Yes, you're right, I realized it was Cablevision after I posted but didn't want to make another post to correct myself. And I agree, it is a very bad idea for Cablevision to take on the sort of long-term debt that getting into the satellite business would bring.
to make this go in a revised plan, the two conspirators are proposing that directtv sell enough satellite orbital slots before jan 21 to enable a competitor to come about
Actually, everything I read made it sound like they had to have their revised plan in before the FCC voted, and the companies had just this week asked the FCC to delay the vote while they presented a revised plan, which the FCC did not do. I think this vote effectively kills this merger, and I really see GM selling Hughes/DirecTV off to the highest bidder at this point. Rupert Murdoch fought vigorously to prevent this merger, so I'd be surprised if someone besides Murdoch ends up with DirecTV.
The revised deal that Dish/Hughes was basically an offer to create/improve other satellite competitors since the FCC's major problem was that this merger essentially created a satellite monopoly. The first part of the plan was to lease space on their spectrum to Comcast, who is starting their own satellite service. Comcast has the spectrum to offer satellite service everywhere in the US except for the West Coast, and Dish/DirecTV would've provided them with the necessary spectrum to offer nationwide service as well as the ability to offer more channels. The second part of the plan was to offer other companies the ability to resell and bill for DirecTV/Dish service, similar to what DirecTV currently does with Pegasus in certain parts of the country.
Actually I picked-up an All-In-Wonder awhile back to move TiVo recordings to CDRW and checked out the recording capabilities, guide, and such. It was a decent setup, but can't touch the TiVo in terms of functionality and ease of use. I also beta-tested Microsoft's Media Center PC (or whatever they're calling it this week), which I found even more impressive than the All-In-Wonder, although it's going to be way overpriced and is still way behind TiVo. Lastly, I have done quite a bit of research myself on HTPC since I have an HDTV-ready set but no way to record HD programming without an HTPC, so I would think that I do have some basis for my comparisons.
Grab an ATI TV-Wonder VE for $40 and you'll get about 90% of Tivo's functionality.
If you consider 90% of TiVo's functionality to solely be the ability to record video, then you're correct, but you're also misinformed. I just love these TiVo threads where 75% of the posts are people saying that a PC can do the same thing, yet these people usually have never used a TiVo.
I just received a notice that DirecTV will be taking over the TiVo service for my unit. They also mentioned that the graphics will change on the interface, but none of the functionality. Does anyone know more about this?
Yes, this is true. DirecTV is going to be handling all of the billing for the combo DirecTiVo boxes, and the graphical changes you mention will basically remove the TiVo name and logo from the menus. The good news is that DirecTV will be charging less for the TiVo service now, $4.99/month as opposed to $9.99/month. DirecTV has essentially licensed the TiVo software and service, which is how TiVo hopes to make money from here on and has been their plan on how to do business once they had a somewhat established base market. There are many posts above saying that TiVo will die because cable companies, etc. will offer their own product. TiVo's hope is that the cable companies will license the TiVo software and service for their set-top boxes.
Don't they want to sell as much service as possible?
They don't necessarily want to sell as much service as possible, they want to make as much money from selling their services as possible. The Sidekick is being marketed mostly to non-corporate types, ie. geeks, teens, and college students. The Treo is marketed to corporate-types and road warriors, usually people whose company is picking up the tab. Thus T-Mobile has decided that they can get $40/month for unlimited Sidekick service from people that probably wouldn't be paying much for data service otherwise, whereas they're likely getting much more than that from people using the Treo and other data devices.
To give you an example, my company recently purchased a couple of SprintPCS 3G PCMCIA cards and isn't batting an eye that they'll likely be paying several hundred dollars per month for each card so that executives can have email access at any time when on the road. Don't get me wrong, I bet T-Mobile and the other wireless carriers would sell a heck of a lot of unlimited data plans, but they probably wouldn't make as much money as they do now by having caps for the high-usage corporate customers.
From what I've heard, the SIM used in the Sidekick can only be used in a Sidekick. Sorry, can't offer much proof on this, but it does make sense for TMobile to do this to prevent people from getting unlimited data on non-Sidekick devices.
Some of them (Kyocera) are in the same price range
Perhaps the 6035 is in the same price range, but only because it's been discontinued for a few months now. The 6035 is also grayscale. You also cannot get unlimited data with the 6035. The Samsung i300 is color, but it's also over $350, isn't available with unlimited data, and Samsung has yet to release the SDK for it. The PalmOS devices that best compare to the Sidekick are the Treo's because they offer full-text keyboards. But, yet again, they don't come with unlimited data plans, and the only Treo that is in the same price-range as the Sidekick is grayscale. I've used several different combo phone/PDA units, and each is going to have several pros and a cons. I've yet to see even anything coming in the next year or so that will be the "killer" combo unit, although a few like the upcoming Samsung i500 and Kyocera 7135 "flip" Palm units as well as the Sony/Ericsson P800 unit are interesting.
I've not seen many laptops that would make a good HTPC. A desktop PC with AGP and PCI ports is just more flexible for this type of thing and likely cheaper too, although the cost gap is probably a lot closer in this case with the added LCD display.
DirecTV recently lowered the price of their TiVo service to $4.95/month, and it's free if you have their Platinum package. Keep in mind that the Series 1 DirecTiVo's are difficult to come by, especially if you're already a DirecTV subscriber, but the Series 2 are due out in October.
I used a standalone TiVo for a year with DirecTV, but switched to the DirecTiVo box once the dual-tuners were enabled. If you thought a TiVo changed the way you watch TV, the DirecTiVo takes it to another level. This is the first fall that we haven't become upset over the networks' habits of scheduling all of the "good shows" at the same time. With 2 dual-tuner DirecTiVo's, we don't have any more conflicts!
It's an image ploy. It's kinda like offering "Shindler's List" without commercials a couple of years ago. Everyone thinks they're a nice network...so they're more likely to watch in the future.
I second the above request for a FAQ. I've been doing something similar on a Win32 platform without the spam-filtering portion since spam-filtering software for Windows servers is very weak.
Danger started releasing info on this device last year, and they've had nothing but delays since. It looked like a very promising device at the time, but it has been caught and passed by other mobile devices since. Had they met their original launch date of April, they'd have been early to market and wouldn't have had the egg on their face that they have today. It was then pushed to June, then to July, then was an early-August release up until a week or two ago when it was again delayed at the last minute. So it now supposedly comes out in September, while in the meantime customers who have been waiting for the device have likely moved on to non-vapor devices.
Worst case scenario, you loose $200, but is possible, after a bailout, the stock price will goto $10 a share in a few years or they will be bought out and you will end up with 5 shares of AT&T or something
Considering that AT&T is trading at 9.80 today, spending $200 for 5 shares isn't such a great deal. I follow your idea though, this is a pretty low risk that could pay off down the line if you're willing to gamble.
250 anytime/3250 nights $34.99/month 0mb data, no LD 300/3700 $39.99 0mb 300/3700 $49.99 2mb 500/4500 $59.99 2mb 650/4850 $64.99 2mb possible no LD 650/4850 $84.99 24mb possible no LD 1000/6500 $124.99 24mb
To compare to some of the old non-data plans, I've been paying $30/month for 300/3500 for a few years, so adding 2mb of data would essentially cost me $20/month. The cost of data does come down with the higher-priced plans, 50/3500 for $50 was a pretty common non-data plan
In the never ending MS vs. Apple game of "Dueling Banjos", this sounds similar to Microsoft's "Freestyle" version of XP (aka XP Media Center). Without violating an NDA, I will say that Freestyle is a pretty slick product but doesn't compare to my TiVo. It did finally give me an easy way to play MP3 in the living room though, something I've been too lazy to put together myself. The hardware specs include MPEG-2 encoding card, TV-out connection, firewire, USB, DVD-ROM, CDRW, remote control. It's certainly nothing one of us couldn't do with any PC though.
I think you're missing the point. Nobody is saying that Cisco deserves to be paid again for a router that WCOM has already paid for. What is being said is that if WCOM's assets are sent to auction, a company that is looking for a Cisco router now has one more used router to bid on rather than purchase a new router from Cisco. That's money that isn't going to Cisco and won't be increasing their revenues.
You're right, how dare people be a**holes and demand things to be exactly as they want when they pay to have a house built. Afterall, it's only the single biggest investment they'll likely ever make.
If I want to download more, then I can just call them up and ask for a higher transfer limit, which I will obviously pay for.
Call them? Excuse me while I go off on a tangent here (and I'm certainly not attacking the poster), but few things bother me more than when an ISP or other company that sells Internet services requires you to *call* them in all cases rather than use email. I can understand calling them if you connection is down, but for simple things like account maintenance, tech support, or general questions, what's wrong with email or some sort of web app if security is an issue? Afterall, they're selling a service that is primarily used for communication, so why not take advantage of the supposed benefits that they're selling?
There are millllions of sites out there shucking either a PS2 mod chip or a mod disc (insert disc, startup ps2, disc ejects, insert any burned game, thank you have a nice day.)
Can you provide a link to info on these bootdiscs? I've not heard of such a thing for PS2, although they were quite popular for the Dreamcast, may it rest in peace.
I'm currently in the market for a small car to use mainly for commuting to and from work, mostly highway driving. No public transportation system nearby, and a small motorcycle isn't pratical in Ohio. I looked into some of the so-called "eco-friendly" cars that are available today, but was turned-off by how ugly most of these are. So far I've found the Toyota Prius, Toyota RAV4-EV, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Honda Insight. I understand that optimizing aerodynamics is important for efficient energy usage, but a few of these cars would be decent looking cars with a few minor changes. The Insight is very CRX-like if they got rid of the wheel covers, the Civic Hybrid looks very similar to the standard Civic except for the odd colors, the RAV4-EV uses an old body style rather than the sleek body of the r-estyled standard RAV4, and the Prius has a pretty decent style but is rather small. With only a couple thousand dollar difference between a standard small car and an "eco-friendly" model, I think there'd be increased consumer interest in these vehicles if the manufacturers focused a little more on giving these cars a more standard style that blends in a bit on the road rather than giving them an unattractive design just for the sake of making them stand out or having some space-age look to them.
The most popular is Netcaptor, which I've used exclusively for my IE browsing the past few years. It's no longer free, but they do offer a 30-day trial. Netcaptor also has some pretty effective ad and pop-up filtering included.
Another one I've tried is Crazy Browser , which is very similar to Netcaptor but is free. I've also found that it's buggier than Netcaptor. Crazy Browser also offers ad and pop-up filtering.
You not only very obviously didn't bother to read the article, you didn't even bother to click the link. Had you even bothered to glance at the article, you'd have seen a picture of this dirigible's orbit that shows just how valid your argument is.
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Yes, you're right, I realized it was Cablevision after I posted but didn't want to make another post to correct myself. And I agree, it is a very bad idea for Cablevision to take on the sort of long-term debt that getting into the satellite business would bring.
Actually, everything I read made it sound like they had to have their revised plan in before the FCC voted, and the companies had just this week asked the FCC to delay the vote while they presented a revised plan, which the FCC did not do. I think this vote effectively kills this merger, and I really see GM selling Hughes/DirecTV off to the highest bidder at this point. Rupert Murdoch fought vigorously to prevent this merger, so I'd be surprised if someone besides Murdoch ends up with DirecTV.
The revised deal that Dish/Hughes was basically an offer to create/improve other satellite competitors since the FCC's major problem was that this merger essentially created a satellite monopoly. The first part of the plan was to lease space on their spectrum to Comcast, who is starting their own satellite service. Comcast has the spectrum to offer satellite service everywhere in the US except for the West Coast, and Dish/DirecTV would've provided them with the necessary spectrum to offer nationwide service as well as the ability to offer more channels. The second part of the plan was to offer other companies the ability to resell and bill for DirecTV/Dish service, similar to what DirecTV currently does with Pegasus in certain parts of the country.
Actually I picked-up an All-In-Wonder awhile back to move TiVo recordings to CDRW and checked out the recording capabilities, guide, and such. It was a decent setup, but can't touch the TiVo in terms of functionality and ease of use. I also beta-tested Microsoft's Media Center PC (or whatever they're calling it this week), which I found even more impressive than the All-In-Wonder, although it's going to be way overpriced and is still way behind TiVo. Lastly, I have done quite a bit of research myself on HTPC since I have an HDTV-ready set but no way to record HD programming without an HTPC, so I would think that I do have some basis for my comparisons.
If you consider 90% of TiVo's functionality to solely be the ability to record video, then you're correct, but you're also misinformed. I just love these TiVo threads where 75% of the posts are people saying that a PC can do the same thing, yet these people usually have never used a TiVo.
Yes, this is true. DirecTV is going to be handling all of the billing for the combo DirecTiVo boxes, and the graphical changes you mention will basically remove the TiVo name and logo from the menus. The good news is that DirecTV will be charging less for the TiVo service now, $4.99/month as opposed to $9.99/month. DirecTV has essentially licensed the TiVo software and service, which is how TiVo hopes to make money from here on and has been their plan on how to do business once they had a somewhat established base market.
There are many posts above saying that TiVo will die because cable companies, etc. will offer their own product. TiVo's hope is that the cable companies will license the TiVo software and service for their set-top boxes.
They don't necessarily want to sell as much service as possible, they want to make as much money from selling their services as possible. The Sidekick is being marketed mostly to non-corporate types, ie. geeks, teens, and college students. The Treo is marketed to corporate-types and road warriors, usually people whose company is picking up the tab. Thus T-Mobile has decided that they can get $40/month for unlimited Sidekick service from people that probably wouldn't be paying much for data service otherwise, whereas they're likely getting much more than that from people using the Treo and other data devices.
To give you an example, my company recently purchased a couple of SprintPCS 3G PCMCIA cards and isn't batting an eye that they'll likely be paying several hundred dollars per month for each card so that executives can have email access at any time when on the road. Don't get me wrong, I bet T-Mobile and the other wireless carriers would sell a heck of a lot of unlimited data plans, but they probably wouldn't make as much money as they do now by having caps for the high-usage corporate customers.
From what I've heard, the SIM used in the Sidekick can only be used in a Sidekick. Sorry, can't offer much proof on this, but it does make sense for TMobile to do this to prevent people from getting unlimited data on non-Sidekick devices.
Excellent! I've been trying to justify an XBox or PS2 to my wife for quite awhile now, I'm sure the above info will gain me immediate approval.
Perhaps the 6035 is in the same price range, but only because it's been discontinued for a few months now. The 6035 is also grayscale. You also cannot get unlimited data with the 6035. The Samsung i300 is color, but it's also over $350, isn't available with unlimited data, and Samsung has yet to release the SDK for it. The PalmOS devices that best compare to the Sidekick are the Treo's because they offer full-text keyboards. But, yet again, they don't come with unlimited data plans, and the only Treo that is in the same price-range as the Sidekick is grayscale. I've used several different combo phone/PDA units, and each is going to have several pros and a cons. I've yet to see even anything coming in the next year or so that will be the "killer" combo unit, although a few like the upcoming Samsung i500 and Kyocera 7135 "flip" Palm units as well as the Sony/Ericsson P800 unit are interesting.
I've not seen many laptops that would make a good HTPC. A desktop PC with AGP and PCI ports is just more flexible for this type of thing and likely cheaper too, although the cost gap is probably a lot closer in this case with the added LCD display.
DirecTV recently lowered the price of their TiVo service to $4.95/month, and it's free if you have their Platinum package. Keep in mind that the Series 1 DirecTiVo's are difficult to come by, especially if you're already a DirecTV subscriber, but the Series 2 are due out in October. I used a standalone TiVo for a year with DirecTV, but switched to the DirecTiVo box once the dual-tuners were enabled. If you thought a TiVo changed the way you watch TV, the DirecTiVo takes it to another level. This is the first fall that we haven't become upset over the networks' habits of scheduling all of the "good shows" at the same time. With 2 dual-tuner DirecTiVo's, we don't have any more conflicts!
Which network was that again? ;-)
I second the above request for a FAQ. I've been doing something similar on a Win32 platform without the spam-filtering portion since spam-filtering software for Windows servers is very weak.
Danger started releasing info on this device last year, and they've had nothing but delays since. It looked like a very promising device at the time, but it has been caught and passed by other mobile devices since. Had they met their original launch date of April, they'd have been early to market and wouldn't have had the egg on their face that they have today. It was then pushed to June, then to July, then was an early-August release up until a week or two ago when it was again delayed at the last minute. So it now supposedly comes out in September, while in the meantime customers who have been waiting for the device have likely moved on to non-vapor devices.
Considering that AT&T is trading at 9.80 today, spending $200 for 5 shares isn't such a great deal. I follow your idea though, this is a pretty low risk that could pay off down the line if you're willing to gamble.
250 anytime/3250 nights $34.99/month 0mb data, no LD
300/3700 $39.99 0mb
300/3700 $49.99 2mb
500/4500 $59.99 2mb
650/4850 $64.99 2mb possible no LD
650/4850 $84.99 24mb possible no LD
1000/6500 $124.99 24mb
To compare to some of the old non-data plans, I've been paying $30/month for 300/3500 for a few years, so adding 2mb of data would essentially cost me $20/month. The cost of data does come down with the higher-priced plans, 50/3500 for $50 was a pretty common non-data plan
Perhaps the link on the left side in the top third of the page that reads "Black LP Desktop Case"?
In the never ending MS vs. Apple game of "Dueling Banjos", this sounds similar to Microsoft's "Freestyle" version of XP (aka XP Media Center). Without violating an NDA, I will say that Freestyle is a pretty slick product but doesn't compare to my TiVo. It did finally give me an easy way to play MP3 in the living room though, something I've been too lazy to put together myself. The hardware specs include MPEG-2 encoding card, TV-out connection, firewire, USB, DVD-ROM, CDRW, remote control. It's certainly nothing one of us couldn't do with any PC though.
I think you're missing the point. Nobody is saying that Cisco deserves to be paid again for a router that WCOM has already paid for. What is being said is that if WCOM's assets are sent to auction, a company that is looking for a Cisco router now has one more used router to bid on rather than purchase a new router from Cisco. That's money that isn't going to Cisco and won't be increasing their revenues.
You're right, how dare people be a**holes and demand things to be exactly as they want when they pay to have a house built. Afterall, it's only the single biggest investment they'll likely ever make.
Call them? Excuse me while I go off on a tangent here (and I'm certainly not attacking the poster), but few things bother me more than when an ISP or other company that sells Internet services requires you to *call* them in all cases rather than use email. I can understand calling them if you connection is down, but for simple things like account maintenance, tech support, or general questions, what's wrong with email or some sort of web app if security is an issue? Afterall, they're selling a service that is primarily used for communication, so why not take advantage of the supposed benefits that they're selling?
Can you provide a link to info on these bootdiscs? I've not heard of such a thing for PS2, although they were quite popular for the Dreamcast, may it rest in peace.
I'm currently in the market for a small car to use mainly for commuting to and from work, mostly highway driving. No public transportation system nearby, and a small motorcycle isn't pratical in Ohio. I looked into some of the so-called "eco-friendly" cars that are available today, but was turned-off by how ugly most of these are. So far I've found the Toyota Prius, Toyota RAV4-EV, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Honda Insight. I understand that optimizing aerodynamics is important for efficient energy usage, but a few of these cars would be decent looking cars with a few minor changes. The Insight is very CRX-like if they got rid of the wheel covers, the Civic Hybrid looks very similar to the standard Civic except for the odd colors, the RAV4-EV uses an old body style rather than the sleek body of the r-estyled standard RAV4, and the Prius has a pretty decent style but is rather small. With only a couple thousand dollar difference between a standard small car and an "eco-friendly" model, I think there'd be increased consumer interest in these vehicles if the manufacturers focused a little more on giving these cars a more standard style that blends in a bit on the road rather than giving them an unattractive design just for the sake of making them stand out or having some space-age look to them.
Another one I've tried is Crazy Browser , which is very similar to Netcaptor but is free. I've also found that it's buggier than Netcaptor. Crazy Browser also offers ad and pop-up filtering.
You not only very obviously didn't bother to read the article, you didn't even bother to click the link. Had you even bothered to glance at the article, you'd have seen a picture of this dirigible's orbit that shows just how valid your argument is.