In the software VoIP area there have been a lot of big announcements recently, including Yahoo, Lycos, AOL. I guess I wouldn't touch AOL and Lycos because they sound too good to be true, and sure enough they are (ads). But none of them, nor Skype, support Canada: their inbound services don't have Canada numbers.
What software VoIP services do offer Canadian phone numbers?
Skimming the article one thing is very clear: the Seagate Momentus 5400.3 is by far the best drive for any use where noise and heat matter. It's results are very impressive.
Note that it is the only perpendicular drive in the round-up and that the article says it is the most expensive.
You assume that Linux users are just after Unix'ness and could therefor easily switch to Mac. I disagree.
First, they are at opposite ends of the price and flexibility spectrum. You can take a copy of Linux and install it on every cheap PC you can find - for free.
Second, there are political, social issues. Some desktop Linux users like to use it because they think it is the 'right' thing. That is not the same thing as GPL zealots. Maybe they don't care about the GPL at all but they like the non-corporate, cooperative, and slightly chaotic nature of Linux. Socially, Politically, Organizationally, etc. Linux is the absolute opposite of Windows and Mac.
Most notebooks ship with smaller hard drives and don't allow you to open the case and add a second drive.
eSATA would allow you to connect an external drive at full speed and without the cpu usage of USB2.
All that is missing is eSATA connectors on notebooks, but I have seen Cardbus adapters for eSATA. Also, notebooks are now starting to apppear with SATA drives (eg. the new Dell XPS notebook) so hopefully they will add eSATA connectors soon.
Certainly the recent rise of OS X on the back of the iPod has hurt desktop Linux, but these two desktop OS's appeal to completely different market segments so they are natural allies, not adversaries.
Linux attack MS from the low-end and is particularly strong in corporate, third world, and limited use, environments. It is flexible and is appealling technically and politically, but is quite rough and not ready for the average consumer.
OS X is the opposite. It is high margin, high sytle, and slick. It is perfect for the brand-concious, reasonably wealthy, consumer who wants everything to work together easily.
I'm not suggesting that Apple would intentionally help Linux, anymore than MS would, but Apple and Linux are not exactly on a collision course!
The authority and motivation of the source is very relevant, as we can tell by how prominently he is being billed as 'co-founder of Greenpeace' both by the Washington Post and by Slashdot. I'm not in a position to judge and debate every statement made in the article so I need to start with some idea about whether the source is trust-worthy.
I agree with what he wrote, but I am thankful to the person who started this thread for making me aware that I should not take the article seriously. I gained great respect for the Washington Post based on a book I read about it, but their billing of this OP has made me lose a bit of that.
That would be fine, but then you can't go and write an opinion piece in the paper without full disclosure. Billing him as 'co-founder of greenpeace' is totally misleading.
The idea that people don't know what is wrong with this is very depressing.
I've bought quite a few 2.5" HD's and put them in cheapo USB enclosures. They all work fine without any external power. Why would I pay much more money for a unit that's much less portable (because it requires me to carry around a power supply)?
The title of this topic includes the word bluetooth, but the article isn't clear on this point. Is it bluetooth? If I have a notebook with built-in BT will that work (isntead of the USB transmitter that is included)?
Amazon might be able to distinguish itself from iTunes in the way you've described, but Yahoo already has many of these things: one of the internet's most popular web sites, the ability to tie together a set of offerings, a subscription model and better prices than iTunes.
So how is Amazon going to compete with Yahoo when Yahoo has a years head start?
That's if you are trying to port a comlete application.
A good amount of code snippets and libraries can be shared between very diverse C++ applications if the libraries adhere to the language. For example, everything at boost and a lot of the code on CodeProject is written to only rely on the standard library so I can use all of this code with MFC, wxWidgets, GTKmm, but not Qt.
TT has developed its own proprietary language and this is a disservice to developers who don't want to be locked in.
As a C++ developer I wanted to love Qt/KDE, but with version 4 they have lost me.
I believe in writing code that is portable and can be shared, so I believe in standards. TT is now attempting to undermine these things. QT4 introduces their own version of the STL. So, while other libraries, such as wxWidgets go out of their way to move towards the standard, TT moves away from it.
Yes, I'm sure they have excuses. I'm sure that, by designing their own standard containers they managed to come up with something that works even better for them. But standards have a purpose and everyone has to sacrafice a little to make standards work. TT and MS are two companies that prefer to lock-in developers and their code, and I don't want any part of it.
Have we completely reversed the roles of government and industry?
Isn't it the job of Google and friends to make money while (hopefully) respecting the laws of the countries in which they do business?
Isn't it the national government that represents the people of the nation and their values?
And now a representative of the party that puts money above values in its dealings with foreign governments is asking companies to adhere to it citizens' values. This is incredibly ironic isn't it?
A USB enclosure for a 2.5" HD is cheap, small, and convenient, but which of these drives would be best for this?
Obviously speed doesn't matter.
Probably the most important factor is power consumption since these enclosures run off the USB power which is barely enough for these drives. The WD drive is strange in that it gets very good numbers for operating power dissapation and noise, but then is 2nd worst for startup power dissapation. I guess that puts it out of the running.
I think they are expecting telephony to be provided by VoIP services, eg. Skype would run on it. After all, this unit is really intended to be used in places where you always have internet connectivity.
No, I believe that it does NOT compete directly with PocketPC/Palm. They are trying to create a new product category: the "Internet Tablet".
So, why does your software (or any OSS) deserve any respect in the first place?
For many of the 'zealots' that you are talking about, OSS doesn't deserve respect merely for the fact of being open. It deserves respect primarily beecause it is good software, and secondarily because it makes a contribution to a good cause.
I, and most of us here, don't know enough about your software to say whether it deserves respect as good software.
But, if it only runs on Windows, then we know that it doesn't deserve respect as a contribution to a good cause. I'm not saying that 'windows is evil' or denying that Windows is the dominant OS, but there are many reasons why Linux (etc.) is a good cause. It even helps Windows users because it provides sorely needed competition to Windows and thereby helps keep MS in line.
If someone writes software that runs on Linux, or that is cross-platform, then I know that they are at least trying to make a contribution to a cause that I and many others believe is good for us all. So they have my respect.
- The best feature/decision is support for OpenDocument. Not only do I think this is important, but it is getting lots of media attention. It appears that everybody thinks this is important. Good move!
- Worst feature/decision that is understandable: the tie-in to Java, and Sun's java in particular. Oh well, I guess it was inevitable.
- The worst feature/decision that makes no sense: the use of a custom GUI api. People think it uses native widgets/chrome but it is faking it so it will be 'off' in small ways that are confusing and annoying. Even worse, they are working with a unique and reasonably innaccesible code base rather than participating in an existing GUI technology. I shouldn't refer to this as a 'decision' though. The discussions on the lists led to the decision that an existing technology would be chosen (eg. SWT, wxWidgets, GTK) but somehow it never happened.
Did this happen during the Beta period? Not that that would excuse them, but the client software was really buggy back then and is better now.
Also, you've reminded me of an important issue that I left out of my initial posting: the client only runs on Windows, and associated web pages only work with MSIE. Firefox is the default browser on my system. When I click a link in the Yahoo client it opens MSIE, as it should since that is all it supports. It is my understanding that they are working towards firefox compatibility on all their services, but who knows when that will happen.
I've been using the full Yahoo music service for a couple of months now, and so far I love it. It has changed the way that I listen to music.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Yahoo, and I don't use other Yahoo services (I'm a googlite). I do know someone who works for Yahoo, but I don't believe that has influenced my opinion of this service.
I can't compare the Yahoo service to the other services (because I haven't tried them) other than to note that it appears to be a fair bit cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to raise the price at some point.
The selection seems very good to me, but I have noticed that often they will have an album minus one or two songs.
The sound quality is very good: 192, rather than 128.
The client software was very buggy initially but is much better now. I'm running it on a Win2K notebook with a PII 366 CPU. It's not fast but it is acceptable.
But most of all, I like this subscription model. It's really great having access to everything. This way I do a lot of trying out new music and following up on suggestions. As soon as I joined I looked around and gathered some albums that I hadn't heard in years. I'm listening to more music now and I'm discovering lots of new stuff. It's a great feeling of musical freedom to have everything available at your fingertips.
The problem is that now I'm hooked. If I wanted to quit I would have to look at all the music I've collected, decide which songs I liked the best, and purchase them for $0.80 a song. On the other hand, I could just keep subscribing and still pay much less than I would if I wanted to buy even a few of these albums I've now collected.
My biggest complaint is that they manage your music data the same way that most other big music apps do. I heard someone say that iTunes stores everything in your folder structure in the tags and xml files. That sounds like a much better way to do it. I wouldn't use the iPod/iTunes because of the price and lock-in, but kudos to them for using such an open and sensible system.
The desktop is the only segment where Linux seems to be failing. The problem is not the 'copy windows' approach. After all, there are many distros trying many different approaches and none have had a lot of success on the desktop.
The problem is that Linux's fragmentation and diversity are not helpful when selling to consumers. Some instances of this (diversity) have been good for innovation and development, and have not been a problem in the server and embedded spaces where the potential client is fairly sophisticated. On the other hand, the desktop wars (ie. Gnome vs. KDE) have sapped the energy of the community, slowed progress and cooperation, and given potential users the impresssion that Linux isn't ready yet. (One primary desktop and a bunch of lesser ones would have been ok.)
I personally blame Trolltech (though I'm a C++ developer), but I acknowledge that others will have the opposite perspective. But regardless of who is to blame, that is one of the biggest factors in Linux's lack of success on the desktop.
Slashdot Mirror
In the software VoIP area there have been a lot of big announcements recently, including Yahoo, Lycos, AOL. I guess I wouldn't touch AOL and Lycos because they sound too good to be true, and sure enough they are (ads). But none of them, nor Skype, support Canada: their inbound services don't have Canada numbers.
What software VoIP services do offer Canadian phone numbers?
Skimming the article one thing is very clear: the Seagate Momentus 5400.3 is by far the best drive for any use where noise and heat matter. It's results are very impressive.
Note that it is the only perpendicular drive in the round-up and that the article says it is the most expensive.
No problem - Windows Defender (formerly MS Anti-Spyware) will remove this. Won't it?
You assume that Linux users are just after Unix'ness and could therefor easily switch to Mac. I disagree.
First, they are at opposite ends of the price and flexibility spectrum. You can take a copy of Linux and install it on every cheap PC you can find - for free.
Second, there are political, social issues. Some desktop Linux users like to use it because they think it is the 'right' thing. That is not the same thing as GPL zealots. Maybe they don't care about the GPL at all but they like the non-corporate, cooperative, and slightly chaotic nature of Linux. Socially, Politically, Organizationally, etc. Linux is the absolute opposite of Windows and Mac.
Most notebooks ship with smaller hard drives and don't allow you to open the case and add a second drive.
eSATA would allow you to connect an external drive at full speed and without the cpu usage of USB2.
All that is missing is eSATA connectors on notebooks, but I have seen Cardbus adapters for eSATA. Also, notebooks are now starting to apppear with SATA drives (eg. the new Dell XPS notebook) so hopefully they will add eSATA connectors soon.
Certainly the recent rise of OS X on the back of the iPod has hurt desktop Linux, but these two desktop OS's appeal to completely different market segments so they are natural allies, not adversaries.
Linux attack MS from the low-end and is particularly strong in corporate, third world, and limited use, environments. It is flexible and is appealling technically and politically, but is quite rough and not ready for the average consumer.
OS X is the opposite. It is high margin, high sytle, and slick. It is perfect for the brand-concious, reasonably wealthy, consumer who wants everything to work together easily.
I'm not suggesting that Apple would intentionally help Linux, anymore than MS would, but Apple and Linux are not exactly on a collision course!
The authority and motivation of the source is very relevant, as we can tell by how prominently he is being billed as 'co-founder of Greenpeace' both by the Washington Post and by Slashdot. I'm not in a position to judge and debate every statement made in the article so I need to start with some idea about whether the source is trust-worthy.
I agree with what he wrote, but I am thankful to the person who started this thread for making me aware that I should not take the article seriously. I gained great respect for the Washington Post based on a book I read about it, but their billing of this OP has made me lose a bit of that.
That would be fine, but then you can't go and write an opinion piece in the paper without full disclosure. Billing him as 'co-founder of greenpeace' is totally misleading.
The idea that people don't know what is wrong with this is very depressing.
I've bought quite a few 2.5" HD's and put them in cheapo USB enclosures. They all work fine without any external power. Why would I pay much more money for a unit that's much less portable (because it requires me to carry around a power supply)?
You are right, but that doesn't make this project a bad thing for the city. It just means that we must watch and question this company like any other.
My question is bit off-topic, but important I think.
Is there any relationship between news corp and news.com?
Is there a site that outlines the relationships between the different major media companies (particularly the online ones)?
I'm finding that it is important to know these things in order to interpret the online news.
The title of this topic includes the word bluetooth, but the article isn't clear on this point. Is it bluetooth? If I have a notebook with built-in BT will that work (isntead of the USB transmitter that is included)?
Amazon might be able to distinguish itself from iTunes in the way you've described, but Yahoo already has many of these things: one of the internet's most popular web sites, the ability to tie together a set of offerings, a subscription model and better prices than iTunes.
So how is Amazon going to compete with Yahoo when Yahoo has a years head start?
That's if you are trying to port a comlete application.
A good amount of code snippets and libraries can be shared between very diverse C++ applications if the libraries adhere to the language. For example, everything at boost and a lot of the code on CodeProject is written to only rely on the standard library so I can use all of this code with MFC, wxWidgets, GTKmm, but not Qt.
TT has developed its own proprietary language and this is a disservice to developers who don't want to be locked in.
As a C++ developer I wanted to love Qt/KDE, but with version 4 they have lost me.
I believe in writing code that is portable and can be shared, so I believe in standards. TT is now attempting to undermine these things. QT4 introduces their own version of the STL. So, while other libraries, such as wxWidgets go out of their way to move towards the standard, TT moves away from it.
Yes, I'm sure they have excuses. I'm sure that, by designing their own standard containers they managed to come up with something that works even better for them. But standards have a purpose and everyone has to sacrafice a little to make standards work. TT and MS are two companies that prefer to lock-in developers and their code, and I don't want any part of it.
Have we completely reversed the roles of government and industry?
Isn't it the job of Google and friends to make money while (hopefully) respecting the laws of the countries in which they do business?
Isn't it the national government that represents the people of the nation and their values?
And now a representative of the party that puts money above values in its dealings with foreign governments is asking companies to adhere to it citizens' values. This is incredibly ironic isn't it?
Making up 20% of your gasoline requirements would be extremely difficult. Prices would be through the roof.
Not that I agree with the idea of anticipating a war in the middle east when making car purchase decisions.
Also, I have found deisel engines to be too noisy, whereas the prius I once drove in was quite quiet.
A USB enclosure for a 2.5" HD is cheap, small, and convenient, but which of these drives would be best for this?
Obviously speed doesn't matter.
Probably the most important factor is power consumption since these enclosures run off the USB power which is barely enough for these drives. The WD drive is strange in that it gets very good numbers for operating power dissapation and noise, but then is 2nd worst for startup power dissapation. I guess that puts it out of the running.
Here's the relevant page:
http://storagereview.com/articles/200511/notebook
I think they are expecting telephony to be provided by VoIP services, eg. Skype would run on it. After all, this unit is really intended to be used in places where you always have internet connectivity.
No, I believe that it does NOT compete directly with PocketPC/Palm. They are trying to create a new product category: the "Internet Tablet".
So, why does your software (or any OSS) deserve any respect in the first place?
For many of the 'zealots' that you are talking about, OSS doesn't deserve respect merely for the fact of being open. It deserves respect primarily beecause it is good software, and secondarily because it makes a contribution to a good cause.
I, and most of us here, don't know enough about your software to say whether it deserves respect as good software.
But, if it only runs on Windows, then we know that it doesn't deserve respect as a contribution to a good cause. I'm not saying that 'windows is evil' or denying that Windows is the dominant OS, but there are many reasons why Linux (etc.) is a good cause. It even helps Windows users because it provides sorely needed competition to Windows and thereby helps keep MS in line.
If someone writes software that runs on Linux, or that is cross-platform, then I know that they are at least trying to make a contribution to a cause that I and many others believe is good for us all. So they have my respect.
For OpenOffice 2.0...
- The best feature/decision is support for OpenDocument. Not only do I think this is important, but it is getting lots of media attention. It appears that everybody thinks this is important. Good move!
- Worst feature/decision that is understandable: the tie-in to Java, and Sun's java in particular. Oh well, I guess it was inevitable.
- The worst feature/decision that makes no sense: the use of a custom GUI api. People think it uses native widgets/chrome but it is faking it so it will be 'off' in small ways that are confusing and annoying. Even worse, they are working with a unique and reasonably innaccesible code base rather than participating in an existing GUI technology. I shouldn't refer to this as a 'decision' though. The discussions on the lists led to the decision that an existing technology would be chosen (eg. SWT, wxWidgets, GTK) but somehow it never happened.
Are there plans to fix this?
Wow, that does sound annoying!
Did this happen during the Beta period? Not that that would excuse them, but the client software was really buggy back then and is better now.
Also, you've reminded me of an important issue that I left out of my initial posting: the client only runs on Windows, and associated web pages only work with MSIE. Firefox is the default browser on my system. When I click a link in the Yahoo client it opens MSIE, as it should since that is all it supports. It is my understanding that they are working towards firefox compatibility on all their services, but who knows when that will happen.
I've been using the full Yahoo music service for a couple of months now, and so far I love it. It has changed the way that I listen to music.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Yahoo, and I don't use other Yahoo services (I'm a googlite). I do know someone who works for Yahoo, but I don't believe that has influenced my opinion of this service.
I can't compare the Yahoo service to the other services (because I haven't tried them) other than to note that it appears to be a fair bit cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to raise the price at some point.
The selection seems very good to me, but I have noticed that often they will have an album minus one or two songs.
The sound quality is very good: 192, rather than 128.
The client software was very buggy initially but is much better now. I'm running it on a Win2K notebook with a PII 366 CPU. It's not fast but it is acceptable.
But most of all, I like this subscription model. It's really great having access to everything. This way I do a lot of trying out new music and following up on suggestions. As soon as I joined I looked around and gathered some albums that I hadn't heard in years. I'm listening to more music now and I'm discovering lots of new stuff. It's a great feeling of musical freedom to have everything available at your fingertips.
The problem is that now I'm hooked. If I wanted to quit I would have to look at all the music I've collected, decide which songs I liked the best, and purchase them for $0.80 a song. On the other hand, I could just keep subscribing and still pay much less than I would if I wanted to buy even a few of these albums I've now collected.
My biggest complaint is that they manage your music data the same way that most other big music apps do. I heard someone say that iTunes stores everything in your folder structure in the tags and xml files. That sounds like a much better way to do it. I wouldn't use the iPod/iTunes because of the price and lock-in, but kudos to them for using such an open and sensible system.
It's not that iTunes is bad, it's just that you are locked in. They aren't the same thing though they do often end up going together.
The desktop is the only segment where Linux seems to be failing. The problem is not the 'copy windows' approach. After all, there are many distros trying many different approaches and none have had a lot of success on the desktop.
The problem is that Linux's fragmentation and diversity are not helpful when selling to consumers. Some instances of this (diversity) have been good for innovation and development, and have not been a problem in the server and embedded spaces where the potential client is fairly sophisticated. On the other hand, the desktop wars (ie. Gnome vs. KDE) have sapped the energy of the community, slowed progress and cooperation, and given potential users the impresssion that Linux isn't ready yet. (One primary desktop and a bunch of lesser ones would have been ok.)
I personally blame Trolltech (though I'm a C++ developer), but I acknowledge that others will have the opposite perspective. But regardless of who is to blame, that is one of the biggest factors in Linux's lack of success on the desktop.