Back when I traveled at least once a month, I used my PDA extensively. In fact, I got a cell phone with the PalmOS built-in because of how much I used my PDA and cell phone (one gadget was better then two, even if the Kyocera was a bit bulky).
I even carried a Toshiba Tecra laptop on those trips, yet still found it easier to carry and use a PDA (expense tracking, addresses, calendar, task list, entry app for Quicken, some light reading, maybe the latest news stories via AvantGo, plus train/subway/bus schedules and routes). After all, I can pull the PDA/phone out while standing waiting for the train on the platform... which is kinda tough to do with a laptop. One of the key things was that I needed quick (less then a minute) access to information while using mass transit (where I wasn't driving).
However, unless you're good at using a Daytimer / Franklin Planner, don't expect to get much use out of a PDA. On the flip side, if you do own a PDA, get a book about the Franklin-Covey or Daytimer system. The real trick with a PDA is to use it for more then just address/task/calendar, otherwise you may as well use whatever is built into most cell phones.
PDAs are a niche market... people who are highly organized, but don't always want to carry around a full-fledged laptop (or find that it's not always convenient to pull out a laptop when you're in the back of a cab with 2 other people).
I don't have an iPod either, but it has a *very good* word-of-mouth reputation. Key things for me is the fact that it plays MP3 files (which Sony's player doesn't do), sure it's tiny - but it's the slimness of the unit that matters (other players are triangular shaped, or boxy, or just downright thick), the UI is rumored to be better then most (important if I need to use it when I can't stare at the screen).
However, I listen to 90% of my music at home... so a simple network share and WinAmp meets those needs. In the car I have a CD deck that plays MP3 files, and for the rare business trip I have a portable mini-CD player that playes MP3s.
I haven't quite convinced myself that it's worth $300-$400 for something that I would only use 10% of the time. But if I started commuting to work again and listening to music in an office environment, the iPod would be definitely #1 on my list.
The one thing that bugs me the most about the digital enhancements to Episode IV is the Alderaan and Death Star explosions. That damn ring effect bugs me to no end.
You're not the only one... the ring effect would've been really cool *if* it was aligned with the equator of the deathstar. Then, at least, it would've looked like it was energy escaping along the "weak point" due to that indentation running around the equator. Instead, it looks like it was just randomly tacked onto the film just because it looked cool.
But Lucas is a hack and can't leave well enough alone... that, or every time he reviews something for approval he's stoned out of his mind.
In a small town store, the profit stays in the town. Wal*mart's profits get shipped off to Arkansas(yes?), maybe even off-shore.
The outlook on employees is also entirely different in a small business versus a large corporation. Walmart looks at employees as an expense, and every single employee (except for those with political connections) are expendable on a whim and replaceable.
Getting good service at Walmart is hit-or-miss, nobody there really gives a darn because you're just one customer out of a few thousand and there's more where you came from. A mom-n-pop business has to take a completely different view because every customer is a higher portion of their overall clientelle.
The bigger the store is, the less leverage that individual customers and employees have over it.
Is that a good thing? Are the lower prices really worth making Walmart bigger?
I think Walmart is too big and has been for a few years. Which is why it's the absolute last place I will shop at. It's my same view of Microsoft, both companies have gotten big enough that they think normal rules and ethics don't apply to them.
It seems every few months there's another buzz about the next big MMORPG destroying Everquest. This was said about AO, SWG and DAOC and of course WOW. So far, none of EQ's competitors have lived up to the hype. I don't expect WOW to be any different.
There's no need for another MMORPG to come and destroy EverQuest.
SOE is doing quite alright at that already.
Plat duping, rampant farming for real life cash, accounts being traded left and right (again, for cash), no customer service.
Did I forget to mention the ability to change your name for a small fee so you can buy an account, change the name on it, and then pretend it's one that you leveled up?
Or how about that since they made travel completely free that only the highest ZEM zones get played in? Kinda removed the need to explore from EQ, didn't it? Why go visit Lake Rathe or Crypt of Dalnir?
EQ died 2 years ago when the developers came out with Shadows of Luclin and started catering soley to the power-gamers and e-bayers.
I have a JVC MP3/CD player that I put in my car back in 2001. Probably the best investment I've ever made with regards to enjoyment value (worked perfectly on my two-week road trip). Easy to change CDs if you want different music and each CD holds 6-10 hours worth. I probably carry 400 hours worth of music in the car (10 CDs up on the visor, another 40 in a pair of thin nyoprolene(?) CD cases).
DVD-R would be very nice, then I could have a real 1980s disc rather then randomly spreading my misc 80s track across multiple CDs. Would also be easier to package together a bunch of the two-hour radio mix MP3s that I have rather then only fitting 4-5 on a CD-R.
I have toyed with the idea of using an iPod or mini iPod hooked up to the aux connector... but that would mean another doodad in the passenger compartment. With yet another cable (already have to hook up my cellphone to a hands-free adapter).
Maybe if I drove more, or took mass transit, or had to go to an office where I'd listen to my iPod during the day. Just can't quite convince myself it's worth the price of the iPod (or something else) for only a few hours of use per month.
And, as usual for Sony, it will be 5 years too late to do any good.
MD was definitely cheap enough to take on the floppy disc and win... all Sony had to do was liberal licensing of the MD drives and removal of the DRM.
I have exactly (2) Sony products in the house, my 20-month old DVD writer for the PC and a cheap-o Sony DVD player. Every other piece of A/V gear in the house is made by other companies (usually Toshiba).
I've been reading Sci-Fi for almost as long... (25 years or so).
Stephenson has great ideas, and I really *wanted* to like Snow Crash, but his execution was deeply flawed.
Plot holes, missing character development so we give a darn about them. Case in point would be Uncle Enzo who goes viet-ninja at the end against the bad dude with the bamboo spears. (After being nothing more then a shadowy underworld figure for 3/4 of the book.)
Snow Crash was a B- book, ol' E.E. "Doc" Smith was a more enjoyable read.
Assisted by his Magic Blue Glowy Thing from ThinkGeek that exposes all evidence.
Wait, I saw that on the show, Las Vegas, last week.
Now, if you've never seen the show, let's just say that they rely on a lot of "magic" technology. Such as surveilance cameras that can change frequency on the fly ("hey, let me see that in infrared, now ultraviolet") or surveilance tapes that let you zoom in and pan the camera around during playback.
Last week, they showed off a new toy. A magic "blue glowy thing", but this one had new features! Picture 6 pen-sized lasers strapped to the side of the pistol-shaped (okay, hair-dryer sized) device. You point it at a wall and not only do you get a funky blue glow, but you also have 6 red dots on the wall.
Seriously? I only watch the show for the eye-candy.
The female eye-candy... because the tech eye-candy is complete fantasy.
Oh, then there was the chip that could "decrypt anything" hooked up to a USB token.
(Crossing Jordan is another show that uses a lot of "magic" technology... usually it's Nigel playing around with sounds or images. Last week it was Nigel pulling frames off of shattered DVD disc, of which he only had 1/4 of the disc.)
That was always my impression too of the entire "UDC" sector. And if your product is too difficult to explain to the average manager, it's simply not going to sell.
(My personal, mostly uninformed, take on it is that it was a way to lock customers in to HP-only solutions while sounding "open". IOW, same wolf in a different set of sheep skins.)
Kinda loses it's impact when you're hidden away in a basement room without windows. (Part of the idea is the humiliation aspect, which is why they get stationed in a high traffic area.)
Because it makes it easier to get funding, or power, or to push through a particular measure with some nasty rider clauses because it's "for the children".
Politicians, always eager to find another button to push, have siezed quite firmly on the idea that they can get their pet projects approved by calling them anti-terrorism projects. Which, of course, doesn't work if there's no terrorism to fight!
The media likes to push everything into the terrorism category because it sells well.
My last DVD+-RW drive was a dual layer NEC for $80... even though I have yet to buy a single piece of media.
Drive prices are fine, worth the *minor* cost differential for future proofing them for 12-18 months. Media prices still suck, even worse if you're buying inkjet printable.
Be careful with motherboard sizes, only the MSI looks like it's a true ATX motherboard (no larger then 12" x 9.6").
This problem will popup and bite you with some of the newer ATX cases where the hard drives are turned 90-degrees (Antec p160) or cases with a motherboard tray.
The Antec Sonata case does not have a MB tray, looks like it could hold a 10" board, but might prevent you from using the 3rd (lowest) 5.25" bay.
Do either the Thunder K8W or the MSI board fit within a 12" x 9.6" area? Or are they simply EATX boards mislabeled? (The ATX spec is 12x9.6, no larger... a lot of dual-opteron "ATX" boards are 10", 10.5" 11" deep, which won't fit some of the Antec cases.)
As a result, we might go dual-Xeon since those boards are up to an inch smaller.
Are modern games that much better? In my opinion, no. I think this is a major part of the sentiment here: software has become less efficient and some people don't like the stress on their wallets that comes with keeping up the hardware for these bloated, overtaxing games and operating systems.
Yes they are. We're talking 4x-8x the resolution (heck, some older FPS ran at 320x240 compared to 1280x1024 which is standard today).
Levels are also a lot larger, and unless you want them to look blocky and pixelated, that requires high res textures and lots and lots and *lots* of polygons/triangles.
Older games typically had very tiny levels, where you couldn't see too far and the designers were careful to control what you could see at any spot on the map. Newer FPS games have much larger maps, with grand vistas and the ability to see huge numbers of polygons.
(Personally, I never buy a graphics card that is less then 18-24 months old... combined with a price limit of $200. I find that hits the sweet spot of price/performance, but you can also do well buying 24-30 months after product introduction and sticking with the sub-$150 cards.)
1400x1050 14" LCDs are around 127ppi (at least, the last time that I measured it to tell Firefox about it).
I've had my Toshiba for 2 or 3 years now and we refuse to buy the regular XGA displays.
Amazing how many websites still specify font sizes in pixels (6 pixels tall is *tiny* on a 127ppi display). Fortunately, Mozilla/Firefox allow me to specify a minimum font size (I think I use 14 or 18 pixels).
With high pixel densities, it will become much harder to see stuck pixels.
Which might result in lower prices for LCDs, since a few stuck pixels wouldn't be the huge flaw that they are on a 96ppi monitor.
And if you ever use a 127ppi LCD (14" 1400x1050) for an extended period of time, you'll get a feel for just how low-res 96ppi is. The more pixels you have, the crisper text gets, which makes it much easier to read.
Not a bad idea, but laptops don't like to be left on 24 hours a day. I would know. I have a dell inspiron 8200 and I keep this thing running all the time.
Eh? What are you doing to that poor thing?
My laptop is in use 12-16 hours per day and I reboot about every 2-3 weeks. Never powered off, just have it set to blank the screen after a few minutes of inactivity. This is with WindowsXP Pro (on a Toshiba Tecra 9100 with 1GB RAM).
If you're killing hard drives, I wonder whether you don't have enough memory. (Excessive swapping will surely kill drives.)
You mean like how DVDs hardly sold at all until CSS was cracked?
Can't really compare DVD vs CD anymore.
Price: CDs are still mostly in the $15-$18 range, while DVDs are falling to the $9-$12 range.
Usage: Movies are often rented for a buck or four and watched once, maybe twice. Music isn't really a rentable item as people like to listen to it over and over and over. The mode of usage is also completely different. A movie is something that you sit down and watch with 90+% of your attention. Very few people sit down in the middle of their living room floor and listen to a music CD with all their attention.
Size: Data for a CD is either 75MB (MP3s) or 650MB (CD audio). DVDs can be packed down to 1GB (DivX/XVid) or the original material is 6-12GB.
Broadband: MP3s are quick over even ISDN lines (less then an hour to transfer an album, now less then 5 minutes). DivX/XVid rips require at least 2 hours and you don't get the extra features of the DVD.
Features: DVDs come with all sorts of cool extras that appeal to most folks (chapter skipping, subtitles, extra features). CDs are simply CDs. Yes, there are advanced formats which try to include music videos and other stuff. But they miss the point. People want simplicity when it comes to music. Regular CDs allow them to use it everywhere, no muss, no fuss.
Quality: DVDs are a lot better quality then VHS. They don't wear out like VHS. People have swallowed the marketing folks saying that DVD discs are durable. (If they were in a hard shell, I'd agree... right now they're pretty fragile.)
RIAA needs to realize that people want inexpensive music that is *portable*. Meaning that they can move it from any device to any device that they own without worrying about compatibility. That pretty much means MP3 and not some proprietary junk. Every electronics device (for the most part) supports MP3 now.
Contrast this with some people I know who don't realize that they can bookmark things; they use Google to find everything. Want to go to www.espn.com? Go to Google and type "ESPN"! Want to read The Onion? Go to Google and type "The Onion"!
If you're using multiple computers, it can be easier to do it this way because there's no *simple* method.
(I use My Yahoo! to store some of my bookmarks. It would be nice if Firefox/Mozilla would be easier at storing my bookmarks / preferences on a USB key or in a home directory. If you're using two machines at the same time, you can't open both up using the same profile.)
But if someone else wants to do the work, then the "evil" is in trying to stop them.
That depends on who ends up bearing the support costs...
If Apple gets stuck with the brunt of the effort to market the iPod, deal with customer support calls, and other issues... then the "someone else" is a parasite and Apple *should* stop them. There's nothing evil about ejecting a "free rider" who's trying to ride your coat tails if they're costing you money by the way they've structured their business.
Here's how it works... Mozilla will use up all memory that you give it. Seems to be coded to use up to 1/3 of physical memory.
Back when I had 512MB on this machine, it would limit itself to 175-200MB. Then I added another 256MB... Mozilla proceeded to gobble up 300MB.
Just dropped in *another* 256MB (now have 1GB). Mozilla now regularly eats up 400-450MB if I have multiple browser windows open with multiple tabs. Especially if I use it for a few days (I reboot about every two weeks on this WinXP box).
Slashdot Mirror
Back when I traveled at least once a month, I used my PDA extensively. In fact, I got a cell phone with the PalmOS built-in because of how much I used my PDA and cell phone (one gadget was better then two, even if the Kyocera was a bit bulky).
I even carried a Toshiba Tecra laptop on those trips, yet still found it easier to carry and use a PDA (expense tracking, addresses, calendar, task list, entry app for Quicken, some light reading, maybe the latest news stories via AvantGo, plus train/subway/bus schedules and routes). After all, I can pull the PDA/phone out while standing waiting for the train on the platform... which is kinda tough to do with a laptop. One of the key things was that I needed quick (less then a minute) access to information while using mass transit (where I wasn't driving).
However, unless you're good at using a Daytimer / Franklin Planner, don't expect to get much use out of a PDA. On the flip side, if you do own a PDA, get a book about the Franklin-Covey or Daytimer system. The real trick with a PDA is to use it for more then just address/task/calendar, otherwise you may as well use whatever is built into most cell phones.
PDAs are a niche market... people who are highly organized, but don't always want to carry around a full-fledged laptop (or find that it's not always convenient to pull out a laptop when you're in the back of a cab with 2 other people).
I don't have an iPod either, but it has a *very good* word-of-mouth reputation. Key things for me is the fact that it plays MP3 files (which Sony's player doesn't do), sure it's tiny - but it's the slimness of the unit that matters (other players are triangular shaped, or boxy, or just downright thick), the UI is rumored to be better then most (important if I need to use it when I can't stare at the screen).
However, I listen to 90% of my music at home... so a simple network share and WinAmp meets those needs. In the car I have a CD deck that plays MP3 files, and for the rare business trip I have a portable mini-CD player that playes MP3s.
I haven't quite convinced myself that it's worth $300-$400 for something that I would only use 10% of the time. But if I started commuting to work again and listening to music in an office environment, the iPod would be definitely #1 on my list.
The one thing that bugs me the most about the digital enhancements to Episode IV is the Alderaan and Death Star explosions. That damn ring effect bugs me to no end.
You're not the only one... the ring effect would've been really cool *if* it was aligned with the equator of the deathstar. Then, at least, it would've looked like it was energy escaping along the "weak point" due to that indentation running around the equator. Instead, it looks like it was just randomly tacked onto the film just because it looked cool.
But Lucas is a hack and can't leave well enough alone... that, or every time he reviews something for approval he's stoned out of his mind.
In a small town store, the profit stays in the town. Wal*mart's profits get shipped off to Arkansas(yes?), maybe even off-shore.
The outlook on employees is also entirely different in a small business versus a large corporation. Walmart looks at employees as an expense, and every single employee (except for those with political connections) are expendable on a whim and replaceable.
Getting good service at Walmart is hit-or-miss, nobody there really gives a darn because you're just one customer out of a few thousand and there's more where you came from. A mom-n-pop business has to take a completely different view because every customer is a higher portion of their overall clientelle.
The bigger the store is, the less leverage that individual customers and employees have over it.
Is that a good thing? Are the lower prices really worth making Walmart bigger?
I think Walmart is too big and has been for a few years. Which is why it's the absolute last place I will shop at. It's my same view of Microsoft, both companies have gotten big enough that they think normal rules and ethics don't apply to them.
It seems every few months there's another buzz about the next big MMORPG destroying Everquest. This was said about AO, SWG and DAOC and of course WOW. So far, none of EQ's competitors have lived up to the hype. I don't expect WOW to be any different.
There's no need for another MMORPG to come and destroy EverQuest.
SOE is doing quite alright at that already.
Plat duping, rampant farming for real life cash, accounts being traded left and right (again, for cash), no customer service.
Did I forget to mention the ability to change your name for a small fee so you can buy an account, change the name on it, and then pretend it's one that you leveled up?
Or how about that since they made travel completely free that only the highest ZEM zones get played in? Kinda removed the need to explore from EQ, didn't it? Why go visit Lake Rathe or Crypt of Dalnir?
EQ died 2 years ago when the developers came out with Shadows of Luclin and started catering soley to the power-gamers and e-bayers.
Your wish list is a lot like mine.
I have a JVC MP3/CD player that I put in my car back in 2001. Probably the best investment I've ever made with regards to enjoyment value (worked perfectly on my two-week road trip). Easy to change CDs if you want different music and each CD holds 6-10 hours worth. I probably carry 400 hours worth of music in the car (10 CDs up on the visor, another 40 in a pair of thin nyoprolene(?) CD cases).
DVD-R would be very nice, then I could have a real 1980s disc rather then randomly spreading my misc 80s track across multiple CDs. Would also be easier to package together a bunch of the two-hour radio mix MP3s that I have rather then only fitting 4-5 on a CD-R.
I have toyed with the idea of using an iPod or mini iPod hooked up to the aux connector... but that would mean another doodad in the passenger compartment. With yet another cable (already have to hook up my cellphone to a hands-free adapter).
Maybe if I drove more, or took mass transit, or had to go to an office where I'd listen to my iPod during the day. Just can't quite convince myself it's worth the price of the iPod (or something else) for only a few hours of use per month.
And, as usual for Sony, it will be 5 years too late to do any good.
MD was definitely cheap enough to take on the floppy disc and win... all Sony had to do was liberal licensing of the MD drives and removal of the DRM.
I have exactly (2) Sony products in the house, my 20-month old DVD writer for the PC and a cheap-o Sony DVD player. Every other piece of A/V gear in the house is made by other companies (usually Toshiba).
My Sony DRU-500A is still going strong and I've owned it for around 18-20 months now... probably burned close to 400 or 600 DVDs by now with it.
Had a lot of problems with it early on until they patched up the firmware and Roxio got their act together (combined with better media).
I've been reading Sci-Fi for almost as long... (25 years or so).
Stephenson has great ideas, and I really *wanted* to like Snow Crash, but his execution was deeply flawed.
Plot holes, missing character development so we give a darn about them. Case in point would be Uncle Enzo who goes viet-ninja at the end against the bad dude with the bamboo spears. (After being nothing more then a shadowy underworld figure for 3/4 of the book.)
Snow Crash was a B- book, ol' E.E. "Doc" Smith was a more enjoyable read.
Assisted by his Magic Blue Glowy Thing from ThinkGeek that exposes all evidence.
/em dons a curmudgeonly air.
Wait, I saw that on the show, Las Vegas, last week.
Now, if you've never seen the show, let's just say that they rely on a lot of "magic" technology. Such as surveilance cameras that can change frequency on the fly ("hey, let me see that in infrared, now ultraviolet") or surveilance tapes that let you zoom in and pan the camera around during playback.
Last week, they showed off a new toy. A magic "blue glowy thing", but this one had new features! Picture 6 pen-sized lasers strapped to the side of the pistol-shaped (okay, hair-dryer sized) device. You point it at a wall and not only do you get a funky blue glow, but you also have 6 red dots on the wall.
Seriously? I only watch the show for the eye-candy.
The female eye-candy... because the tech eye-candy is complete fantasy.
Oh, then there was the chip that could "decrypt anything" hooked up to a USB token.
(Crossing Jordan is another show that uses a lot of "magic" technology... usually it's Nigel playing around with sounds or images. Last week it was Nigel pulling frames off of shattered DVD disc, of which he only had 1/4 of the disc.)
Darn tech noobs...
Our aunt brought us a little pebble of pumice with those little plastic eyes glued to it.
/shrug (the 80s were just plain weird)
The whole thing was attached to a card, with something along the lines of "I'm a little orphan pebble and my name is...".
That was always my impression too of the entire "UDC" sector. And if your product is too difficult to explain to the average manager, it's simply not going to sell.
(My personal, mostly uninformed, take on it is that it was a way to lock customers in to HP-only solutions while sounding "open". IOW, same wolf in a different set of sheep skins.)
Kinda loses it's impact when you're hidden away in a basement room without windows. (Part of the idea is the humiliation aspect, which is why they get stationed in a high traffic area.)
Why lower the bar so much?
Because it makes it easier to get funding, or power, or to push through a particular measure with some nasty rider clauses because it's "for the children".
Politicians, always eager to find another button to push, have siezed quite firmly on the idea that they can get their pet projects approved by calling them anti-terrorism projects. Which, of course, doesn't work if there's no terrorism to fight!
The media likes to push everything into the terrorism category because it sells well.
My last DVD+-RW drive was a dual layer NEC for $80... even though I have yet to buy a single piece of media.
Drive prices are fine, worth the *minor* cost differential for future proofing them for 12-18 months. Media prices still suck, even worse if you're buying inkjet printable.
Be careful with motherboard sizes, only the MSI looks like it's a true ATX motherboard (no larger then 12" x 9.6").
This problem will popup and bite you with some of the newer ATX cases where the hard drives are turned 90-degrees (Antec p160) or cases with a motherboard tray.
The Antec Sonata case does not have a MB tray, looks like it could hold a 10" board, but might prevent you from using the 3rd (lowest) 5.25" bay.
Do either the Thunder K8W or the MSI board fit within a 12" x 9.6" area? Or are they simply EATX boards mislabeled? (The ATX spec is 12x9.6, no larger... a lot of dual-opteron "ATX" boards are 10", 10.5" 11" deep, which won't fit some of the Antec cases.)
As a result, we might go dual-Xeon since those boards are up to an inch smaller.
Are modern games that much better? In my opinion, no. I think this is a major part of the sentiment here: software has become less efficient and some people don't like the stress on their wallets that comes with keeping up the hardware for these bloated, overtaxing games and operating systems.
Yes they are. We're talking 4x-8x the resolution (heck, some older FPS ran at 320x240 compared to 1280x1024 which is standard today).
Levels are also a lot larger, and unless you want them to look blocky and pixelated, that requires high res textures and lots and lots and *lots* of polygons/triangles.
Older games typically had very tiny levels, where you couldn't see too far and the designers were careful to control what you could see at any spot on the map. Newer FPS games have much larger maps, with grand vistas and the ability to see huge numbers of polygons.
(Personally, I never buy a graphics card that is less then 18-24 months old... combined with a price limit of $200. I find that hits the sweet spot of price/performance, but you can also do well buying 24-30 months after product introduction and sticking with the sub-$150 cards.)
1400x1050 14" LCDs are around 127ppi (at least, the last time that I measured it to tell Firefox about it).
I've had my Toshiba for 2 or 3 years now and we refuse to buy the regular XGA displays.
Amazing how many websites still specify font sizes in pixels (6 pixels tall is *tiny* on a 127ppi display). Fortunately, Mozilla/Firefox allow me to specify a minimum font size (I think I use 14 or 18 pixels).
With high pixel densities, it will become much harder to see stuck pixels.
Which might result in lower prices for LCDs, since a few stuck pixels wouldn't be the huge flaw that they are on a 96ppi monitor.
And if you ever use a 127ppi LCD (14" 1400x1050) for an extended period of time, you'll get a feel for just how low-res 96ppi is. The more pixels you have, the crisper text gets, which makes it much easier to read.
(Wish I could afford a 200ppi display...)
Not a bad idea, but laptops don't like to be left on 24 hours a day. I would know. I have a dell inspiron 8200 and I keep this thing running all the time.
Eh? What are you doing to that poor thing?
My laptop is in use 12-16 hours per day and I reboot about every 2-3 weeks. Never powered off, just have it set to blank the screen after a few minutes of inactivity. This is with WindowsXP Pro (on a Toshiba Tecra 9100 with 1GB RAM).
If you're killing hard drives, I wonder whether you don't have enough memory. (Excessive swapping will surely kill drives.)
You mean like how DVDs hardly sold at all until CSS was cracked?
Can't really compare DVD vs CD anymore.
Price: CDs are still mostly in the $15-$18 range, while DVDs are falling to the $9-$12 range.
Usage: Movies are often rented for a buck or four and watched once, maybe twice. Music isn't really a rentable item as people like to listen to it over and over and over. The mode of usage is also completely different. A movie is something that you sit down and watch with 90+% of your attention. Very few people sit down in the middle of their living room floor and listen to a music CD with all their attention.
Size: Data for a CD is either 75MB (MP3s) or 650MB (CD audio). DVDs can be packed down to 1GB (DivX/XVid) or the original material is 6-12GB.
Broadband: MP3s are quick over even ISDN lines (less then an hour to transfer an album, now less then 5 minutes). DivX/XVid rips require at least 2 hours and you don't get the extra features of the DVD.
Features: DVDs come with all sorts of cool extras that appeal to most folks (chapter skipping, subtitles, extra features). CDs are simply CDs. Yes, there are advanced formats which try to include music videos and other stuff. But they miss the point. People want simplicity when it comes to music. Regular CDs allow them to use it everywhere, no muss, no fuss.
Quality: DVDs are a lot better quality then VHS. They don't wear out like VHS. People have swallowed the marketing folks saying that DVD discs are durable. (If they were in a hard shell, I'd agree... right now they're pretty fragile.)
RIAA needs to realize that people want inexpensive music that is *portable*. Meaning that they can move it from any device to any device that they own without worrying about compatibility. That pretty much means MP3 and not some proprietary junk. Every electronics device (for the most part) supports MP3 now.
Contrast this with some people I know who don't realize that they can bookmark things; they use Google to find everything. Want to go to www.espn.com? Go to Google and type "ESPN"! Want to read The Onion? Go to Google and type "The Onion"!
If you're using multiple computers, it can be easier to do it this way because there's no *simple* method.
(I use My Yahoo! to store some of my bookmarks. It would be nice if Firefox/Mozilla would be easier at storing my bookmarks / preferences on a USB key or in a home directory. If you're using two machines at the same time, you can't open both up using the same profile.)
But if someone else wants to do the work, then the "evil" is in trying to stop them.
That depends on who ends up bearing the support costs...
If Apple gets stuck with the brunt of the effort to market the iPod, deal with customer support calls, and other issues... then the "someone else" is a parasite and Apple *should* stop them. There's nothing evil about ejecting a "free rider" who's trying to ride your coat tails if they're costing you money by the way they've structured their business.
Have they fixed the memory hog bug yet?
Here's how it works... Mozilla will use up all memory that you give it. Seems to be coded to use up to 1/3 of physical memory.
Back when I had 512MB on this machine, it would limit itself to 175-200MB. Then I added another 256MB... Mozilla proceeded to gobble up 300MB.
Just dropped in *another* 256MB (now have 1GB). Mozilla now regularly eats up 400-450MB if I have multiple browser windows open with multiple tabs. Especially if I use it for a few days (I reboot about every two weeks on this WinXP box).
Horrid, piggish behavior.