The fact Intel does not plan to fix any of these bugs does not surprise me at all. Besides the expense of implementing design and fabrication changes, by fixing the probelms they are admitting the probelms really are that bad to begin with, and therefore having one of the older chips is not desireable.
Que angry letters and class action lawsuits.
This is just like whenever the auto industry realizes some minor part may have a slight chance of overheating (no safety risk to people) or other minor issue they make changes to correct. Word gets out and people begin asking if there's going to be a recall and folks with the effected components but no symptoms of the probelm show up at dealerships wanting free replacements with the new part.
This couldv been a really neat feature. I could signup a generic slashdot@gmail.com type account and then pass around multiple variations to different sites. Depending upon the variation received I could determine which site leaked my mail.
I see it more as a huge security flaw. If I knew someone with a gmail address I could spy on them by signing up for an account with the same username with a period in it. All mail sent to them would come to me too.
Suprised BitLord wasn't mentioned, I feel it is the best free Bittorrent client for Windows.
Probably because they never reviewed BitComet, which is all BitLord seems to be a rebranded version of. It even identifies itself as BitComet on the network (although it says it's version 1.0, which is bunk when the current verison of BitComet is 0.60).
RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?
Since when have companies ever gave a flip about maintianing the average person's privacy? The fact you have to opt-out of policies that share information most consumers would obviously rather keep private is proof enough.
One guy said that pennies made before 1971 are worth more than 1c in copper, and that the newer pennies might soon be worth much more than 1c due to their high zinc content.
I have recently acquired the rights to myself as a statistic. You may license me as a single number in your statistics if you pay an appropriate licensing fee.
What if we could do that though? No more cookies allowed that track me, marketing sharks or spyware, because that would be collecting unlicensed statistics.
What? Sony is tracking how many people try and rip their CD with some new DRM that phones home? Time to take them to court for copyright infringement.
If you can *prove* it's a problem with the PC, then it's YOUR job to educate the customer as best as possible with what course of actions they need to take in regards to who they should talk to next. For example, if they had their PC formatted and reinstalled but are now missing drivers for their NIC, it's bloody obvious they need to talk with their PC vendor/manufacture.
Yeah, the fun part is when it's a brand new PC they just took out of the box and the NIC had no driver installed at the factory or is otherwise not working.
Unless the customer is willing to pay for a DVI or HDMI cable, we only psupply component cables. Also, the Scientific Atlanta 8000 DVR box doesn't yet have it's DVI port activated (I've been informed by some techs that they are now active, but it's not "officially" confirmed). Why SA didn't activate it is beyond me. We've been bitching about it to them to have it enabled. But the 3250 HD and 8300 HD DVR do have active DVI/HDMI ports.
These are the 8300 DVR boxes. The plain HD boxes have DVI, and no HDMI, and the DVR ones have HDMI but no DVI. I mean no port at all, not ones that are there but don't exist.
As for the DVI problems, they are due to devices not supporting HDCP protocol. Unless your projector was designed and marketed for the home entertainment industry, there is a very good chance the DVI port is not HDCP compliant.
Hmmmm. I'll file that under "information I should have been told in training, but was glossed over/never given" also probably filed under "stuff we don't really support" for the cableco.
It would be foolish for any local cable company to not have these remote diagnostics available. The more data you can gather at the headend or with customer service, the less truck rolls you need to provide. While the costs for implementing such tools are expensive, the investment is easily recouped when you're no longer burning money on truck rolls with a problem that could been easily resolved over the phone with the customer.
No arguemant here. But the executives who make the decision to outsource are usually trying to implement the change for the least money possible so the savings for the company are as large as possible. Let the operations guys find an excuse for all the extra truck rolls, he can take credit for the support cost change (off one balance sheet, onto someone elses;-). When I did dialup support for the first company I covered, I had a limited shell account on a machine on the company network running homerolled Linux, and Matt's Traceroute. That made pinpointing latancy and packet dropping a real snap, but that's something I have to get access to from them. I can't get WinMTR to run right on our machines, even though I can do pings and traceroutes from the command prompt, and even if I could I can't ping devices like modems with only internal IP's.
I submit that they are completely aware of the new law. And are simply ignoring it becuase they don't agree with it. A law is only a law if the majority of citizens choose to follow it and those that don't are punished. If it isn't enforced and the people don't agree to it, it does no good to even have it on the books, it doesn't matter how many members of Parliment were bought to get it passed.
Clearly, you are not doing your job in regards to customer service. You may be the cable genius at the technical level, but if you can't point out the problem to the customer and why it's not the cable company's problem, then you have a serious communication issue.
Sometimes the problem isn't so easy to point out. Take you internet example, how do you "prove" to the average customer their inability to get online is from a NIC/Windows issue when there isn't another PC there we can plug right up and get going? It doesn't help that when they call Dell the first words out of the rep's mouth there is always "Call you ISP, it's their issue."
People want their cableco/ISP to support these issues/equipment due to lack of support from the other vendors. If you had an issue with your VCR, do you have a number to call for that? I got two calls last year from people trying to hook up new printers.
Fact is, customers WILL bitch moan and cry about media equipment setup. Sorry, we don't support install for your own equipment. I will over the phone (and techs out in the field) connect our cable box direct to your TV and that's it. If you want to change that configuration, you're on your own. Bye bye, contact 3rd party for further help.
Customer's expect that if they are having to pay for an install, the tech will install to their specifications. The most common problem is our techs hook up HDTV's with the component outputs and many people want things hooked up for "the best picture quality". Had a guy two days ago who had a projector with a proprietary HD interface, and an adapter to hook it up to DVI output. As far as I could see the adapter was the problem becuase he wasn't getting picture on the projector unless he used the component outs, his take was the box wasn't outputting to the DVI at all and that's why it wasn't working. When I left him he was going to hook up a DVI computer monitor to the box.
You don't get it, do you? If you want digital cable service, you have to PAY for it
Why do you keep pushing this idea that I want free Digital Cable? I'm not a pirate looking for free digital. But as a consumer, I want to be able to do with my digital cable what I can already do with my analog cable. Digital Cable may offer better picture and sound (something that has little benefit to most consumers hooking straight to set) and more channels, but it if reduces functionality that's not progress.
The reason why it's encrypted is to prevent theft of service from TWCs network. Maybe you're to young for this, but analog cable theft was major fucking problem in the 80s. We are talking about neighbors leaching off another neighbors cable with a splitter. Bunch of wankers they are... It was blatent THEFT!
Did you entirely miss my last paragraph in my previous post? The one about "open interfaces"? There were two solutions right there that would prevent neighbors sneaking up and leeching off paying customer lines, while allowing the paying customer added use of their service. If someone else wanted to leech of their service then, they would have to get into the guys house and hook up off his box (something the customer might notice I think). Then you can take both the leech and the subscriber to court! The cable doesn't need to be encryted to prevent leeching once it's inside the customer's house.
If cablecos are only encrypting lines to prevent leeching of service, why don't they give customers as many boxes as they want for free? Surely the money saved from lack of leeching makes up for the support costs of the boxes? If it doesn't then the encryption is just an example of non-cost-effective DRM. If it costs more to support the encryption system than the losses from theft of service if it wasn't encryted, it makes more business sense to leave it unencryted. There would no reason to keep the system this way unless the purpose was really to make more money off customers having to pay per TV for service.
"TWC is going to HATE the idea media PC's supporting cable cards. There will be a slew of people calling for support for every type of HTPC config under the sun. That in itself will be a training nightmare for phone reps. If they only allow their special Black Box DVR's on the headend, it makes support so much easier for CSR's and the Engineers, there's now only a handful of devices from one or two platforms to watch."
Current cable card specs are not two-way. In fact, cable card v2.0 hasn't been ratified last I checked. None the less, it's to be expected being that most of TWC revenue comes from VOD (porn provides the cream of the crop which is the dirty little secret most people don't talk about in public).
What do current cable card specs have to do with engineers wanting to reduce the number of hardware configurations they have to support? Two-way cable cards will be popping up just as soon flat panel TV's become a little more rampant. TW isn't going to want customers having to choose between a clean Cable Card install on their $3000 flat panel and having access to VOD over the old bulky box, it just becomes a roadblock to a revenue stream.
That said, we do NOT support the TV, only problems regarding poor reception and channels not coming in. If the customer has any questions about equipment features, we direct them to their TV manufacture. End of story. Nuff said.
Most consumers don't/can't make those kind of distinctions. Yesterday I talked to a woman who's cable service went out whenever she turned on her VCR (obviuosly becuase it was interupting the signal from her digital box broadcasting on Ch. 3). She considered it a problem with her cable service despite the fact it only happened when her VCR was operating. For another example, try working for a cableco that disables (perhaps deliberately) the S-Video port on their boxes. After a couple dozen calls from angry TiVo users, it gets pretty clear customers don't care what you do and do not support, if their service was working a certain way before or they have been told this is how you solve issue X for Y hardware device, and it doesn't work, they generally will call YOU and hold your company responsible.
"If cable companie are so hot to have HTPC's on their networks, why do they encrypt the digital signal to begin with?"
The answer is obvious! It's to prevent THEFT of cable service. You do know theft of cable service is a felony, right? Unless you have authorized equipment (cable card or box), you will be explicitly denied access.
1) So why weren't Cable-Ready TV's made illegal back in the day? If every had been forced to get analog converters it would have been easier to prevent theft of service on analog cable.
2) Many European and Asian countries do not encrypt digital cable, and I don't see them collapsing under enormous piracy problems. What you do see is higher adoption of digital service and better home built PVR's. The idea that "we have to encrypt it, otherwise the pirates will drive us out of business" is the same nonsense the RIAA peddles saying that unless they can add DRM to all CD's they'll go out of business. Nothing more than false truths spread to prop up outdated business models and justify draconian meansures that are really menat to wring a few more dollars a month from consumers.
if TWC didn't encrypt them, expect them to be sued by the likes of Sony, WB, Fox, and so forth.
You mean like how they got sued fifteen years ago for not preventing people from recording analog cable with their VCR's? Oh wait, that didn't happen. Because recording for personal use (on media the customer owns and can play on any VCR they wish) was an idea protected by Fair Use. Digital cable boxes make it a lot harder to steal service, but they also (convienently) render most standard recording devices (VCR's, DVD recorders) worthless when it comes to unattended recordings, and prevents consumers from taking advantage of the most basic use of a record
Being that I'm an employee of Time Warner Cable, I can only imagine they would be in favor of media PCs supporting cable cards. Reason being, it's less hardware TWC has to support and purchase for the end-user. It truly would be a win-win for both TWC and the consumer.
ROFLMAO! If you're an employee of TW, you really don't get your employer's business.
TWC is going to HATE the idea media PC's supporting cable cards. There will be a slew of people calling for support for every type of HTPC config under the sun. That in itself will be a training nightmare for phone reps. If they only allow their special Black Box DVR's on the headend, it makes support so much easier for CSR's and the Engineers, there's now only a handful of devices from one or two platforms to watch.
Here's a clue: If cable companie are so hot to have HTPC's on their networks, why do they encrypt the digital signal to begin with?
This is all about control and nickel and dimeing the consumer. Cableco's love DVR's, it's like if they could have charged you a fee for owning a VCR ten years ago to them.
If Myth supported Cablecard, the first thing that would happen is they would have to adopt a DRM-laden file format for the digital cable recordings. The MPAA/studios aren't going to allow a glorified computer to record content in a plain MPEG format. What do you think they're pushing HDMI for? Say goodbye to burning the recordings to DVD and prolly streaming too, they would make sure your CableCard Myth didn't have any way to get data off it's hard disk, just like you TW DVR doesn't. It stores the recordings in their encrypted format they came over the node in, making the shows worthless if you pull the drive from the unit.
Until some major consumer + lobbying action takes place and we get the digital cable signal encryption outlawed (on the grounds it inhibits Fair Use). You're not gonna see the Digital Cable MythPVR we all really want anytime soon.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
Get a KVM switch and you've got two dedicated machines you can use at the same time.
Why should I pay $400 for a second PC (plus the cost of a KVM) when I can pay $200 for Windows box on a retail shelf to use dual boot?
Today I noticed Amazon seems to have picked the HD-DVD side, they have a whole section hyping it. Meanwhile, a search for "blu-ray" yields just a half dozen eBook articles scattered amongest unrelated items and a "Did you mean 'Blue Ray'?"
Maybe it will be the retailers, and not the content providers or consumers, that really pick the standard that wins. Would the average consumer pick a Blu-Ray player if Wal-Mart chose to only sell HD-DVD titles?
I don't know about everyone else, but my copy of Windows XP came with a browser, a multimedia player, and an instant messaging program. And believe it or not, but I'd pick Windows Media Player over the evil spyware infested Real Player any day.
Maybe this is Google's sly way of saying the Microsoft programs suck. Not that I think RealPlayer is a good substitute. Including iTunes would have bloated the download size, but it would have gotten Quicktime installed to handle many other streaming video formats.
So if the Age of Empires developers decided that Win2K was a drastic minority with no mainstream support from MS, I can understand them not testing and support their product on 2000. But if the product works fine and users want to try it (unsupported) then they should let 'em do it.
The average consumer isn't going to think like that, though. They'll say "I bought it, it runs fine. XXXX feature isn't working, help me fix it." Argueing with consumers about what is and is not supported doesn't help a companies' PR image. Every day I have to tell customers "We don't support routers. Yes, I understand it's been working fine for months, but you have to bypass your router for troubleshooting. No, I didn't say you couldn't use a router, many customers use routers with our service, we just don't support routers..." ect. It's just about cutting down support calls/costs and deflecting people from using an unsupported configuration.
People differ in ability in every field; the bell curve is real, and only the people who are at the high end of the curve can be considered one of "the best gurus". They will never constitute a large percentage of the group. Ever.
No, but increase the size of the group under the curve and you'll increase the size of the group in the top 10% of it. That's where education comes in. With no real incentive to be part of the group the curve will only represent fewer people as time goes on and you'll see actual evidence to back up the claims of "we need more H-1B visas".
If there are enough fantastic coders to staff 17 ten-person projects, there are enough fantastic coders to staff one 170-person project. The trick is getting them all working on the same thing, and that's something a large software company can do, if it will go to the trouble of finding them instead of handing jobs out like free hot dogs to anyone who says "yeah, I know C++"
The point is it didn't occur to him in the first place. He was puzzled over Apple's decision to only have six buttons and was asking why they would do that when they could have had 16.
There is an important issue being glossed over here: is the release of this information illegal or not?
The top article [suntimes.com] implies that it is illegal for the phone companies to share this data.
But the information from EPIC [epic.org] and the FCC [fcc.gov] suggests a very different situation. According to these sites it is perfectly legal to share this data if the company adopts an "opt-out" policy and if the consumer has not exercised his right to opt-out.
Maybe the point the article is trying to make is this shouldn't be something you have to opt-out of to start with. What's next? My checking account history is available to any joe-schmoe who goes to the bank and pays $10 for the document becuase I didn't opt-out when I got my account?
In a society where people get annoyed about there being cameras installed in PUBLIC places and feel their "privacy" is being invaded, what makes these companies think they should be doing this to begin with? Is it not common sense most people don't want their buying habits, phone records, financial history, ect shared with anyone to start with? These should all be things kept private by default and you opt-INto if you wish. But becuase companies want to make money every way they can, and politicans will be bought and sold, I have yet to see a bill before the house saying that companies have to obtain permission before they do anything, just that they send a small leaflet telling they are and how to get out of it.
Apple sells a DVI->Svideo adapter for the mac mini.
And you can get DVI to HDMI adapters for the new HDMI-only sets. Obviously the audio will require a separate connection, but you can get a USB audio dongle to get something better than the minijack connection.
Hey, if Apple expands AirTunes to the entire system you'll be able to stream your DVD audio to an Airport Express, which has an optical output.
[Bill] Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.)
I see it didn't occur to either one that the Apple remote has fewer buttons becuase the interface is simply not as complicated as theirs. Another company falling for the dillusion that "more buttons = better".
You can't staff a whole large application development project with the best gurus: there aren't enough out there in the world.
And why aren't there? Geeks lament the fall of IT and Computer Science programs at institutes of higher learning, and wonder why people don't want to go into these fields. If there was demand for programmers of the caliber you mention and companies willing to pay salaries deserving of such abilities there would be more people studying towards such a position.
But if companies are going to just throw up their hands and say "we can't hire competent people, there aren't enough of them in the world, they only doom themselves to a continued shortfall in talent, and an increase in buggy software.
Nursing is a profession that is always looking for new people and folks who didn't make it through the four-year grind back when they were young are flocking to it because the jobs are waiting. If companies held their coders to a higher standard, they would trim some of the fat in their projects and have jobs open for people willing to do the work. The result would be more productive teams and better applications, a win-win situation.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact Intel does not plan to fix any of these bugs does not surprise me at all. Besides the expense of implementing design and fabrication changes, by fixing the probelms they are admitting the probelms really are that bad to begin with, and therefore having one of the older chips is not desireable.
Que angry letters and class action lawsuits.
This is just like whenever the auto industry realizes some minor part may have a slight chance of overheating (no safety risk to people) or other minor issue they make changes to correct. Word gets out and people begin asking if there's going to be a recall and folks with the effected components but no symptoms of the probelm show up at dealerships wanting free replacements with the new part.
This couldv been a really neat feature.
I could signup a generic slashdot@gmail.com type account and then pass around multiple variations to different sites.
Depending upon the variation received I could determine which site leaked my mail.
I see it more as a huge security flaw. If I knew someone with a gmail address I could spy on them by signing up for an account with the same username with a period in it. All mail sent to them would come to me too.
Suprised BitLord wasn't mentioned, I feel it is the best free Bittorrent client for Windows.
Probably because they never reviewed BitComet, which is all BitLord seems to be a rebranded version of. It even identifies itself as BitComet on the network (although it says it's version 1.0, which is bunk when the current verison of BitComet is 0.60).
RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?
Since when have companies ever gave a flip about maintianing the average person's privacy? The fact you have to opt-out of policies that share information most consumers would obviously rather keep private is proof enough.
I like this four-legged design better. :-)
One guy said that pennies made before 1971 are worth more than 1c in copper, and that the newer pennies might soon be worth much more than 1c due to their high zinc content.
It was 1982, not 1971.
The new system uses touchpanels to group users by destination.
Damn, here I was hoping the elevator would actually speak and ask me "Where do you want to go today?"
But then, do I want the elvator controlled by an OS synonymous with the word "crash"?
I have recently acquired the rights to myself as a statistic. You may license me as a single number in your statistics if you pay an appropriate licensing fee.
What if we could do that though? No more cookies allowed that track me, marketing sharks or spyware, because that would be collecting unlicensed statistics.
What? Sony is tracking how many people try and rip their CD with some new DRM that phones home? Time to take them to court for copyright infringement.
If you can *prove* it's a problem with the PC, then it's YOUR job to educate the customer as best as possible with what course of actions they need to take in regards to who they should talk to next. For example, if they had their PC formatted and reinstalled but are now missing drivers for their NIC, it's bloody obvious they need to talk with their PC vendor/manufacture.
;-). When I did dialup support for the first company I covered, I had a limited shell account on a machine on the company network running homerolled Linux, and Matt's Traceroute. That made pinpointing latancy and packet dropping a real snap, but that's something I have to get access to from them. I can't get WinMTR to run right on our machines, even though I can do pings and traceroutes from the command prompt, and even if I could I can't ping devices like modems with only internal IP's.
Yeah, the fun part is when it's a brand new PC they just took out of the box and the NIC had no driver installed at the factory or is otherwise not working.
Unless the customer is willing to pay for a DVI or HDMI cable, we only psupply component cables. Also, the Scientific Atlanta 8000 DVR box doesn't yet have it's DVI port activated (I've been informed by some techs that they are now active, but it's not "officially" confirmed). Why SA didn't activate it is beyond me. We've been bitching about it to them to have it enabled. But the 3250 HD and 8300 HD DVR do have active DVI/HDMI ports.
These are the 8300 DVR boxes. The plain HD boxes have DVI, and no HDMI, and the DVR ones have HDMI but no DVI. I mean no port at all, not ones that are there but don't exist.
As for the DVI problems, they are due to devices not supporting HDCP protocol. Unless your projector was designed and marketed for the home entertainment industry, there is a very good chance the DVI port is not HDCP compliant.
Hmmmm. I'll file that under "information I should have been told in training, but was glossed over/never given" also probably filed under "stuff we don't really support" for the cableco.
It would be foolish for any local cable company to not have these remote diagnostics available. The more data you can gather at the headend or with customer service, the less truck rolls you need to provide. While the costs for implementing such tools are expensive, the investment is easily recouped when you're no longer burning money on truck rolls with a problem that could been easily resolved over the phone with the customer.
No arguemant here. But the executives who make the decision to outsource are usually trying to implement the change for the least money possible so the savings for the company are as large as possible. Let the operations guys find an excuse for all the extra truck rolls, he can take credit for the support cost change (off one balance sheet, onto someone elses
Digital DJs Unaware of Copyright Law
I submit that they are completely aware of the new law. And are simply ignoring it becuase they don't agree with it. A law is only a law if the majority of citizens choose to follow it and those that don't are punished. If it isn't enforced and the people don't agree to it, it does no good to even have it on the books, it doesn't matter how many members of Parliment were bought to get it passed.
Clearly, you are not doing your job in regards to customer service. You may be the cable genius at the technical level, but if you can't point out the problem to the customer and why it's not the cable company's problem, then you have a serious communication issue.
Sometimes the problem isn't so easy to point out. Take you internet example, how do you "prove" to the average customer their inability to get online is from a NIC/Windows issue when there isn't another PC there we can plug right up and get going? It doesn't help that when they call Dell the first words out of the rep's mouth there is always "Call you ISP, it's their issue."
People want their cableco/ISP to support these issues/equipment due to lack of support from the other vendors. If you had an issue with your VCR, do you have a number to call for that? I got two calls last year from people trying to hook up new printers.
Fact is, customers WILL bitch moan and cry about media equipment setup. Sorry, we don't support install for your own equipment. I will over the phone (and techs out in the field) connect our cable box direct to your TV and that's it. If you want to change that configuration, you're on your own. Bye bye, contact 3rd party for further help.
Customer's expect that if they are having to pay for an install, the tech will install to their specifications. The most common problem is our techs hook up HDTV's with the component outputs and many people want things hooked up for "the best picture quality". Had a guy two days ago who had a projector with a proprietary HD interface, and an adapter to hook it up to DVI output. As far as I could see the adapter was the problem becuase he wasn't getting picture on the projector unless he used the component outs, his take was the box wasn't outputting to the DVI at all and that's why it wasn't working. When I left him he was going to hook up a DVI computer monitor to the box.
You don't get it, do you? If you want digital cable service, you have to PAY for it
Why do you keep pushing this idea that I want free Digital Cable? I'm not a pirate looking for free digital. But as a consumer, I want to be able to do with my digital cable what I can already do with my analog cable. Digital Cable may offer better picture and sound (something that has little benefit to most consumers hooking straight to set) and more channels, but it if reduces functionality that's not progress.
The reason why it's encrypted is to prevent theft of service from TWCs network. Maybe you're to young for this, but analog cable theft was major fucking problem in the 80s. We are talking about neighbors leaching off another neighbors cable with a splitter. Bunch of wankers they are... It was blatent THEFT!
Did you entirely miss my last paragraph in my previous post? The one about "open interfaces"? There were two solutions right there that would prevent neighbors sneaking up and leeching off paying customer lines, while allowing the paying customer added use of their service. If someone else wanted to leech of their service then, they would have to get into the guys house and hook up off his box (something the customer might notice I think). Then you can take both the leech and the subscriber to court! The cable doesn't need to be encryted to prevent leeching once it's inside the customer's house.
If cablecos are only encrypting lines to prevent leeching of service, why don't they give customers as many boxes as they want for free? Surely the money saved from lack of leeching makes up for the support costs of the boxes? If it doesn't then the encryption is just an example of non-cost-effective DRM. If it costs more to support the encryption system than the losses from theft of service if it wasn't encryted, it makes more business sense to leave it unencryted. There would no reason to keep the system this way unless the purpose was really to make more money off customers having to pay per TV for service.
As for DRM, I
"TWC is going to HATE the idea media PC's supporting cable cards. There will be a slew of people calling for support for every type of HTPC config under the sun. That in itself will be a training nightmare for phone reps. If they only allow their special Black Box DVR's on the headend, it makes support so much easier for CSR's and the Engineers, there's now only a handful of devices from one or two platforms to watch."
Current cable card specs are not two-way. In fact, cable card v2.0 hasn't been ratified last I checked. None the less, it's to be expected being that most of TWC revenue comes from VOD (porn provides the cream of the crop which is the dirty little secret most people don't talk about in public).
What do current cable card specs have to do with engineers wanting to reduce the number of hardware configurations they have to support? Two-way cable cards will be popping up just as soon flat panel TV's become a little more rampant. TW isn't going to want customers having to choose between a clean Cable Card install on their $3000 flat panel and having access to VOD over the old bulky box, it just becomes a roadblock to a revenue stream.
That said, we do NOT support the TV, only problems regarding poor reception and channels not coming in. If the customer has any questions about equipment features, we direct them to their TV manufacture. End of story. Nuff said.
Most consumers don't/can't make those kind of distinctions. Yesterday I talked to a woman who's cable service went out whenever she turned on her VCR (obviuosly becuase it was interupting the signal from her digital box broadcasting on Ch. 3). She considered it a problem with her cable service despite the fact it only happened when her VCR was operating. For another example, try working for a cableco that disables (perhaps deliberately) the S-Video port on their boxes. After a couple dozen calls from angry TiVo users, it gets pretty clear customers don't care what you do and do not support, if their service was working a certain way before or they have been told this is how you solve issue X for Y hardware device, and it doesn't work, they generally will call YOU and hold your company responsible.
"If cable companie are so hot to have HTPC's on their networks, why do they encrypt the digital signal to begin with?"
The answer is obvious! It's to prevent THEFT of cable service. You do know theft of cable service is a felony, right? Unless you have authorized equipment (cable card or box), you will be explicitly denied access.
1) So why weren't Cable-Ready TV's made illegal back in the day? If every had been forced to get analog converters it would have been easier to prevent theft of service on analog cable.
2) Many European and Asian countries do not encrypt digital cable, and I don't see them collapsing under enormous piracy problems. What you do see is higher adoption of digital service and better home built PVR's. The idea that "we have to encrypt it, otherwise the pirates will drive us out of business" is the same nonsense the RIAA peddles saying that unless they can add DRM to all CD's they'll go out of business. Nothing more than false truths spread to prop up outdated business models and justify draconian meansures that are really menat to wring a few more dollars a month from consumers.
if TWC didn't encrypt them, expect them to be sued by the likes of Sony, WB, Fox, and so forth.
You mean like how they got sued fifteen years ago for not preventing people from recording analog cable with their VCR's? Oh wait, that didn't happen. Because recording for personal use (on media the customer owns and can play on any VCR they wish) was an idea protected by Fair Use. Digital cable boxes make it a lot harder to steal service, but they also (convienently) render most standard recording devices (VCR's, DVD recorders) worthless when it comes to unattended recordings, and prevents consumers from taking advantage of the most basic use of a record
Being that I'm an employee of Time Warner Cable, I can only imagine they would be in favor of media PCs supporting cable cards. Reason being, it's less hardware TWC has to support and purchase for the end-user. It truly would be a win-win for both TWC and the consumer.
ROFLMAO! If you're an employee of TW, you really don't get your employer's business.
TWC is going to HATE the idea media PC's supporting cable cards. There will be a slew of people calling for support for every type of HTPC config under the sun. That in itself will be a training nightmare for phone reps. If they only allow their special Black Box DVR's on the headend, it makes support so much easier for CSR's and the Engineers, there's now only a handful of devices from one or two platforms to watch.
Here's a clue: If cable companie are so hot to have HTPC's on their networks, why do they encrypt the digital signal to begin with?
This is all about control and nickel and dimeing the consumer. Cableco's love DVR's, it's like if they could have charged you a fee for owning a VCR ten years ago to them.
If Myth supported Cablecard, the first thing that would happen is they would have to adopt a DRM-laden file format for the digital cable recordings. The MPAA/studios aren't going to allow a glorified computer to record content in a plain MPEG format. What do you think they're pushing HDMI for? Say goodbye to burning the recordings to DVD and prolly streaming too, they would make sure your CableCard Myth didn't have any way to get data off it's hard disk, just like you TW DVR doesn't. It stores the recordings in their encrypted format they came over the node in, making the shows worthless if you pull the drive from the unit.
Until some major consumer + lobbying action takes place and we get the digital cable signal encryption outlawed (on the grounds it inhibits Fair Use). You're not gonna see the Digital Cable MythPVR we all really want anytime soon.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
Get a KVM switch and you've got two dedicated machines you can use at the same time.
Why should I pay $400 for a second PC (plus the cost of a KVM) when I can pay $200 for Windows box on a retail shelf to use dual boot?
Imagine how much power a beowulf cluster of these trees will deliver!
You mean a beowulf forest?
Today I noticed Amazon seems to have picked the HD-DVD side, they have a whole section hyping it. Meanwhile, a search for "blu-ray" yields just a half dozen eBook articles scattered amongest unrelated items and a "Did you mean 'Blue Ray'?"
Maybe it will be the retailers, and not the content providers or consumers, that really pick the standard that wins. Would the average consumer pick a Blu-Ray player if Wal-Mart chose to only sell HD-DVD titles?
I don't know about everyone else, but my copy of Windows XP came with a browser, a multimedia player, and an instant messaging program. And believe it or not, but I'd pick Windows Media Player over the evil spyware infested Real Player any day.
Maybe this is Google's sly way of saying the Microsoft programs suck. Not that I think RealPlayer is a good substitute. Including iTunes would have bloated the download size, but it would have gotten Quicktime installed to handle many other streaming video formats.
So if the Age of Empires developers decided that Win2K was a drastic minority with no mainstream support from MS, I can understand them not testing and support their product on 2000. But if the product works fine and users want to try it (unsupported) then they should let 'em do it.
The average consumer isn't going to think like that, though. They'll say "I bought it, it runs fine. XXXX feature isn't working, help me fix it." Argueing with consumers about what is and is not supported doesn't help a companies' PR image. Every day I have to tell customers "We don't support routers. Yes, I understand it's been working fine for months, but you have to bypass your router for troubleshooting. No, I didn't say you couldn't use a router, many customers use routers with our service, we just don't support routers..." ect. It's just about cutting down support calls/costs and deflecting people from using an unsupported configuration.
Plus, I believe there's a bug filed on Bugzilla to create a corresponding toolbar button for that menu command. But that wont be till Firefox 2.0.
People differ in ability in every field; the bell curve is real, and only the people who are at the high end of the curve can be considered one of "the best gurus". They will never constitute a large percentage of the group. Ever.
No, but increase the size of the group under the curve and you'll increase the size of the group in the top 10% of it. That's where education comes in. With no real incentive to be part of the group the curve will only represent fewer people as time goes on and you'll see actual evidence to back up the claims of "we need more H-1B visas".
If there are enough fantastic coders to staff 17 ten-person projects, there are enough fantastic coders to staff one 170-person project. The trick is getting them all working on the same thing, and that's something a large software company can do, if it will go to the trouble of finding them instead of handing jobs out like free hot dogs to anyone who says "yeah, I know C++"
The point is it didn't occur to him in the first place. He was puzzled over Apple's decision to only have six buttons and was asking why they would do that when they could have had 16.
There is an important issue being glossed over here: is the release of this information illegal or not?
The top article [suntimes.com] implies that it is illegal for the phone companies to share this data.
But the information from EPIC [epic.org] and the FCC [fcc.gov] suggests a very different situation. According to these sites it is perfectly legal to share this data if the company adopts an "opt-out" policy and if the consumer has not exercised his right to opt-out.
Maybe the point the article is trying to make is this shouldn't be something you have to opt-out of to start with. What's next? My checking account history is available to any joe-schmoe who goes to the bank and pays $10 for the document becuase I didn't opt-out when I got my account?
In a society where people get annoyed about there being cameras installed in PUBLIC places and feel their "privacy" is being invaded, what makes these companies think they should be doing this to begin with? Is it not common sense most people don't want their buying habits, phone records, financial history, ect shared with anyone to start with? These should all be things kept private by default and you opt-INto if you wish. But becuase companies want to make money every way they can, and politicans will be bought and sold, I have yet to see a bill before the house saying that companies have to obtain permission before they do anything, just that they send a small leaflet telling they are and how to get out of it.
Apple sells a DVI->Svideo adapter for the mac mini.
And you can get DVI to HDMI adapters for the new HDMI-only sets. Obviously the audio will require a separate connection, but you can get a USB audio dongle to get something better than the minijack connection.
Hey, if Apple expands AirTunes to the entire system you'll be able to stream your DVD audio to an Airport Express, which has an optical output.
[Bill] Gates in an email to Mr. Belfiore asked why Apple's remote control had just six buttons. The standard Media Center remote from Microsoft has 39 buttons. (Mr. Belfiore's explanation: Front Row computers don't have TV or digital video recorder functions and thus don't need as many buttons.)
I see it didn't occur to either one that the Apple remote has fewer buttons becuase the interface is simply not as complicated as theirs. Another company falling for the dillusion that "more buttons = better".
You can't staff a whole large application development project with the best gurus: there aren't enough out there in the world.
And why aren't there? Geeks lament the fall of IT and Computer Science programs at institutes of higher learning, and wonder why people don't want to go into these fields. If there was demand for programmers of the caliber you mention and companies willing to pay salaries deserving of such abilities there would be more people studying towards such a position.
But if companies are going to just throw up their hands and say "we can't hire competent people, there aren't enough of them in the world, they only doom themselves to a continued shortfall in talent, and an increase in buggy software.
Nursing is a profession that is always looking for new people and folks who didn't make it through the four-year grind back when they were young are flocking to it because the jobs are waiting. If companies held their coders to a higher standard, they would trim some of the fat in their projects and have jobs open for people willing to do the work. The result would be more productive teams and better applications, a win-win situation.