Their strategy shouldn't be saying -- Apple sucks. It should say. "Hey, iTunes/iTMS is pretty damn cool. But you need Windows XP to use it (Apple's decision, not ours), so upgrade your 95, 98, and ME systems."
What MS needs (because Longhorn is so far away), is the "killer app" that forces people to leave their Windows 9x systems for XP. iTunes/iTMS could be it.
The blackout in the northeast US in August showed some that land-lines and non-cordless phones still have uses. The lack of power rendered cordless phones useless and the cell phone network was packed beyond capacity. But old fashioned wired phones worked fine.
Now- rewrite this article... Explain the systems it was used in. He mentions that the IDE system had a faster processor.
Agreed that the article are far too few details. But he did mention processor speeds--2.2 GHz for the IDE installation, 750 MHz for the SCSI installation. Then he installed a SCSI card in hie 2.2 GHz computer and got the 28 second time.
Plus, some sites take down their content. Some time in the future, someone is going to find this Slashdot story and not be able to access the Computerworld article. Posting the article prevents that from happening.
However, I would be very surprised if more than a tiny percentage (by tiny percentage, I mean on the order of 1-2%) of those downloads are of songs not in catalog
I would bet that approximately 0% of the songs are not in the iTMS catalog.;-)
Seriously though, you're probably right, the majority of the songs that are being downloaded are on Billboard. After all, Billboard measures popularity. There are more people likely to download the catchy song they heard on the radio today, than people trying to download some obscure King Crimson song that a friend told them was cool.
What possible advantage is there to this crippleware?
Easy to access previews. A friend of mine recommended a band to me. Since I just downloaded iTunes, I pulled up there album and listen to a few songs. It's only 30 seconds, but it was quicker than finding a full song on Kazaa and hoping that the song on Kazaa is properly labeled.
Not only that but this propreitary service only lets you play your songs on an Ipod, no third party players supported.
You can also burn to CD, enabling you to use any Discman or other portable CD player.
Agreed that it is cheaper. But, it takes time. Some may find it "fun" but others just want to open the box and use the computer. Oh, and you're price doesn't include OS or monitor, while the Dell's price does. The Dell also probably includes some software (MS Works, etc.), which you don't include. Of course, if you already have a monitor and OS, or plan to use free (beer) software, paying for it again is a waste of money, but you're not making a fair comparison if you don't include them. Your system would still cheaper, but not $600 cheaper, only about $200 cheper.
Who says you need to spend a few thousand dollars. $1000 will buy you a XP 2500+ system with 512 MB Ram and a midrange video card (Radeon 9600). If you don't like building systems yourself. Falcon Northwest will sell you one for $995 (although it has "only" an XP 2200+ processor). Such a systems should be able to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at decent (though not spectacular) framerates, provided that both games actually get released.
Microsoft is scared of what? I understand that they released their typical FUD, but some part of MS has to be happy--with the success of iTMS and the iPod, there had to have been at least some movement of people from Windows to Mac. Now that iTunes and iTMS is available for Windows, it's possible that the number of people "Switching" has been reduced.
For those too lazy to copy and paste . . .
on
Is Bluetooth Dead?
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· Score: 1
that first wild claim is enforceable
Only in the context of the rest of the claims.
Bzzt! Wrong! An independent claim is read independently of the remaining claims. A dependent claim is read in light of the claim(s) from which it depends. You don't look at claim 1 and say it is valid because of something said in dependent claim 3.
Wow. There are so many things wrong in your post, I don't know where to start.
Claims are the only thing with meaning in a patent. The rest is provided for reference, clarification, and simple defence. So the only thing of true importance in this document are the claims, near the top.
Sort of true, but not complete. The claims are what can be enforced in Court and define the invention. But the claims need to be supported by the specification. If a claim isn't supported by the specification, it may be found invalid.
Secondly, wildly broad claims normally start, and increasingly narrow claims are made as one works down the ordered list. Therefore, the first thing you claim is going to be ridiculously broad. Generally speaking, the first few claims in a patent are not serious attempts to patent something.
Incredibly wrong. Each claim is important and try to define the invention. The reason for additional, or dependent, claims, is in case the first claim is too broad, then the other claims can be found valid. For example, in claim 1, you may claim a chair including 3 legs. In claim 2, you may add a back to the chair. In theory, someone may have invented the chair with three legs before, invalidating the first claim. But claim 2, depending from the first claim, may still be valid. But it is not your goal to have an invalid claim.
And, what do you know, the title of the patent is...the first claim.
Huh? What are you talking about? If you are talking about the MS patent, the title of the patent is Customization of network documents by accessing customization information on a server computer using uniquie user identifiers. The first claim is:
A method of providing a network document over a network to each of multiple users of corresponding client computers, the network document for each user being customized according to predetermined user selections of the user, comprising:
during first accessing of a server computer on the network by each user client computer, obtaining customization information from the corresponding user, assigning to the customization information a unique user identifier corresponding to the user, storing the customization information in association with the unique user identifier on the server computer, and returning the unique user identifier to the client computer; and
during subsequent accessing of a selected address on the network by each user client computer, retrieving the customization information stored on the server computer by using the unique user identifier and returning to the corresponding client computer over the network a document customized according to the customization information.
To me, those don't look the same.
have you read claims 11-20?
Again, huh? Claim 1 is an independent claim and claims 2-10 depend from claim 1. Thus, claims 1-10 are directly related to each other. Claim 11 is an independent claim and claims 12-16 depend from claim 11. Each of claims 17-20 are independent claims. In other words, each of claims 11-20 are completely separate and independent from claims 1-10. Despite what you say, the claims don't get narrower and narrower. Dependent claims narrow the claims from which they depend, but independent claims are, well, independent.
Agreed about photo.net. But I was under the impression that Greenspun no longer ran the site. As for the Adams books, I think they are too much for the beinner. John Hedgecoe's books are more beginner oriented, while Adams's are for more experienced amateurs.
if I know that I could get some of the obscure Pink Floyd or Supertramp Euro stuff out there online, I'd pay for it.
Assuming you're talking about official releases (I doubt Apple would sell bootlegs), you do realize that you can buy pretty much every Pink Floyd album released? Just try Amazon or Ebay.
XP Academic edition is only $119.99. So it's not that much for home use. But I can see why a small business would want to use Open Source. They can't use Academic version pricing and need a license for each computer.
I can't access their site, so I can't read the FAQ, so I would appreciate it if someone can answer some compatibility questions.
How compatible is it with MS Word? Can it open and save in.DOC format? I would assume that compatibility is dependent on complexity (i.e., a letter to mom will open in both applications, but a 300 footnote.DOC article may not be formatted correctly in Open Office), is this true and how complex of a document can be opened?
Slashdot Mirror
What MS needs (because Longhorn is so far away), is the "killer app" that forces people to leave their Windows 9x systems for XP. iTunes/iTMS could be it.
The blackout in the northeast US in August showed some that land-lines and non-cordless phones still have uses. The lack of power rendered cordless phones useless and the cell phone network was packed beyond capacity. But old fashioned wired phones worked fine.
Agreed that the article are far too few details. But he did mention processor speeds--2.2 GHz for the IDE installation, 750 MHz for the SCSI installation. Then he installed a SCSI card in hie 2.2 GHz computer and got the 28 second time.
2 MB Cache isn't exactly archaic. The majority of drives you see today are 2 MB, except the "Special Edition" drives.
Plus, some sites take down their content. Some time in the future, someone is going to find this Slashdot story and not be able to access the Computerworld article. Posting the article prevents that from happening.
I would bet that approximately 0% of the songs are not in the iTMS catalog. ;-)
Seriously though, you're probably right, the majority of the songs that are being downloaded are on Billboard. After all, Billboard measures popularity. There are more people likely to download the catchy song they heard on the radio today, than people trying to download some obscure King Crimson song that a friend told them was cool.
Easy to access previews. A friend of mine recommended a band to me. Since I just downloaded iTunes, I pulled up there album and listen to a few songs. It's only 30 seconds, but it was quicker than finding a full song on Kazaa and hoping that the song on Kazaa is properly labeled.
Not only that but this propreitary service only lets you play your songs on an Ipod, no third party players supported.
You can also burn to CD, enabling you to use any Discman or other portable CD player.
I guess you haven't even looked at iTMS. There are lots of songs on it that aren't "radio songs". Or are you saying that there 400,000 radio songs.
Agreed that it is cheaper. But, it takes time. Some may find it "fun" but others just want to open the box and use the computer. Oh, and you're price doesn't include OS or monitor, while the Dell's price does. The Dell also probably includes some software (MS Works, etc.), which you don't include. Of course, if you already have a monitor and OS, or plan to use free (beer) software, paying for it again is a waste of money, but you're not making a fair comparison if you don't include them. Your system would still cheaper, but not $600 cheaper, only about $200 cheper.
Who says you need to spend a few thousand dollars. $1000 will buy you a XP 2500+ system with 512 MB Ram and a midrange video card (Radeon 9600). If you don't like building systems yourself. Falcon Northwest will sell you one for $995 (although it has "only" an XP 2200+ processor). Such a systems should be able to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at decent (though not spectacular) framerates, provided that both games actually get released.
Depends on the games you want to play. Any RTS fan (and many FPS fans) would never play their favorite games on a console.
The current copyright laws were written in 1976.
But now that the iPod is fully supported on Windows, how many other people like you will there be?
Microsoft is scared of what? I understand that they released their typical FUD, but some part of MS has to be happy--with the success of iTMS and the iPod, there had to have been at least some movement of people from Windows to Mac. Now that iTunes and iTMS is available for Windows, it's possible that the number of people "Switching" has been reduced.
http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Cli cker/
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/salling.html
Bzzt! Wrong! An independent claim is read independently of the remaining claims. A dependent claim is read in light of the claim(s) from which it depends. You don't look at claim 1 and say it is valid because of something said in dependent claim 3.
Claims are the only thing with meaning in a patent. The rest is provided for reference, clarification, and simple defence. So the only thing of true importance in this document are the claims, near the top.
Sort of true, but not complete. The claims are what can be enforced in Court and define the invention. But the claims need to be supported by the specification. If a claim isn't supported by the specification, it may be found invalid.
Secondly, wildly broad claims normally start, and increasingly narrow claims are made as one works down the ordered list. Therefore, the first thing you claim is going to be ridiculously broad. Generally speaking, the first few claims in a patent are not serious attempts to patent something.
Incredibly wrong. Each claim is important and try to define the invention. The reason for additional, or dependent, claims, is in case the first claim is too broad, then the other claims can be found valid. For example, in claim 1, you may claim a chair including 3 legs. In claim 2, you may add a back to the chair. In theory, someone may have invented the chair with three legs before, invalidating the first claim. But claim 2, depending from the first claim, may still be valid. But it is not your goal to have an invalid claim.
And, what do you know, the title of the patent is...the first claim.
Huh? What are you talking about? If you are talking about the MS patent, the title of the patent is Customization of network documents by accessing customization information on a server computer using uniquie user identifiers. The first claim is:
To me, those don't look the same.have you read claims 11-20?
Again, huh? Claim 1 is an independent claim and claims 2-10 depend from claim 1. Thus, claims 1-10 are directly related to each other. Claim 11 is an independent claim and claims 12-16 depend from claim 11. Each of claims 17-20 are independent claims. In other words, each of claims 11-20 are completely separate and independent from claims 1-10. Despite what you say, the claims don't get narrower and narrower. Dependent claims narrow the claims from which they depend, but independent claims are, well, independent.
Perhaps you need to read a tutorial on patent claims
Agreed about photo.net. But I was under the impression that Greenspun no longer ran the site. As for the Adams books, I think they are too much for the beinner. John Hedgecoe's books are more beginner oriented, while Adams's are for more experienced amateurs.
Assuming you're talking about official releases (I doubt Apple would sell bootlegs), you do realize that you can buy pretty much every Pink Floyd album released? Just try Amazon or Ebay.
Just burn a CD of the tracks you download. Then you can feel and look at the burned CD all you want.
I never noticed these at all until I saw Fight Club. But that movie has a long scene explaining those marks. Now I always notice them.
XP Academic edition is only $119.99. So it's not that much for home use. But I can see why a small business would want to use Open Source. They can't use Academic version pricing and need a license for each computer.
How compatible is it with MS Word? Can it open and save in .DOC format? I would assume that compatibility is dependent on complexity (i.e., a letter to mom will open in both applications, but a 300 footnote .DOC article may not be formatted correctly in Open Office), is this true and how complex of a document can be opened?
Chief Wiggum: Eddie, did you trace the phone number?
Eddie: Sure did, Chief.
Chief Wiggum: 555...Aw geez. That's gotta be phony.
Depends on your location. Out in Phoenix, Cox does make available high-speed internet without cable TV.