Try typing 'purchase music'. On MSN, iTunes is in the the first page of results, while on Google it's nowhere to be found in the first 5 pages. So you can take that however you want.
The 128kbps AAC files from iTunes are not that great. Granted, a 128kbps MP3 is about the same, ditto for WMA. But if I'm going to buy songs, they better be either lossless, or encoded at a decent bitrate.
If this is true, then OEM's definitely wouldn't put it on shipping hardware if they thought it was rubbish, so this would give even more credence to the suggestion that this isn't beta-quality software.
Yes, it would be just like when OEMs all collectively shunned Windows ME because it was so bad... Oh... wait...
You're ignoring the fact that few people watch over-the-air TV.
Go out in any rural or semi-rural areas. Not the places where the yuppies have their cabins, but places where people actually live. You'll see a lot of TV antennas. These people couldn't get cable if they wanted, and satellite would be a huge expense. And if the last election taught us anything, there are a lot of these people.
I haven't even seen decoders for sale here. As far as I can tell, the only way to get a DTV decoder is to buy a TV with an integrated decoder, which generally are the expensive models (they are starting to trickle down into the midrange $500ish TVs). You'd be luckly to get a DTV setup here without spending a few hundred dollars.
That works great with the old TVs with the mechanical knobs. Many newish TVs will lose all their settings every time you turn it off if you used that plug. Though, many of the newest TVs out there somehow maintain their settings even when unplugged (flash memory?).
A better solution would be to mandate all TVs that include an analog tuner must include a digital one. People who have their cable box/whatever can just buy a home theatre monitor (seriously, why don't these exist yet? I just want a screen with inputs - I don't need a tuner, speakers, or that other stuff I'm never going to use). The people who want the all-in-one package (just plug in the power cord and watch some TV) will be getting a digital tuner.
The problem is that the analog TV airwaves carve out an enormous swath of the EM spectrum. Back when they were allocated, the powers that be thought there would be a hell of a lot more television stations that the ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. So they allocated a ton of channels. (Every play around on the UHF dial. There is an awful lot of static out there.)
Why not reclaim the mostly-unused parts of the spectrum? The few channels that do reside in that area can relocate to a part of the spectrum still allotted to over the air TV. My guess is that half of the spectrum could be reclaimed while still leaving plenty of room for the remaining channels.
First of all, a lot of people currently take advantage of the over-the-air broadcasts. Many of these people don't have a lot of money to buy cable/new TV/set top box/satellite/whatever. Some of these people couldn't get cable even if they wanted to, because they live out in the middle of nowhere. Basically, the people who will be the most affected by the switchover are the people who are least able to do something about it.
Secondly, the "stone-age" technology is perfectly adequate for 99% of the people out there. The quality is good enough, it does it's job, and it's cheap. I don't hear people clamoring for digital TV like they did for color TV.
Besides, I actually think the analog signal is better - atleast when I get some interference all I get is some static rather than having the TV cut in and out (extremely annoying). And you can do quite a bit with a weak analog signal.
The real issues here are: 1. Analog TV currently eats up quite a bit of the most useful parts of the spectrum. The FCC would really like to reclaim this part of the spectrum, then resell it. Needless to say, this would be a huge windfall to the FCC/government.
2. Content providers want to clamp down on the analog hole. They want digital TV because they can then DRM the signal and implement things like broadcast flags. Most people don't want this.
Or the way I think of it - would you rather die at age of 70, or die at the age of 85, but spending the last 15 years of your life not recognizing your own children or knowing what year it is? I don't know about everyone out there, but I would rather have my body go out before my mind.
Of course not. They used a smaller (laptop) hard drive. 2.5" drives tend to have slower performance than full-sized 3.5" drives, so this is no surprise and hardly an issue worth discussing.
So, did Apple use 2.5" disk drives instead of larger, faster, and cheaper 3.5" disk drives to make the Mac Mini so small and hence cool?
Is it really bloat? Besides, every distro installer I have seen lets you pick and choose what you want to install. You can install as little as you want with Linux. Windows XP may not include a lot, but generally you are stuck installing what it does come with, whether you like it or not.
Nearly all popular linux distributions now come on more than one CD (even if you ignore the source code) and the default installations are WAY bigger than that of Windows XP.
That's not really fair, as Windows XP doesn't really include very much with it. A media player, a web browser, a few simple utilities, and that's about it. Most Windows XP users have to install quite a bit of software to do what they want. On the other hand, most Linux distros have tons of packages included, for many users the default install has everything they need.
I don't know what was going on, usually Gigabyte makes good stuff, and not like other people have had problems with that board. My board had capacitors that looked like they were bulging (for a very long time too). So maybe that was it, maybe not. That particular board did not have thermal protection, so I don't think it was it. Besides, in my testing I swapped chips with hers, so that would of eliminated that possibility (I would hope).
The memory issue was strange and intermittant. I did reinstall Windows the first time it appeared (before I realized it was hardware). The problem occured anytime when the computer was doing intense processor work. BOINC was really bad about crashing it (it was very hard to troubleshoot when it first started occuring - BOINC only runs when I'm not on the computer, so I had a computer that was locking up only when I wasn't there, stable when I was.) - but later anything that really loaded the system would randomly take it down (encoding, games, etc.) And also, screwing with the memory timings made a big difference at first. I'm pretty sure it's the memory timings and the motherboard.
Re:The question every firefox user is asking
on
Opera 8 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
Doesn't Opera nail you with a godaweful banner ad at the top of the browser unless you pay for it? IMO that automatically makes it inferior to all the competition out ther.
I haven't paid for Opera for Linux (bought version 7 for Windows before their 2 for 1 deal, or whatever they have been running recently). There is a small bar accross the top that displays Google ads, and the occasional plug for Opera software (all text only). I find it non-intrusive, and don't notice it most of the time. Older versions of Opera had an embedded banner ad on the top, which was pretty annoying, especially on a low resolution monitor.
Quite frankly though, paying for Opera is worth every penny (IMHO).
Re:History: Failure to learn, doomed to repeat
on
Dell Still Intel Only
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· Score: 1
Then why are you still buying crap from PCChips, et al? Feel free to start listing any buggy AMD motherboards from Asus/MSI/Gigabyte/etc.
Gigabyte 7VRXP with the VIA KT333 chipset. Gigabyte usually makes good stuff, but I don't know about that one. Bought one for myself about 3 years ago, based partly off of a K6-2 VIA based system that still chugs along today and never had any has had any hardware issues at all. Liked the 7VRXP, so when I built a computer for my sister a few months later I bought another one. Her's lasted about a year, then would randomly power off. Power supply? Nope (tried that first). It was the motherboard. Replaced hers with an Asus, with the KT600 chipset. I was against getting another VIA based board, but she absolutely did not want to reinstall Windows. I looked around for a KT333 board but by this time there weren't many around. So I took the chance that the KT600 board would work fine, and it would be similar enough that Windows wouldn't throw a fit. I lucked out, because Windows accepted the new board without any issues, and her computer has been fine ever since.
My 7VRXP hung around a bit longer. But it went downhil about 9 months ago when I decided to upgrade to 1GB from 512MB. So I buy a second stick of ram, and find out that the only way the computer is stable is if I install the sticks into slots 2 and 3. Either stick by itself is perfectly fine whereever I put it. Strange, but with both sticks in there in that way, it was stable, so I move on. Few months later, random crashes, BSOD's, etc. After some tracking down, I realize it's the memory. So I bump the timings down. Computer is stable again - for a while. Starts crashing again, and this time I know what's up. So I bump the memory down to the slowest timings, but it is still not stable. So it looks like I either have to replace the thing or go back to 512MB. So I replace it with a Soytek board with the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. I had to reinstall Windows (yuck), but now the computer is completely solid, and does noticably better on benchmarks as a bonus (I was surprised, not really expecting that).
I also have a roommate who spent way too much money building a dual AMD Athlon MP system. The only dual MP boards out there use an AMD based chipset (AMD 760 I believe). He went through a couple of different ones, from different brands. One was a Gigabyte, one was a Chaintech, and the last I believe was a Biostar. The computer was never really stable, and had a nasty tendency to trash the data on harddrives connected to the system, and the onboard USB was flakey. Not to mention in games like Halflife 2, Far Cry, etc. my system would absolutely kill his in performance, despite the single CPU, slower video card, and the VIA chipset (at the time). And these problems spanned the different motherboards! So the lesson is, don't built a dual Athlon MP system, you'll regret it.
That same roommate had built an AMD based system for someone else as cheaply as possible, and had used a PCChips motherboard. Seemed reasonably stable (he used it for a few weeks while waiting for a replacement board for his MP rig). Except it had an issue where if you plugged anything into the USB ports it would spontaneously reboot. Hilarous. Lesson: Don't use PCChips crap.
Another roommate has a nVidia nForce based AMD systems, and never had a problem with his board (that's why I went with the nForce2).
So that's my AMD story. AMD seems to make good chips, but you have to be careful with the motherboards. I would say avoid the VIA chipsets, use caution with AMD's own, and go for nVidia - which I have found to be solid.
Never have built an Intel based system, but have acquired a couple used when I either have them given to me, or I need an inexpensive box so I'll buy a used HP Vectra (solid machines, you can get a nice P-III one for under $150 easy). While some of them have been slow (the Dells, oh gawd are those slow machines), none with an Intel chipset have been unstable.
Of course Microsoft didn't charge for SP2--it was a bug fix! They sold you a broken OS and they're doing the right thing and trying to fix it--and they made you wait 3 years. Who would charge for that? Oh, wait--Microsoft would. I seem to remember paying a lot for Windows 98 because it fixed Windows 95. And for only $200 too!
Well Apple sold you 10.0, atleast they didn't charge for 10.1, but if you wanted a usuable OS you had to pay again for 10.2. So it's not like Apple is any different. Especially if you want to go back a bit an look at all the broken crap Apple released back in the 90's.
Moving to Windows XP Pro in 2001 would of cost you about $200, if you had 2000 already (or Windows 98/ME/NT too, I believe all qualify for the upgrade price). After that, XP SP1 and XP SP2 are free downloads to you, and your operating system in 2005 will still be completely up to date, from that investment in 2001.
If you bought OSX in 2001, since then you would have had to pay for 10.2 ($129), 10.3 ($129), and finally 10.4 ($129). Maybe that's what people are complaining about?
With Macs, it's simply a matter of privacy. And tiger does this out of the box, no need to buy any additional software as you point out.
It's not like there aren't security holes in OSX (Apple has released plenty of patches). And considering how lax the typical OSX user is at applying those patches, I would say a firewall for OSX is a good thing for most users.
3.2GHz p4's aren't prohibitably expensive so bascially a dual setup has been dooable for a long time.
I've been under the impression that Intel disabled the ability for the P4 to do dual processor (presumably to sell more Xeons)? And Xeons are expensive, and you need two of them. Not to mention other costly things like ECC memory.
A mobile chip? That is insane. Is it even going to be possible to peg both cores at 100% for any period of time?
I see a future where we will have very fast processors giving the illusion of a very fast and responsive computer - so long as that computer idles most of the time. If you actually try to use that power for more than a few seconds, thermal throttling will kick in and clock the CPU back down to today's speeds to keep the computer from melting.
Although, if virus writers would limit their CPU usage to just the second core, thus freeing up the first one, maybe people would stop bugging me about their system running so slowly.
I don't think it's the processor time that the virus scanner takes up that annoys users, it's all the disk fragging that it does. Dual-core really isn't going to help much there.
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Try typing 'purchase music'. On MSN, iTunes is in the the first page of results, while on Google it's nowhere to be found in the first 5 pages. So you can take that however you want.
The 128kbps AAC files from iTunes are not that great. Granted, a 128kbps MP3 is about the same, ditto for WMA. But if I'm going to buy songs, they better be either lossless, or encoded at a decent bitrate.
If this is true, then OEM's definitely wouldn't put it on shipping hardware if they thought it was rubbish, so this would give even more credence to the suggestion that this isn't beta-quality software.
Yes, it would be just like when OEMs all collectively shunned Windows ME because it was so bad... Oh... wait...
You're ignoring the fact that few people watch over-the-air TV.
Go out in any rural or semi-rural areas. Not the places where the yuppies have their cabins, but places where people actually live. You'll see a lot of TV antennas. These people couldn't get cable if they wanted, and satellite would be a huge expense. And if the last election taught us anything, there are a lot of these people.
I haven't even seen decoders for sale here. As far as I can tell, the only way to get a DTV decoder is to buy a TV with an integrated decoder, which generally are the expensive models (they are starting to trickle down into the midrange $500ish TVs). You'd be luckly to get a DTV setup here without spending a few hundred dollars.
That works great with the old TVs with the mechanical knobs. Many newish TVs will lose all their settings every time you turn it off if you used that plug. Though, many of the newest TVs out there somehow maintain their settings even when unplugged (flash memory?).
A better solution would be to mandate all TVs that include an analog tuner must include a digital one. People who have their cable box/whatever can just buy a home theatre monitor (seriously, why don't these exist yet? I just want a screen with inputs - I don't need a tuner, speakers, or that other stuff I'm never going to use). The people who want the all-in-one package (just plug in the power cord and watch some TV) will be getting a digital tuner.
The problem is that the analog TV airwaves carve out an enormous swath of the EM spectrum. Back when they were allocated, the powers that be thought there would be a hell of a lot more television stations that the ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. So they allocated a ton of channels. (Every play around on the UHF dial. There is an awful lot of static out there.)
Why not reclaim the mostly-unused parts of the spectrum? The few channels that do reside in that area can relocate to a part of the spectrum still allotted to over the air TV. My guess is that half of the spectrum could be reclaimed while still leaving plenty of room for the remaining channels.
First of all, a lot of people currently take advantage of the over-the-air broadcasts. Many of these people don't have a lot of money to buy cable/new TV/set top box/satellite/whatever. Some of these people couldn't get cable even if they wanted to, because they live out in the middle of nowhere. Basically, the people who will be the most affected by the switchover are the people who are least able to do something about it.
Secondly, the "stone-age" technology is perfectly adequate for 99% of the people out there. The quality is good enough, it does it's job, and it's cheap. I don't hear people clamoring for digital TV like they did for color TV.
Besides, I actually think the analog signal is better - atleast when I get some interference all I get is some static rather than having the TV cut in and out (extremely annoying). And you can do quite a bit with a weak analog signal.
The real issues here are:
1. Analog TV currently eats up quite a bit of the most useful parts of the spectrum. The FCC would really like to reclaim this part of the spectrum, then resell it. Needless to say, this would be a huge windfall to the FCC/government.
2. Content providers want to clamp down on the analog hole. They want digital TV because they can then DRM the signal and implement things like broadcast flags. Most people don't want this.
What's the point of release dates anyhow?
It's all about marketing and generating hype. In case you haven't noticed, Apple is extremely good at this.
Or the way I think of it - would you rather die at age of 70, or die at the age of 85, but spending the last 15 years of your life not recognizing your own children or knowing what year it is? I don't know about everyone out there, but I would rather have my body go out before my mind.
And then there are .BAT files, which have been around.... forever. Scripting is nothing new.
Of course not. They used a smaller (laptop) hard drive. 2.5" drives tend to have slower performance than full-sized 3.5" drives, so this is no surprise and hardly an issue worth discussing.
So, did Apple use 2.5" disk drives instead of larger, faster, and cheaper 3.5" disk drives to make the Mac Mini so small and hence cool?
Is it really bloat? Besides, every distro installer I have seen lets you pick and choose what you want to install. You can install as little as you want with Linux. Windows XP may not include a lot, but generally you are stuck installing what it does come with, whether you like it or not.
Nearly all popular linux distributions now come on more than one CD (even if you ignore the source code) and the default installations are WAY bigger than that of Windows XP.
That's not really fair, as Windows XP doesn't really include very much with it. A media player, a web browser, a few simple utilities, and that's about it. Most Windows XP users have to install quite a bit of software to do what they want. On the other hand, most Linux distros have tons of packages included, for many users the default install has everything they need.
I don't know what was going on, usually Gigabyte makes good stuff, and not like other people have had problems with that board. My board had capacitors that looked like they were bulging (for a very long time too). So maybe that was it, maybe not. That particular board did not have thermal protection, so I don't think it was it. Besides, in my testing I swapped chips with hers, so that would of eliminated that possibility (I would hope).
The memory issue was strange and intermittant. I did reinstall Windows the first time it appeared (before I realized it was hardware). The problem occured anytime when the computer was doing intense processor work. BOINC was really bad about crashing it (it was very hard to troubleshoot when it first started occuring - BOINC only runs when I'm not on the computer, so I had a computer that was locking up only when I wasn't there, stable when I was.) - but later anything that really loaded the system would randomly take it down (encoding, games, etc.) And also, screwing with the memory timings made a big difference at first. I'm pretty sure it's the memory timings and the motherboard.
Doesn't Opera nail you with a godaweful banner ad at the top of the browser unless you pay for it? IMO that automatically makes it inferior to all the competition out ther.
I haven't paid for Opera for Linux (bought version 7 for Windows before their 2 for 1 deal, or whatever they have been running recently). There is a small bar accross the top that displays Google ads, and the occasional plug for Opera software (all text only). I find it non-intrusive, and don't notice it most of the time. Older versions of Opera had an embedded banner ad on the top, which was pretty annoying, especially on a low resolution monitor.
Quite frankly though, paying for Opera is worth every penny (IMHO).
I thought it was Nintendo that had the PS2.
Oh, wait, now I see it. PS/2, not PS2.
Nintendo? I think you are still very confused.
Then why are you still buying crap from PCChips, et al? Feel free to start listing any buggy AMD motherboards from Asus/MSI/Gigabyte/etc.
Gigabyte 7VRXP with the VIA KT333 chipset. Gigabyte usually makes good stuff, but I don't know about that one. Bought one for myself about 3 years ago, based partly off of a K6-2 VIA based system that still chugs along today and never had any has had any hardware issues at all. Liked the 7VRXP, so when I built a computer for my sister a few months later I bought another one. Her's lasted about a year, then would randomly power off. Power supply? Nope (tried that first). It was the motherboard. Replaced hers with an Asus, with the KT600 chipset. I was against getting another VIA based board, but she absolutely did not want to reinstall Windows. I looked around for a KT333 board but by this time there weren't many around. So I took the chance that the KT600 board would work fine, and it would be similar enough that Windows wouldn't throw a fit. I lucked out, because Windows accepted the new board without any issues, and her computer has been fine ever since.
My 7VRXP hung around a bit longer. But it went downhil about 9 months ago when I decided to upgrade to 1GB from 512MB. So I buy a second stick of ram, and find out that the only way the computer is stable is if I install the sticks into slots 2 and 3. Either stick by itself is perfectly fine whereever I put it. Strange, but with both sticks in there in that way, it was stable, so I move on. Few months later, random crashes, BSOD's, etc. After some tracking down, I realize it's the memory. So I bump the timings down. Computer is stable again - for a while. Starts crashing again, and this time I know what's up. So I bump the memory down to the slowest timings, but it is still not stable. So it looks like I either have to replace the thing or go back to 512MB. So I replace it with a Soytek board with the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset. I had to reinstall Windows (yuck), but now the computer is completely solid, and does noticably better on benchmarks as a bonus (I was surprised, not really expecting that).
I also have a roommate who spent way too much money building a dual AMD Athlon MP system. The only dual MP boards out there use an AMD based chipset (AMD 760 I believe). He went through a couple of different ones, from different brands. One was a Gigabyte, one was a Chaintech, and the last I believe was a Biostar. The computer was never really stable, and had a nasty tendency to trash the data on harddrives connected to the system, and the onboard USB was flakey. Not to mention in games like Halflife 2, Far Cry, etc. my system would absolutely kill his in performance, despite the single CPU, slower video card, and the VIA chipset (at the time). And these problems spanned the different motherboards! So the lesson is, don't built a dual Athlon MP system, you'll regret it.
That same roommate had built an AMD based system for someone else as cheaply as possible, and had used a PCChips motherboard. Seemed reasonably stable (he used it for a few weeks while waiting for a replacement board for his MP rig). Except it had an issue where if you plugged anything into the USB ports it would spontaneously reboot. Hilarous. Lesson: Don't use PCChips crap.
Another roommate has a nVidia nForce based AMD systems, and never had a problem with his board (that's why I went with the nForce2).
So that's my AMD story. AMD seems to make good chips, but you have to be careful with the motherboards. I would say avoid the VIA chipsets, use caution with AMD's own, and go for nVidia - which I have found to be solid.
Never have built an Intel based system, but have acquired a couple used when I either have them given to me, or I need an inexpensive box so I'll buy a used HP Vectra (solid machines, you can get a nice P-III one for under $150 easy). While some of them have been slow (the Dells, oh gawd are those slow machines), none with an Intel chipset have been unstable.
Of course Microsoft didn't charge for SP2--it was a bug fix! They sold you a broken OS and they're doing the right thing and trying to fix it--and they made you wait 3 years. Who would charge for that? Oh, wait--Microsoft would. I seem to remember paying a lot for Windows 98 because it fixed Windows 95. And for only $200 too!
Well Apple sold you 10.0, atleast they didn't charge for 10.1, but if you wanted a usuable OS you had to pay again for 10.2. So it's not like Apple is any different. Especially if you want to go back a bit an look at all the broken crap Apple released back in the 90's.
Moving to Windows XP Pro in 2001 would of cost you about $200, if you had 2000 already (or Windows 98/ME/NT too, I believe all qualify for the upgrade price). After that, XP SP1 and XP SP2 are free downloads to you, and your operating system in 2005 will still be completely up to date, from that investment in 2001.
If you bought OSX in 2001, since then you would have had to pay for 10.2 ($129), 10.3 ($129), and finally 10.4 ($129). Maybe that's what people are complaining about?
With Macs, it's simply a matter of privacy. And tiger does this out of the box, no need to buy any additional software as you point out.
It's not like there aren't security holes in OSX (Apple has released plenty of patches). And considering how lax the typical OSX user is at applying those patches, I would say a firewall for OSX is a good thing for most users.
3.2GHz p4's aren't prohibitably expensive so bascially a dual setup has been dooable for a long time.
I've been under the impression that Intel disabled the ability for the P4 to do dual processor (presumably to sell more Xeons)? And Xeons are expensive, and you need two of them. Not to mention other costly things like ECC memory.
Insane.. 244watts under full load.
A mobile chip? That is insane. Is it even going to be possible to peg both cores at 100% for any period of time?
I see a future where we will have very fast processors giving the illusion of a very fast and responsive computer - so long as that computer idles most of the time. If you actually try to use that power for more than a few seconds, thermal throttling will kick in and clock the CPU back down to today's speeds to keep the computer from melting.
Although, if virus writers would limit their CPU usage to just the second core, thus freeing up the first one, maybe people would stop bugging me about their system running so slowly.
I don't think it's the processor time that the virus scanner takes up that annoys users, it's all the disk fragging that it does. Dual-core really isn't going to help much there.