I've always wondered if the Nielson ratings take into account the people who don't watch TV. Are their random picks only from the lists of subscribers to cable and satellite? If they find out I don't watch TV would they still ask me to keep a log of nothing, or would they move onto the next person? It always seemed to me that they overestimate as they assume everyone watches TV, and they can extrapolate their random sampling to the entire population.
I would think that polling digital cable/satellite boxes would be more accurate, given the penetration of the things (they can call home, I've always assumed that they can tell the mothership what you have been watching).
"Indy" is pretty much the same thing as "Alternative" nowadays. It used to mean something - now people slap it onto anything they think it might apply to.
Come off it - CPU architecture on the desktop is moving a little faster than you appreciate. Planning NOW to release a 32bit OS in 2010...it may as well boast about VGA support.
People keep stuff around too. A lot of the machines running right now will still be around in 2010. A lot of those machines are 32bit. Heck, there are still selling 32bit machines as brand new. Not supporting 32bit in 2010 would be like not supporting PATA drives in 2010 or something equally silly.
There are still 32bit machines being sold right now as new systems. They'll probably linger around for a while too, I would expect atleast a year, but possibly longer if the Via processors start to catch on. If Microsoft actually gets this thing out when they say they will, people won't be happy if their 2-3 year old system is locked out from running the latest and greatest. However, if it takes the 5 years that Vista took, they might as well drop support for 32bit at that point.
I remember hearing back in the 1990's that Windows 98 was going to be the end of the line for the DOS-based OS's, and the future versions of Windows were going to be based upon the NT line. However, from what I remember, what we now know as Windows XP Home was taking too long to develop, so Microsoft quickly took some of the features that were going to be in XP (like system restore), backported them to Windows 98, hid as much of the DOS stuff as possible, and called it Windows ME.
I put Vista on an old IBM Thinkpad for the hell of it (also because XP never did run right on it for some reason, I didn't want to use 2000 on it either). The laptop doesn't even meet the minimum requirements - 750Mhz with 512MB of ram. The install took forever, and it is pretty slow on the boot up. However, once it's up and going, it's responsive enough - even with the default settings that the installer set up for my computer. I have no problems using the internet, running Office, and doing that sort of thing. Have had no stability problems, and the power management features work perfect (they never worked right in XP). Vista recognized most of the hardware - everything but the modem, nic, and the video. It did recognize the wireless card, and once I visited Windows update it found driver for the modem and the nic. I installed the Windows XP driver for the video, and it seemed to accept those drivers just fine. I haven't had any problems with the DRM stepping on things yet, though I haven't been doing multimedia on that machine.
On the downside, the new "enhanced" Solitiare is completly unplayable on this hardware.
Apple are well ahead with the MINI, IPhone and IMAC.
Hardly the case. If Apple was to release the so called "xMac", an affordable Mac in a small tower case with some expansion slots and a standard 3.5" harddisk, it would completely destroy the iMac and Mini's sales. Most people don't buy a Mini or an iMac because they like the form factor, they buy them because they want a Mac and that's the only thing Apple offers for what they want to pay for one. It's the same reason that the attempts to do the same thing on the PC side have met with failure or ended up being a small niche product.
5. Displays. Notebooks are supposed to be small, displays can't be large enough. Unless we find a way to "fold" displays, people who want more than a 17" display will not enjoy the notebook experience. Either that or they'll grumble when they get to haul around a notebook that can house a 20" display...
Actually, the problem is DPI. I searched around when I bought this laptop, and got a totally sweet 1400x1050 14.1" screen in it. You cannot buy a desktop LCD with that kind of resolution any smaller than 20". Sadly though, it seems that people pay no attention to resolution/DPI anymore, and just look at the screen size. Who wants a laptop with a crappy 1280x800 15.1" screen? Not me, but they seem to sell very well.
I disagree. Even if you never moved the laptop, you would still wear out the keyboard. On a desktop, replacing the keyboard is trivial. On a laptop, usually not so much. Laptops have other issues - they usually have all the components crammed together and tend to run hotter, shortening the life of the electronics. When something breaks, repairing the laptop is harder than repairing the desktop, which means that the laptop is more likely to be replaced.
I don't think he meant powered up and on. A laptop that's plugged in, even if not running, will still charge the battery. A desktop will just sit there.
Say you hired 10000 programmers but you let them sit around without producing anything. That is more spending and no growth. What the investors are saying is "stop doing that". Makes sense to me.
A lot of speculators out there expecting amazing things from google. If google can't deliver they take their money elsewhere, no one is punishing anyone.
The thing is that it may take a couple of years for the investment of 10000 programmers to pay off in the sense that a finished product is released to the market. The problem comes in that it seems that most investors want results now - overall, they aren't nearly patient enough to wait for something to pay off any time later than the next quarter.
I have a couple of those that I have had for a while. I paid about the same price, but the ones I got came with a gig of ram, but only a DVD drive. They are whisper quiet, extremely stable and reliable, and the power management features work flawlessly. You can screw around with the VIA Wal-Mart POS special, I'll take a used corporate PC where people don't screw around with unreliable crap.
Having integrated graphics probably hurts things a bit in that regard too. Also, nowadays, a "2Ghz" machine doesn't mean much. You could be refering to anything from a 6 year old P4 to a brand new Core 2 Duo system.
Actually, what really surprised me is how much dimming the flatpanel helps with the power consumption. Taking one down from "burn your eyeballs out" default full brightness to something more reasonable cut the power usage in half according to my power meter. At full brightness it was only at about 1/2 of what a similar CRT was using.
He should go dumpster diving. Sure, there's no support, but if it doesn't work you can return it to where it came from. Around here, it's not uncommon to come accross high end PIII systems in the dumpsters now. Enough to do pretty much anything you want but games.
Would it have been one of those 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot drives? Those things were terrible. On the other hand, the 3.5" Quantums from back in that day seemed to be alright. Though my most interesting drive failure was a Quantum Bigfoot. The thing developed what seemed to be click of death. It did it continously, but only when idle. Tell the drive to do something, and it happily obliged, then immediately started the click of death thing again. I was able to save everything on the drive, then left it hooked up for several weeks just too see what would eventually happen. Despite several weeks of CLICK-CLICK-CLICK, then drive never did completely fail and I eventually got bored and disconnected it.
I've found the opposite - running the drives for 6-10 hours a day I use them they last a whole lot longer than if I run them 24/7. I'm sure that powering them up causes additional wear, but so does letting the drives run an extra 10-18 hours a day. I also have never had a drive on system that is regularly powered down just quit on me. A drive that has trouble when spinning up is a good sign of impending doom and that it is time to replace the drive. However, there is no way to tell if a drive is getting weak if it's spinning 24/7, until you finally power it down only to not have it come back up again.
FUD. Nothing (nothing) stops you from selling the physical CD that you physically bought.
It's not FUD. The RIAA has gone after used CD sales. They lost, which is why used CD stores still exist, but I wouldn't put it beyond the RIAA to try again (and again) until to they get a ruling in their favor.
The Mac OS (not OSX) Mac OS 9 ironically is the only os in history never ever to be remotely exploited in history. Check BugTraq immense database if you do not believe me. Using it, or in an emulator, with a much older Netscape or iCab is a good solution for sandboxing and avoiding all possible FBI magic lantern activity.
I'm pretty sure that MSDOS 5.0 has also never been remotely exploited too.
Why do you need a snowball of Mac-targetted malware? We laugh at the Windows machines that we come accross that have thousands of pieces of malware, but all that it takes is one piece of malware to own your machine. If Mac users have to start educating themselves about security instead of buying a Mac because "it doesn't get viruses" and doing nothing else, they may very well switch back to Windows now that they know how to secure it.
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I've always wondered if the Nielson ratings take into account the people who don't watch TV. Are their random picks only from the lists of subscribers to cable and satellite? If they find out I don't watch TV would they still ask me to keep a log of nothing, or would they move onto the next person? It always seemed to me that they overestimate as they assume everyone watches TV, and they can extrapolate their random sampling to the entire population.
I would think that polling digital cable/satellite boxes would be more accurate, given the penetration of the things (they can call home, I've always assumed that they can tell the mothership what you have been watching).
"Indy" is pretty much the same thing as "Alternative" nowadays. It used to mean something - now people slap it onto anything they think it might apply to.
So MySpace will disrupt television then.
TV is killing itself. MySpace has little to do with it, it just happens to be around.
Let's see, the Mac OS is up to version 10, so yeah, 7, that's about right. Windows is about 3 versions behind the Mac OS.
Well, Apple still has a lot of catching up to do with Windows 2000.
Come off it - CPU architecture on the desktop is moving a little faster than you appreciate. Planning NOW to release a 32bit OS in 2010...it may as well boast about VGA support.
People keep stuff around too. A lot of the machines running right now will still be around in 2010. A lot of those machines are 32bit. Heck, there are still selling 32bit machines as brand new. Not supporting 32bit in 2010 would be like not supporting PATA drives in 2010 or something equally silly.
There are still 32bit machines being sold right now as new systems. They'll probably linger around for a while too, I would expect atleast a year, but possibly longer if the Via processors start to catch on. If Microsoft actually gets this thing out when they say they will, people won't be happy if their 2-3 year old system is locked out from running the latest and greatest. However, if it takes the 5 years that Vista took, they might as well drop support for 32bit at that point.
Because if we flew airplanes like most people drive cars, we'd die like flies.
You mean smeared upon the windsheild at 70MPH?
I remember hearing back in the 1990's that Windows 98 was going to be the end of the line for the DOS-based OS's, and the future versions of Windows were going to be based upon the NT line. However, from what I remember, what we now know as Windows XP Home was taking too long to develop, so Microsoft quickly took some of the features that were going to be in XP (like system restore), backported them to Windows 98, hid as much of the DOS stuff as possible, and called it Windows ME.
I put Vista on an old IBM Thinkpad for the hell of it (also because XP never did run right on it for some reason, I didn't want to use 2000 on it either). The laptop doesn't even meet the minimum requirements - 750Mhz with 512MB of ram. The install took forever, and it is pretty slow on the boot up. However, once it's up and going, it's responsive enough - even with the default settings that the installer set up for my computer. I have no problems using the internet, running Office, and doing that sort of thing. Have had no stability problems, and the power management features work perfect (they never worked right in XP). Vista recognized most of the hardware - everything but the modem, nic, and the video. It did recognize the wireless card, and once I visited Windows update it found driver for the modem and the nic. I installed the Windows XP driver for the video, and it seemed to accept those drivers just fine. I haven't had any problems with the DRM stepping on things yet, though I haven't been doing multimedia on that machine.
On the downside, the new "enhanced" Solitiare is completly unplayable on this hardware.
You've obviously never been to Texas.
Apple are well ahead with the MINI, IPhone and IMAC.
Hardly the case. If Apple was to release the so called "xMac", an affordable Mac in a small tower case with some expansion slots and a standard 3.5" harddisk, it would completely destroy the iMac and Mini's sales. Most people don't buy a Mini or an iMac because they like the form factor, they buy them because they want a Mac and that's the only thing Apple offers for what they want to pay for one. It's the same reason that the attempts to do the same thing on the PC side have met with failure or ended up being a small niche product.
5. Displays. Notebooks are supposed to be small, displays can't be large enough. Unless we find a way to "fold" displays, people who want more than a 17" display will not enjoy the notebook experience. Either that or they'll grumble when they get to haul around a notebook that can house a 20" display...
Actually, the problem is DPI. I searched around when I bought this laptop, and got a totally sweet 1400x1050 14.1" screen in it. You cannot buy a desktop LCD with that kind of resolution any smaller than 20". Sadly though, it seems that people pay no attention to resolution/DPI anymore, and just look at the screen size. Who wants a laptop with a crappy 1280x800 15.1" screen? Not me, but they seem to sell very well.
I disagree. Even if you never moved the laptop, you would still wear out the keyboard. On a desktop, replacing the keyboard is trivial. On a laptop, usually not so much. Laptops have other issues - they usually have all the components crammed together and tend to run hotter, shortening the life of the electronics. When something breaks, repairing the laptop is harder than repairing the desktop, which means that the laptop is more likely to be replaced.
I don't think he meant powered up and on. A laptop that's plugged in, even if not running, will still charge the battery. A desktop will just sit there.
I think the investors have it right.
Say you hired 10000 programmers but you let them sit around without producing anything. That is more spending and no growth. What the investors are saying is "stop doing that". Makes sense to me.
A lot of speculators out there expecting amazing things from google. If google can't deliver they take their money elsewhere, no one is punishing anyone.
The thing is that it may take a couple of years for the investment of 10000 programmers to pay off in the sense that a finished product is released to the market. The problem comes in that it seems that most investors want results now - overall, they aren't nearly patient enough to wait for something to pay off any time later than the next quarter.
I have a couple of those that I have had for a while. I paid about the same price, but the ones I got came with a gig of ram, but only a DVD drive. They are whisper quiet, extremely stable and reliable, and the power management features work flawlessly. You can screw around with the VIA Wal-Mart POS special, I'll take a used corporate PC where people don't screw around with unreliable crap.
Having integrated graphics probably hurts things a bit in that regard too. Also, nowadays, a "2Ghz" machine doesn't mean much. You could be refering to anything from a 6 year old P4 to a brand new Core 2 Duo system.
Actually, what really surprised me is how much dimming the flatpanel helps with the power consumption. Taking one down from "burn your eyeballs out" default full brightness to something more reasonable cut the power usage in half according to my power meter. At full brightness it was only at about 1/2 of what a similar CRT was using.
I believe what he is using something called hyperbole.
He should go dumpster diving. Sure, there's no support, but if it doesn't work you can return it to where it came from. Around here, it's not uncommon to come accross high end PIII systems in the dumpsters now. Enough to do pretty much anything you want but games.
Would it have been one of those 5.25" Quantum Bigfoot drives? Those things were terrible. On the other hand, the 3.5" Quantums from back in that day seemed to be alright. Though my most interesting drive failure was a Quantum Bigfoot. The thing developed what seemed to be click of death. It did it continously, but only when idle. Tell the drive to do something, and it happily obliged, then immediately started the click of death thing again. I was able to save everything on the drive, then left it hooked up for several weeks just too see what would eventually happen. Despite several weeks of CLICK-CLICK-CLICK, then drive never did completely fail and I eventually got bored and disconnected it.
I've found the opposite - running the drives for 6-10 hours a day I use them they last a whole lot longer than if I run them 24/7. I'm sure that powering them up causes additional wear, but so does letting the drives run an extra 10-18 hours a day. I also have never had a drive on system that is regularly powered down just quit on me. A drive that has trouble when spinning up is a good sign of impending doom and that it is time to replace the drive. However, there is no way to tell if a drive is getting weak if it's spinning 24/7, until you finally power it down only to not have it come back up again.
As always, your mileage may vary.
FUD. Nothing (nothing) stops you from selling the physical CD that you physically bought.
It's not FUD. The RIAA has gone after used CD sales. They lost, which is why used CD stores still exist, but I wouldn't put it beyond the RIAA to try again (and again) until to they get a ruling in their favor.
The Mac OS (not OSX) Mac OS 9 ironically is the only os in history never ever to be remotely exploited in history. Check BugTraq immense database if you do not believe me. Using it, or in an emulator, with a much older Netscape or iCab is a good solution for sandboxing and avoiding all possible FBI magic lantern activity.
I'm pretty sure that MSDOS 5.0 has also never been remotely exploited too.
Why do you need a snowball of Mac-targetted malware? We laugh at the Windows machines that we come accross that have thousands of pieces of malware, but all that it takes is one piece of malware to own your machine. If Mac users have to start educating themselves about security instead of buying a Mac because "it doesn't get viruses" and doing nothing else, they may very well switch back to Windows now that they know how to secure it.