Don't be an arse and try to "convert" people to your FOSS leanings by giving them a trojan "gift horse". Seriously, either give a gift that you actually think they would like or don't bother. That gift does not have to be expensive or even bought but if it is the latter, then you actually have to have created it yourself. Taking a USB stick and copying over FOSS is not creative or a real gift. You are basically giving out a FOSS tract.
Sorry but not only are you trying to "convert" them to your FOSS beliefs but it is the software equivalent of giving last year's calendar as gifts. It makes you look like you could not think of buying them a real gift or actually making something original so you just shoved some "free" software onto USB sticks. Because you opened and installed the software on them they were already "used" by the time they got them.
Please try to deny that general statement. Even if the only reason this is true is because the majority of people use Windows, you have to say that Windows is the best operating system for general software development. Plus, you can't deny that the.NET platform is good, and most developers who use Microsoft technology use Windows.
Right but that is not answering the question. What is keeping "YOU" on windows. Unless if you are self-employed, there is no actual "need" to be compatible with the office. I have been a software developer on windows for over 15 years (Java, C#, Python) but I choose to use macs at home. Most employers don't even want people taking their work home with them these days because of security and confidentiality reasons. I can still connect up to the office via citrix with my mac to check email or use the joinme service to connect to a desktop from my mac at home.
I like to keep my work at work and if I really want to do some programming at home, I can always expand my repertoire with some Objective-C in my spare time. So far, I have not found the urge to do so.
In that vein, Archos is selling what's essentially a smartphone sans cell radio for $80; makes me wonder both why I can't get a similar non-contract phone from the mobile carriers for less than $500, and how DOJ hasn't launched a price-fixing investigation against same.
Are you serious? Did you look at the specs of that Archos? It has only 4GB capacity, 320X240 2.8" display and only 16 hours of audio, 4 hours of video, or 6 hours Web browsing through WIFI on a single charge. The iPhone 3GS 8GB is 375.00 USD unlocked and it offers not only a cellular phone radio but GPS, Digital compass,Bluetooth 2.1, Wifi, a back facing camera capable of SD video and 3MP photos, 480X320 3.5" display,with battery specs of 300 hours standby, up to 5 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi web browsing, 10 hours of video and 30 hours audio playback. You can also get it for "free" with a contract.
If you don't want a cellphone, you can get an iPod touch starting at 199.00 USD for 8 GB capacity with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 3.5" 960-by-640-pixel resolution display, 720p back facing video camera, battery life of 40 hours audio and 7 hours of video.
Apple is able to sell their iPod Touch so cheap because of the economies of scale that they now have with regard to flash memory and other components which smaller manufacturers based on Android cannot match.
Android handsets are expensive because they are fragmented between many companies who cannot negotiate the same prices on components that Apple can.
The Kindle fire is largely a non-starter outside of the US because the ecosystem outside of books is largely US centric whereas the iPad offers music, games, movies and TV for iTunes users in many countries around the world.
Price is low because of subsidy, but it's not below the margin. Apple could easily drop the price by $50-80 and still shovel money as fast as they can.
CITATION NEEDED. From what I've read from the breakdown on parts, Amazon is selling the fire below cost especially considering the lower volume compared with the iPad.
Sure, Apple could drop the price but what would they gain in return? They are currently selling virtually every iPad 2 they make within a week off the factory floor.
Remember those gorgeous young women in thight uniforms? Well. Good news everyone! They kept them on and retirement age be damned! Some need a zimmer frame to get around. The young ones that is.
Depends on the airline. The Canadian airline Westjet has some hot girls in tight skirts on their Las Vegas run from Vancouver and I had a tall leggy blond on Lufthansa offer to do "anything" to make my flight more enjoyable. Her mouth was a couple inches from mine when she made that offer but I was travelling with someone back from Europe at the time so I could not take her up on her offer.
I think I've seen that pr0n film too.
Cool story bro. I was just sharing my experience on the German airline on a flight back from Frankfurt a couple years back but whatever. Also, Westjet do have some really hot girls working for them and sometimes one can be lucky enough to have them on the flight.
Remember those gorgeous young women in thight uniforms? Well. Good news everyone! They kept them on and retirement age be damned! Some need a zimmer frame to get around. The young ones that is.
Depends on the airline. The Canadian airline Westjet has some hot girls in tight skirts on their Las Vegas run from Vancouver and I had a tall leggy blond on Lufthansa offer to do "anything" to make my flight more enjoyable. Her mouth was a couple inches from mine when she made that offer but I was travelling with someone back from Europe at the time so I could not take her up on her offer.
What little guy? us little people have so little in the game that it can't hurt us that much.
What little guy? The little guy that employs locals and does cross border trade. That little guy. Farmers, small manufactures, MSBs and other financial institutions that are a lot smaller than the smallest chartered bank. Those little guys.
Are there any hidden loopholes for banks to give them a competitive advantage over non-bank financial institutions in this proposed law? Isn't this potentially yet another surtax on a already taxable commerce? What about cross border trade? What about cross ocean trade? Suppliers in differing countries would probably want to be paid in their local currency at the best rate possible. What about immigrants sending money back home to their parents or wife and children?
Bill Gates is too rich to care or has tax accountants lined up to use loopholes in that law so of course he can support it. He is retired with more money than he knows what to do with. This can only end up hurting the little guy and benefiting the big banks.
> You have to keep in mind that Macs used to cost 3x the price of PCs back in the days. It is now a little more expensive, but not by nearly that much.
I regularly check local prices for iMacs compared to a hand-built PC (again from a local supplier) with same or better parts. Last time, a week ago, the iMac (several models) came about 2x the PC price.
(And yes, my hand-built PCs are generally from superior parts from vendor PCs, including box, cooling, PSU...)
You can find hand built PCs that are an all in one form factor with the same quality monitor matching the resolution? Really? I seriously doubt that. Not only are you comparing a generic tower box with an iMac but most PCs sold come with lower resolution monitors than what is found in an iMac.
Windows Phone 7 has better voice recognition than Siri. Why hasn't that given them the advantage? Maybe because it is just not that important?
1. I doubt that. 2. Siri is not voice recognition. It uses Nuance Technology. 3. Siri is a combination of a natural language processor and and AI personal agent.
WOW that is some horrendous design there. they could of course just get a geo location from a cell tower. but use the GPS to determine time zone? wow, just wow
If you turn off that feature, it reverts back to the previous behaviour of just using the cell tower but what about people living or travelling along a timezone border where you are on one side of the timezone division but your phone is picking up signal from a tower in the other zone?
I'm sorry if I disappointed you by revealing that the previous behaviour was to use the cell phone tower.
Go to Settings->Location Services->System Services and turning off Setting TimeZone.
The battery is draining from GPS running almost constantly trying to determine your Timezone and is most likely to occur more when you are in a location with poor GPS signal, poor cellular service or both for an extended period of time. Turning off that feature fixes the drain for most people.
Microsoft will continue to be a niche player while android heads towards 70% marketshare by next year. Any marketshare that microsoft happens to garner will be at the expense of apple as their marketshare dwindles.
Are you a bit confused? We are talking about tablets here, not phones. Your number even for phones is way off but that is besides the point.
In the tablet space, Apple's iOS has 70% marketshare if you go by "shipped" numbers for android tablets but sales to end users numbers probably put Apple at 90%+.
Siri uses Nuance as their recognition engine so comparing Siri to Google Voice Search is a bit silly. What SIRI brings to the table is Natural Language processing. It takes that result from Nuance and figures out meaning. It also brings an AI that learns based on your usage of it. This should not be at all surprising since SIRI is based on the DARPA "PAL" project which stands for Personal Assistant that Learns.
The guy in the article is right, Google is going to have an uphill battle replicating what SIRI is doing. Not only will they have to improve their voice recognition to be on par with Nuance but they will have to develop a natural language processor and develop an AI system that keeps track of your phone's past usage in a profile of sorts.
Yeah but I live in central London and was using an iphone 3g with no problems. There is something about the O2/4S combination that is terrible.
Is it possible that there are just a lot more people on the O2 towers than when you were using your iPhone 3g? Maybe your usage patterns have changed with the iPhone 4S so you are noticing how shitty O2 is than before?
Here in Canada, I had a 3GS on Fido and I had dropped calls all the time when I was at home in my basement apartment but I switched carriers to Telus to get the iPhone 4S on launch day and I have decent signal at home now. Those two carriers have disparate networks and not only can I make calls but my network speed is much faster at home on the 4S even accounting for the fact that the 3GS was as HSPA device while the 4S is an HSDPA+ device.
Western Europe social democracies have shown that the right amount of socialism works and works very well. And socialism is not communism, but what would an american hilly billy know about that eh ?
Wrong. Western European countries are not socialist. They practice a for of mixed market economics and even Canada and the US do not have pure capitalism. The military industrial complex is a perfect example of the US having a mixed economy. True capitalism cannot exist because it will destroy itself without some regulation . The Soviet Union was also known and USSR (Union of Socialist Soviet Republics). Every single so-called "communist" country called themselves "socialist". That is state socialism and the west were the ones that perpetuated the wrong headed label of communism.
If you want communism, go to a commune. The early church practiced communism. Communism is totally different from socialism because communism requires you to willingly surrender your worldly goods to the community which you are free to join or not join. Communism is about the welfare of the community rather that the state. It only works on a small scale like a village. Stop confusing socialism with communism and confusing a regulated capitalism with socialism.
Smash the capitalist state! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Forward to socialism!!!!!!! READ TROTSKY!!!!
Capitalism provides you with what you wear and eat. Capitalism provides you with the internet for you to make a fool of yourself on. Capitalism is not evil, greed and corrupt is and both were rampant among the party leadership in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union proved that state socialism does not work. If you want to redistribute your wealth, do so by your own choice. It's called "charity".
Socialism is about slavery and coercion rather than freedom and good will.
You are locked to their eco-system. iTunes, Propreitory docks and cables, etc. Note that the spirit of the OP's comment applies to iPod Touch and iPhone too.
Yes, how horrible. You are forced to use a device that has ubiquitous support from speaker systems, car integration systems and even full size stereo systems from a wide assortment of vendors including Sony.
Sorry but I prefer using a device that I can get accessories for almost anywhere instead of something that is supporting by almost nothing except through the aux input mini plug for input.
I was an Amiga user from 1989-95. I accepted that the Amiga platform died in the mid 90's and moved onto Window and from there to OS X.
The Amiga platform was amazing for its time but we are now in the 2010's. Nobody except crazy nut jobs want to use 20 year old technology. Let the Amiga platform rest in peace.
I was part of a local Amiga user group that had the developers behind "Amoeba Invaders" and I hosted the user meetings after the local Amiga dealer went out of business. Move on people. It is dead. It is really dead and not just pining for the fjords.
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Don't be an arse and try to "convert" people to your FOSS leanings by giving them a trojan "gift horse". Seriously, either give a gift that you actually think they would like or don't bother. That gift does not have to be expensive or even bought but if it is the latter, then you actually have to have created it yourself. Taking a USB stick and copying over FOSS is not creative or a real gift. You are basically giving out a FOSS tract.
Sorry but not only are you trying to "convert" them to your FOSS beliefs but it is the software equivalent of giving last year's calendar as gifts. It makes you look like you could not think of buying them a real gift or actually making something original so you just shoved some "free" software onto USB sticks. Because you opened and installed the software on them they were already "used" by the time they got them.
Please try to deny that general statement. Even if the only reason this is true is because the majority of people use Windows, you have to say that Windows is the best operating system for general software development. Plus, you can't deny that the .NET platform is good, and most developers who use Microsoft technology use Windows.
Right but that is not answering the question. What is keeping "YOU" on windows. Unless if you are self-employed, there is no actual "need" to be compatible with the office. I have been a software developer on windows for over 15 years (Java, C#, Python) but I choose to use macs at home. Most employers don't even want people taking their work home with them these days because of security and confidentiality reasons. I can still connect up to the office via citrix with my mac to check email or use the joinme service to connect to a desktop from my mac at home.
I like to keep my work at work and if I really want to do some programming at home, I can always expand my repertoire with some Objective-C in my spare time. So far, I have not found the urge to do so.
In that vein, Archos is selling what's essentially a smartphone sans cell radio for $80; makes me wonder both why I can't get a similar non-contract phone from the mobile carriers for less than $500, and how DOJ hasn't launched a price-fixing investigation against same.
Are you serious? Did you look at the specs of that Archos? It has only 4GB capacity, 320X240 2.8" display and only 16 hours of audio, 4 hours of video, or 6 hours Web browsing through WIFI on a single charge. The iPhone 3GS 8GB is 375.00 USD unlocked and it offers not only a cellular phone radio but GPS, Digital compass,Bluetooth 2.1, Wifi, a back facing camera capable of SD video and 3MP photos, 480X320 3.5" display,with battery specs of 300 hours standby,
up to 5 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi web browsing, 10 hours of video and 30 hours audio playback. You can also get it for "free" with a contract.
If you don't want a cellphone, you can get an iPod touch starting at 199.00 USD for 8 GB capacity with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, 3.5" 960-by-640-pixel resolution display, 720p back facing video camera, battery life of 40 hours audio and 7 hours of video.
Apple is able to sell their iPod Touch so cheap because of the economies of scale that they now have with regard to flash memory and other components which smaller manufacturers based on Android cannot match.
Android handsets are expensive because they are fragmented between many companies who cannot negotiate the same prices on components that Apple can.
The Kindle fire is largely a non-starter outside of the US because the ecosystem outside of books is largely US centric whereas the iPad offers music, games, movies and TV for iTunes users in many countries around the world.
Price is low because of subsidy, but it's not below the margin. Apple could easily drop the price by $50-80 and still shovel money as fast as they can.
CITATION NEEDED. From what I've read from the breakdown on parts, Amazon is selling the fire below cost especially considering the lower volume compared with the iPad.
Sure, Apple could drop the price but what would they gain in return? They are currently selling virtually every iPad 2 they make within a week off the factory floor.
And do you know of any phones that allow you to play games at 1080 using the HDMI output? No?
Neither do i.
The iPhone 4S and its bigger brother, the iPad 2 tablet.
Remember those gorgeous young women in thight uniforms? Well. Good news everyone! They kept them on and retirement age be damned! Some need a zimmer frame to get around. The young ones that is.
Depends on the airline. The Canadian airline Westjet has some hot girls in tight skirts on their Las Vegas run from Vancouver and I had a tall leggy blond on Lufthansa offer to do "anything" to make my flight more enjoyable. Her mouth was a couple inches from mine when she made that offer but I was travelling with someone back from Europe at the time so I could not take her up on her offer.
I think I've seen that pr0n film too.
Cool story bro. I was just sharing my experience on the German airline on a flight back from Frankfurt a couple years back but whatever. Also, Westjet do have some really hot girls working for them and sometimes one can be lucky enough to have them on the flight.
Remember those gorgeous young women in thight uniforms? Well. Good news everyone! They kept them on and retirement age be damned! Some need a zimmer frame to get around. The young ones that is.
Depends on the airline. The Canadian airline Westjet has some hot girls in tight skirts on their Las Vegas run from Vancouver and I had a tall leggy blond on Lufthansa offer to do "anything" to make my flight more enjoyable. Her mouth was a couple inches from mine when she made that offer but I was travelling with someone back from Europe at the time so I could not take her up on her offer.
You haven't taken a Metro Transit bus in Seattle for some time, have you?
Damn those metrosexuals.
What little guy? us little people have so little in the game that it can't hurt us that much.
What little guy? The little guy that employs locals and does cross border trade. That little guy. Farmers, small manufactures, MSBs and other financial institutions that are a lot smaller than the smallest chartered bank. Those little guys.
Are there any hidden loopholes for banks to give them a competitive advantage over non-bank financial institutions in this proposed law? Isn't this potentially yet another surtax on a already taxable commerce? What about cross border trade? What about cross ocean trade? Suppliers in differing countries would probably want to be paid in their local currency at the best rate possible. What about immigrants sending money back home to their parents or wife and children?
Bill Gates is too rich to care or has tax accountants lined up to use loopholes in that law so of course he can support it. He is retired with more money than he knows what to do with. This can only end up hurting the little guy and benefiting the big banks.
> You have to keep in mind that Macs used to cost 3x the price of PCs back in the days. It is now a little more expensive, but not by nearly that much.
I regularly check local prices for iMacs compared to a hand-built PC (again from a local supplier) with same or better parts. Last time, a week ago, the iMac (several models) came about 2x the PC price.
(And yes, my hand-built PCs are generally from superior parts from vendor PCs, including box, cooling, PSU ...)
You can find hand built PCs that are an all in one form factor with the same quality monitor matching the resolution? Really? I seriously doubt that. Not only are you comparing a generic tower box with an iMac but most PCs sold come with lower resolution monitors than what is found in an iMac.
Windows Phone 7 has better voice recognition than Siri. Why hasn't that given them the advantage? Maybe because it is just not that important?
1. I doubt that.
2. Siri is not voice recognition. It uses Nuance Technology.
3. Siri is a combination of a natural language processor and and AI personal agent.
WOW that is some horrendous design there. they could of course just get a geo location from a cell tower. but use the GPS to determine time zone? wow, just wow
If you turn off that feature, it reverts back to the previous behaviour of just using the cell tower but what about people living or travelling along a timezone border where you are on one side of the timezone division but your phone is picking up signal from a tower in the other zone?
I'm sorry if I disappointed you by revealing that the previous behaviour was to use the cell phone tower.
Go to Settings->Location Services->System Services and turning off Setting TimeZone.
The battery is draining from GPS running almost constantly trying to determine your Timezone and is most likely to occur more when you are in a location with poor GPS signal, poor cellular service or both for an extended period of time. Turning off that feature fixes the drain for most people.
Microsoft will continue to be a niche player while android heads towards 70% marketshare by next year. Any marketshare that microsoft happens to garner will be at the expense of apple as their marketshare dwindles.
Are you a bit confused? We are talking about tablets here, not phones. Your number even for phones is way off but that is besides the point.
In the tablet space, Apple's iOS has 70% marketshare if you go by "shipped" numbers for android tablets but sales to end users numbers probably put Apple at 90%+.
Siri uses Nuance as their recognition engine so comparing Siri to Google Voice Search is a bit silly. What SIRI brings to the table is Natural Language processing. It takes that result from Nuance and figures out meaning. It also brings an AI that learns based on your usage of it. This should not be at all surprising since SIRI is based on the DARPA "PAL" project which stands for Personal Assistant that Learns.
The guy in the article is right, Google is going to have an uphill battle replicating what SIRI is doing. Not only will they have to improve their voice recognition to be on par with Nuance but they will have to develop a natural language processor and develop an AI system that keeps track of your phone's past usage in a profile of sorts.
Yeah but I live in central London and was using an iphone 3g with no problems. There is something about the O2/4S combination that is terrible.
Is it possible that there are just a lot more people on the O2 towers than when you were using your iPhone 3g? Maybe your usage patterns have changed with the iPhone 4S so you are noticing how shitty O2 is than before?
Here in Canada, I had a 3GS on Fido and I had dropped calls all the time when I was at home in my basement apartment but I switched carriers to Telus to get the iPhone 4S on launch day and I have decent signal at home now. Those two carriers have disparate networks and not only can I make calls but my network speed is much faster at home on the 4S even accounting for the fact that the 3GS was as HSPA device while the 4S is an HSDPA+ device.
Western Europe social democracies have shown that the right amount of socialism works and works very well. And socialism is not communism, but what would an american hilly billy know about that eh ?
Wrong. Western European countries are not socialist. They practice a for of mixed market economics and even Canada and the US do not have pure capitalism. The military industrial complex is a perfect example of the US having a mixed economy. True capitalism cannot exist because it will destroy itself without some regulation . The Soviet Union was also known and USSR (Union of Socialist Soviet Republics). Every single so-called "communist" country called themselves "socialist". That is state socialism and the west were the ones that perpetuated the wrong headed label of communism.
If you want communism, go to a commune. The early church practiced communism. Communism is totally different from socialism because communism requires you to willingly surrender your worldly goods to the community which you are free to join or not join. Communism is about the welfare of the community rather that the state. It only works on a small scale like a village. Stop confusing socialism with communism and confusing a regulated capitalism with socialism.
Smash the capitalist state! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Forward to socialism!!!!!!! READ TROTSKY!!!!
Capitalism provides you with what you wear and eat. Capitalism provides you with the internet for you to make a fool of yourself on. Capitalism is not evil, greed and corrupt is and both were rampant among the party leadership in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union proved that state socialism does not work. If you want to redistribute your wealth, do so by your own choice. It's called "charity".
Socialism is about slavery and coercion rather than freedom and good will.
...just use FLAC?
Because it does not have widespread hardware support (read iOS devices). I don't know anyone who uses FLAC. Nobody.
You are locked to their eco-system. iTunes, Propreitory docks and cables, etc. Note that the spirit of the OP's comment applies to iPod Touch and iPhone too.
Yes, how horrible. You are forced to use a device that has ubiquitous support from speaker systems, car integration systems and even full size stereo systems from a wide assortment of vendors including Sony.
Sorry but I prefer using a device that I can get accessories for almost anywhere instead of something that is supporting by almost nothing except through the aux input mini plug for input.
I was an Amiga user from 1989-95. I accepted that the Amiga platform died in the mid 90's and moved onto Window and from there to OS X.
The Amiga platform was amazing for its time but we are now in the 2010's. Nobody except crazy nut jobs want to use 20 year old technology. Let the Amiga platform rest in peace.
I was part of a local Amiga user group that had the developers behind "Amoeba Invaders" and I hosted the user meetings after the local Amiga dealer went out of business. Move on people. It is dead. It is really dead and not just pining for the fjords.
Some sample queries I fed Iris:
Q: Where can I get a recipe for cheesecake?
A: En la esquina, con minifalda.
(Yes, it really said that in Spanish.)
So, yeah - a work in progress. It had no trouble recognizing every single question, it just fell down on many of the answers.
Oh, man that was awesome. Thanks for making my day.
En la esquina, con minifalda. English:"In the corner, wearing a miniskirt."