And yet Sony seems to be the only company that provides a consistent and well thought out feature set and UI for all of their music players
Maybe the music players division should talk to the hi-fi division and give them a few pointers, because their remote controls on DVD players and stereos are disgraceful.
There is so MANY buttons its beyond comprehension, the remote is enormous and doesn't fit in your hand.
Sony may have a good marketing machine, but I make a note to always stay way clear of them. * Sony products are usually 20% more expensive, with *less* features than the competitors. * Sony products adhere strictly to DVD Region coding: corrupt racketeering of the DVD distribution. * Sony products are simply not as competitive as other products. * Sony products are slow to move to the marketplace, MP3 players were the most amusing addition to their product line, almost 4 years after the ipod.
Everytime I see some fashion crazy gumby tell me they just bought the top of the line Sony TV I sit back and have a quiet chuckle. They just spent 20% more than they needed too, and with probably only 50% of the features found in other leading products.
No wonder it needed a re-write, its outdated and crufty, compared to more modern scripting languages. Perl has lost its identity, razzle and dazzle from then it was first introduced..
With hacked on OO, CGI that is painful - there is little reason to revisit, because looking at Perl 5, and Perl 6 - they look completely different.
My latest web development platform, is Ruby on Rails. I was a sworn Perl, PHP guru until I started using this puppy - its absolutely amazing. Everything else is just too tiring..
The reason why is because most people see email as only part of the solution.
I think you answered your own question by demonstratinng that a lot of "email" programs bundle calendar. Its a natural progression.
Email comes down to performing tasks, you receive a request or action - so you follow through with it being jotted in the calendar. And vice versa, the calendar lets you know that an action is due today, so it notifies you via email.
I've agree with mostly what you've said, but I'd say it was Yahoo that pushed Hotmail's innovation button, and not Gmail.
Gmail didn't appear until much later on, but Yahoo were creating some fantastic portal features.
I have a Gamil, Yahoo & Hotmail accounts, but prefer to give out my Hotmail account for "free offers" and other junk, its a junkbox.
However Gmail & Yahoo are both solid email solutions, and as you say, Gmail fairs better than all of them in the spam war.
Gmail; From a geek perspective, I admire them for creating key mappings that mimick those of vi/vim.
There is features present in Yahoo I'd love to see in Gmail: * Setup up one-time (or temporary) email addresses that are binded to your email address. * A decent calendar that can sync to iCal and Sunbird. (I don't think Yahoo have this yet) * Events management, setup birthday reminders and the like. * A virtual notepad that you can scribble down notes * Sharing your calender, its private by default. * Check number of new messages without logging in or providing credentials (uses a cookie)
Yahoo is awesome, if you havent tried out their web portal, take a look. Its very impressive.
There is a whole world out there, and I just hope that Google comes to the party and starts selling videos beyond American shores .
We're dying out here in Australia, our local content providers suck arse. They swabble over stations, muck about the times, cut shows mid season, cancel whole seasons, are usually up to 18 months behind the US in delivery. Its beyond contempt.
We are entering a brave new world in video delivery content, finally, a medium that puts the consumer in charge of the loungeroom. Lets only hope that offshore countries are also in for the ride.
Nothing can come good from offering an ultra thin laptop.
The thinner it is, the more suspectible it is to braking.
I have a 4 month old powerbook but it hardly leaves my coffee table.
On the other hand, my companies Dell D600 which is a peice of shit, its too hot for the powersupply, the keyboard / wrist area is always hot - it totally blows chunks. The screen is also slightly cracked, on the other hand I've treated it like shit:D
The fact is, don't make them too slim Jobsie, or you'll have another Nano on your hands. And there's on hot potato....
I was pleased to notice that Bjarne Stroustrup has acknowledged that they won't be pursuing to include a GUI framework into the new C++ standard.
Although this might be considered a disappointment, his citing the fact of low resources, time and money are best spent in other areas. Lets get something out the door that we can use now instead of waiting for the GUI. I'm no C++ expert, as a matter of fact I'm only into about 400 pages of my first teaching book;)
Nobody will deny the power of some of the C++ GUI's out there, QT is probably best of breed. Its probably good to have commerical interest in the GUI space, since the desktop is forever evolving faster than a C++ committee could handle.
I'll agree here, I recently installed the latest version of Opera on my Mac.
It beats Firefox hands down _on the mac_. But what is missing is an extension thats _easy to implement_ such as AdBlock.
I've seen some downright laughable "plug-ins" that are basically a crappy $20 Windows interface to the filter.ini text file (for Opera) -> When I saw this I nearly choaked.
Its the only feature that is really missing from Opera that is making me stay on Firefox.
Opera is so much more polished on the mac, but on Windows - Firefox definately has the edge.
that govenments start to wake up and actually furful their actual role and start to care about their citizens and stop caring less about greedy companies.
Its good to be informed about the going's on in technology, but the more I read slashdot, the more cynical I become.
So you DO pay for it. It doesn't make sense to say a government provided service is free and then say you're taxed to pay for it.
OK, Ok, if you want to split hairs then you have got a point.
My point being that our medical expenses are in-directly funded, technically we do pay up to $400 / year for a Medicare off-set during tax time, but by and large I think its a fair system.
We also have a fabulous subsidy system for the majority of prescriptions. For a prescription that might cost $200 per treatment, it will cost $25.
Is it law that every employe must pay for medical?
I know this is OT, but coming from Australia, the govt pays for basic medical including visits to GP (doctors) and so forth. We don't have to pay a cent for the visit.
We have a much higher tax however, up to 49 cents in the dollar for high income earners, I understand that America is around the 30 cent mark.
I remember the days when @Stake sold L0phtcrack for a large chunk of change.
Symantec decided to change it to a less hax0r name, and remove "crack" from all references and replace it with "audit".
Now they want to stop the selling of a product thats almost used exclusively by security professionals around the world to ensure compliance against password mis-use.
Its ironic that Symantec have done exactly they what they said they wouldnt do, screw with the product too much. You just have to visit http://www.atstake.com/ and read their mission statement to the product:
@stake Acquired by Symantec
Welcome to Symantec. Symantec recently acquired @stake. We recognize that the strength of an organization is built on the loyalty of its customers, and we are committed to providing a seamless transition for @stake's customers.
Existing customers should expect business as usual through the transition period and a continuation of the same great service you have come to expect from @stake.
But instead of whinging about it on a geek news forum site, why not write to your local Govt body and *teach* them what damange this type of brand bill will do?
I mean, if almost nobody in your Govt read that Patriot Act that seemed to did damage to your free liberties, what chance have you got?
Just to mention that Neo Office http://www.neooffice.org/ was born due to no native version available under OS X. Its only available in a 1.x source tree due to the massive undertaking required to get it work.
I wish Sun would do a better job and make it run natively under OS X, get rid of those static assigned libraries (.dll /.so) would be a nice start.
Also some beautiful / appealing templates in Oo such as those which are available in Apple's Pages would be fabulous.
I run Office under OS X because I can't afford any threat of loosing format, my documents heavily rely on templating and styles for consistancy across documents with other collegues.
But I put everyone else on Oo, its a great platform for those who don't require so reliance on formatting.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet Sony seems to be the only company that provides a consistent and well thought out feature set and UI for all of their music players
Maybe the music players division should talk to the hi-fi division and give them a few pointers, because their remote controls on DVD players and stereos are disgraceful.
There is so MANY buttons its beyond comprehension, the remote is enormous and doesn't fit in your hand.
Sony may have a good marketing machine, but I make a note to always stay way clear of them.
* Sony products are usually 20% more expensive, with *less* features than the competitors.
* Sony products adhere strictly to DVD Region coding: corrupt racketeering of the DVD distribution.
* Sony products are simply not as competitive as other products.
* Sony products are slow to move to the marketplace, MP3 players were the most amusing addition to their product line, almost 4 years after the ipod.
Everytime I see some fashion crazy gumby tell me they just bought the top of the line Sony TV I sit back and have a quiet chuckle. They just spent 20% more than they needed too, and with probably only 50% of the features found in other leading products.
No wonder it needed a re-write, its outdated and crufty, compared to more modern scripting languages. Perl has lost its identity, razzle and dazzle from then it was first introduced..
With hacked on OO, CGI that is painful - there is little reason to revisit, because looking at Perl 5, and Perl 6 - they look completely different.
Thank god for new things like this to keep one amused.
My latest web development platform, is Ruby on Rails. I was a sworn Perl, PHP guru until I started using this puppy - its absolutely amazing. Everything else is just too tiring..
Oh my god, let the flame wars begin!
The reason why is because most people see email as only part of the solution.
I think you answered your own question by demonstratinng that a lot of "email" programs bundle calendar. Its a natural progression.
Email comes down to performing tasks, you receive a request or action - so you follow through with it being jotted in the calendar. And vice versa, the calendar lets you know that an action is due today, so it notifies you via email.
I've agree with mostly what you've said, but I'd say it was Yahoo that pushed Hotmail's innovation button, and not Gmail.
Gmail didn't appear until much later on, but Yahoo were creating some fantastic portal features.
I have a Gamil, Yahoo & Hotmail accounts, but prefer to give out my Hotmail account for "free offers" and other junk, its a junkbox.
However Gmail & Yahoo are both solid email solutions, and as you say, Gmail fairs better than all of them in the spam war.
Gmail; From a geek perspective, I admire them for creating key mappings that mimick those of vi/vim.
There is features present in Yahoo I'd love to see in Gmail:
* Setup up one-time (or temporary) email addresses that are binded to your email address.
* A decent calendar that can sync to iCal and Sunbird. (I don't think Yahoo have this yet)
* Events management, setup birthday reminders and the like.
* A virtual notepad that you can scribble down notes
* Sharing your calender, its private by default.
* Check number of new messages without logging in or providing credentials (uses a cookie)
Yahoo is awesome, if you havent tried out their web portal, take a look. Its very impressive.
I own a PowerBook and tried to watch the keynote using QuickTime but it was so choppy I had to give it up.
I downloaded VLC http://www.videolan.org/ and it plays beautifully.
And you get fullscreen with no mucking about.
This player is extremely powerful, native players for every O/S under the sun.
And you can *save* the stream to just about any format you like on the fly.
Who told you that Quicktime was the only was to play videos?
I didn't know iTunes can play videos in full screen, I will give this a try - thanks!
Yes I have been meaning to give this a try - thanks for the heads up.
I own a PowerBook, and for me to have basic functionality in video support, you have to pay for it.
Basic functionality like Full Screen support, what the?!?
I just paid $AUS4,000 for a system and now I have to pay another $AUS45 to watch something in full screen?
Apple might be all funky and groovey, but they really bleed every cent out of you for any added features.
This stuff should be stock standard.
On my god, mod me down - I've just flamed Apple!
I'm 30 years old, but I remember playing the my first Sierra game, Kings Quest .
From a very early age I was programming, TRS80's etc. Lucky my old man was a programmer, we had all types of all gear lying about.
My Favourites were:
Space Quest
Police Quest
Hero's Quest
Leisure Suit Larry
And last but not least: Zork
I am disappointed to see they no longer make such games, now moving to more action type games. Adventure games were cool.
(Throws the mobile across the room)
I'm gunna fuck'n kill Motorola
Steve Ballmer
There is a whole world out there, and I just hope that Google comes to the party and starts selling videos beyond American shores .
We're dying out here in Australia, our local content providers suck arse. They swabble over stations, muck about the times, cut shows mid season, cancel whole seasons, are usually up to 18 months behind the US in delivery. Its beyond contempt.
We are entering a brave new world in video delivery content, finally, a medium that puts the consumer in charge of the loungeroom. Lets only hope that offshore countries are also in for the ride.
Nothing can come good from offering an ultra thin laptop.
:D
The thinner it is, the more suspectible it is to braking.
I have a 4 month old powerbook but it hardly leaves my coffee table.
On the other hand, my companies Dell D600 which is a peice of shit, its too hot for the powersupply, the keyboard / wrist area is always hot - it totally blows chunks. The screen is also slightly cracked, on the other hand I've treated it like shit
The fact is, don't make them too slim Jobsie, or you'll have another Nano on your hands. And there's on hot potato....
I was pleased to notice that Bjarne Stroustrup has acknowledged that they won't be pursuing to include a GUI framework into the new C++ standard.
;)
Although this might be considered a disappointment, his citing the fact of low resources, time and money are best spent in other areas. Lets get something out the door that we can use now instead of waiting for the GUI. I'm no C++ expert, as a matter of fact I'm only into about 400 pages of my first teaching book
Nobody will deny the power of some of the C++ GUI's out there, QT is probably best of breed. Its probably good to have commerical interest in the GUI space, since the desktop is forever evolving faster than a C++ committee could handle.
I'll agree here, I recently installed the latest version of Opera on my Mac.
It beats Firefox hands down _on the mac_. But what is missing is an extension thats _easy to implement_ such as AdBlock.
I've seen some downright laughable "plug-ins" that are basically a crappy $20 Windows interface to the filter.ini text file (for Opera) -> When I saw this I nearly choaked.
Its the only feature that is really missing from Opera that is making me stay on Firefox.
Opera is so much more polished on the mac, but on Windows - Firefox definately has the edge.
The grand parent is correct, you can encrypt the entire filesystem: under Windows XP.
A new feature of PGP 9.0.
whoops, thats a typo.
:)
should be start caring less about greedy companies.
Good pick-up
that govenments start to wake up and actually furful their actual role and start to care about their citizens and stop caring less about greedy companies.
Its good to be informed about the going's on in technology, but the more I read slashdot, the more cynical I become.
I'm hoping the trend will change shortly.
So you DO pay for it. It doesn't make sense to say a government provided service is free and then say you're taxed to pay for it.
OK, Ok, if you want to split hairs then you have got a point.
My point being that our medical expenses are in-directly funded, technically we do pay up to $400 / year for a Medicare off-set during tax time, but by and large I think its a fair system.
We also have a fabulous subsidy system for the majority of prescriptions. For a prescription that might cost $200 per treatment, it will cost $25.
Whats the deal with the benefits in America?
Is it law that every employe must pay for medical?
I know this is OT, but coming from Australia, the govt pays for basic medical including visits to GP (doctors) and so forth. We don't have to pay a cent for the visit.
We have a much higher tax however, up to 49 cents in the dollar for high income earners, I understand that America is around the 30 cent mark.
I remember the days when @Stake sold L0phtcrack for a large chunk of change.
Symantec decided to change it to a less hax0r name, and remove "crack" from all references and replace it with "audit".
Now they want to stop the selling of a product thats almost used exclusively by security professionals around the world to ensure compliance against password mis-use.
Its ironic that Symantec have done exactly they what they said they wouldnt do, screw with the product too much. You just have to visit http://www.atstake.com/ and read their mission statement to the product:
@stake Acquired by Symantec
Welcome to Symantec. Symantec recently acquired @stake. We recognize that the strength of an organization is built on the loyalty of its customers, and we are committed to providing a seamless transition for @stake's customers.
Existing customers should expect business as usual through the transition period and a continuation of the same great service you have come to expect from @stake.
I don't live in America.
But instead of whinging about it on a geek news forum site, why not write to your local Govt body and *teach* them what damange this type of brand bill will do?
I mean, if almost nobody in your Govt read that Patriot Act that seemed to did damage to your free liberties, what chance have you got?
Nice post - informative.
.so) would be a nice start.
Just to mention that Neo Office http://www.neooffice.org/ was born due to no native version available under OS X. Its only available in a 1.x source tree due to the massive undertaking required to get it work.
I wish Sun would do a better job and make it run natively under OS X, get rid of those static assigned libraries (.dll /
Also some beautiful / appealing templates in Oo such as those which are available in Apple's Pages would be fabulous.
I run Office under OS X because I can't afford any threat of loosing format, my documents heavily rely on templating and styles for consistancy across documents with other collegues.
But I put everyone else on Oo, its a great platform for those who don't require so reliance on formatting.
It must be some fabulous porn site!
Not so the US, but the word 'root' in Australia is slang to have sex.
Rootkit - sounds like some sort of fuckfest preparation guide!