Palm Treo 750. The ringing issue was a known problem. Google "treo 750 does not ring". or "Treo 750 device driver". I'm told that other WM phones had similar issues, but didn't look into it too hard, as I dumped the Treo after 3 months of frustration and went to Blackberry. (Now Android.)
Walking menus were an integral part of Windows Mobile, and worked about as well as one could expect on such a tiny screen. (Which is why, I suspect, Microsoft went to tiles.) There were aftermarket solutions, some of which looked surprisingly like Windows Mobile 7, but without the tiles dynamically updating. But you were on your own using a third party desktop. The two or three I tried were prone to crashing or hanging.
But even after a full factory reset, running all vanilla software, the phone would still periodically force close a process (often not giving any indication of what the significance of the process was) or slow waaaaayyyy down after a day of moderate use and have to be rebooted.
I think, though, that it was all about expectations. I went from a 650, which ran Palm OS and was relatively sable if a bit inelegant, to the 750 because that's what the company was issuing, it had better specs, and how bad could Windows Mobile be? If one's only experience with smartphones are ones running Microsoft OS, one's expectations may be different.
Use the Sun's energy to vaporize water to ultra-high pressure steam that is then directed as thrust and everything else works like a petrol jet engine?
Or use the Sun's energy to separate water into hydrogen and Oxygen and then burn them both in a modified petrol jet engine?
Wild ideas?!? Absolutely! But that's what we need. Let's think outrageously and go from there.
Sure, but the weight to energy ratio of either of these solutions would be prohibitive, unless you're talking airship instead of airplane, and maybe not even then. You'd have to do the energy collection on the ground and then somehow get it into the airplane. Something like a hydrogen plant on the ground that produces liquified hydrogen which is then used for fuel. (Which may still not work because even liquified hydrogen has much less energy per volume than jet fuel.)
As to using heat to vaporized water... unless your hydrogen fusion source is very local (as opposed to 92M miles away) I don't think you'll ever approach enough thrust to be noticeable. Heinlein used to write about torch ships that were propelled by superheated seawater, but the heat source was a nuclear fusion reactor in the vehicle.
Niven wrote about a lifting body propelled by air compressed to nearly-degenerate matter, but I don't know if the math works out for that one either.
Some "solutions" (like a steam powered airplane using a solar collector) aren't worth trying because they just don't pencil out. Heavier than air craft need a lot of energy to stay airborne and move about, and replacements for jet fuel have to have at least vaguely similar energy density.
Windows Mobile was a better platform in many regards than Windows Phone 7. 95% of the programs I had for the earliest WM hardware and software ran fine on WM 6.5 (a span of nearly a decade), and they cost a fraction of the apps for Android, iOS or WP7. Microsoft is right to drop legacy support periodically, but they shouldn't have done it between 6 and 7 and again between 7 and 8.
I agree with your last sentence, but the problem with windows mobile wasn't the apps, it was the framework. It was maddening to have to reboot two or three times a day, squint at walking menus, and deal with "some unnamed application has done something bad and will now be excoriated" popups. The final straw for me was when the audio driver would periodically get wedged, which meant the phone would not ring. I was regularly on call, and a phone that refuses to ring is a career liability.
If ZTE cranks out W8 phones in China, they could dominate that market in which the momentum could spill over to the North and South American market too.
Never underestimate the power of *cheap*!
Lessee.... Windows.... Cheap.... Windows... Cheap... I don't see those two words going together.
Use solar power on the ground to break up water into hydrogen and oxygen. Store hydrogen in liquified form. Burn it for propulsion, where it combines with oxygen and produces water vapor. There are probably still problems, though, as hydrogen doesn't have as much grunt per volume as other fuels. May be practical only for short hops, or may not be practical at all -- would have to do some calculations.
Zeppelins? With solar only (or mostly) required for propulsion, not lift, the power requirements are reduced dramatically. Might be a little slow, though.
It's no surprise. Generally, companies sell "apps" to make money. As of August, Microsoft and other small fry mobile OS's combined represented a whopping 0.6% of mobile device OS's. What's more, that number has declined by almost 50% from a year ago. Why spend time and money developing for a platform that appears to be dying. Developers will probably wait to see if the current rev MS os can turn that trend around before spending more time and money on the platform.
Well, they're all looking at it wrong. When Windows 8 phones are released they're going to dominate the market. Developers would be wise to get on board early.
Well, especially in the phone and tablet markets. I think they could still say "or else" pertaining to the desktop, although it would be feebler than in the past.
> I'm also really frustrated that all these morons decided a 16:9 TV screen is the only way to make a computer screen: they're substantially narrower and taller than a Letter or A4 piece of paper.
What he said! (Or, what he probably meant... (Did you mean, substantially shorter and wider than an A4 piece of paper? Or, do you have your monitor in portrait mode?) I find 16:9 screens to be awkward and annoying. The minimum height in pixels that works as a workstation (as opposed to a media device) is 1200 pixels (16:10) and monitors with this ratio are difficult to find. 1920X1080 is probably great for watching movies (which I never do on my PC, for Fudd's sake) but it sucks as a desktop.
> Now Ballmer wants to do the combined tablet/PC again. Honest, it'll work this time.
This compulsion to try to run the same code base and GUI interface on a variety of dissimilar devices is something I observe without understanding. As you point out, every time they've tried this in the past it has failed from a useability standpoint, with marketplace failure soon following. And yet, here we go again. It's like the old saying about the definition of insanity. If this strategic direction comes from Ballmer, the board should really consider easing him into retirement so the engineers can have the freedom to release something that's actually engaging.
so i guess your one of the people I'm going to see on the news...complaining theres no power/water for a week. but this could have been prevented if you used some common sense. yea, this storm may do nothing. but then again, it may do nothing, but stall here, making it dangerous to drive anywhere until the storm ends. by not preparing yourself, your relying on ME or the govt to help you. and you know, i wont. these are MY supplies. and the govt wont either.. we can hope everything goes well for you.
Yep, I don't have an ounce of that there common sense thing. My house isn't on a flood plain, is not in the known path of either tornadoes or hurricanes, has good drainage and a rebar-reinforced retaining wall. I'm on the same part of the grid as the local Intel fab plant, which has some kind of special deal with the local electric company. (All these choices were deliberate, and the result of research before hand.) As a result, in 19 years living here, I've had one (1) outage when the cable guy dug up the electrical with a backhoe a few years back. I have a battery powered radio, to supplement the radios in the cars and on my bike, and hurricane lanterns which have frankly never been used because the power never goes out. Also other emergency and medical supplies, which I've never used but still inspect occasionally. (Probably not often enough.)
I have three modes of heating the house -- gas, electrical and wood. I've never had to use the electrical, and I use the gas very rarely, usually to take the sting out of the air while the wood stove is ramping up. (I used to work for the local gas company, so got a pretty good deal on plumbing out the house and putting in gas appliances.) Yes, I know where all the cutoff valves are.
In theory we could cook on the gas burner or in the woodstove, but we've never had to because the power has yet to go out.
I have 6 months of food storage in the garage, for which I am routinely ridiculed by my wife and child. Yes, I do rotate it. Yes, I did think of dog food, and crystallized ascorbic acid. (It has a longer shelf life than vitamin C pills.)
I have solar panels in the back yard topping off a series of marine batteries, attached to a circuit with 12 volt (RV) lights, and an industrial grade inverter. I currently use solar power exclusively in a detached workroom but could use it in the main house if the power ever fails.
Fuel is somewhat of a problem. I don't have a solution for that yet. I don't believe the local ordinances will allow a fuel storage tank.
But yeah, I guess I don' have any of that there common sense.
So, facetiousness aside, when disaster strikes, it's usually not here, and even when it is (we have flooding, wind storms and the occasional ice storm) it has not been a problem, so far. And so, natural disasters are generally something I watch on TV.
"Warmed up" used to mean waiting for the temperature of the vacuum tubes to stabilize. (Yes, I am that old.) Later, this was reduced to only the CRT.
The LCD model I have now will not stay in the mode I used it in the last time it was on. When powered up, it'll sit and think for a moment, then switch to the on-air TV guide, despite the fact that it is seldom used to watch actual TV. [1] (Most especially not for news -- I get what I need online -- except for really spectacular events like hurricanes, where the larger screen and big speakers are an advantage.) So, when I turn it on, I have to wait half a minute for the internal programming to stabilize in the mode it wants to show me (which is always wrong) so I can then switch it to the mode I need at that moment. I still call it "warming up" for old time's sake.
[1] Kind-of like the tardis in this respect, on power-up it does thousands of calculations and then switches to a form that's absolutely useless.
I'm sure I'm on someone's list. Which is definitely superior to starving on a rooftop. Daughter looked over my stash recently and said "that's it. Come the zombie apocalypse, we're throwing canned goods at them."
I can't root for either of them. I find Apple and Microsoft equally annoying. I think Tim is dead wrong on principle, but perhaps right in detail. In that: A vertical touch screen is very much a viable idea, but if Microsoft botches it, we need to remember that implementation is not necessarily an indication of whether the concept has merit.
Besides, an ipad with the magnetic keyboard/cover is almost exactly the same form and function as the Surface. Why is it cool when it's an Apple and "not pleasing to the user" when it's a Windows appliance?
Slashdot Mirror
maybe a new Star Wars film would be watchable.
Well, we could hope that there's something like the Star Trek odd/even rule, except three at a time.
That works for me!
You're going to have to change your signature. George is selling Lucasfilms to Disney.
Yes, I read that. But if Disney makes a watchable Star Wars film without Lucas, that'll prove the rule, won't it?
But then I thought, with Lucas not directing, maybe a new Star Wars film would be watchable.
Palm Treo 750. The ringing issue was a known problem. Google "treo 750 does not ring". or "Treo 750 device driver". I'm told that other WM phones had similar issues, but didn't look into it too hard, as I dumped the Treo after 3 months of frustration and went to Blackberry. (Now Android.)
Walking menus were an integral part of Windows Mobile, and worked about as well as one could expect on such a tiny screen. (Which is why, I suspect, Microsoft went to tiles.) There were aftermarket solutions, some of which looked surprisingly like Windows Mobile 7, but without the tiles dynamically updating. But you were on your own using a third party desktop. The two or three I tried were prone to crashing or hanging.
But even after a full factory reset, running all vanilla software, the phone would still periodically force close a process (often not giving any indication of what the significance of the process was) or slow waaaaayyyy down after a day of moderate use and have to be rebooted.
I think, though, that it was all about expectations. I went from a 650, which ran Palm OS and was relatively sable if a bit inelegant, to the 750 because that's what the company was issuing, it had better specs, and how bad could Windows Mobile be? If one's only experience with smartphones are ones running Microsoft OS, one's expectations may be different.
Use the Sun's energy to vaporize water to ultra-high pressure steam that is then directed as thrust and everything else works like a petrol jet engine?
Or use the Sun's energy to separate water into hydrogen and Oxygen and then burn them both in a modified petrol jet engine?
Wild ideas?!? Absolutely! But that's what we need. Let's think outrageously and go from there.
Sure, but the weight to energy ratio of either of these solutions would be prohibitive, unless you're talking airship instead of airplane, and maybe not even then. You'd have to do the energy collection on the ground and then somehow get it into the airplane. Something like a hydrogen plant on the ground that produces liquified hydrogen which is then used for fuel. (Which may still not work because even liquified hydrogen has much less energy per volume than jet fuel.)
As to using heat to vaporized water... unless your hydrogen fusion source is very local (as opposed to 92M miles away) I don't think you'll ever approach enough thrust to be noticeable. Heinlein used to write about torch ships that were propelled by superheated seawater, but the heat source was a nuclear fusion reactor in the vehicle.
Niven wrote about a lifting body propelled by air compressed to nearly-degenerate matter, but I don't know if the math works out for that one either.
Some "solutions" (like a steam powered airplane using a solar collector) aren't worth trying because they just don't pencil out. Heavier than air craft need a lot of energy to stay airborne and move about, and replacements for jet fuel have to have at least vaguely similar energy density.
Windows Mobile was a better platform in many regards than Windows Phone 7. 95% of the programs I had for the earliest WM hardware and software ran fine on WM 6.5 (a span of nearly a decade), and they cost a fraction of the apps for Android, iOS or WP7. Microsoft is right to drop legacy support periodically, but they shouldn't have done it between 6 and 7 and again between 7 and 8.
I agree with your last sentence, but the problem with windows mobile wasn't the apps, it was the framework. It was maddening to have to reboot two or three times a day, squint at walking menus, and deal with "some unnamed application has done something bad and will now be excoriated" popups. The final straw for me was when the audio driver would periodically get wedged, which meant the phone would not ring. I was regularly on call, and a phone that refuses to ring is a career liability.
If ZTE cranks out W8 phones in China, they could dominate that market in which the momentum could spill over to the North and South American market too.
Never underestimate the power of *cheap*!
Lessee.... Windows.... Cheap.... Windows... Cheap... I don't see those two words going together.
Use solar power on the ground to break up water into hydrogen and oxygen. Store hydrogen in liquified form. Burn it for propulsion, where it combines with oxygen and produces water vapor. There are probably still problems, though, as hydrogen doesn't have as much grunt per volume as other fuels. May be practical only for short hops, or may not be practical at all -- would have to do some calculations.
Zeppelins? With solar only (or mostly) required for propulsion, not lift, the power requirements are reduced dramatically. Might be a little slow, though.
I'm pretty sure "solar powered" and "jet engine" do not belong together.
$$Profit!!$$
> The smart phone market long ago stopped being about features and now turns on the number of apps.
And this is as it should be. It's the inevitable transition from "what it is" to "what can I do with it".
It's no surprise. Generally, companies sell "apps" to make money. As of August, Microsoft and other small fry mobile OS's combined represented a whopping 0.6% of mobile device OS's. What's more, that number has declined by almost 50% from a year ago. Why spend time and money developing for a platform that appears to be dying. Developers will probably wait to see if the current rev MS os can turn that trend around before spending more time and money on the platform.
Source: Gartner
Well, they're all looking at it wrong. When Windows 8 phones are released they're going to dominate the market. Developers would be wise to get on board early.
Well, especially in the phone and tablet markets. I think they could still say "or else" pertaining to the desktop, although it would be feebler than in the past.
Windows mobile 6.
> I'm also really frustrated that all these morons decided a 16:9 TV screen is the only way to make a computer screen: they're substantially narrower and taller than a Letter or A4 piece of paper.
What he said! (Or, what he probably meant... (Did you mean, substantially shorter and wider than an A4 piece of paper? Or, do you have your monitor in portrait mode?) I find 16:9 screens to be awkward and annoying. The minimum height in pixels that works as a workstation (as opposed to a media device) is 1200 pixels (16:10) and monitors with this ratio are difficult to find. 1920X1080 is probably great for watching movies (which I never do on my PC, for Fudd's sake) but it sucks as a desktop.
> Now Ballmer wants to do the combined tablet/PC again. Honest, it'll work this time.
This compulsion to try to run the same code base and GUI interface on a variety of dissimilar devices is something I observe without understanding. As you point out, every time they've tried this in the past it has failed from a useability standpoint, with marketplace failure soon following. And yet, here we go again. It's like the old saying about the definition of insanity. If this strategic direction comes from Ballmer, the board should really consider easing him into retirement so the engineers can have the freedom to release something that's actually engaging.
so i guess your one of the people I'm going to see on the news...complaining theres no power/water for a week. but this could have been prevented if you used some common sense.
yea, this storm may do nothing. but then again, it may do nothing, but stall here, making it dangerous to drive anywhere until the storm ends. by not preparing yourself, your relying on ME or the govt to help you. and you know, i wont. these are MY supplies. and the govt wont either.. we can hope everything goes well for you.
Yep, I don't have an ounce of that there common sense thing. My house isn't on a flood plain, is not in the known path of either tornadoes or hurricanes, has good drainage and a rebar-reinforced retaining wall. I'm on the same part of the grid as the local Intel fab plant, which has some kind of special deal with the local electric company. (All these choices were deliberate, and the result of research before hand.) As a result, in 19 years living here, I've had one (1) outage when the cable guy dug up the electrical with a backhoe a few years back. I have a battery powered radio, to supplement the radios in the cars and on my bike, and hurricane lanterns which have frankly never been used because the power never goes out. Also other emergency and medical supplies, which I've never used but still inspect occasionally. (Probably not often enough.)
I have three modes of heating the house -- gas, electrical and wood. I've never had to use the electrical, and I use the gas very rarely, usually to take the sting out of the air while the wood stove is ramping up. (I used to work for the local gas company, so got a pretty good deal on plumbing out the house and putting in gas appliances.) Yes, I know where all the cutoff valves are.
In theory we could cook on the gas burner or in the woodstove, but we've never had to because the power has yet to go out.
I have 6 months of food storage in the garage, for which I am routinely ridiculed by my wife and child. Yes, I do rotate it. Yes, I did think of dog food, and crystallized ascorbic acid. (It has a longer shelf life than vitamin C pills.)
I have solar panels in the back yard topping off a series of marine batteries, attached to a circuit with 12 volt (RV) lights, and an industrial grade inverter. I currently use solar power exclusively in a detached workroom but could use it in the main house if the power ever fails.
And no, I did not make this mistake.
Fuel is somewhat of a problem. I don't have a solution for that yet. I don't believe the local ordinances will allow a fuel storage tank.
But yeah, I guess I don' have any of that there common sense.
So, facetiousness aside, when disaster strikes, it's usually not here, and even when it is (we have flooding, wind storms and the occasional ice storm) it has not been a problem, so far. And so, natural disasters are generally something I watch on TV.
"Warmed up" used to mean waiting for the temperature of the vacuum tubes to stabilize. (Yes, I am that old.) Later, this was reduced to only the CRT.
The LCD model I have now will not stay in the mode I used it in the last time it was on. When powered up, it'll sit and think for a moment, then switch to the on-air TV guide, despite the fact that it is seldom used to watch actual TV. [1] (Most especially not for news -- I get what I need online -- except for really spectacular events like hurricanes, where the larger screen and big speakers are an advantage.) So, when I turn it on, I have to wait half a minute for the internal programming to stabilize in the mode it wants to show me (which is always wrong) so I can then switch it to the mode I need at that moment. I still call it "warming up" for old time's sake.
[1] Kind-of like the tardis in this respect, on power-up it does thousands of calculations and then switches to a form that's absolutely useless.
I'm sure I'm on someone's list. Which is definitely superior to starving on a rooftop. Daughter looked over my stash recently and said "that's it. Come the zombie apocalypse, we're throwing canned goods at them."
Beer. Check. Popcorn. Check. TV warmed up. I'm ready.
> unless you tape a multimeter to it and start whacking the solenoid mid-flight for good measure.
That needs to go straight to youtube...
The book was better.
I can't root for either of them. I find Apple and Microsoft equally annoying. I think Tim is dead wrong on principle, but perhaps right in detail. In that: A vertical touch screen is very much a viable idea, but if Microsoft botches it, we need to remember that implementation is not necessarily an indication of whether the concept has merit.
Besides, an ipad with the magnetic keyboard/cover is almost exactly the same form and function as the Surface. Why is it cool when it's an Apple and "not pleasing to the user" when it's a Windows appliance?
(Or is that a loaded question?)