I've always wondered what the "bike to work" crowd does when it's very hot outside. I'd imagine you work up a pretty good sweat biking 4 miles in 90+ degree heat. Some offices have showers, most don't.
Arizona's Curt Schilling has been the most vocal of the players that are against the QuesTec system. Schilling was fined $15k a few weeks ago for smashing one of these systems. His main complaint is that these systems are not in all ballparks, only installed in 13. Elite pitchers such as Schilling thrive by knowing the tendencies of not only every batter but also every umpire. I'm sure the same is true for the batter as well, knowing not only a pitcher's tendencies but also how an umpire calls a game. The umpires now are not being consistent, what a single umpire might call a strike in a non-QuesTec ballpark might not be a strike with QuesTec watching. Schilling even said that he had an umpire tell him prior to a game that he was "on the computer" tonight, which to Schilling meant that the umpire would be calling the game differently than normal. Sure, these points would be moot if all umpires called identical strike zones. But the reality is that they don't all call the same strike zones, and now even the same umpire isn't calling the same strike zone from ballpark to ballpark, and Schilling claims that it is affecting the game.
I'm sure most people familiar with this product aren't surprised that Apple took this route. This company should've taken a different strategy and market this as a PPC box that could run Linux and then leak to Mac sites that this could also run Mac OS.
Ugh. I can't think of anything more disgusting than handling something that is guaranteed to have been in the possession of someone clutching their own genitals.
I take it you're typing this from inside a public restroom, too afraid to touch the door-handle to leave?
With a reasonable online presence, which Wal-Mart doesn't have.
They don't? Walmart.com is as functional as Amazon.com or just about any B&M retailer with an online presence. Heck, this DVD rental service is already available on Walmart.com.
Every buy anything from Wal-Mart? OK, Ever buy anything from Wal-Mart online?
Yes, and yes. What's your point? Shopping at walmart.com was as easy as shopping at any other online retailer.
I'm not a big fan of Walmart or their business practices, and their online presence might not be the behemoth that their B&M operations are. But they are the quinissential thousand-pound gorilla, and if they ever decide to focus on marketing their online presence, they'll be very successful. This DVD service might just be the push they need to get the necessary attention.
I definitely second your opinion that the G3 is a great processor for portables. My 12" iBook replaced a 12" Dell, and the iBook is not only a much more durable and solid-feeling laptop, it's much quieter than the Dell and stays very cool after hours of use, unlike the Dell which I could barely keep on my lap after a half hour.
I, on the other hand, purchased a 700Mhz G3 iBook several months ago as my first ever Mac, mostly to play with OS X, and thought that it was such a great machine that I also switched my desktop to a Power Mac. The G3 may be a little light on horsepower for apps such as iMovie and maybe even iPhoto, but it's a great little machine for surfing, word processor use, and yes, even iTunes rocks on it.
I've been using the B&W Sidekick since the day TMobile released it. It's a great little device, but there are a few areas where it is really lacking (as some others have mentioned).
Cons -The phone is still awkward to use after 8+ months of use, and the audio quality of the phone is pretty poor. -The lack of Outlook synching is a major negative for me and I'm sure many other business users. Danger seems to be of the opinion that this device is for kids and hip twentysomethings that don't use corporate email. -T-Mobile's network coverage really sucks even in areas where they supposedly offer solid coverage. It's funny that most of the time I can maintain a solid signal at home or at the office, but almost 20% of the time I get no signal in these exact same places. -The devices are very fragile. I'm on my third unit. The first had a major screen crack within a week of purchase even with no drops. The second just inexplicably lost receiving ability and had to be replaced. -Too bulky to be pocketable. This one isn't a big deal to me, but it is quite thick for pocket carrying, and there is a real lack of beltable carrying cases on the market. -No email filtering. My Sidekick access multiple POP3 accounts, and there's no way to separate those into separate folders, they are all just dumped into the Inbox.
Pros -The easiest data entry on a portable device I've used. I've used just about every type of PDA on the market, including the Treo, Clie, and Zaurus with keyboards, and nothing comes close to the Sidekick keyboard. -Web browsing is outstanding. None of the WAP that most portable devices offer, this is a full-fledged browser that works great in most cases. -Portable email works very well. This sort of goes along with the ease of data entry point above, but it's as easy for me to email from my Sidekick as it is from my desk PC. And as long as co-workers don't read email headers, they don't know if I'm at my desk or on the road with my setup. -It's always connected. No need to engage a dial-up connection. Just open the browser and you're pulling down data right away. And email is always-on and checking for new mail. -Very affordable. Comparable hybrid PDA/phone devices are hundreds of dollars more. The B&W model even got below $100 after a few months.
I'm not a heavy phone user, so the Sidekick has worked well for me. I basically view it as a portable communications device rather than a phone or PDA. It's not a great phone, it's not a great PDA, but it is a great all-purpose device. If only they could get Outlook synching to work, I might consider upgrading. As it is, I'll be looking at other devices once my contract runs out.
Just a guess since IANAL, but perhaps it's an interpration of the law that allows law enforcement to seize assets purchased with the proceeds of illegal activity, or the law that allows law enforcement to seize property that is used to commit a crime. In those cases, though, the government takes the property (and later auctions it off), not a private company.
As a follow-up to my own comment, HackHU.com was another very popular site whose domain name DirecTV claimed. If you check this page at HackHU.com, you'll see list of many more hacking sites that DirecTV took
Here is an example of DirecTV taking a "hacking" website's domain name and what they do with it. It has also been rumored in the past that they'll take ownership of some of the hacking hardware sellers' sites and set up their own sting operation, but I personally haven't seen confirmation of that.
Re:will have to be carful
on
TiVo Basic
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· Score: 1
I've found that Season Passes aren't very helpful *IF THE NETWORKS KEEP CANCELLING THE SHOWS YOU LIKE*
Sure it's useful. Where else do you have an easy to see listing of just how stupid the network programming chiefs are?
Interestingly enough, the price on used Macs on Ebay have gone up quite a bit in the past few days since the Store was launched. I was in the market for a lower-end G4 Powermac (the music store was a reason for this purchase, but not the primary reason), and noticed that machines that had been selling in the $400 range were now going for above $500. In looking around at some of the other Mac machines, the price has likewise increase across the OSX-compatible product line.
Surprise surprise! The new store is Mac only... why? Oh that's right; to leverage hardware sales!
So they should give the service away so that Wintel users have a cool, convenient service to use? It's reported that Apple is getting roughly only $.30-$.40 per track, from which they have to pay bandwidth and other related costs. They can essentially write this service off as a marketing tool for the next few months to sell more iPods, iMacs, iBooks, etc. Face it, if they opened this up to Windows users today, most wouldn't buy any Apple hardware and simply use this as a download/burn/rip-to-mp3 service for whatever mp3 player they prefer.
iPod Battery life has gone from 10 hours with the old version to over 8 [apple.com] with the new version. AAC apparently takes more CPU to decode.
The new models are slimmer, the physical size of the battery was likely where the difference came from.
According to the Apple iPod webpage [apple.com], the older Windows iPods appear to not support the AAC upgrade (look under the "High Fidelity" paragraph). Older Mac iPods apparently do support the AAC upgrade.
I'd expect that the AAC support for Windows iPods will come when the service is available for Windows.
To further expound on the original poster's point, if Apple's service is successful, the record company will be the one feeling the pain of the lost revenue from those one-hit albums. The record industry certainly isn't going to take those potential losses sitting down, I'd expect even more aggressive promotion of singles and the accompanying payola to the Clear Channel radio stations, etc. So instead of hearing 5-6 Britney songs from an album before it fades away, expect to hear close to 10 songs so that each single gets maximum publicity. With only so much airtime available, and the big labels pushing more songs from their big acts, that leaves even less airtime for lesser-knowns, if such an artist even exists on pop radio stations today.
I can't find it in the article, I'll read it again, it was probably obvious....Does Apple get a cut of that buck?
I haven't seen a definitive answer anywhere today, even on the financial news sites which is surprising, but an article from last week that was accurate on all of the other details mentioned roughly $.60 of the price would go to the record company and the rest to Apple.
And potentially waste your time. Over the weekend, I downloaded my first full album from Kazaa in awhile while I wait for my legally purchased copy to arrive (no, really). After an hour or so of searching, downloading, cancelling slow/incomplete downloads, finding that a song was mislabeled, re-downloading, etc. I finally had all 14 tracks that I was looking for. I listed to a few of the tunes that I was really interested in, and burned the entire list to CD for roadtrip listening. Turns out that 4 of the tracks were "looped", first 20 or so seconds just repeat for the duration of the track. When I returned home, I fired-up Kazaa to find the complete versions of those tracks. After trial-and-error with 25 downloads, I finally found full versions of 2 of those tracks, but not of the other 2 despite there being at least 50 available downloads of varying file size. In all, I probably wasted 3 hours of near-constant work just to get an almost-complete copy of the CD. Hard telling if I would've actually purchased these tracks via Apple's music store had it been available considering I had already purchased the actual CD (no, really), but I can definitely see me using the service for spur-of-moment purchases and single-track purchases.
Friend of mine lived in an apartment that caught fire. He had a couple of PC's at the time, including a high-end (at the time) 1Ghz Athlon. He and his roommate were able to get most of the valuables out of the place, including the Athlon PC, but most of their possessions were lost. The fire investigator came across the roommate's shotgun (they were hunters) that had a shorter than normal, but legal, barrel. The police were called in, all weapons were confiscated, and amazingly so were the computers. Even if the shotgun were illegal, I still can't figure out what relationship a computer would have to it. Chalk it up to post-Columbine paranoia I suppose, although these guys were in their early 20's. No charges were ever filed, but the computers were never returned despite several iniquiries. The kids were pretty scared after the whole ordeal and never really pursued the matter.
That seems to be the problem with Tivo and ReplayTV.
And you came to this conclusion how? You certainly didn't own either device, or you would've realized that if your Time Warner set-top box is one of the few that isn't supported via direct serial connection to the Tivo/ReplayTV, an IR blaster is included with each device and will support any STB that has an IR remote.
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I've always wondered what the "bike to work" crowd does when it's very hot outside. I'd imagine you work up a pretty good sweat biking 4 miles in 90+ degree heat. Some offices have showers, most don't.
Arizona's Curt Schilling has been the most vocal of the players that are against the QuesTec system. Schilling was fined $15k a few weeks ago for smashing one of these systems. His main complaint is that these systems are not in all ballparks, only installed in 13. Elite pitchers such as Schilling thrive by knowing the tendencies of not only every batter but also every umpire. I'm sure the same is true for the batter as well, knowing not only a pitcher's tendencies but also how an umpire calls a game. The umpires now are not being consistent, what a single umpire might call a strike in a non-QuesTec ballpark might not be a strike with QuesTec watching. Schilling even said that he had an umpire tell him prior to a game that he was "on the computer" tonight, which to Schilling meant that the umpire would be calling the game differently than normal. Sure, these points would be moot if all umpires called identical strike zones. But the reality is that they don't all call the same strike zones, and now even the same umpire isn't calling the same strike zone from ballpark to ballpark, and Schilling claims that it is affecting the game.
CDMA and TDMA phones don't use a SIM card like a GSM phone does, making it much more difficult to change carriers with this type of phone.
I'm sure most people familiar with this product aren't surprised that Apple took this route. This company should've taken a different strategy and market this as a PPC box that could run Linux and then leak to Mac sites that this could also run Mac OS.
I take it you're typing this from inside a public restroom, too afraid to touch the door-handle to leave?
They don't? Walmart.com is as functional as Amazon.com or just about any B&M retailer with an online presence. Heck, this DVD rental service is already available on Walmart.com.
Every buy anything from Wal-Mart? OK, Ever buy anything from Wal-Mart online?
Yes, and yes. What's your point? Shopping at walmart.com was as easy as shopping at any other online retailer.
I'm not a big fan of Walmart or their business practices, and their online presence might not be the behemoth that their B&M operations are. But they are the quinissential thousand-pound gorilla, and if they ever decide to focus on marketing their online presence, they'll be very successful. This DVD service might just be the push they need to get the necessary attention.
Corel Wordperfect
Novell Netware
Two completely separate companies and products.
I definitely second your opinion that the G3 is a great processor for portables. My 12" iBook replaced a 12" Dell, and the iBook is not only a much more durable and solid-feeling laptop, it's much quieter than the Dell and stays very cool after hours of use, unlike the Dell which I could barely keep on my lap after a half hour.
I, on the other hand, purchased a 700Mhz G3 iBook several months ago as my first ever Mac, mostly to play with OS X, and thought that it was such a great machine that I also switched my desktop to a Power Mac. The G3 may be a little light on horsepower for apps such as iMovie and maybe even iPhoto, but it's a great little machine for surfing, word processor use, and yes, even iTunes rocks on it.
Cons
-The phone is still awkward to use after 8+ months of use, and the audio quality of the phone is pretty poor.
-The lack of Outlook synching is a major negative for me and I'm sure many other business users. Danger seems to be of the opinion that this device is for kids and hip twentysomethings that don't use corporate email.
-T-Mobile's network coverage really sucks even in areas where they supposedly offer solid coverage. It's funny that most of the time I can maintain a solid signal at home or at the office, but almost 20% of the time I get no signal in these exact same places.
-The devices are very fragile. I'm on my third unit. The first had a major screen crack within a week of purchase even with no drops. The second just inexplicably lost receiving ability and had to be replaced.
-Too bulky to be pocketable. This one isn't a big deal to me, but it is quite thick for pocket carrying, and there is a real lack of beltable carrying cases on the market.
-No email filtering. My Sidekick access multiple POP3 accounts, and there's no way to separate those into separate folders, they are all just dumped into the Inbox.
Pros
-The easiest data entry on a portable device I've used. I've used just about every type of PDA on the market, including the Treo, Clie, and Zaurus with keyboards, and nothing comes close to the Sidekick keyboard.
-Web browsing is outstanding. None of the WAP that most portable devices offer, this is a full-fledged browser that works great in most cases.
-Portable email works very well. This sort of goes along with the ease of data entry point above, but it's as easy for me to email from my Sidekick as it is from my desk PC. And as long as co-workers don't read email headers, they don't know if I'm at my desk or on the road with my setup.
-It's always connected. No need to engage a dial-up connection. Just open the browser and you're pulling down data right away. And email is always-on and checking for new mail.
-Very affordable. Comparable hybrid PDA/phone devices are hundreds of dollars more. The B&W model even got below $100 after a few months.
I'm not a heavy phone user, so the Sidekick has worked well for me. I basically view it as a portable communications device rather than a phone or PDA. It's not a great phone, it's not a great PDA, but it is a great all-purpose device. If only they could get Outlook synching to work, I might consider upgrading. As it is, I'll be looking at other devices once my contract runs out.
Just a guess since IANAL, but perhaps it's an interpration of the law that allows law enforcement to seize assets purchased with the proceeds of illegal activity, or the law that allows law enforcement to seize property that is used to commit a crime. In those cases, though, the government takes the property (and later auctions it off), not a private company.
As a follow-up to my own comment, HackHU.com was another very popular site whose domain name DirecTV claimed. If you check this page at HackHU.com, you'll see list of many more hacking sites that DirecTV took
Here is an example of DirecTV taking a "hacking" website's domain name and what they do with it. It has also been rumored in the past that they'll take ownership of some of the hacking hardware sellers' sites and set up their own sting operation, but I personally haven't seen confirmation of that.
Sure it's useful. Where else do you have an easy to see listing of just how stupid the network programming chiefs are?
Don't be so sure that you can't record on the new Gen 2 iPod as a LINEIN setting has been discovered in Diagnostic Mode.
Interestingly enough, the price on used Macs on Ebay have gone up quite a bit in the past few days since the Store was launched. I was in the market for a lower-end G4 Powermac (the music store was a reason for this purchase, but not the primary reason), and noticed that machines that had been selling in the $400 range were now going for above $500. In looking around at some of the other Mac machines, the price has likewise increase across the OSX-compatible product line.
So they should give the service away so that Wintel users have a cool, convenient service to use? It's reported that Apple is getting roughly only $.30-$.40 per track, from which they have to pay bandwidth and other related costs. They can essentially write this service off as a marketing tool for the next few months to sell more iPods, iMacs, iBooks, etc. Face it, if they opened this up to Windows users today, most wouldn't buy any Apple hardware and simply use this as a download/burn/rip-to-mp3 service for whatever mp3 player they prefer.
The new models are slimmer, the physical size of the battery was likely where the difference came from.
According to the Apple iPod webpage [apple.com], the older Windows iPods appear to not support the AAC upgrade (look under the "High Fidelity" paragraph). Older Mac iPods apparently do support the AAC upgrade.
I'd expect that the AAC support for Windows iPods will come when the service is available for Windows.
To further expound on the original poster's point, if Apple's service is successful, the record company will be the one feeling the pain of the lost revenue from those one-hit albums. The record industry certainly isn't going to take those potential losses sitting down, I'd expect even more aggressive promotion of singles and the accompanying payola to the Clear Channel radio stations, etc. So instead of hearing 5-6 Britney songs from an album before it fades away, expect to hear close to 10 songs so that each single gets maximum publicity. With only so much airtime available, and the big labels pushing more songs from their big acts, that leaves even less airtime for lesser-knowns, if such an artist even exists on pop radio stations today.
I haven't seen a definitive answer anywhere today, even on the financial news sites which is surprising, but an article from last week that was accurate on all of the other details mentioned roughly $.60 of the price would go to the record company and the rest to Apple.
And potentially waste your time. Over the weekend, I downloaded my first full album from Kazaa in awhile while I wait for my legally purchased copy to arrive (no, really). After an hour or so of searching, downloading, cancelling slow/incomplete downloads, finding that a song was mislabeled, re-downloading, etc. I finally had all 14 tracks that I was looking for. I listed to a few of the tunes that I was really interested in, and burned the entire list to CD for roadtrip listening. Turns out that 4 of the tracks were "looped", first 20 or so seconds just repeat for the duration of the track. When I returned home, I fired-up Kazaa to find the complete versions of those tracks. After trial-and-error with 25 downloads, I finally found full versions of 2 of those tracks, but not of the other 2 despite there being at least 50 available downloads of varying file size. In all, I probably wasted 3 hours of near-constant work just to get an almost-complete copy of the CD. Hard telling if I would've actually purchased these tracks via Apple's music store had it been available considering I had already purchased the actual CD (no, really), but I can definitely see me using the service for spur-of-moment purchases and single-track purchases.
Doubtful on Pearl Jam considering they're in the midst of the east cost/midwest leg of their tour and will be playing Philly on the 28th.
Semi-off-topic story:
Friend of mine lived in an apartment that caught fire. He had a couple of PC's at the time, including a high-end (at the time) 1Ghz Athlon. He and his roommate were able to get most of the valuables out of the place, including the Athlon PC, but most of their possessions were lost. The fire investigator came across the roommate's shotgun (they were hunters) that had a shorter than normal, but legal, barrel. The police were called in, all weapons were confiscated, and amazingly so were the computers. Even if the shotgun were illegal, I still can't figure out what relationship a computer would have to it. Chalk it up to post-Columbine paranoia I suppose, although these guys were in their early 20's. No charges were ever filed, but the computers were never returned despite several iniquiries. The kids were pretty scared after the whole ordeal and never really pursued the matter.
Turner? He can't even scrape up enough cash to buy his beloved Braves back from AOLTW.
And you came to this conclusion how? You certainly didn't own either device, or you would've realized that if your Time Warner set-top box is one of the few that isn't supported via direct serial connection to the Tivo/ReplayTV, an IR blaster is included with each device and will support any STB that has an IR remote.