I have a hard time believing that they would publicly terminate him over an affair. Doing something publicly (as has been mentioned in earlier comments), implies that they are warning other companies about something.
I'm guessing there is some misappropriation of funds going on here, or he really screwed over a client in some way. Maybe he was selling stuff from the MS store on ebay.
I can't believe how interested everyone is about this (including myself), considering how everyone hates when the media talks about Paris Hilton and the like. I'm sure this story won't be featured on Good Morning America, but it hasn't stopped the rumor mill.
I don't use Napster, I use Rhapsody Online, but the idea is the same. I was against subscription based music for a long time, but eventually broke down and decided to try it out. My overall experience is good, some things I love, others no so much.
Pros:
Access to all the music I can handle. When I heard the new Bob Dylan album came out, I decided to listen to it since I had the access. I would have never given that album a look if I didn't have this service. Same for a bunch of other albums/artists that I just never had the desire to buy a CD to try out.
Tivo - Rhapsody now works on Tivo. Silly as it sounds I created a playlist for our Halloween party on my computer. I then hooked my Tivo to my stereo and played the list via Rhapsody for the party. We even added some classic Halloween songs by the original artists and a few Top 40 songs that I would have never purchased otherwise.
I like to try new music. I sit at a desk all day, so if I like an album I usually get sick of it after a couple weeks of listening to it every day. So I'm always looking for something new, and I used to buy at least 4 CDs a month. It's much cheaper this way. In some ways I look at it as a $14 dollar a month trial period for all the ablums I'm thinking of purchasing (Kanye West - great album, 50 Cent - glad I didn't waste my money).
It has it's own music player you can download, or you can just play through a simple web app (which works with Linux)
Cons
Great to use when I have a connection to the Internet, not so great otherwise. When I jump into my car I find myself wishing I had some of that new music I was listening to. I will mention Rhapsody Online works with a couple mp3 players (Sansa), but I already have an iPod so I would have to make a commitment to switch mp3 players to get anymore out of the service
You don't always get every song with the service. There are certain albums and songs that are not available. I can understand a certain artist or album (though it still annoys me), but sometimes it's just some random song on an album, or every other song on an album with no rhyme or reason
I still get a strange feeling about not owning the music, or if my network connection is down that I can't access anything.
It's pricer than Yahoo or Napster, but I liked the fact that it works with more OSs
I'm sure there are some other benefits and annoyances I'm forgetting, but you get the point. The subscription model can work for you - not if you've been listening to the same Led Zeppelin album for the past 20 years, but there is a market for it.
the download manager is required for album downloads, although not for single tracks... the download manager only works on XP, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4 (or higher)
I noticed the albums are priced lower than the cost of the sum of the individual tracks. Does this mean that if you want to download all the tracks on an album that you could consider it a Linux Tax?
A great little read to remind me why I stopped using MythTV a couple months back. I ended up switching to MediaPortal. However, switching to another application has had its own drawbacks as well, some of them are the same. The software requires more power (CPU and RAM) to run efficiently, and there are definitely some quirks with it (plugins/emulators/etc).
The ultimate reason I switched to MediaPortal was because most of the emulators I wanted to play with seemed to only run well on Windows. My other disclaimer is that I use my machine for archiving. I have a Directv Tivo that handles all the scheduling and recording, and if I want any of those shows I use the MediaPortal PC to record it. Works pretty well and I've found that it keeps me from archiving too much (laziness factor).
By the way, I stopped using PC Gamepads (Gravis, etc). Instead I use a PS2 controller with a PS2-to-USB converter. The game system controllers are much better and well built. If you don't already have one you can probably find a used controller for one of the systems at the local Goodwill.
I got the same message for my Directv Tivo. Apparently there is an update that fixes the issue (my message included this information), but Tivo needs to dial out to get it. Unfortunately for me I have VOIP, and my Tivo refuses to use my VOIP phone line unless the planets align. Their fix (Tivo and Speakeasy) for this was to say that Directv does everything from the satellite so I wouldn't ever need to dial out. I guess this shows them.
The only thing I don't understand is that my Tivo says it gets time information from the satellite, so why is an update needed for Tivo at all?
Not much they can do about it now, this was one of the reasons Microsoft wanted to get the 360 out so early. They had some time all alone by themselves, and time to let their lineup mature. There are so many systems out now that a game designer seems to shy away from an exclusive and tries to get on as many systems as possible.
My take is that Sony just has to own-up to what they have. Plug away at their own pace, try to get their games to really take advantage of the hardware and hope for something to stick. If I remember correctly, the N64 was declared an initial loser when compared to the others, but came on strong in the end with some great games that took advantage of their system.
Coming from the "wait and see" crowd, I'd say Sony has at least a year and a half after launch before those people start walking away.
For the music industry, this has more to do with the pricing of music than the device it's working on. I think the industry realized pretty quickly that they can't have one vendor tell them how they can price their product; Apple's in the iPod business, and the music industry is in the music business. The best way around this is to offer their product in a format that can free them from Apple while still providing a way to provide music to those people who own an iPod.
A couple of years ago there was much talk about Netflix partnering with TiVo -- but I haven't read anything about it recently. Anyone know what happened to that?
I was just thinking the same thing. I expected this sort of news from Netflix to include a Tivo announcement. It seems I can never be too shocked to learn that Tivo isn't taking full advantage of their network+TV connection. Maybe they have been fighting with cable companies too much.
What happens when two people with mini keyfobs drive by at the same time? Or a husband and wife who both own minis, but are driving in one car?
Message: "Guess who's cheating on the other..."
I would have to expand on this and say PalmOS users tend to be the most loyal too. I started out with a Palm III and used it until it died a couple years ago. My one big wish that I wanted was to get my contacts from it to my phone, so I naturally went to the Treo 650. Now I find myself wanting more - I want my Palm contacts accessible in my email (and I don't use Outlook).
Honestly, when I see a WinCE user using their device I find myself wondering how they use something that small with a Start button. I'm being honest here, I'm not even sure if the newer Win devices even have a start button anymore, but I still won't make the jump because of those beliefs.
Personally, I'd be happy if Palm just kept the general design the same and upgraded the screen, GUI, and added some flexible features to the contacts and date book. Maybe loose the stupid camera and make the thing slimmer. I would say the lowest lying fruit for them would be to just open the Palm Desktop platform so that developers could easily access the data and contact information via a nice api (script based or otherwise). It's been a huge pet peeve of mine for the past couple years.
It's a thin line between winner and (ultimate) loser:
Scenario 1:
Man risks life to save RAID server, and lives.
Reward: System admin of year, free t-shirt, maybe a free watch from company at holiday party.
Scenario 2:
Man risks life to save RAID server, dies in process.
Reward: Gets mentioned in every system admin journal of something you should not do.
Scenario 3:
Man backs up RAID server to remote location and evacuates building before it collapses.
Reward: Lives fruitful life with wife and kids.
I know that Hindsight is 20/20, but it had to be said.
Can someone send this article to Palm?
I'm sick of having to export my Palm contacts as vcards and import them into Yahoo (Yes Yahoo - Gmail only accepts csv).
Pittsburgh (Allegheny country) had a public review of 4-5 voting systems (Unisys, Sequoia, ES&S, and Diebold) that I attended. Of all the systems I saw, ALL of them had an option to produce a paper trail. Some were inherently better at paper trails than others - such as the bubble-fill versions, but they all had some sort of option.
Most of the salesmen there seemed to steer you away from the bubble-fill devices, stating that they were cheaper up front but would cost more in the long run with paper costs. I still liked them the best. They have multiple ways of recovering from problems - built in paper trail, still work under power outages, and anyone that can play the lottery can use them.
Mod this guy up - I agree 100 percent. Another angle is that old habits die hard. It's easier to have a preventive maintenance schedule in place than to make excuses later when someone tries to point the finger at you.
Considering that Visual Studio is a highly evolved (I know, this is ALWAYS open for debate on/.) tool chain. It'll be fun to see if Borland can bring anything new and unique to compete with the VS Express Editions.
I sure hope they can compete with Microsoft. As it stands now, they have (arguably) the most visible OS, developer platform, database, and office tools in the business arena. The way everything stacks up, and the way that businesses like a simple direct solution, Microsoft basically has to come up with new things in order to keep selling their IDE/OS/DB/etc. It's a twisted cycle that I wouldn't mind seeing broken down.
It may just be a pipe dream, but theoretically if another company wrote against Microsoft's.Net spec even a year after it was introduced, you would think that product would benefit from it. A business could live in that space - watching what Microsoft introduced that year and then waiting till Borland included it to see if it actually works.
I'd have to disagree with you. I listen to a bunch of podcasts - some are about technology, others are about recent events. I like to keep up with this stuff while driving to/from work. The good ones will give you more in-depth information on a topic.
You figure which ones are worth listening to just like you figure out which tv shows or movies to watch.
Maybe they should try to organize their support for older versions.
I'm a huge FireFox fan, and I agree that keeping compatibility can be tough, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Look at the support list for the older Mac Operating Systems - it seems Mozilla only supports the most recent OS. I had an instance where a client was using OS9 and we found a documented bug in Firefox which had been fixed, but that version of Firefox only ran on OSX. After quite a bit of searching, I found a page where someone had compiled the fixes into an OS9 version, but I could never convince my client to install from some random site. There were other problems, one that I didn't have access to any OS9 machine - but it would have been nice to have a formal path for support of these older versions on the site of the product itself.
Maybe they can get a service together to sell the older versions to provide support to those who need it. I suppose that if I still used Windows 98, that I wouldn't mind paying $10 dollars to get a new version that someone took the time to provide support for.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a hard time believing that they would publicly terminate him over an affair. Doing something publicly (as has been mentioned in earlier comments), implies that they are warning other companies about something.
I'm guessing there is some misappropriation of funds going on here, or he really screwed over a client in some way. Maybe he was selling stuff from the MS store on ebay.
I can't believe how interested everyone is about this (including myself), considering how everyone hates when the media talks about Paris Hilton and the like. I'm sure this story won't be featured on Good Morning America, but it hasn't stopped the rumor mill.
Pros:
Cons
I'm sure there are some other benefits and annoyances I'm forgetting, but you get the point. The subscription model can work for you - not if you've been listening to the same Led Zeppelin album for the past 20 years, but there is a market for it.
the download manager is required for album downloads, although not for single tracks... the download manager only works on XP, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4 (or higher)
I noticed the albums are priced lower than the cost of the sum of the individual tracks. Does this mean that if you want to download all the tracks on an album that you could consider it a Linux Tax?
I believe the real reason is that no one has really heard of the service and the site seems pretty amateurish.
Don't forget that the printers will be cheap, but it will cost a fortune to buy the ink.
A great little read to remind me why I stopped using MythTV a couple months back. I ended up switching to MediaPortal. However, switching to another application has had its own drawbacks as well, some of them are the same. The software requires more power (CPU and RAM) to run efficiently, and there are definitely some quirks with it (plugins/emulators/etc).
The ultimate reason I switched to MediaPortal was because most of the emulators I wanted to play with seemed to only run well on Windows. My other disclaimer is that I use my machine for archiving. I have a Directv Tivo that handles all the scheduling and recording, and if I want any of those shows I use the MediaPortal PC to record it. Works pretty well and I've found that it keeps me from archiving too much (laziness factor).
By the way, I stopped using PC Gamepads (Gravis, etc). Instead I use a PS2 controller with a PS2-to-USB converter. The game system controllers are much better and well built. If you don't already have one you can probably find a used controller for one of the systems at the local Goodwill.
I got the same message for my Directv Tivo. Apparently there is an update that fixes the issue (my message included this information), but Tivo needs to dial out to get it. Unfortunately for me I have VOIP, and my Tivo refuses to use my VOIP phone line unless the planets align. Their fix (Tivo and Speakeasy) for this was to say that Directv does everything from the satellite so I wouldn't ever need to dial out. I guess this shows them.
The only thing I don't understand is that my Tivo says it gets time information from the satellite, so why is an update needed for Tivo at all?
Not much they can do about it now, this was one of the reasons Microsoft wanted to get the 360 out so early. They had some time all alone by themselves, and time to let their lineup mature. There are so many systems out now that a game designer seems to shy away from an exclusive and tries to get on as many systems as possible.
My take is that Sony just has to own-up to what they have. Plug away at their own pace, try to get their games to really take advantage of the hardware and hope for something to stick. If I remember correctly, the N64 was declared an initial loser when compared to the others, but came on strong in the end with some great games that took advantage of their system.
Coming from the "wait and see" crowd, I'd say Sony has at least a year and a half after launch before those people start walking away.
For the music industry, this has more to do with the pricing of music than the device it's working on. I think the industry realized pretty quickly that they can't have one vendor tell them how they can price their product; Apple's in the iPod business, and the music industry is in the music business. The best way around this is to offer their product in a format that can free them from Apple while still providing a way to provide music to those people who own an iPod.
Anyone else think this guy looks like Leo Laporte?
I was just thinking the same thing. I expected this sort of news from Netflix to include a Tivo announcement. It seems I can never be too shocked to learn that Tivo isn't taking full advantage of their network+TV connection. Maybe they have been fighting with cable companies too much.
Message: "Guess who's cheating on the other..."
When is the next version of the Palm OS coming out?
I would have to expand on this and say PalmOS users tend to be the most loyal too. I started out with a Palm III and used it until it died a couple years ago. My one big wish that I wanted was to get my contacts from it to my phone, so I naturally went to the Treo 650. Now I find myself wanting more - I want my Palm contacts accessible in my email (and I don't use Outlook).
Honestly, when I see a WinCE user using their device I find myself wondering how they use something that small with a Start button. I'm being honest here, I'm not even sure if the newer Win devices even have a start button anymore, but I still won't make the jump because of those beliefs.
Personally, I'd be happy if Palm just kept the general design the same and upgraded the screen, GUI, and added some flexible features to the contacts and date book. Maybe loose the stupid camera and make the thing slimmer. I would say the lowest lying fruit for them would be to just open the Palm Desktop platform so that developers could easily access the data and contact information via a nice api (script based or otherwise). It's been a huge pet peeve of mine for the past couple years.
It's a thin line between winner and (ultimate) loser:
Scenario 1:
Man risks life to save RAID server, and lives.
Reward: System admin of year, free t-shirt, maybe a free watch from company at holiday party.
Scenario 2:
Man risks life to save RAID server, dies in process.
Reward: Gets mentioned in every system admin journal of something you should not do.
Scenario 3:
Man backs up RAID server to remote location and evacuates building before it collapses.
Reward: Lives fruitful life with wife and kids.
I know that Hindsight is 20/20, but it had to be said.
Launching without the ability to play DVD's is a major disappointment. Wasn't this thing was supposed to be the game system for the masses?
How about an API so I can access my Contacts?
Can someone send this article to Palm? I'm sick of having to export my Palm contacts as vcards and import them into Yahoo (Yes Yahoo - Gmail only accepts csv).
Pittsburgh (Allegheny country) had a public review of 4-5 voting systems (Unisys, Sequoia, ES&S, and Diebold) that I attended. Of all the systems I saw, ALL of them had an option to produce a paper trail. Some were inherently better at paper trails than others - such as the bubble-fill versions, but they all had some sort of option.
Most of the salesmen there seemed to steer you away from the bubble-fill devices, stating that they were cheaper up front but would cost more in the long run with paper costs. I still liked them the best. They have multiple ways of recovering from problems - built in paper trail, still work under power outages, and anyone that can play the lottery can use them.
I took some pictures if you're really interested.
Mod this guy up - I agree 100 percent. Another angle is that old habits die hard. It's easier to have a preventive maintenance schedule in place than to make excuses later when someone tries to point the finger at you.
Pluto's been demoted.
That's exactly what it would like us to think...
I just don't like snakes.
Considering that Visual Studio is a highly evolved (I know, this is ALWAYS open for debate on /.) tool chain. It'll be fun to see if Borland can bring anything new and unique to compete with the VS Express Editions.
.Net spec even a year after it was introduced, you would think that product would benefit from it. A business could live in that space - watching what Microsoft introduced that year and then waiting till Borland included it to see if it actually works.
I sure hope they can compete with Microsoft. As it stands now, they have (arguably) the most visible OS, developer platform, database, and office tools in the business arena. The way everything stacks up, and the way that businesses like a simple direct solution, Microsoft basically has to come up with new things in order to keep selling their IDE/OS/DB/etc. It's a twisted cycle that I wouldn't mind seeing broken down.
It may just be a pipe dream, but theoretically if another company wrote against Microsoft's
Now how about opening the calendar and address book?
...Podcasting is DOA
I'd have to disagree with you. I listen to a bunch of podcasts - some are about technology, others are about recent events. I like to keep up with this stuff while driving to/from work. The good ones will give you more in-depth information on a topic.
You figure which ones are worth listening to just like you figure out which tv shows or movies to watch.
Maybe they should try to organize their support for older versions.
I'm a huge FireFox fan, and I agree that keeping compatibility can be tough, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Look at the support list for the older Mac Operating Systems - it seems Mozilla only supports the most recent OS. I had an instance where a client was using OS9 and we found a documented bug in Firefox which had been fixed, but that version of Firefox only ran on OSX. After quite a bit of searching, I found a page where someone had compiled the fixes into an OS9 version, but I could never convince my client to install from some random site. There were other problems, one that I didn't have access to any OS9 machine - but it would have been nice to have a formal path for support of these older versions on the site of the product itself.
Maybe they can get a service together to sell the older versions to provide support to those who need it. I suppose that if I still used Windows 98, that I wouldn't mind paying $10 dollars to get a new version that someone took the time to provide support for.