No such troubles for me, GAIM works great all the time and I can upgrade it, and I love that I don't have to have AIM & MSN & Yahoo & ICQ all running anymore, and I love even more that when I have multiple conversations going I can keep them in one window.
But, I can't send photos or files over these networks, and that really bites because I have to keep loading those clients and asking the sender to hold on a second, big hassle... my biggest feature request would be to implement the "direct connect" and similar features.
Right now for you that's fine... not the same for everyone as this thread points out... I really wish my camera used SD right now, it would've saved me about 100 dollars, and would've given me added functionallity... I'm glad it's not an issue for you though.
You're limited in the number of vendors you can choose from when you buy a phone or a camera if you already have one of the two.
It's a simple matter of standards... right now we have 3 or 4... so you have to mix and match appropriately... memory stick sucks because it's attached to a single vendor.
Works out for you because you bought all sony in the camera and phone department.
You can have a dumb phone, I want a phone with easy buttons.
My god, I picked up my sister's 3 year old motorolla to make a call the other day, and it was wonderful, I pushed 10 numbers, and it took them all.
My current motorolla I have to watch the display as I key in numbers as the 5 works about 30% of the time, the 6 about 80% and the rest are all right, but are so small compared to the dead space that I miss them on occassion.
And my Treo... that's a great phone, but good god man, there's no good way to dial it without looking directly at it and really focussing, the buttons are tiny, and the touch screen has no context... I like the approach they took with this phone, I hope those keys are actually good and easy to use.
One of the fun things about smartphones is you can pop out your SD or CF card from your camera and show everyone your just taken pics on a much larger screen.... yes you can now do this if you stick solely with sony... but you're limited.
(I'm stuck too, I have a CF camera and a SD phone)
I would love this system for Travel... 4 hour delay in Detroit, go to the store, pick up 10 bucks worth of movies and not have to return them.... they already have pick them up at one and drop them off at the other, but say the delay gets cancelled and plane is ready to go, my extra two movies won't be ready for return by the time we land... now I can just watch them later.
If one could develop a web-based office suite that met the needs of DoD/Dod contractors, then I think a lot of them might go for that idea. It would allow a military unit in Iraq and a command post at Ft. Bragg to view/edit their files without having to worry about transmitting them back and forth;
See what I don't get about this perceived advantage of a web based product is that if that's the only goal you're trying to solve, current technology already does it, and does it very well.
Content Management Systems are all over the place, allow for sophiscated merging, change tracking, personal responsibility, encryption... basically everything... the whole "where's the data" seems to be a red herring, a web based app could easily store data locally, and a desktop app can easily store data on a network/internet share or in a CMS. We already have WebDav & Samba.
Oh come on, you're living in a fantasy world. A boycott just cannot have any kind of effect here - people are too apathetic. Boycotts only work when a large lobbying group (like the NRA or the Women's League of Voters) gets behind it. That's just not going to happen in this case.
That's kinda been my subtle point all along. What you call consumer apathy, I call consumer satisfaction. They may prefer something else, but they're quite content with the way it is right now.
Boycotts aren't supposed to work when it's a few random people, or in the case of a national conglomerate a few thousand people, or even tens of thousands.
No, in regards ot the illegal operations and cartel like price fixing... I personally think you're being a tad melodramatic... but do agree they're problematic with many of their business practices.
However, the slowly rising success of indie alternatives (moving from hobbies to big enough for people to start making livings off of) is a sign that things may not be as dire as you cast them.
That's an interesting theory. I don't think it works so well in practice. I mean, who here really thinks that iTunes would be around today if not for Napster?
I dunno, I can't imagine negotiating with the RIAA... but who here thinks iTunes would be here today if Napster would've found a way to distribute that musically legally and for a reasonable fee?
What I really think is going to have to happen is these other sources of distribution are going to need to get enough critical mass on the new artist side, find an effective way to advertise good music (where good is what people want to hear, not what the slashdot crowd says is the most awesome underground band you never heard of) and start selling stuff the RIAA doesn't have a hold on... but that's going to take some serious time, and will likely have several big setbacks along the way.
OK, then act outside of it, that's your right too. But since you're otherwise living within the system, and taking advantage of its protections where you see fit, don't be surprised when certain rules are enforced and you are punished for not acting within the system.
Then tell me if free Britney Spears was worth the punishment. Sure, there are plenty of things worth revolting over, I just can't pretend pop music which is produced, recorded and released by these groups is one of them.
And new music is only culture because we buy it in the first place, ColdPlay can go ahead and make music all day long in the studio, the RIAA can advertise the heck out of it, but if stores don't order it, and people never hear it, it doesn't become part of the culture.
Here here... I'd like to add that I think that rocks, and I have a good friend who did that recently with the music, and actually another person then put that music into an Indie movie which they're also distributing in creative ways.
Or is it that even at their fixed prices enough consumers are willing to pay the fees such that the different industries you mention that your boycott wouldn't have a chance in hell?
I concur, the prices are obscene for the most part, I wish they'd go down, given current technology there's no reason they shouldn't go down... actually, given technology of the last 50 years they never should've gone up, the entertainment industry has been making people fabulously wealthy for a very long time... arguably rewarding people over and above their hard work. The advantage of filming once and distributing millions of time, or recording once... etc.
But, the prices are only so obscene because the consumer is willing to pay. If we stop paying, they'll either fold up because they truly cannot operate on those margins (unlikely) or they'll lower prices... fact is, right now, enough people aren't there.
I'm sure it's been said, or will be shortly, but there is no "right" that you have to the RIAA's brand of pop music and there is no right that you have which entitles you to see Star Wars Episode III for a price you see fit. It's a product, they've set a price, accept it or don't, vote with your money.
With current technology do we all think we could come up with a better model that would distribute money more fairly, give more people a fair slice of the pie and cost consumers far less? Yes we do, and hopefully with enough time the startups who have done this will catch on and we'll all have new distribution methods, but the old one is still raking in enough cash that it's not going to get out of the way just yet.
Ok, but we live in a Capitalist system... so if this is what you want I think you know the answer...
That's right, start up a company which prints CDs and DVDs for $2 and don't sell them for $30 or $15, open a movie theatre where tickets cost less than $10 and buy an NFL team, and charge less than $100 for admission.
Or, boycott, and get enough people to boycott with you and see how the industry reacts, they can lower prices or go out of business depending. It's a pretty simple system, act within it, don't steal and say that you're boldy "driving a spear through the eye of the industry"
Just as a side note they're not replacing plastic with titanium, they're replacing a magnesium composite with titanium... functionally this is a lateral move, it's all about design.
To me the bigger news here is the widescreen, bigger speakers, "consumer" style laptop... Lenovo is taking a traditionally business line and going after a student/home user market with the design changes, and quite frankly, I don't see them both maintaining quality and competing well there...
You've always paid more for thinkpads and gotten more, mostly in terms of reliability, in the home world, people aren't as savy about reliability, don't tend to keep their machines as long, and really don't care that they do smart things like reuse the same bay architecture for 7+ years so all your components stay useable.
Actually, All-in-one's are still sitting on and old reputation from when there were alot of crappy ones that liked to crap out after a year.
But now a days, plenty of companies make all in ones that are really nice pieces of equipment.... I'd specifically mention HP & Canon in this category myself... the laser ones anyway, no experience with the inkjet ones.
Nah, for me I was up for learning everything, twice in some cases.
I gave up for lack of vendor support, keeping my laptop working 100% in Linux was a slight pain, not getting all the neat little things on my laptop that IBM only puts out of Windows was a much bigger one.
Then I needed to switch to Quickbooks 2005 to please my accountant, and that was just impossible (yeah, Caldera can get 2004 running, but not 2005)... so now, I'm done, I gave up... Windows on my laptops & desktops, linux on my servers... and I couldn't be happier.
If Linux isn't successful because something else is better at doing the job and just as free, then that's a cause for celebration, not worry.
You're making the mistake by assuming that everything to do with linux is free, open source, and can be ported by a simple recompile.
Do you expect hardware vendors to ever write drivers if the community switches a few times over a few years? What if a commercial vendor says sorry, we don't support that OS, either stick with Linux or lose our product (contrary to some of the opinions here you don't just switch products at the drop of a hat in the real world, a product doesn't just have to be better, it has to be better enough to warrant the pain of migration)
There's a fine balance of amount of choice that's good, and an amount that's counter-productive.
It won't be near $20 a gallon unless alot of other stuff goes weird.
There're some funny things that will happen to the economics of oil really soon.
If prices ever stabilize around thist 65-75$ a barrel, then suddenly all the shale oil in Canada and the US becomes worth mining... right it just doesn't make economic sense as there'd be a negative economic return on the oil... but at those prices, it becomes worthwhile. Hence, at that price the supply greatly increases (it's estimated Canada has more oil trapped in shale than the entire middle east has in the wells being used today.)
So $20 a gallon isn't too likely, $5 or $6 isn't so silly though, maybe even $10 if it gets to the point that we develop enough alternative methods such that it's a true collectors commodity as you suggest... though about $4 of that $10 would likely be taxes.
Actually, many drivers interpret this as "Get the hell outta my way if you're slower than I", and will point this out to you in a variety of ways. Like being 3 m from your rear bumper and flashing their lights, while you're already going 160 km/h.
Actually, I live in Illinois, and that is the law here... even if the guy behind you is speeding, if it's in the left lane, you get a ticket... actually you both get a ticket. Never seen it enforced, but that's the law.
Personally, I'd like to see the motorway limit pushed up to around 80-90mph
I drive too fast, often over those limits... so I would love to see your proposal... but you know what'd make me even happier? The law they have on the autobahn, get the hell out of the left lane unless you're passing.
This is possible, but is there much reason to believe they wouldn't just drive even faster?
I remember a few years back (maybe 10, god I'm getting old) Minnesotta said, you know what, let's compromise... speed limit is 70 (was 60), but we're going zero tolerance. Anyone know what ended up happening with this?
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No such troubles for me, GAIM works great all the time and I can upgrade it, and I love that I don't have to have AIM & MSN & Yahoo & ICQ all running anymore, and I love even more that when I have multiple conversations going I can keep them in one window.
But, I can't send photos or files over these networks, and that really bites because I have to keep loading those clients and asking the sender to hold on a second, big hassle... my biggest feature request would be to implement the "direct connect" and similar features.
When DirecTV starts offering their own DVRs, I'll probably start using it instead.
Perhaps I didn't understand, but did you mean like this? DirecTV DVR
Right now for you that's fine... not the same for everyone as this thread points out... I really wish my camera used SD right now, it would've saved me about 100 dollars, and would've given me added functionallity... I'm glad it's not an issue for you though.
You're limited in the number of vendors you can choose from when you buy a phone or a camera if you already have one of the two.
It's a simple matter of standards... right now we have 3 or 4... so you have to mix and match appropriately... memory stick sucks because it's attached to a single vendor.
Works out for you because you bought all sony in the camera and phone department.
You can have a dumb phone, I want a phone with easy buttons.
My god, I picked up my sister's 3 year old motorolla to make a call the other day, and it was wonderful, I pushed 10 numbers, and it took them all.
My current motorolla I have to watch the display as I key in numbers as the 5 works about 30% of the time, the 6 about 80% and the rest are all right, but are so small compared to the dead space that I miss them on occassion.
And my Treo... that's a great phone, but good god man, there's no good way to dial it without looking directly at it and really focussing, the buttons are tiny, and the touch screen has no context... I like the approach they took with this phone, I hope those keys are actually good and easy to use.
One of the fun things about smartphones is you can pop out your SD or CF card from your camera and show everyone your just taken pics on a much larger screen.... yes you can now do this if you stick solely with sony... but you're limited.
(I'm stuck too, I have a CF camera and a SD phone)
I would love this system for Travel... 4 hour delay in Detroit, go to the store, pick up 10 bucks worth of movies and not have to return them.... they already have pick them up at one and drop them off at the other, but say the delay gets cancelled and plane is ready to go, my extra two movies won't be ready for return by the time we land... now I can just watch them later.
Why can't they do this today with current technology?
This is going to have to add something else, not sure exactly what, but something.
If one could develop a web-based office suite that met the needs of DoD/Dod contractors, then I think a lot of them might go for that idea. It would allow a military unit in Iraq and a command post at Ft. Bragg to view/edit their files without having to worry about transmitting them back and forth;
See what I don't get about this perceived advantage of a web based product is that if that's the only goal you're trying to solve, current technology already does it, and does it very well.
Content Management Systems are all over the place, allow for sophiscated merging, change tracking, personal responsibility, encryption... basically everything... the whole "where's the data" seems to be a red herring, a web based app could easily store data locally, and a desktop app can easily store data on a network/internet share or in a CMS. We already have WebDav & Samba.
Oh come on, you're living in a fantasy world. A boycott just cannot have any kind of effect here - people are too apathetic. Boycotts only work when a large lobbying group (like the NRA or the Women's League of Voters) gets behind it. That's just not going to happen in this case.
That's kinda been my subtle point all along. What you call consumer apathy, I call consumer satisfaction. They may prefer something else, but they're quite content with the way it is right now.
Boycotts aren't supposed to work when it's a few random people, or in the case of a national conglomerate a few thousand people, or even tens of thousands.
No, in regards ot the illegal operations and cartel like price fixing... I personally think you're being a tad melodramatic... but do agree they're problematic with many of their business practices.
However, the slowly rising success of indie alternatives (moving from hobbies to big enough for people to start making livings off of) is a sign that things may not be as dire as you cast them.
That's an interesting theory. I don't think it works so well in practice. I mean, who here really thinks that iTunes would be around today if not for Napster?
I dunno, I can't imagine negotiating with the RIAA... but who here thinks iTunes would be here today if Napster would've found a way to distribute that musically legally and for a reasonable fee?
What I really think is going to have to happen is these other sources of distribution are going to need to get enough critical mass on the new artist side, find an effective way to advertise good music (where good is what people want to hear, not what the slashdot crowd says is the most awesome underground band you never heard of) and start selling stuff the RIAA doesn't have a hold on... but that's going to take some serious time, and will likely have several big setbacks along the way.
OK, then act outside of it, that's your right too. But since you're otherwise living within the system, and taking advantage of its protections where you see fit, don't be surprised when certain rules are enforced and you are punished for not acting within the system.
Then tell me if free Britney Spears was worth the punishment. Sure, there are plenty of things worth revolting over, I just can't pretend pop music which is produced, recorded and released by these groups is one of them.
And new music is only culture because we buy it in the first place, ColdPlay can go ahead and make music all day long in the studio, the RIAA can advertise the heck out of it, but if stores don't order it, and people never hear it, it doesn't become part of the culture.
Here here... I'd like to add that I think that rocks, and I have a good friend who did that recently with the music, and actually another person then put that music into an Indie movie which they're also distributing in creative ways.
Here's to hoping these methods take off.
How is there a barrier to entry on a boycott?
Or is it that even at their fixed prices enough consumers are willing to pay the fees such that the different industries you mention that your boycott wouldn't have a chance in hell?
I concur, the prices are obscene for the most part, I wish they'd go down, given current technology there's no reason they shouldn't go down... actually, given technology of the last 50 years they never should've gone up, the entertainment industry has been making people fabulously wealthy for a very long time... arguably rewarding people over and above their hard work. The advantage of filming once and distributing millions of time, or recording once... etc.
But, the prices are only so obscene because the consumer is willing to pay. If we stop paying, they'll either fold up because they truly cannot operate on those margins (unlikely) or they'll lower prices... fact is, right now, enough people aren't there.
I'm sure it's been said, or will be shortly, but there is no "right" that you have to the RIAA's brand of pop music and there is no right that you have which entitles you to see Star Wars Episode III for a price you see fit. It's a product, they've set a price, accept it or don't, vote with your money.
With current technology do we all think we could come up with a better model that would distribute money more fairly, give more people a fair slice of the pie and cost consumers far less? Yes we do, and hopefully with enough time the startups who have done this will catch on and we'll all have new distribution methods, but the old one is still raking in enough cash that it's not going to get out of the way just yet.
Ok, but we live in a Capitalist system... so if this is what you want I think you know the answer...
That's right, start up a company which prints CDs and DVDs for $2 and don't sell them for $30 or $15, open a movie theatre where tickets cost less than $10 and buy an NFL team, and charge less than $100 for admission.
Or, boycott, and get enough people to boycott with you and see how the industry reacts, they can lower prices or go out of business depending. It's a pretty simple system, act within it, don't steal and say that you're boldy "driving a spear through the eye of the industry"
Just as a side note they're not replacing plastic with titanium, they're replacing a magnesium composite with titanium... functionally this is a lateral move, it's all about design.
To me the bigger news here is the widescreen, bigger speakers, "consumer" style laptop... Lenovo is taking a traditionally business line and going after a student/home user market with the design changes, and quite frankly, I don't see them both maintaining quality and competing well there...
You've always paid more for thinkpads and gotten more, mostly in terms of reliability, in the home world, people aren't as savy about reliability, don't tend to keep their machines as long, and really don't care that they do smart things like reuse the same bay architecture for 7+ years so all your components stay useable.
Actually, All-in-one's are still sitting on and old reputation from when there were alot of crappy ones that liked to crap out after a year.
But now a days, plenty of companies make all in ones that are really nice pieces of equipment.... I'd specifically mention HP & Canon in this category myself... the laser ones anyway, no experience with the inkjet ones.
Seeing as vaporware doesn't actually draw any current.
It's not as funny when you have to explain the joke.
Nah, for me I was up for learning everything, twice in some cases.
I gave up for lack of vendor support, keeping my laptop working 100% in Linux was a slight pain, not getting all the neat little things on my laptop that IBM only puts out of Windows was a much bigger one.
Then I needed to switch to Quickbooks 2005 to please my accountant, and that was just impossible (yeah, Caldera can get 2004 running, but not 2005)... so now, I'm done, I gave up... Windows on my laptops & desktops, linux on my servers... and I couldn't be happier.
If Linux isn't successful because something else is better at doing the job and just as free, then that's a cause for celebration, not worry.
You're making the mistake by assuming that everything to do with linux is free, open source, and can be ported by a simple recompile.
Do you expect hardware vendors to ever write drivers if the community switches a few times over a few years? What if a commercial vendor says sorry, we don't support that OS, either stick with Linux or lose our product (contrary to some of the opinions here you don't just switch products at the drop of a hat in the real world, a product doesn't just have to be better, it has to be better enough to warrant the pain of migration)
There's a fine balance of amount of choice that's good, and an amount that's counter-productive.
It won't be near $20 a gallon unless alot of other stuff goes weird.
There're some funny things that will happen to the economics of oil really soon.
If prices ever stabilize around thist 65-75$ a barrel, then suddenly all the shale oil in Canada and the US becomes worth mining... right it just doesn't make economic sense as there'd be a negative economic return on the oil... but at those prices, it becomes worthwhile. Hence, at that price the supply greatly increases (it's estimated Canada has more oil trapped in shale than the entire middle east has in the wells being used today.)
So $20 a gallon isn't too likely, $5 or $6 isn't so silly though, maybe even $10 if it gets to the point that we develop enough alternative methods such that it's a true collectors commodity as you suggest... though about $4 of that $10 would likely be taxes.
Actually, many drivers interpret this as "Get the hell outta my way if you're slower than I", and will point this out to you in a variety of ways. Like being 3 m from your rear bumper and flashing their lights, while you're already going 160 km/h.
Actually, I live in Illinois, and that is the law here... even if the guy behind you is speeding, if it's in the left lane, you get a ticket... actually you both get a ticket. Never seen it enforced, but that's the law.
Do this with the wrong judge in the US and you end up with an "Operating equipment unsafe for driving" or some such nonsense.
Personally, I'd like to see the motorway limit pushed up to around 80-90mph
I drive too fast, often over those limits... so I would love to see your proposal... but you know what'd make me even happier? The law they have on the autobahn, get the hell out of the left lane unless you're passing.
This is possible, but is there much reason to believe they wouldn't just drive even faster?
I remember a few years back (maybe 10, god I'm getting old) Minnesotta said, you know what, let's compromise... speed limit is 70 (was 60), but we're going zero tolerance. Anyone know what ended up happening with this?