Keep this sucker cheap. If pro video editors can use a PowerBook without PCI slots, then office workers and other pros can too. At $500 you can't expect upgradeability.
I don't really care about full integrated X11 support. It would eventually be nice but I have a feeling it would take focus away from more important things at Apple. A nice port of Open Office would round out a near perfect software portfolio for Apple and would make their hardware even more attractive.
I'm with you for the most part, but it should be free like Safari. Just a straight port of OpenOffice with OS X widgets would be fine for me. Then the formats get out there and the whole community benefits from Apple's polishing.
Agreed. People are just in the process of buying their DVD collections and big screen TVs. You only spend $10,000 on entertainment upgrades every 10 years or so. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will languish for at least half that and by then we'll probably have a universal media format that beats them both.
A stern talking to by enough people will certainly get Microsoft to change their practices. As soon as the market share starts switching to Mac or Linux they'll be running to fix all the holes. Every extra letter like this just gets us one step closer to better software all-round.
I've owned about 10 portable CD players and a MiniDisc player and the iPod kicks all their asses for sound quality. Even the top of the line Sony Discmans over the years can't compare. Also, in terms of the output, I think it's probably higher than the average which makes it great for better headphones. I have some excellent Beyerdynamic DT531s which it drives wonderfully. In fact, a number of hi-fi reviewers have taken to using the iPod in show demos.
You're right, you won't ever notice the difference with your iPod, certainly with those ear bud headphones but don't insinuate that more resolution doesn't sound better. The truth is that DVD-A and SACD do sound quite a bit better than CD as a format. The actual amount is dependent on how much you want to spend on hardware to play it back. If you play a great SACD on a $20 ghetto blaster, don't expect it to sound any better than an 8-track. But, spend as little as $1000 on a stereo and you will be able to hear the difference. Then you'll start to get out from under the limits of the hardware.
They tend to ignore the possibility of a new format all together. It seems to me that something scalable is the ultimate winner where the original can be really high res like SACD but it can "self-downconvert" depending on the media you put it on. For that matter, there really shouldn't be any difference between video and audio. Like MPEG-4 you should be able to put it on any media and play it in any device.
I bet like Sony has long done, apple will sell an optional remote that is inline with the headphones and will show the song titles. This will clip onto your shirt or sleeve just like you see so many people doing with minidisc players or net walkmans. I still think for this to be realistic though they need another button for "Random" so you can listen to the playlist in order or on shuffle. That's about all the choice someone wants when there's only 20-30 songs on it.
It seems like this could be a really cheap way of giving robots good depth and spatial perception. It would be easy to simply measure the width of the lines vs. time. Certainly for less adventurous tasks like Roomba-ing or accident avoidance in cars this could have some interesting applications.
The whole reason most people concentrate on normal flight is because it distils the problem down to the two basic problems and allows you to find the most efficient solution for both. You need lift and you need forward momentum. With lift, the simplest form is a fixed wing. With motion, an engine is readily at hand.
The problem with recreating bird flight is that it's an exercise in finesse. With flapping, lift and momentum are achieved simultaneously in ONE mechanical motion with very complex real-time correction to keep the desired effect. Technology is really bad at recreating these kind of infinitely variable mechanics. You can start to make the same kind of mechanical movement but the brain that controls the correction is still way off.
Give me a cathedral over a bazaar any day. I can't think of a better situation than having a thoughtful, intelligent leader who considers all the input of the group and then makes moderate suggestions of what should be implemented. Linus is at the top because he's proven that he can make great decisions for such a large project. If he was ever to lose his naturally good judgement, he wouldn't be able to influence the multitudes of developers anyway. I count us as lucky to have him as long as he's willing to help.
Yes, only 6 more versions until it's as good as Photoshop 8.:-) Seriously, have you used the GIMP for real production work? It's not even a close race - Photoshop kills it in just about every way. You have to remember that most pros will never switch until the competitor exceeds the standard by a good measure. There's too much invested in training, legacy files, and workflow. On the other hand, if you look at it in terms of people-who-have-zero-to-ten-dollars to spend on an image manipulation program, it's finally looking like a good deal.
I have a deal with all my friends. If they give up their PC and buy a Mac they get free tech support for life. It works out pretty good for both of us.
Auto-update works a treat for Mac OS X. Of the hundreds of updates there have been I can't think of one that has broken an app or created even the most minor problem. Other people's mileage may vary but that's my experience. Perhaps the closed and predictable architecture?
Why do you need a personal copy of all the music? That's the whole value of a decentralized collection. You can have a terrorist blow up the network or even a good chunk of the nodes but chances are a very large percentage of the actual data will be intact on other nodes. For the first time in history we have a massively redundant warehouse of archived music. As time goes on that archive will slowly improve in quality and scope to naturally approach the full body and fidelity of recorded works. Compare this to the old days when you could have a fire or catastrophic disaster at the record company vault and lose all the original masters forever.
Yes, but does the warming happen from the windmills themselves or are they just considering that whatever we use the energy for will create extra heat/pollution. If it's the latter, then the whole premise is useless. We're going to use the energy anyway, better to get it from a cleaner source. One last idea... if the world is a warmer place, won't that produce more convection/jet stream/wind reducing the need for those environment-destroying windmills?
I own a record store that carries everything from the beginning of recorded music and I can say without a doubt that the quantity of good music created TODAY is more than it has ever been in the past. The problem is that the overall amount of music is exponentially more now than it has been. We find ourselves deluged by an immense amount of shit and so it seems like there's fewer classic albums. Frankly, the average person doesn't have time to listen to everything and find the really good things. Most of the real music lovers who used to filter some of the crap and promote the real quality as A&Rs are long gone. What we really have is MBA's churning out marketable artists with no interest in the music.
There are some good web sites that take up the slack like Pitchfork but the best way to find something current (or old) is to go down to your local independent store and ask them. They're the only ones left who are actively filtering the bad stuff and sharing what they know.
I think that's the sole universal criteria of a bad logo. If you can change the word to another company or anything really and have it fit, it means your logo has no intrinsic meaning. The only way these generic logos attain character is through ruthless repetition which is lame compensation.
iTunes is quickly being overloaded with the movie trailers and now the photo-syncing. It seems logical to change the name of the program to represent something that organizes your iPod files. I can't think of a catchy name right now but something general like iLibrary or iManager will be a better long term move if they want to keep everything together.
I'm not familiar with the iPod headphones but it is true that most all speakers and headphones sound different after 100 hours of hard use compared to when they're new. Like any mechanical part, especially one that has a flexible part, it tends to wear in to it's natural state. This is especially true of metal and composite designs. Usually the characteristics will change from "tinny" or "shrill" to "warm" and "smooth". There are certainly exceptions but after listening to over 25 speakers and quite a few headphones this has been my experience.
I guess I'm talking more about having a social way to do it rather than a technical way. Software is like any other kind of product, yet it has no central standards board or certification process. If the FDA, FCC or CE can regulate their products, it would only be natural to have the OS maker, or a third party at least look at an application to consider if it meets basic consumer standards. Even as I proposed, having a volunteer membership would encourage the standards of the whole group to be improved. Almost all trades have this kind of professional self-regulation because it shows that the members are willing to be responsible for quality.
Application certification could work if it was only a basic certification. Even having apps registered with Apple would be a good deterrent. There wouldn't have to be any code look-over or anything, but if your app wasn't registered and your name and address on file the OS would pop up a second warning whenever a non-certified program asked for root access. I don't think that would be too much of a hindrance to developers if the procedure was just faxing a form and issuing a "license" number for each app. I have no idea of the programming practicality, but it would at least give some warning to the user.
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Keep this sucker cheap. If pro video editors can use a PowerBook without PCI slots, then office workers and other pros can too. At $500 you can't expect upgradeability.
I don't really care about full integrated X11 support. It would eventually be nice but I have a feeling it would take focus away from more important things at Apple. A nice port of Open Office would round out a near perfect software portfolio for Apple and would make their hardware even more attractive.
I'm with you for the most part, but it should be free like Safari. Just a straight port of OpenOffice with OS X widgets would be fine for me. Then the formats get out there and the whole community benefits from Apple's polishing.
Hopefully Apple will adopt this lost child and popularize the world's first open standard for office documents a la USB, FireWire, Rendezvous
Agreed. People are just in the process of buying their DVD collections and big screen TVs. You only spend $10,000 on entertainment upgrades every 10 years or so. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will languish for at least half that and by then we'll probably have a universal media format that beats them both.
A stern talking to by enough people will certainly get Microsoft to change their practices. As soon as the market share starts switching to Mac or Linux they'll be running to fix all the holes. Every extra letter like this just gets us one step closer to better software all-round.
I've owned about 10 portable CD players and a MiniDisc player and the iPod kicks all their asses for sound quality. Even the top of the line Sony Discmans over the years can't compare. Also, in terms of the output, I think it's probably higher than the average which makes it great for better headphones. I have some excellent Beyerdynamic DT531s which it drives wonderfully. In fact, a number of hi-fi reviewers have taken to using the iPod in show demos.
You're right, you won't ever notice the difference with your iPod, certainly with those ear bud headphones but don't insinuate that more resolution doesn't sound better. The truth is that DVD-A and SACD do sound quite a bit better than CD as a format. The actual amount is dependent on how much you want to spend on hardware to play it back. If you play a great SACD on a $20 ghetto blaster, don't expect it to sound any better than an 8-track. But, spend as little as $1000 on a stereo and you will be able to hear the difference. Then you'll start to get out from under the limits of the hardware.
They tend to ignore the possibility of a new format all together. It seems to me that something scalable is the ultimate winner where the original can be really high res like SACD but it can "self-downconvert" depending on the media you put it on. For that matter, there really shouldn't be any difference between video and audio. Like MPEG-4 you should be able to put it on any media and play it in any device.
I bet like Sony has long done, apple will sell an optional remote that is inline with the headphones and will show the song titles. This will clip onto your shirt or sleeve just like you see so many people doing with minidisc players or net walkmans. I still think for this to be realistic though they need another button for "Random" so you can listen to the playlist in order or on shuffle. That's about all the choice someone wants when there's only 20-30 songs on it.
It seems like this could be a really cheap way of giving robots good depth and spatial perception. It would be easy to simply measure the width of the lines vs. time. Certainly for less adventurous tasks like Roomba-ing or accident avoidance in cars this could have some interesting applications.
The whole reason most people concentrate on normal flight is because it distils the problem down to the two basic problems and allows you to find the most efficient solution for both. You need lift and you need forward momentum. With lift, the simplest form is a fixed wing. With motion, an engine is readily at hand.
The problem with recreating bird flight is that it's an exercise in finesse. With flapping, lift and momentum are achieved simultaneously in ONE mechanical motion with very complex real-time correction to keep the desired effect. Technology is really bad at recreating these kind of infinitely variable mechanics. You can start to make the same kind of mechanical movement but the brain that controls the correction is still way off.
The wisest man listens to the advice of a million men to make the best decision.
Give me a cathedral over a bazaar any day. I can't think of a better situation than having a thoughtful, intelligent leader who considers all the input of the group and then makes moderate suggestions of what should be implemented. Linus is at the top because he's proven that he can make great decisions for such a large project. If he was ever to lose his naturally good judgement, he wouldn't be able to influence the multitudes of developers anyway. I count us as lucky to have him as long as he's willing to help.
Yes, only 6 more versions until it's as good as Photoshop 8. :-) Seriously, have you used the GIMP for real production work? It's not even a close race - Photoshop kills it in just about every way. You have to remember that most pros will never switch until the competitor exceeds the standard by a good measure. There's too much invested in training, legacy files, and workflow. On the other hand, if you look at it in terms of people-who-have-zero-to-ten-dollars to spend on an image manipulation program, it's finally looking like a good deal.
I have a deal with all my friends. If they give up their PC and buy a Mac they get free tech support for life. It works out pretty good for both of us.
Auto-update works a treat for Mac OS X. Of the hundreds of updates there have been I can't think of one that has broken an app or created even the most minor problem. Other people's mileage may vary but that's my experience. Perhaps the closed and predictable architecture?
Why do you need a personal copy of all the music? That's the whole value of a decentralized collection. You can have a terrorist blow up the network or even a good chunk of the nodes but chances are a very large percentage of the actual data will be intact on other nodes. For the first time in history we have a massively redundant warehouse of archived music. As time goes on that archive will slowly improve in quality and scope to naturally approach the full body and fidelity of recorded works. Compare this to the old days when you could have a fire or catastrophic disaster at the record company vault and lose all the original masters forever.
Yes, but does the warming happen from the windmills themselves or are they just considering that whatever we use the energy for will create extra heat/pollution. If it's the latter, then the whole premise is useless. We're going to use the energy anyway, better to get it from a cleaner source. One last idea... if the world is a warmer place, won't that produce more convection/jet stream/wind reducing the need for those environment-destroying windmills?
I own a record store that carries everything from the beginning of recorded music and I can say without a doubt that the quantity of good music created TODAY is more than it has ever been in the past. The problem is that the overall amount of music is exponentially more now than it has been. We find ourselves deluged by an immense amount of shit and so it seems like there's fewer classic albums. Frankly, the average person doesn't have time to listen to everything and find the really good things. Most of the real music lovers who used to filter some of the crap and promote the real quality as A&Rs are long gone. What we really have is MBA's churning out marketable artists with no interest in the music.
There are some good web sites that take up the slack like Pitchfork but the best way to find something current (or old) is to go down to your local independent store and ask them. They're the only ones left who are actively filtering the bad stuff and sharing what they know.
I think that's the sole universal criteria of a bad logo. If you can change the word to another company or anything really and have it fit, it means your logo has no intrinsic meaning. The only way these generic logos attain character is through ruthless repetition which is lame compensation.
iTunes is quickly being overloaded with the movie trailers and now the photo-syncing. It seems logical to change the name of the program to represent something that organizes your iPod files. I can't think of a catchy name right now but something general like iLibrary or iManager will be a better long term move if they want to keep everything together.
I'm not familiar with the iPod headphones but it is true that most all speakers and headphones sound different after 100 hours of hard use compared to when they're new. Like any mechanical part, especially one that has a flexible part, it tends to wear in to it's natural state. This is especially true of metal and composite designs. Usually the characteristics will change from "tinny" or "shrill" to "warm" and "smooth". There are certainly exceptions but after listening to over 25 speakers and quite a few headphones this has been my experience.
I guess I'm talking more about having a social way to do it rather than a technical way. Software is like any other kind of product, yet it has no central standards board or certification process. If the FDA, FCC or CE can regulate their products, it would only be natural to have the OS maker, or a third party at least look at an application to consider if it meets basic consumer standards. Even as I proposed, having a volunteer membership would encourage the standards of the whole group to be improved. Almost all trades have this kind of professional self-regulation because it shows that the members are willing to be responsible for quality.
Application certification could work if it was only a basic certification. Even having apps registered with Apple would be a good deterrent. There wouldn't have to be any code look-over or anything, but if your app wasn't registered and your name and address on file the OS would pop up a second warning whenever a non-certified program asked for root access. I don't think that would be too much of a hindrance to developers if the procedure was just faxing a form and issuing a "license" number for each app. I have no idea of the programming practicality, but it would at least give some warning to the user.