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User: Bob[Bob]

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  1. Re:Free market on Sony Announces DRM-Free Music at Amazon · · Score: 1

    2) It's in MP3. I think non-DRM's AAC files are fine, but MP3's are more desirable.

    Whuh? Why would you prefer MP3 over AAC? Are you still using a Diamond Rio or something? :-)

  2. Xbox 360 video streaming on Windows Media Player 11 Released · · Score: 2, Informative

    WMP11 does have at least one useful feature, which is that it will stream video to an Xbox 360... up till now you'd need to have a Windows Media Centre to do this.

  3. Eclipse 3.2 and Mac OS X/Linux on How to use Subversion with Eclipse · · Score: 4, Informative

    Funnily enough I was setting this up yesterday... and I discovered for Eclipse 3.2 Tigris suggest using Subclipse 1.1.x as explained here. Also, for Mac OS X/Linux you need to first install JavaHL, as explained here.

  4. An interview with the writer on IT Crowd On-line · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's an interview with the writer/director, Graham Linehan, published yesterday:
    http://telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2 006/01/28/btvline28.xml

  5. Re:I don't get one thing on Columba 1.0 "Holy Moly" Released · · Score: 1

    Swing and the company's facination with "applets" is probably at least partially to blame.

    Java might be dead in terms of "I can't go out and buy/download many off-the-shelf Java apps", but at my company developing in Java has meant we've been able to develop and deploy both GUI-based and commandline-based apps on Linux, Windows, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and OpenVMS (no, really!) systems without the tedium of having to learn how to develop on each OS.

    The time and money saved is hard to measure, but I think it's considerable, and has made us (a small team) able to respond to customer needs quickly without having to train/hire people with, say, OSX-specific skills.

    Also, I don't think Sun have made much hoo-hah about applets for years.

  6. Whither Office of the Future? on Office 12 Exposed · · Score: 1

    A shame... I was hoping for something that looked at least a little like the Office of the Future on this site: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/design/office.h tml

    It is amazing how some of the Office 12 grabs look like OS X... has there ever been a case of something new from Apple looking like something old from Microsoft? I'm racking my brains.... (ouch)

  7. Re:Better than Google Earth in a lot of ways on MSN Virtual Earth Revealed · · Score: 1

    Why are you comparing this with Google Earth, rather than Google Maps - which is also browser based and works on your Mac?

  8. Strange UI design on Windows Longhorn Beta Screenshots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A few things that strike me about the screenshots:

    1. The Computer Management window has two sets of min/max/close buttons in the top right, one of which looks like Windows 95 stylee!

    2. The Control Panel has a search box in the top right, straight out of Mac OS X Tiger. Or is it just the search box left over from a normal Explorer window? What does the search box do when you're looking at the Control Panel?

    3. The menu bar in Internet Explorer is vertically even further from the top of the window that usual. Clearly Fitt's Law has been thrown out of the window, or maybe they really don't expect people to use the menus much anyway.

  9. Re:Anything is possible on Apple Switching To Intel Chips In 2006 · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile IBM wants to sell Apple on their Sony-by-product, the CELL, which is sort of an ANTI-GPU .

    Hmmm... I disagree. After all, if the Cell is an "anti-GPU" why does the PS3 have an NVIDIA GPU alongside its Cell?

  10. Re:That's nice, but the new graphics are useless on BBC Launches Linux Powered Weather Format · · Score: 1

    I beg to differ. Progressive video (25p) looks a lot better than interlaced video (50i)

    I think you've misunderstood... I meant that on a 50i display you should render 50 different pictures per second (i.e. each field is different) and that this looks much better than 25 different pictures per second, each repeated twice.

    I can generally tell the difference between something on a PAL display that's being rendered at frame rate and something at field rate. It looks to me that each pair of odd and even fields in the weather graphics are the same, so we're only getting 25 different pictures per second - on a 50i display this looks juddery. I've never seen a 25p display, but I realise that progressive displays are preferable to interlaced.

    If you're trying to say that the animations should be rendered at 50p, then that's pointless.

    I'm talking about doing the rendering in real time, live to air, by the way, not rendering to a video file. Depending on how you're generating the broadcast video signal from your computer, sometimes it's easier to get the computer to draw 50 full frames a second and let the video ouput hardware extract a field from each full frame. Yes, you're rendering twice as many pixels as you need, but it makes things like full-screen anti-aliasing easier when you are rendering full frames, rather than drawing every other line.

  11. Re:That's nice, but the new graphics are useless on BBC Launches Linux Powered Weather Format · · Score: 1

    Yes, I know... I was simplifying somewhat. The point is that if you're rendering graphics for an interlaced display, you have to generate a different picture for each field, i.e. 50 new pictures per second.

    You either render a full frame 50 times a second and let the broadcast video hardware deal with the fields, or you generate the alternating even/odd fields, which is a bit more work.

    For anything that are animating, e.g. the weather map, viewers can tell that field-rendered graphics (50 times a second) look much smoother that frame-rendered graphics (25 times a second).

    My point was that a system generating graphics for TV should really be running at field rate, 50 diffrent pictures every second... especially if it cost the license fee payer (in the UK) millions of pounds.

  12. Re:That's nice, but the new graphics are useless on BBC Launches Linux Powered Weather Format · · Score: 1

    The new graphics sure are pretty and I love to see Linux deployed

    As a matter of fact, Linux was used extensively to do the BBC's "old" weather graphics - many of the 2D and 3D animations were rendered on Linux machines.

    Also, although they may look pretty, I'm not sure that the new graphics are running at 50 frames per second... they look more like they're at 25 fps, which is really rather poor.

  13. Re:Panther Upgrade on Apple Announces Tiger Release Date · · Score: 1

    Heh... well, just think how more annoyed you're going to be if new PowerMacs come out next week!

  14. Re:Movie animation on More On PS3 and Xbox 2 · · Score: 1

    32mm, unless it's IMAX, which is 70mm.

    I think you mean 35mm there.

  15. Re:I might actually buy a mac now on Interview With Mac Co-Creator Andy Hertzfeld · · Score: 1

    a simple KVM switch can make that mac very tempting, for me at least

    Hmmm... not sure that KVM is going to help much! Macs have never used PS/2 keyboards or mice... and they've had USB since the Blueberry iMac in 1998.

  16. Does he know about GFS? on Kevin Rose Load Tests Gmail · · Score: 1

    I dunno... Kevin Rose's rambling explanation of GMail using a huge RAID array, and that business about copying your mail into "some type of RAM/solid state drive", and something about cron jobs sorting things out after a few days... I mean, does he actually know what he's talking about? (Being in the UK, I have never heard of him.)

    Surely, for starters, they're using their Google File System to do the storage?

  17. Re:Pre-announced on Apple Delays New iMac · · Score: 1

    hey cool, man! you're a real gent, and no mistake! cheers!

  18. Re:Pre-announced on Apple Delays New iMac · · Score: 1

    > We want transparency

    Well, you must be grateful for Quartz Extreme, then, dude... ;-)

  19. Re:Pre-announced on Apple Delays New iMac · · Score: 5, Informative

    They say as much in their statement:

    "We planned to have our next generation iMac ready by the time the inventory of current iMacs runs out in the next few weeks, but our planning was obviously less than perfect."

    Quite candid, really.

  20. Wow... brushed metal innovation on A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053 · · Score: 1

    Well, hmm, don't those new innovative Microsoft windows look rather similar to Panther's... even down to the strange waste of space at the top middle...? http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/finder/

    The last time I got excited (to use the term loosely) about something MS did was when the first shots of the Windows 95 UI came out... and wow, if it didn't look just like the Amiga (well you know, those bevelled square buttons and stuff.)

    I guess this is how you make billions of dollars though...

  21. So now we have a new jobs mispronounciation? on Rumors of iPod mini, 100 Million Songs, Xserve G5 All True · · Score: 1

    First Jagwire, now "Graaaage Band"?

    erm.

  22. Re:battle scenes on own comp on Message in a Battle · · Score: 1

    Yep, and they even turned the game into a pretty good TV programme, too: http://www.totalwar.com/time.htm

  23. Re:a Better headline would be on Expose Metacity With Expocity · · Score: 1

    Where's his R & D coming from?

    Maybe he's using CrossoverPlugin and Quicktime for Windows...

  24. Re:Text console? on G5s Start Shipping · · Score: 5, Informative

    Erm, so what happens when your enter ">console" as your username in the login box?

  25. Why not... on SCO Wants $699 for Linux Systems · · Score: 1