I think all of us would have naturally assumed that Nintendo would already have received the processors from IBM. As well as the rest of the parts they need from all the other various vendors. It's not like they wouldn't be getting them until a week before launch date.
Let's say I get the urge to watch a movie. I can drive to a local rental shop, browse the selection, and return within probably 30 minutes, then pop the DVD in and start watching. The time elapsed between when I decide what I want to watch and when I've returned home with the movie may only be 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast the checkout is.
Or, I can go over to Unbox and select what I want to watch, and wait for it to download. And wait. And wait some more. Assuming a movie takes up 1GB, it would take me over an hour to download - and that's on my 2.5Mbps connection which is faster than an average user would have. Hopefully they were smart enough to have the ability to watch it as it downloads rather than waiting for the complete download.
Not to mention that I'd have to sit in front of my computer for a couple hours, rather than my comfortable couch in front of my TV.
I can't comment specifically on any of the anime that Unbox currently has, but discs of Fullmetal Alchemist are about $20 each and contain 4 episodes. So for FMA anyway, $4 an episode would still work out cheaper.
Plus it only has a combo drive instead of a superdrive, and didn't get the RAM increase.
It looks to me, like what Apple did was make a bump in the speed and RAM of their lowest iMac up to Core 2 Duo 2GHz w/1GB RAM, and then decided to add an even cheaper low end iMac with only integrated graphics, no remote, and a combo drive instead.
Come to think of it... would technology have been able to advance as quickly as it has if we were forced to pay these taxes on the wheel for the last 10,000 years?
Maybe it would have advanced quicker? Perhaps someone would have gotten fed up with having to pay the "Wheel Tax" so he invented hover cars back in the 90's and released it under GPL.:)
Why not? Why can't your off-site backup be up continuously and permanently connected via the Internet/VPN? Note that I didn't see the keynote and know very very little about Time Machine.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. By off-site backup, I was referring to stuff like taking the previous night's backup home with you.
Time Machine looks very cool, but it appears to rely on an external HD or network storage that's always connected. Based on what I've seen from the demo in the keynote and what's on their web site, it doesn't look like it would work well if you were wanting an off-site backup.
But as you said, it'll be great for average home users. Someone needing a more robust backup strategy would still have to look elsewhere. But who knows... Perhaps Apple hasn't yet fully disclosed all of Time Machine's capabilities, and it will be able to do more than they've said so far.
I know you're only joking, but the sad thing is that some versions/translations of the Bible actually can and are copyrighted. Try going to biblelookup.com and select New International Version. Rather than getting that bible verse in the NIV translation, they show you the nice C&D letters they got from the publisher.
It's a sad day when the Bible, of all things, can be copyrighted.
I suspect that terms like 'Xeroxing' fall out of general use after a while if the original source falls out of use, or something like that. I personally don't think I've ever referred to Xeroxing something, and I don't think I've even heard anyone I'm around on a regular basis mention Xerox in a while either. (For that matter, I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen a real Xerox photocopier.) The only time I've used the word Xerox was when I was telling someone about the work at Xerox PARC, but that's something completely different.
So, perhaps 20 years from know, our children will look at us with that "Only old people say that!" look when we talk about googling for something (unless Google is still alive and kicking as a search engine at that point...).
I wondered what the big deal was at first,but then I realized that the big thing here would probably be the DPI. 640x480 on a 3" screen would require a higher DPI than a 4" screen. I haven't RTFA, but I'm assuming the deal is that they couldn't get that DPI before.
Maybe with one of these, which is standard equipment in all iMacs now?
Or any other USB mouse out there. It doesn't have to be specifically designed for the Mac, like in the old days before they ditched ADB.
Or just do what Blizzard did and use a modifier key with the click in place of a right click. Warcraft 2 and 3 worked fine on my Mac with a one-button mouse.
Unfortunately, most developers aren't going to spend the effort porting their game to Linux or Mac because they don't think there's enough of a demand for it to justify the time and effort.
As it is, most of the commercial Mac games that exist are ported by a different company than the original publisher, and they don't even publicize the fact that there's a Mac version (are they ashamed to admit it or something?). Take Sims 2 for instance. On thesims2.com, they say there's versions for PC, XBox, PS2, GameCube, DS, PSP, GBA, and mobile phones. No mention of the Mac version anywhere, even though it does exist (made by Aspyr Media).
Hopefully as Macs gain in popularity, enough Mac games will start to sell to make the publishers notice that there's a market after all.
I've had several sites I use not work with IE7 and the simplest has been because their simple javascript that detects IE versions tells me I need to use IE5.5 or greater.
Or a similar story - the "Online Business Center" portion of the Canada Post web site won't let me into the online store area for ordering supplies because I need Internet Explorer, or Netscape >6.0. I'm using Firefox 1.5.x. Obviously they're just checking for specific browsers, and not seeing if you have the features they need (128-bit encryption, cookies and Javascript enabled).
Despite Macs gaining in popularity, I would still say that MS has a monopoly. Their monopoly is in the PC operating system market. OSX cannot run on a PC (without hacks, that is).
Regarding your Safari comment, are you referring to Apple not releasing Safari 2.x as a separate download for pre-10.4 folks? I'm certain the reason for that has nothing to do with it being "[bolted] into OSX so bad that in order to update Safari you need to update your entire OS." They simply decided to have version 2 of Safari, with all its new features, be one of the selling features of Tiger. Yes, it probably makes use of new APIs and features only available in Tiger, but how is that any different than Firefox for Linux stating that you need gtk+2.0 or higher? That doesn't mean it's "bolted" to Gnome 2.x. (Yes, I realize it's not a perfect example but hopefully you can see my point)
And the people "screaming antitrust" over IE7 are doing so out of belief that IE7 is going to be forced onto people rather than being an option.
Would you rather simply tell Fink you want Gnucash and it does everything for you, or would you rather try to figure out and install all the dozens of dependancies yourself?
Here's the problem. The mouse isn't pressure sensitive, but touch sensitive. AFAIK it can only detect that something's touching one or both sides, and not which side has more pressure on it. The two sensors are independant of the 'clicker' that's just a switch like the old mice, to know when the body of the mouse has been pressed down. It has no way to tell that, although both sensors are activated, you're pressing harder on the right, so it should be a right click.
Here's the other problem. Don't forget that most people who buy a Mighty Mouse are used to the old no-button Apple mice where you could rest your hand across the whole surface of the mouse to click. There are four states that the pressure sensors can be in when you click. Left activated, right activated, neither activated, and both activated. What to do with the first two is obvious. Considering the behaviour of the old mice, it makes perfect sense for the latter two to be considered as a left-click as well.
But I agree with you - it took a while to get used to this different behaviour compared to normal mice. But now I'm so used to it, I don't even consciously think about having to lift my finger(s) from the left side when I right click. You just get used to it after a while.
The thing I don't like, though, is the "squeeze the two side buttons" thing. All the product info indicates that squeezing the buttons on the side together count as a fourth button (the third being the scroll ball) which by default is set to Expose. The problem is that you don't need to press both of them, but only one of them. Unfortunately, due to the way I hold my mouse sometimes I keep accidentally activating Expose.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice article. I'll save everyone the trouble and post a summary here:
"All we know is that it's made by IBM, and is in the G5/970 family."
I guess it's better than having a completely empty, or non-existant, page.
I think all of us would have naturally assumed that Nintendo would already have received the processors from IBM. As well as the rest of the parts they need from all the other various vendors. It's not like they wouldn't be getting them until a week before launch date.
Let's say I get the urge to watch a movie. I can drive to a local rental shop, browse the selection, and return within probably 30 minutes, then pop the DVD in and start watching. The time elapsed between when I decide what I want to watch and when I've returned home with the movie may only be 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast the checkout is.
Or, I can go over to Unbox and select what I want to watch, and wait for it to download. And wait. And wait some more. Assuming a movie takes up 1GB, it would take me over an hour to download - and that's on my 2.5Mbps connection which is faster than an average user would have. Hopefully they were smart enough to have the ability to watch it as it downloads rather than waiting for the complete download.
Not to mention that I'd have to sit in front of my computer for a couple hours, rather than my comfortable couch in front of my TV.
I can't comment specifically on any of the anime that Unbox currently has, but discs of Fullmetal Alchemist are about $20 each and contain 4 episodes. So for FMA anyway, $4 an episode would still work out cheaper.
Füd is probably what you buy at the Ikea cafeteria. :)
Plus it only has a combo drive instead of a superdrive, and didn't get the RAM increase.
It looks to me, like what Apple did was make a bump in the speed and RAM of their lowest iMac up to Core 2 Duo 2GHz w/1GB RAM, and then decided to add an even cheaper low end iMac with only integrated graphics, no remote, and a combo drive instead.
Don't forget what happened when Sony tried selling a music player that didn't support MP3.
Don't forget not everyone has Windows. I've run FreeDOS on my Mac in an emulated PC environment to play the good old DOS games.
Medication stealing robots? And to think that I thought the only risk they faced from robots was being pushed down the stairs!
Time Machine looks very cool, but it appears to rely on an external HD or network storage that's always connected. Based on what I've seen from the demo in the keynote and what's on their web site, it doesn't look like it would work well if you were wanting an off-site backup.
But as you said, it'll be great for average home users. Someone needing a more robust backup strategy would still have to look elsewhere. But who knows... Perhaps Apple hasn't yet fully disclosed all of Time Machine's capabilities, and it will be able to do more than they've said so far.
I know you're only joking, but the sad thing is that some versions/translations of the Bible actually can and are copyrighted. Try going to biblelookup.com and select New International Version. Rather than getting that bible verse in the NIV translation, they show you the nice C&D letters they got from the publisher.
It's a sad day when the Bible, of all things, can be copyrighted.
I want one too! Gotta have something to bring to the skeet shooting club next week...
I suspect that terms like 'Xeroxing' fall out of general use after a while if the original source falls out of use, or something like that. I personally don't think I've ever referred to Xeroxing something, and I don't think I've even heard anyone I'm around on a regular basis mention Xerox in a while either. (For that matter, I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen a real Xerox photocopier.) The only time I've used the word Xerox was when I was telling someone about the work at Xerox PARC, but that's something completely different.
So, perhaps 20 years from know, our children will look at us with that "Only old people say that!" look when we talk about googling for something (unless Google is still alive and kicking as a search engine at that point...).
Want some crystal beavers? here you go.
I wondered what the big deal was at first,but then I realized that the big thing here would probably be the DPI. 640x480 on a 3" screen would require a higher DPI than a 4" screen. I haven't RTFA, but I'm assuming the deal is that they couldn't get that DPI before.
Maybe with one of these, which is standard equipment in all iMacs now?
Or any other USB mouse out there. It doesn't have to be specifically designed for the Mac, like in the old days before they ditched ADB.
Or just do what Blizzard did and use a modifier key with the click in place of a right click. Warcraft 2 and 3 worked fine on my Mac with a one-button mouse.
Unfortunately, most developers aren't going to spend the effort porting their game to Linux or Mac because they don't think there's enough of a demand for it to justify the time and effort.
As it is, most of the commercial Mac games that exist are ported by a different company than the original publisher, and they don't even publicize the fact that there's a Mac version (are they ashamed to admit it or something?). Take Sims 2 for instance. On thesims2.com, they say there's versions for PC, XBox, PS2, GameCube, DS, PSP, GBA, and mobile phones. No mention of the Mac version anywhere, even though it does exist (made by Aspyr Media).
Hopefully as Macs gain in popularity, enough Mac games will start to sell to make the publishers notice that there's a market after all.
Despite Macs gaining in popularity, I would still say that MS has a monopoly. Their monopoly is in the PC operating system market. OSX cannot run on a PC (without hacks, that is).
Regarding your Safari comment, are you referring to Apple not releasing Safari 2.x as a separate download for pre-10.4 folks? I'm certain the reason for that has nothing to do with it being "[bolted] into OSX so bad that in order to update Safari you need to update your entire OS." They simply decided to have version 2 of Safari, with all its new features, be one of the selling features of Tiger. Yes, it probably makes use of new APIs and features only available in Tiger, but how is that any different than Firefox for Linux stating that you need gtk+2.0 or higher? That doesn't mean it's "bolted" to Gnome 2.x. (Yes, I realize it's not a perfect example but hopefully you can see my point)
And the people "screaming antitrust" over IE7 are doing so out of belief that IE7 is going to be forced onto people rather than being an option.
Dependencies.
Would you rather simply tell Fink you want Gnucash and it does everything for you, or would you rather try to figure out and install all the dozens of dependancies yourself?
Just like the difference between Linux From Scratch and Gentoo.
Linked site says "Page Not Found"
Here's the problem. The mouse isn't pressure sensitive, but touch sensitive. AFAIK it can only detect that something's touching one or both sides, and not which side has more pressure on it. The two sensors are independant of the 'clicker' that's just a switch like the old mice, to know when the body of the mouse has been pressed down. It has no way to tell that, although both sensors are activated, you're pressing harder on the right, so it should be a right click.
Here's the other problem. Don't forget that most people who buy a Mighty Mouse are used to the old no-button Apple mice where you could rest your hand across the whole surface of the mouse to click. There are four states that the pressure sensors can be in when you click. Left activated, right activated, neither activated, and both activated. What to do with the first two is obvious. Considering the behaviour of the old mice, it makes perfect sense for the latter two to be considered as a left-click as well.
But I agree with you - it took a while to get used to this different behaviour compared to normal mice. But now I'm so used to it, I don't even consciously think about having to lift my finger(s) from the left side when I right click. You just get used to it after a while.
The thing I don't like, though, is the "squeeze the two side buttons" thing. All the product info indicates that squeezing the buttons on the side together count as a fourth button (the third being the scroll ball) which by default is set to Expose. The problem is that you don't need to press both of them, but only one of them. Unfortunately, due to the way I hold my mouse sometimes I keep accidentally activating Expose.