) is also based on COBOL, so you might even look towards gathering some newer SAP programmers.
I'm not sure how you got modded "funny"... maybe it should be "So painfully that all you can do is laugh".
I've almost given up on Tivo like I have given up on Palm. They just don't seem to be doing anything to move the product forward. I'd like to say it was because they got too big, but they're not. For a device that costs $129/year to use, I've come to expect more than just updated schedules. Especially since I have an extra Tivo that I just wanted to use for downloaded content.
I bought the Tivo Desktop Plus, and I've been waiting for days for one video podcast to download and transfer onto my Tivo. I'm not even sure why I accepted the notion that a web-enabled device has to connect to my PC to download content. Is it too much to ask it to download content directly? As in from an RSS feed? Could you maybe work a deal with Amazon to download content through their interface? I might even be willing to buy a cheap subscription to some of the Revision 3 content.
Considering you seem to have a somewhat good understanding of financial responsibility and are posting Insightful comments on Slashdot, I would plead for you to considering have children in the future to offset those who do not possess these skills.
Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, this album is just an instrumental album. No lyrics... I'm happy to see the ability to listen to some of the tracks before I decide to buy, but I don't think I'll be buying this one.
A bit off topic, but I never liked the name "Pidgin". I would have rather they stayed with GAIM or better yet "gaim" (no acronym). Maybe AOL wouldn't have sued with the lower-case variant.
From their FAQ:
"...In the passenger compartment, flight crews can better monitor safety conditions to prevent an incident, and can access fire extinguishers, if an incident does happen."
I'd say the real reason is that they don't want a fire to start in the luggage compartment.