If I actually follow the rules and get only new hardware, not on sale, with video, hard drive, ram, case, power supply, cd-rom, motherboard and processor, I get $181. This is all straight from newegg.
I bet if you shopped suppliers, spent a bit more time, and took advantage of sales (still only getting new equipment) you could pare it down to $100.
Linkworld Beige/Transparent Gray Micro ATX Mini Tower Case, Model "217 MICRO ATX C.06" -RETAIL Item# N82E16811164041 $13.00 $13.00
CD/DVD ROM Drives Artec Black 56X CDROM, Model CHM-56, Retail Item# N82E16827120505 $14.50
Hard Drives Hitachi 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model HDS722540VLAT20, OEM Drive Only Item# N82E16822145056 $49.00
The lead devloper and a good part of the team are the originals, all trying to retain the "spirit" of the original game.
There are literally 5 or 6 interviews talking about how the two are related, and how the original developer wanted to do a credible modern-day remake of the old one, retaining a lot of the charm.
So, I guess you could say they're very related in spirit, but due to the vast generational gap between them, not to many specific gameplay mechanics are shared.
It supposed to be quite funny as well...I'll be picking this one up.
Yeah, except how much does a 2 GB memory stick cost? How many UMD games could I buy legitimately for that much? Yeah, piracy doesn't make a lot of sense. There won't be lost sales to people pirating these games.
People keep talking about the touch screen revolutionizing gameplay, now appealing to RTS gamers and FPS gamers. I call foul: 1) How many decent RTS games do you see for Palm/PocketPC devices?
I've tried to play some and the gameplay is horrible. Stylus != mouse
2) How many decent FPS games have you seen for Palm/PocketPC?
Again, not only does the stylus suck for FPS games, but its *really* hard to use a stylus and a controller at the same time, so games will have to choose, or you'll be juggling your control methods. One of the great things about consoles is that the controls are so easy and you don't have to move your hands so much, allowing you to play from lots of positions.
How many times have you seen someone lying on a couch playing GBA SP, looking up at it? Its awesome because you can do that. With a DS and touch screen, I can't see you cradling the unit with one hand and using the touchscreen with the other while lying down, on your side, or pretty much any way except sitting/standing.
The #1 reason I'm excited about PSP and have really been annoyed by GBA is that it caters to kids too much. I want the violent FPS games, racing games, GTA shooters, and RPGs. GBA never really delivered in the category of games I like, so I look forward to PSP.
I have trouble envisioning the two screen paradigm. Maybe I lack insight/foresight, but I like one screen that I can watch for all my action games. Only in strategy/turn based games will two screen be super useful, unless you're talking about a map in an FPS or RPG, but that hardly jusitifes two screens when I can just press "select" to view maps normally.
He said that 2 hours was the design *minimum* for playing movies (i.e. apps that spin the disk constantly). He said:
"Of course, that's the mimimum requirement. The battery will last quite a bit longer than that."
OK, so interpret "quite a bit longer" however you want, but its certainly not "shooting for two hours" no matter how you slice it.
Of course, the next bit of the analysis is that watching movies will be by far the most battery consuming of the applications, with gaming a distant second (depending on how it's programmed and use of wifi) and music last.
In any case, I would double the battery life from watching movies to playing games (i.e. if it's 2.5 hours for movies, we'll say 5 hours for games). 5 isn't too bad, esp. considering they're hinting at 1-2 hour charge times, versus 4 for the DS.
I'd bet you'll see these lasting 5-6 hours on typical single player games.
This trend is very alarming. It basically proves what I should have known all along: the technical merits of a format, along with how laden it is with DRM, do not matter at all to the general public.
I thought that Xiph was doing a great thing with Ogg and I moved my entire collection over to ogg vorbis. I love it, and it sounds good. I thought it was a matter of time for the move from MP3 to Ogg to happen, since MP3 is larger, has more audio quality issues, and is not "free". Boy was I wrong! I thought people would be moving over to the smaller, higher quaity, free-as-in-speech codec.
Instead, we're seeing the opposite! People moving to more restrictive codecs (although the quality may still be better). I knew most people didn't care about free-as-in-speech that much, but this is sort of alarming...
If you RTFA, once again, you'll find the submitter has no idea what they're talking about:
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington ordered the FEC to rewrite 15 rules, including regulations exempting Internet ads from the 2002 campaign finance law. The law bars outside groups from coordinating television and radio advertisements with candidates.
To exempt certain types of communications runs completely afoul of this basic tenet of campaign finance law,'' Kollar- Kotelly said in a 157-page ruling. Two members of Congress filed the complaint that led to the decision.
This has entirly to do with campaign finance, and whether Internet ads are included (or excluded) from campaign finance. It has nothing to do with free speech.
Maybe you should do research on what the law actually says about EULA enforcement. I wrote a good intro on my blog about it, including links to the state-of-the-art cases regarding EULAs. I did talk to a lawyer in the course of my research, and he mentioned that courts most everywhere are tending towards enforcement of EULAs. My research has confirmed that statement.
I don't know where you're getting your inofrmation, but you might want to check it.
Try "Rio Taxi" that comes with it that allows file transfer under Linux, Mac, or Windows. It uses Java. I use it all the time with my (linux) computer at home.
There are two pieces of software included: the one on the CD that is your typical "Music Manager" software, and then a "lite" version written in Java that runs everywhere. It is also located on the Karma itself, so if you dock it and set the IP, you can log your web browser onto the web server running on your player, download the java software, fire it up, and transfer songs.
It is Linux friendly because it supports Ethernet as a transfer mode and uses Java software for transferring. This also makes it Mac friendly, BSD friendly, etc.
Re:From the next-article-please dept.
on
Rio Karma User Review
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Well, he comes right out and EXPLAINS why you'd buy this over an iPod - he only runs Linux. Last I checked, iPods weren't doing much of anything under Linux. Besides, iPods don't play Ogg, this does.
His fault for buying full price...I got mine for $199. He mentions it "felt solid", and, well, it does.
Don't know how you can complain about size: its no new-gen iPod, but it's comparable to the first generation size, and people didn't complain much about that. I carry it all over. Hell, its 1/4 the size of a portable CD player, and people carry those too. I'm holding mine now, and I just measured it: 2 3/4in x 2 3/4in x 7/8in - OK I don't care who you are, that simply isn't "bulky". It's no iPod-mini, but iPod-mini is more expensive and holds 1/5 the songs this does, and doesn't work under Linux.
I've had mine for 6 months and I've never had a lock up problem. I upgraded the firmware when I bought mine though, and he didn't mention that he did. I've spent a lot of time with mine too - transferred over 15gigs of stuff to it and its never showed signs of locking.
Agree the review could have been more thorough, though.
I am a Vonage customer and use it as my primary line. Not only can you get voice mails delivered to email (great when travelling), but you can, for an additional $4.99/month get a line that is local to someone that calls you a lot, so they can make toll-free (local) calls, even if you're in New York and they are in California.
The feature I like best is that, free of charge, I have my cell phone ring anytime my home phone rings. That way, when I'm away, I still get all my home calls, and don't have to give out my cell number to everyone. This feature can be used for simultaneous ringing on any other number, or it can forward it to another number after a certain number of seconds without answer on the first line. You can turn the feature on/off and the change takes effect almost immediately.
Most of all, all the extras that you pay for with normal phone are automatically included in the Vonage plan. I pay $25 a month for all my phone needs (that are non-cell), and that's a lot better than my old SBC/MCI pairing I used to use.
I don't really notice bad voice quality, but I took a lot of time to set up my Vonage box *behind* my firewall, but then forwards all the ports necessary to have it manage the connection properly for voice-quality. For a more no-brainer setup, just route your connection to the Vonage box first, then to your router.
What should be illegal? Testing ISPs, or handing out information on your customers to whoever asks (or doesn't ask) for it?
I don't know how representative this would be of US ISPs, as all the ISPs mentioned in the article are.nl (Netherlands). The US may have laws that affect this.
This was always intended as a "feel good" feature of the Google print system so that pulishers would feel safer sending tons of books to Google.
The "real" DRM here isn't DRM. As a previous post so astutely pointed out, DRM is schitzophrenic by nature: it involves trying to give someone something without *actually* giving it to them.
Google's "real" protection is that the service won't let you view more than a certain percentage of the book in any given month. That percentage is determined by the book's publisher at submssion time, anywhere from 20% to 100%.
Even if you can copy/paste/print, you're still only going to get a portion of the book - certainly not enough to replace a valid sale. Disabling that functionailty basically returns us to the age of photocopying a few pages of a book/article in a library. Except now we can search, so it's faster.
If one solution is as simple as "grab th data from your browser's cache" this is clearly meant to only stop the "average" user, something that is in very short supply here on/. But it's good enough for Google to run the business, most likely.
Here's to hoping this headline appearing on/. isn't going to spread enough FUD to publishers that would have otherwise sent in their material. Google print is still in its infancy, and could fail if Google doesn't assert some spin control on the situation, I suppose. Maybe I overestimate/.'s influence.
I did a lot of research on SuSe before I installed in on my laptop, and found through a lot of reading that Novell doesn't really expect you to buy every version. If you go to their FTP or a mirror, you'll find that almost all updates can be obtained:
1)Through FTP for the given version (i.e. 9.1) 2)Through Yast Update 3)In the "supplemental" directory on the FTP
I have 9.1 Professional, but new kernels, KDE 3.3 and X.Org, first available "officially" in 9.2 have been available for some time in the "Supplemental" FTP directroy for a while now.
They expect the more tech saavy users to update that way, and the less tech saavy users to either not update (OK, who is still running Win98?) or to pay for the upgrade package.
Acronyms don't have to spell anything. See the second definition at merriam-webster.com:
Main Entry: acronym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters
Re:Wide industry support != consumer adoption
on
WiMax: When, Not If
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Umm, I think you're missing the point. 802.11 and 802.16 are not in competition. i.e. no one is going to say "I have 802.11, screw WiMax". 802.11 is good for the home that already HAS broadband. 802.16 allows people that don't have broadband in the home to access it the way we access the cell phone network now.
If you could get in, check their FTP, it has glQuake right there. And I remember Carmack releasing, and that being the reason I bought my Diamond Monster 3D...such sweet FPS loving back in 1996.
First off, I think they basically have one guy working Linux (zerowing), and he's not a guy that works stuff like the SDK, so its not a case of "why were you working on x whe you could've been working on y" - they work on x AND y at the same time.
Second, I've been waiting for these forever, so I'm super pumped that they came out. Its running like dream on the Gentoo box I built for it.
Third, Wine and all the Wine-derived excuses for gaming natively are just that: excuses. Kudos to id for still supporting us die hard (native) Linux gamers.
Lastly, I agree - the SDK is *key* and I look forward to that next. Somehow, I don't think id will keep you waiting too much longer. =)
The installer for Linux 64 was both on the CD version and the DVD version (I can vouch for CD, I own it, and DVD, well, that's just what I heard on the interweb.)
Slashdot Mirror
If I actually follow the rules and get only new hardware, not on sale, with video, hard drive, ram, case, power supply, cd-rom, motherboard and processor, I get $181. This is all straight from newegg.
I bet if you shopped suppliers, spent a bit more time, and took advantage of sales (still only getting new equipment) you could pare it down to $100.
Linkworld Beige/Transparent Gray Micro ATX Mini Tower Case, Model "217 MICRO ATX C.06" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16811164041
$13.00
$13.00
CD/DVD ROM Drives
Artec Black 56X CDROM, Model CHM-56, Retail
Item# N82E16827120505
$14.50
Hard Drives
Hitachi 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model HDS722540VLAT20, OEM Drive Only
Item# N82E16822145056
$49.00
Memory (System Memory)
Rosewill 184-Pin 128MB DDR PC-3200, Model RW400/128 - Retail
Item# N82E16820223007
$21.00
Motherboards - AMD
PCChips "M811LU" KT266A Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813185010
$26.00
Processors
AMD Athlon 1.33 GHz, 266MHz FSB, 256K Cache Processor - OEM
Item# N82E16819103156
$41.00
Video Cards
APOLLO S3 SAVAGE IX Video Card, 8MB SGR, PCI, Model "XPERT PLAY 3000 PCI" -RETAIL
Item# N82E16814140033
$17.00
Product total: $181.50
There is no PSTwo. The new, slimmer version is still called the PS2. Its just new. And slimmer. So it wasn't a typo, just ambiguous.
Wow, that's not quite informative.
The lead devloper and a good part of the team are the originals, all trying to retain the "spirit" of the original game.
There are literally 5 or 6 interviews talking about how the two are related, and how the original developer wanted to do a credible modern-day remake of the old one, retaining a lot of the charm.
So, I guess you could say they're very related in spirit, but due to the vast generational gap between them, not to many specific gameplay mechanics are shared.
It supposed to be quite funny as well...I'll be picking this one up.
Yeah, except how much does a 2 GB memory stick cost? How many UMD games could I buy legitimately for that much? Yeah, piracy doesn't make a lot of sense. There won't be lost sales to people pirating these games.
Amen.
People keep talking about the touch screen revolutionizing gameplay, now appealing to RTS gamers and FPS gamers. I call foul:
1) How many decent RTS games do you see for Palm/PocketPC devices?
I've tried to play some and the gameplay is horrible. Stylus != mouse
2) How many decent FPS games have you seen for Palm/PocketPC?
Again, not only does the stylus suck for FPS games, but its *really* hard to use a stylus and a controller at the same time, so games will have to choose, or you'll be juggling your control methods. One of the great things about consoles is that the controls are so easy and you don't have to move your hands so much, allowing you to play from lots of positions.
How many times have you seen someone lying on a couch playing GBA SP, looking up at it? Its awesome because you can do that. With a DS and touch screen, I can't see you cradling the unit with one hand and using the touchscreen with the other while lying down, on your side, or pretty much any way except sitting/standing.
The #1 reason I'm excited about PSP and have really been annoyed by GBA is that it caters to kids too much. I want the violent FPS games, racing games, GTA shooters, and RPGs. GBA never really delivered in the category of games I like, so I look forward to PSP.
I have trouble envisioning the two screen paradigm. Maybe I lack insight/foresight, but I like one screen that I can watch for all my action games. Only in strategy/turn based games will two screen be super useful, unless you're talking about a map in an FPS or RPG, but that hardly jusitifes two screens when I can just press "select" to view maps normally.
OK, this is getting annoying. RTFA.
He said that 2 hours was the design *minimum* for playing movies (i.e. apps that spin the disk constantly). He said:
"Of course, that's the mimimum requirement. The battery will last quite a bit longer than that."
OK, so interpret "quite a bit longer" however you want, but its certainly not "shooting for two hours" no matter how you slice it.
Of course, the next bit of the analysis is that watching movies will be by far the most battery consuming of the applications, with gaming a distant second (depending on how it's programmed and use of wifi) and music last.
In any case, I would double the battery life from watching movies to playing games (i.e. if it's 2.5 hours for movies, we'll say 5 hours for games). 5 isn't too bad, esp. considering they're hinting at 1-2 hour charge times, versus 4 for the DS.
I'd bet you'll see these lasting 5-6 hours on typical single player games.
This trend is very alarming. It basically proves what I should have known all along: the technical merits of a format, along with how laden it is with DRM, do not matter at all to the general public.
I thought that Xiph was doing a great thing with Ogg and I moved my entire collection over to ogg vorbis. I love it, and it sounds good. I thought it was a matter of time for the move from MP3 to Ogg to happen, since MP3 is larger, has more audio quality issues, and is not "free". Boy was I wrong! I thought people would be moving over to the smaller, higher quaity, free-as-in-speech codec.
Instead, we're seeing the opposite! People moving to more restrictive codecs (although the quality may still be better). I knew most people didn't care about free-as-in-speech that much, but this is sort of alarming...
If you RTFA, once again, you'll find the submitter has no idea what they're talking about:
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington ordered the FEC to rewrite 15 rules, including regulations exempting Internet ads from the 2002 campaign finance law. The law bars outside groups from coordinating television and radio advertisements with candidates.
To exempt certain types of communications runs completely afoul of this basic tenet of campaign finance law,'' Kollar- Kotelly said in a 157-page ruling. Two members of Congress filed the complaint that led to the decision.
This has entirly to do with campaign finance, and whether Internet ads are included (or excluded) from campaign finance. It has nothing to do with free speech.
Maybe you should do research on what the law actually says about EULA enforcement. I wrote a good intro on my blog about it, including links to the state-of-the-art cases regarding EULAs. I did talk to a lawyer in the course of my research, and he mentioned that courts most everywhere are tending towards enforcement of EULAs. My research has confirmed that statement.
I don't know where you're getting your inofrmation, but you might want to check it.
Try "Rio Taxi" that comes with it that allows file transfer under Linux, Mac, or Windows. It uses Java. I use it all the time with my (linux) computer at home.
There are two pieces of software included: the one on the CD that is your typical "Music Manager" software, and then a "lite" version written in Java that runs everywhere. It is also located on the Karma itself, so if you dock it and set the IP, you can log your web browser onto the web server running on your player, download the java software, fire it up, and transfer songs.
It is Linux friendly because it supports Ethernet as a transfer mode and uses Java software for transferring. This also makes it Mac friendly, BSD friendly, etc.
Well, he comes right out and EXPLAINS why you'd buy this over an iPod - he only runs Linux. Last I checked, iPods weren't doing much of anything under Linux. Besides, iPods don't play Ogg, this does.
His fault for buying full price...I got mine for $199. He mentions it "felt solid", and, well, it does.
Don't know how you can complain about size: its no new-gen iPod, but it's comparable to the first generation size, and people didn't complain much about that. I carry it all over. Hell, its 1/4 the size of a portable CD player, and people carry those too. I'm holding mine now, and I just measured it: 2 3/4in x 2 3/4in x 7/8in - OK I don't care who you are, that simply isn't "bulky". It's no iPod-mini, but iPod-mini is more expensive and holds 1/5 the songs this does, and doesn't work under Linux.
I've had mine for 6 months and I've never had a lock up problem. I upgraded the firmware when I bought mine though, and he didn't mention that he did. I've spent a lot of time with mine too - transferred over 15gigs of stuff to it and its never showed signs of locking.
Agree the review could have been more thorough, though.
I am a Vonage customer and use it as my primary line. Not only can you get voice mails delivered to email (great when travelling), but you can, for an additional $4.99/month get a line that is local to someone that calls you a lot, so they can make toll-free (local) calls, even if you're in New York and they are in California.
The feature I like best is that, free of charge, I have my cell phone ring anytime my home phone rings. That way, when I'm away, I still get all my home calls, and don't have to give out my cell number to everyone. This feature can be used for simultaneous ringing on any other number, or it can forward it to another number after a certain number of seconds without answer on the first line. You can turn the feature on/off and the change takes effect almost immediately.
Most of all, all the extras that you pay for with normal phone are automatically included in the Vonage plan. I pay $25 a month for all my phone needs (that are non-cell), and that's a lot better than my old SBC/MCI pairing I used to use.
I don't really notice bad voice quality, but I took a lot of time to set up my Vonage box *behind* my firewall, but then forwards all the ports necessary to have it manage the connection properly for voice-quality. For a more no-brainer setup, just route your connection to the Vonage box first, then to your router.
You're kidding right?
Three Letter Acronym...
=)
It's called the
s-l-a-s-h-d-o-t e-f-f-e-c-t.
Some sites just don't load, others pull down the material to prevent fires, etc.
What should be illegal? Testing ISPs, or handing out information on your customers to whoever asks (or doesn't ask) for it?
.nl (Netherlands). The US may have laws that affect this.
I don't know how representative this would be of US ISPs, as all the ISPs mentioned in the article are
This was always intended as a "feel good" feature of the Google print system so that pulishers would feel safer sending tons of books to Google.
/. But it's good enough for Google to run the business, most likely.
/. isn't going to spread enough FUD to publishers that would have otherwise sent in their material. Google print is still in its infancy, and could fail if Google doesn't assert some spin control on the situation, I suppose. Maybe I overestimate /.'s influence.
The "real" DRM here isn't DRM. As a previous post so astutely pointed out, DRM is schitzophrenic by nature: it involves trying to give someone something without *actually* giving it to them.
Google's "real" protection is that the service won't let you view more than a certain percentage of the book in any given month. That percentage is determined by the book's publisher at submssion time, anywhere from 20% to 100%.
Even if you can copy/paste/print, you're still only going to get a portion of the book - certainly not enough to replace a valid sale. Disabling that functionailty basically returns us to the age of photocopying a few pages of a book/article in a library. Except now we can search, so it's faster.
If one solution is as simple as "grab th data from your browser's cache" this is clearly meant to only stop the "average" user, something that is in very short supply here on
Here's to hoping this headline appearing on
I did a lot of research on SuSe before I installed in on my laptop, and found through a lot of reading that Novell doesn't really expect you to buy every version. If you go to their FTP or a mirror, you'll find that almost all updates can be obtained:
1)Through FTP for the given version (i.e. 9.1)
2)Through Yast Update
3)In the "supplemental" directory on the FTP
I have 9.1 Professional, but new kernels, KDE 3.3 and X.Org, first available "officially" in 9.2 have been available for some time in the "Supplemental" FTP directroy for a while now.
They expect the more tech saavy users to update that way, and the less tech saavy users to either not update (OK, who is still running Win98?) or to pay for the upgrade package.
Super OT:
Acronyms don't have to spell anything. See the second definition at merriam-webster.com:
Main Entry: acronym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters
Umm, I think you're missing the point. 802.11 and 802.16 are not in competition. i.e. no one is going to say "I have 802.11, screw WiMax". 802.11 is good for the home that already HAS broadband. 802.16 allows people that don't have broadband in the home to access it the way we access the cell phone network now.
Just download the client. They've already said there won't be a Linux box set.
To answer your question, the install*does* go through without asking, but the first time you play *online* it asks you to provide the serial number.
Yeah, the did.
If you could get in, check their FTP, it has glQuake right there. And I remember Carmack releasing, and that being the reason I bought my Diamond Monster 3D...such sweet FPS loving back in 1996.
First off, I think they basically have one guy working Linux (zerowing), and he's not a guy that works stuff like the SDK, so its not a case of "why were you working on x whe you could've been working on y" - they work on x AND y at the same time.
Second, I've been waiting for these forever, so I'm super pumped that they came out. Its running like dream on the Gentoo box I built for it.
Third, Wine and all the Wine-derived excuses for gaming natively are just that: excuses. Kudos to id for still supporting us die hard (native) Linux gamers.
Lastly, I agree - the SDK is *key* and I look forward to that next. Somehow, I don't think id will keep you waiting too much longer. =)
The installer for Linux 64 was both on the CD version and the DVD version (I can vouch for CD, I own it, and DVD, well, that's just what I heard on the interweb.)