I agree that this is a bad idea, and for much the same reasons. Take a step back, and look at the overall trend that Microsoft is pushing: that of dumbing the PC down. Instead of having the user adapt and learn the manner in which the complicated piece of technology sitting before them works, MS is reducing intelligence needed to use a computer. Instead of a P4 2.0ghz with a Geforce 3, you now have a 'level one PC'. Instead of having users learn how to use file structure, there are hard-coded 'My Music', 'My Pictures', etc.; endless wizards that you can't stop from popping up (but I didn't want to install that hardware yet!), and the Office Assistant. This might be good for people who have never seen a computer before in their life, but once you get past a certain point, the metaphor they use to simplify the PC fails, and fails miserably. Technology shouldn't be dumbed down; people should learn how things work.
I don't think they're getting rid of backwards compatibility. Didn't they just purchase Connectix? Don't they have the Virtual PC software now? So while the OS itself mightn't be compatible with old software, you just set a flag in the program's properties (or maybe the OS would even detect certain programs and set the flag for you), and it runs a virtual win2k/95/dos/whatever, and you don't notice the difference. At least, that's probably their plan; who knows if they'll be able to implement it problem-free.
Yes, tape backups last longer when just left to sit in a box. But how well do they stand up to repeated usage? I know I had several tapes that I would watch every saturday morning as a child, that soon were completely unwatchable because I replayed them so much. I know that this isn't the main issue or intended purpose of tape backup, but it is something that I'd like to know. Can tape backups, given reasonable precaution and handling, last over the same length of time with frequent accesses as optical media given the same precaution?
Speaking of progman.exe, I actually found it in the Windows directory of my XP installation. I suppose if you absolutely wanted to, you could go back to something like the win3.1 interface. It was a very consistent interface IMO, but did have its limitations.
Those are some nice cases; I know a guy who owns a Trager 745B to carry his powerbook. I'm much cheaper though, and don't have $150 to spend on a backpack; after a few drops, I decided that I shouldn't press my luck any more. I ripped the rings out of an old trapper-keeper-style notebook made out of thick fabric that had a zipper around the outside. It is the perfect size for my 14" laptop. It even has little zipper pouches for carrying wireless card, cds, etc. Certainly not the best solution, but the cheapest.
I've found that if you have good cooling, cyrix processors can go quite a bit above their intended speed. I had an old MII 233 (which actually ran at 188 mhz), and decided to see what I could do with it. I thought it was funny to run the motherboard util and get the following screen: Max speed: 233mhz, Current speed: 250mhz. It would invariably crash after about 30 minutes though, no matter what I did, so I clocked it down to 220mhz and my mom still uses it. (Another weird fact about the cyrix MII: while it wasn't too speedy a processor for most uses, it totally kicked ass at floating point operations for that generation of chips. It was more than twice the power of an AMD K6-2 500 in FP; twice as bad at everything else though.)
People seem to have vastly different experiences with Dell laptops. I personally have a Latitude CPx 750mhz PIII, which I bought used, and have dropped several times, and still carry with me half the time in my backpack; it hasn't blinked, I even get more than 2 hours of battery life (while using wireless internet no less!). Of course, right before the extended warranty runs out this fall, I'm going to send it in and tell them everything in the world is wrong with it...
So, if you have a Dell laptop, or really any hardware, and have a horror story, please share the model? It could help the rest of us know what to stay away from.
EBL encompasses four features: a non-synchronous vertical refresh control for displays, which will save between 200 and 800 milliwatts; an optimized LCD inverter design, expected to cut an additional 550 mW to 880mW; device performance state monitoring, which will reduce overall power by an additional 900 mW; and a device power profile utility tool, designed to monitor the power of all devices in the system.
So basically, their "über-cool" power-saving processor isn't what's really saving power, but a bunch of other little tricks in the rest of the system. All they did with the processor was take a PIII-M, ramp up the frequency, and slap on a bigger cache.
Not that I hold this against them or anything; if in the end it increases battery life, that's a Good Thing. I just wish they wouldn't hype up their new processor as being so great, when really there isn't much more improvement over the PIII.
Here's a question to add: what if I don't have an internet connection, or for some reason don't want my game console online? Does this mean I can't play some games, or have to play them at reduced quality, since I won't have the grid to assist my console's processing? The majority of US homes still don't have broadband; Sony seems like it's going to deny key capabilities (which would be the major selling points) to the majority of buyers.
So, just because they didn't plop them into a standardized crevice in an electronic device, they aren't batteries? A battery is anything that creates electric charge by means of a chemical reaction, be it electrodes stuck into a fruit, or in a pot, or whatever. Last time I checked, you could use a modern battery for just the same purposes as you describe, too. I like the discovery channel just as much as you probably do, but that doesn't mean they're 100% correct.
This is probably a running joke among the employees of the patent office, who think it's funny to give a patent to anything with on the web tagged on. Similar to how adding the phrase in bed makes sentences so much funner:
Drinking wine by removing the cork to allow the wine to pass through the bottleneck in bed
Hmm, my study says 82%... you must be monkeying with the numbers!
Re:Remember that the CD had convenience benefits.
on
The Future of the CD
·
· Score: 1
One cool feature that didn't make it into most tape decks was the ability to skip between songs. I have a couple decks where you can press the fast-forward/rewind button, and the deck will analyze the signal for the silence between songs, and then go back to playing once there. Not immediate, but much easier than having to guess.
I own one DVD Audio disc (a copy of REM's Automatic for the People, one of my favorite albums ever), and I must say the audio quality is astounding. It was remixed specifically for 5.1 sound, and it brings out such tiny details in the music that I never heard before that it was like listening to the music for the first time again. I don't even own a 5.1 system, as I wasn't expecting the difference to be so great; after listening to it on a friend's system, 5.1 sound is going to be the next gadget I pick up.
One market I see as being a natural place for DVD Audio is in automobiles. Think about it: in a typical car, you already have 4 speakers, one in each corner; how hard would it be to add a center channel and subwoofer (already in some cars)? The speakers are in nearly perfect positions.
What happens on a lot of older PSXs is that the laser goes out of focus. There are guides to do this around the internet, but from what I remember it seemed quite tricky.
An alternative that a friend of mine once did was to replace the black cd mount (laser, motor, etc... basically the moving components of the drive) with that of a very old sony discman, which had the same shape and connections. You have to make sure you have the right one for it though.
I concur, but I doubt this will happen, as such a spec for direct performace comparison (1) is difficult to do, as performance can be quite different depending on the intended application; and (2) would hamper each company's marketing efforts.
For an quick read on some of the issues associated with different benchmarks, you could look here.
"We will pass through the American patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest city, and listen to their rock and roll... while we conduct missile drills."
"It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again - at the sound of our silence. The order is: engage the silent drive."
You have to remember heat also. I have two computers in the same room at home (in Florida), and with both of them going, it can get quite hot in the room, which drives up the electric bill a lot.
I follow the same practice. I always put in my email as 'kickyourmom@rightintheface.com'. Just for kicks one time, I decided to go to www.rightintheface.com to see if it existed; lo and behold, it's a cover band in Washington. I doubt the spammers look at the addresses that fail; it does make me giggle pathetically to myself though.
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I agree that this is a bad idea, and for much the same reasons. Take a step back, and look at the overall trend that Microsoft is pushing: that of dumbing the PC down. Instead of having the user adapt and learn the manner in which the complicated piece of technology sitting before them works, MS is reducing intelligence needed to use a computer. Instead of a P4 2.0ghz with a Geforce 3, you now have a 'level one PC'. Instead of having users learn how to use file structure, there are hard-coded 'My Music', 'My Pictures', etc.; endless wizards that you can't stop from popping up (but I didn't want to install that hardware yet!), and the Office Assistant. This might be good for people who have never seen a computer before in their life, but once you get past a certain point, the metaphor they use to simplify the PC fails, and fails miserably. Technology shouldn't be dumbed down; people should learn how things work.
I don't think they're getting rid of backwards compatibility. Didn't they just purchase Connectix? Don't they have the Virtual PC software now? So while the OS itself mightn't be compatible with old software, you just set a flag in the program's properties (or maybe the OS would even detect certain programs and set the flag for you), and it runs a virtual win2k/95/dos/whatever, and you don't notice the difference. At least, that's probably their plan; who knows if they'll be able to implement it problem-free.
Yes, tape backups last longer when just left to sit in a box. But how well do they stand up to repeated usage? I know I had several tapes that I would watch every saturday morning as a child, that soon were completely unwatchable because I replayed them so much. I know that this isn't the main issue or intended purpose of tape backup, but it is something that I'd like to know. Can tape backups, given reasonable precaution and handling, last over the same length of time with frequent accesses as optical media given the same precaution?
Speaking of progman.exe, I actually found it in the Windows directory of my XP installation. I suppose if you absolutely wanted to, you could go back to something like the win3.1 interface. It was a very consistent interface IMO, but did have its limitations.
Those are some nice cases; I know a guy who owns a Trager 745B to carry his powerbook. I'm much cheaper though, and don't have $150 to spend on a backpack; after a few drops, I decided that I shouldn't press my luck any more. I ripped the rings out of an old trapper-keeper-style notebook made out of thick fabric that had a zipper around the outside. It is the perfect size for my 14" laptop. It even has little zipper pouches for carrying wireless card, cds, etc. Certainly not the best solution, but the cheapest.
I've found that if you have good cooling, cyrix processors can go quite a bit above their intended speed. I had an old MII 233 (which actually ran at 188 mhz), and decided to see what I could do with it. I thought it was funny to run the motherboard util and get the following screen: Max speed: 233mhz, Current speed: 250mhz. It would invariably crash after about 30 minutes though, no matter what I did, so I clocked it down to 220mhz and my mom still uses it. (Another weird fact about the cyrix MII: while it wasn't too speedy a processor for most uses, it totally kicked ass at floating point operations for that generation of chips. It was more than twice the power of an AMD K6-2 500 in FP; twice as bad at everything else though.)
People seem to have vastly different experiences with Dell laptops. I personally have a Latitude CPx 750mhz PIII, which I bought used, and have dropped several times, and still carry with me half the time in my backpack; it hasn't blinked, I even get more than 2 hours of battery life (while using wireless internet no less!). Of course, right before the extended warranty runs out this fall, I'm going to send it in and tell them everything in the world is wrong with it...
So, if you have a Dell laptop, or really any hardware, and have a horror story, please share the model? It could help the rest of us know what to stay away from.
Not that I hold this against them or anything; if in the end it increases battery life, that's a Good Thing. I just wish they wouldn't hype up their new processor as being so great, when really there isn't much more improvement over the PIII.
Here's a question to add: what if I don't have an internet connection, or for some reason don't want my game console online? Does this mean I can't play some games, or have to play them at reduced quality, since I won't have the grid to assist my console's processing? The majority of US homes still don't have broadband; Sony seems like it's going to deny key capabilities (which would be the major selling points) to the majority of buyers.
but not batteries
So, just because they didn't plop them into a standardized crevice in an electronic device, they aren't batteries? A battery is anything that creates electric charge by means of a chemical reaction, be it electrodes stuck into a fruit, or in a pot, or whatever. Last time I checked, you could use a modern battery for just the same purposes as you describe, too. I like the discovery channel just as much as you probably do, but that doesn't mean they're 100% correct.
This is probably a running joke among the employees of the patent office, who think it's funny to give a patent to anything with on the web tagged on. Similar to how adding the phrase in bed makes sentences so much funner:
Drinking wine by removing the cork to allow the wine to pass through the bottleneck in bed
Hmm, my study says 82%... you must be monkeying with the numbers!
One cool feature that didn't make it into most tape decks was the ability to skip between songs. I have a couple decks where you can press the fast-forward/rewind button, and the deck will analyze the signal for the silence between songs, and then go back to playing once there. Not immediate, but much easier than having to guess.
I own one DVD Audio disc (a copy of REM's Automatic for the People, one of my favorite albums ever), and I must say the audio quality is astounding. It was remixed specifically for 5.1 sound, and it brings out such tiny details in the music that I never heard before that it was like listening to the music for the first time again. I don't even own a 5.1 system, as I wasn't expecting the difference to be so great; after listening to it on a friend's system, 5.1 sound is going to be the next gadget I pick up.
One market I see as being a natural place for DVD Audio is in automobiles. Think about it: in a typical car, you already have 4 speakers, one in each corner; how hard would it be to add a center channel and subwoofer (already in some cars)? The speakers are in nearly perfect positions.
Choose one.
What happens on a lot of older PSXs is that the laser goes out of focus. There are guides to do this around the internet, but from what I remember it seemed quite tricky.
An alternative that a friend of mine once did was to replace the black cd mount (laser, motor, etc... basically the moving components of the drive) with that of a very old sony discman, which had the same shape and connections. You have to make sure you have the right one for it though.
I concur, but I doubt this will happen, as such a spec for direct performace comparison (1) is difficult to do, as performance can be quite different depending on the intended application; and (2) would hamper each company's marketing efforts.
For an quick read on some of the issues associated with different benchmarks, you could look here.
Yes, the main page has been slow for me as well; it's probably not your admin.
You should post questions such as yours in the user-created discussions section.
"We will pass through the American patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest city, and listen to their rock and roll... while we conduct missile drills."
"It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again - at the sound of our silence. The order is: engage the silent drive."
The only benefits are power use and desk space...
You have to remember heat also. I have two computers in the same room at home (in Florida), and with both of them going, it can get quite hot in the room, which drives up the electric bill a lot.
I follow the same practice. I always put in my email as 'kickyourmom@rightintheface.com'. Just for kicks one time, I decided to go to www.rightintheface.com to see if it existed; lo and behold, it's a cover band in Washington. I doubt the spammers look at the addresses that fail; it does make me giggle pathetically to myself though.
Yes, definitely check this link out. And while you're at it, repost some of the discussion's comments! Instant Karma!
TV: Now sending your viewing information to the Office of Total Information Awareness. Please do not unplug your television during this process. Your viewing habits are needed to fight worldwide terrorism.