Have you tried foxit reader for a more crash free experiance? Or better - don't use plugins for pdf files - it's not like you can use all the browser tools anyway, so just have it auto open in Acrobat if you must.
I'm pretty sure there are session extensions for FireFox - multiple sessions are built into Opera (which I use). You do need to remember to save the session before closing Opera if you want different ones - it just uses a single one for session persistance automatically. From the optional start dialog, you can choose which session to open.
Yes, perhaps it should be adjusted for inflation and rounded nicely. According to Tom's Inflation Calculator - the nicer rounded # would be $1,000. Which would make more sense - but I still think the cost of a jury would even overwhelm $1,000.
Hey, that's fine, but the amount of people is growing that use MAC OS X, as well as FireFox. When the Wii comes out using Opera, not to mention the phone platform etc (and the desktop users) that's growing as well. I see frequent reports that put "alternate" browser use at around 15% in total, and depending on the pickup of non-traditional web access devices like PDAs and game consoles and cell phones, that may well grow. How many people is it "ok" to lock out (or make the first experiance bad for?) I understood the position when it was 4% of users, but now it's getting close to 1 in 6 that could well be affected.
And they're vocal, so they do tell their friends. It's not just the techies anymore. And with more people using non PC platforms for web access (and that number expected to grow) just adding the second largest marketshare browser for support doesn't make much sense either, unless you want to lock out entire device ranges.
I'm just saying I disagree that LCD is not the way to go for an e-book. Of course it depends on what the user wants, but I, for one, will not be buying this. I'll stay happy with my RCA e-book. I am thinking about going up a slight model to the ebookwise 1150 - for a much more palatable $125.
I'm not telling people what the screen needs, I'm saying I need a backlight in an e-book reader. I often read it in bed at night with the lights off. I often read it on trips without other light. It is convienient - far more so than a clip on "reading light".
I've tried the clip on lights with real books - they are shit. They are uneven light - often an orangish color near the bottom of the book. They need to be brighter than a backlight - and they can inadverently blind you or others if you happen to glance at the bulb. They often are hard to keep on the book, and they unbalance the book. Finally, they require an entirely separate power source - so you're now lugging around another set of batteries etc.
A backlight is much easier and a better experiance IMO. I'm not saying everyone would want one, but I DO.
Re:Things need for ebook success
on
The eBook, Mark 2
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I've always felt that the RCA e-book reader had a lot right, especially for the technology at the time. The interface is intuiative - you load a book, top button under your thumb goes forward one page, bottom one back one page.
What was bad was the low resolution.
I personally want something with a similar interface to the RCA e-book reader, better screen and better importers. I really like the backlight myself - and having a battery that can last "only" ~20 hours seems fine to me - hell, we live with cellphones and mp3 players that get significantly less always on battery life. I mean, is it that hard to plug it in at night?
That's not to say longer battery life is bad, but I really think backlights are a great benefit to e-books, and should not be discarded for an "authentic" experiance. If I wanted a paperback experiance, I'd buy a paperback!
Finally, am I the only one who thinks content industries in general just don't get it? I mean, why would I pay the price of a hardcover book for a DRMed computer file? For that matter, why would I even pay the price of a paperback for that? I would pay $2-$3 for that though, if it's something I'm going to read once or twice...
It needs to be cheaper than Amazon's used books are or I'll just buy a real book.
Biometric is just so much more convenient, and once I can get biometric locks cheap enough for putting on my bike or locker, I can't see much reason to have tumbler locks anymore.
Major issue often overlooked (but often brought up as well, so how people overlook it anymore is beyond me): Your key gets compromised, or your combination/password... You can get a new key/password. Hell, just buy a new lock entirely. Problem solved.
Someone (not with much difficulty - watch mythbusters hollywood myths) copies your fingerprint . . . You... are screwed?
Now, of course, we can argue other biometrics are more difficult to capture - but none are impossible, and at worst, I'd expect the same scams as ATM readers etc will propogate at the same time as the devices are rolled out.
If this is the case, it will entirely break our windows setup workflow. There better be a way to image a base machine, push that image out, and autograb a key from the domain controller, or something equally instant/automatic. Otherwise, this could lead to a massive increase in time used to deploy a new machine, or redeploy a machine, or even reinstall windows on a machine.
I don't know, what's interesting is there are a lot of people happy to stay with IE even after I just charged them $199 to fix their spyware infection. Though many of them also keep limewire, so it's a crapshoot which infected them.
The iPod solved the major problems of its predecessors. It enables me to take 3300+ songs with me (15GB) on a very small device.
I'm not sure why that is such a big deal. I mean, at some point, I find that a) the limitations of the device make more music unuseable, and b) is way more music that I can afford to have anyway (assuming I buy it legit on CD or via iTMS).
Lets forget cost as most people are going to get around that (back catalogue CDs they have, subscription services on other devices, P2P) and talk about the sheer mental bulk of 3,000+ songs. How do you parse that usefully on the go with the device? I don't mean how do you find the music, you can go by artist, song name, whatever.
In use, I find I usually only use playlists or albums on the go - and there are only a few albums I like, and it's a little pain to build playlists because I have to be on the PC at the time to do it. However, even on the PC, it's a deal to make playlists - I just straight out *forget* of songs I might have that I like, and it takes some time to build a playlist I like.
One thing that would be nice is if things like MusicIP took off more - and that they exported to m3u lists.
Note: I have a Creative Zen Vision 30GB, not an iPod. And I don't use iTunes. Maybe they solve some of these problems.
This still doesn't prove a specific individual did the downloading. Or are we saying that the ISP subscriber is legally liable for anything that comes from their IP address? I'm ok with this, however I think if this is the case, there needs to be a big notice about this change somewhere for people who don't know/understand that.
Look, for the purpose of Turnitin, 1 also applies - *it is selling* access to it's database, that is commercial use. I'm also not sure that they would limit use to educational institutions.
Also, depending on the paper (is it creative writing for instance) there might possibly be an argument that there could be a potential market/value. Certainly there is a de facto value as Turnitin is getting money for access to the database, be it $0.0001... This could also play to 2.
Wait, that works about as well as the idea that if something was on the radio or tv at some point, I have an implied license to copy it and share it over the internet to other people *and charge for it*. I mean, they gave it to me (via radio or tv) to view...
Run *that* by the **AA!
I'm sorry, handing someone a copy of a copyrighted work *does not* give them any sort of license to copy that work. I suppose if I was pendantic, I could put a full copyright notice at the beginning of any work, but it's not required in the US (I don't agree with this law, but hey, I *DO* agree that what is good for the goose is good for the gander).
You know, I have to ask why it's not ok to just go home after school, do your homework, study a bit, and then - I don't know - read a book, play a video game or whatever. A) Why would anyone assume that someone did drugs because they didn't have an after school job?
Do you assume that everyone who works for you and isn't in some club or has a second night job goes home and smokes pot?
However if it ever came out, I'm pretty sure that's grounds for termination. And I was asked for a Diploma once - as part of my job(though not to get it) at Best Buy of all places. I think these retail stores put you through more shit to get hired than anywhere else, it's so out of proportion to any other job I've ever applied for.
The one thing that I think is missing here, while everyone chases various boondggles regarding how many of the songs are the real deal (an issue to be sure, but not necessarily the biggest one), is how exactly they are tying the IP address to a person.
Has it been decided that you are legally responsible for everything that comes from your IP address? Because that seems like a problem to me - given how many machines get compromised in one way or another for botnets, stash nodes for large scale pirates, whatever. Are you responsible for a robbery if someone steals your car from your driveway and uses it as a getaway car? Cause this is getting to be like that - many people just don't understand how to protect themselves from being compromised - heck, major businesses with professional IT admins have been rooted in the past and their machines used for various things, including FTP dumps for pirated material.
I think it's pretty shaky to assume that because they found a file at one point at one IP address that they can say the owner of the IP address (well, the leasor or whatever, subscriber) is the one doing the filesharing. There's some legitimate debate as to whether just having files on your PC indicates you were the one who put them there, given all the porn downloaders for instance.
Finally, this seems a chilling effect on PC sales as this gets wider known, though not owning a PC apparently won't save you (HOW the heck/did/ the RIAA get someone's name that didn't own a PC linked to an IP address?).
I really think there needs to be slightly higher standards for allowing a case to go forward if the RIAA has sued people who cannot by definition have an IP address as they don't have a PC. And this shows the weakness of the enire concept that an IP identifies a person.
Finally, this entire thing seems like Prohibition or the "War on Drugs" - neither has had much effect, and I doubt this will going forward either. The fact of the matter is that no matter how bad or wrong something is, if enough people think it's OK, society will slowly change - be it from those people moving to congregate as the puritins left England or through a change of culture like prohibition being ended. With studies showing 60 million people having illegially downloaded a song, and continuous users estimated at ~9 million in the US and growing, things will change. You can't throw that many people in jail.
I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward. If I recall correctly, I've heard it said many times that replacing an employee costs approximately 1.5 times their annual salary when you count in everything from recruiting through training, as well as downtime before you hire someone else, and productivity gap between a new worker and an experianced one.
Of course, this doesn't mean that if you turn up with cancer while working as a shelf stocker at Wal-Mart it doesn't make financial sense to replace you - of course it does, but if you have a broken leg, and it will cost $5,000 to "fix" you counting time not working productivity lost, vs say $23,000 to get a new employee up to speed as above - assuming ~ $15,000 a year salary.
I guess I don't understand - does iTunes auto sort a raft of MP3's into directories for me? Does it fix broken ID3 tags, or fill them in if they aren't there?
Why do I want to load an MP3 ripper when I want to play music? I very rarely want to rip CDs, usually I want to play the MP3's.
This is one of the downsides of the MS/OEM relationship which is just starting to break up (though not for the better - OEMs are new at this, and don't get it).
In Linux, when similar issues were getting annoying - this didn't work, or that required changing this software etc, someone made a different distro with good software. Then when it was hard to use, someone else designed a distro with simple software and n00b friendly - think Ubuntu.
What OEMs in the windows world don't get is that they need to be the Distro makers, and advertise that a little. BigFix isn't a value add, but preinstalled/configured FireFox or Opera as default browser might be. Similarily, an agreement to bundle as the default text editor Notepad+ or NotePad Lite or heck, Emacs might be a value add. Bundling Perfect disk as the defragmenter and Open Office 2.x as the office suite. That'd be more of a value add than MS Works!
Many of the programs listed above are FLOSS. Others indicate places where a strategic partnership might help an OEM differentiate on more than price and the case design.
They could offer a premium software bundle - Best Buy as the retailer does this with AV/AS at a nice markup, and sells a lot of these. Why do OEMs not want to do this? Heck, other retailers could offer a "Power Software Suite" of FLOSS installed for a decent labor install fee legally if I understand it correctly.
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Have you tried foxit reader for a more crash free experiance? Or better - don't use plugins for pdf files - it's not like you can use all the browser tools anyway, so just have it auto open in Acrobat if you must.
I'm pretty sure there are session extensions for FireFox - multiple sessions are built into Opera (which I use). You do need to remember to save the session before closing Opera if you want different ones - it just uses a single one for session persistance automatically. From the optional start dialog, you can choose which session to open.
I believe Opera is also the default browser on DS, Wii and PS3 (though you can install Linux and then get FF).
Never had Opera crash much here - up to the vagerities of hardware/software mix I guess.
Proxomitron. The answer to adblocking (actually general html rewriting) and works across all browsers, and apparently works well in Wine.
That depends on the bank and the type of card you use. Not all banks charge you extra for using your debit card as a debit.
Yes, perhaps it should be adjusted for inflation and rounded nicely. According to Tom's Inflation Calculator - the nicer rounded # would be $1,000. Which would make more sense - but I still think the cost of a jury would even overwhelm $1,000.
Hey, that's fine, but the amount of people is growing that use MAC OS X, as well as FireFox. When the Wii comes out using Opera, not to mention the phone platform etc (and the desktop users) that's growing as well. I see frequent reports that put "alternate" browser use at around 15% in total, and depending on the pickup of non-traditional web access devices like PDAs and game consoles and cell phones, that may well grow. How many people is it "ok" to lock out (or make the first experiance bad for?) I understood the position when it was 4% of users, but now it's getting close to 1 in 6 that could well be affected.
And they're vocal, so they do tell their friends. It's not just the techies anymore. And with more people using non PC platforms for web access (and that number expected to grow) just adding the second largest marketshare browser for support doesn't make much sense either, unless you want to lock out entire device ranges.
I'm just saying I disagree that LCD is not the way to go for an e-book. Of course it depends on what the user wants, but I, for one, will not be buying this. I'll stay happy with my RCA e-book. I am thinking about going up a slight model to the ebookwise 1150 - for a much more palatable $125.
I'm not telling people what the screen needs, I'm saying I need a backlight in an e-book reader. I often read it in bed at night with the lights off. I often read it on trips without other light. It is convienient - far more so than a clip on "reading light".
I've tried the clip on lights with real books - they are shit. They are uneven light - often an orangish color near the bottom of the book. They need to be brighter than a backlight - and they can inadverently blind you or others if you happen to glance at the bulb. They often are hard to keep on the book, and they unbalance the book. Finally, they require an entirely separate power source - so you're now lugging around another set of batteries etc.
A backlight is much easier and a better experiance IMO. I'm not saying everyone would want one, but I DO.
I've always felt that the RCA e-book reader had a lot right, especially for the technology at the time. The interface is intuiative - you load a book, top button under your thumb goes forward one page, bottom one back one page.
What was bad was the low resolution.
I personally want something with a similar interface to the RCA e-book reader, better screen and better importers. I really like the backlight myself - and having a battery that can last "only" ~20 hours seems fine to me - hell, we live with cellphones and mp3 players that get significantly less always on battery life. I mean, is it that hard to plug it in at night?
That's not to say longer battery life is bad, but I really think backlights are a great benefit to e-books, and should not be discarded for an "authentic" experiance. If I wanted a paperback experiance, I'd buy a paperback!
Finally, am I the only one who thinks content industries in general just don't get it? I mean, why would I pay the price of a hardcover book for a DRMed computer file? For that matter, why would I even pay the price of a paperback for that? I would pay $2-$3 for that though, if it's something I'm going to read once or twice...
It needs to be cheaper than Amazon's used books are or I'll just buy a real book.
Biometric is just so much more convenient, and once I can get biometric locks cheap enough for putting on my bike or locker, I can't see much reason to have tumbler locks anymore.
... are screwed?
Major issue often overlooked (but often brought up as well, so how people overlook it anymore is beyond me): Your key gets compromised, or your combination/password... You can get a new key/password. Hell, just buy a new lock entirely. Problem solved.
Someone (not with much difficulty - watch mythbusters hollywood myths) copies your fingerprint . . . You
Now, of course, we can argue other biometrics are more difficult to capture - but none are impossible, and at worst, I'd expect the same scams as ATM readers etc will propogate at the same time as the devices are rolled out.
Say no to biometrics for security!
Umm, skins? Good luck finding an aesetic that pleases everyone for a default.
If this is the case, it will entirely break our windows setup workflow. There better be a way to image a base machine, push that image out, and autograb a key from the domain controller, or something equally instant/automatic. Otherwise, this could lead to a massive increase in time used to deploy a new machine, or redeploy a machine, or even reinstall windows on a machine.
I don't know, what's interesting is there are a lot of people happy to stay with IE even after I just charged them $199 to fix their spyware infection. Though many of them also keep limewire, so it's a crapshoot which infected them.
The iPod solved the major problems of its predecessors. It enables me to take 3300+ songs with me (15GB) on a very small device.
I'm not sure why that is such a big deal. I mean, at some point, I find that a) the limitations of the device make more music unuseable, and b) is way more music that I can afford to have anyway (assuming I buy it legit on CD or via iTMS).
Lets forget cost as most people are going to get around that (back catalogue CDs they have, subscription services on other devices, P2P) and talk about the sheer mental bulk of 3,000+ songs. How do you parse that usefully on the go with the device? I don't mean how do you find the music, you can go by artist, song name, whatever.
In use, I find I usually only use playlists or albums on the go - and there are only a few albums I like, and it's a little pain to build playlists because I have to be on the PC at the time to do it. However, even on the PC, it's a deal to make playlists - I just straight out *forget* of songs I might have that I like, and it takes some time to build a playlist I like.
One thing that would be nice is if things like MusicIP took off more - and that they exported to m3u lists.
Note: I have a Creative Zen Vision 30GB, not an iPod. And I don't use iTunes. Maybe they solve some of these problems.
This still doesn't prove a specific individual did the downloading. Or are we saying that the ISP subscriber is legally liable for anything that comes from their IP address? I'm ok with this, however I think if this is the case, there needs to be a big notice about this change somewhere for people who don't know/understand that.
Look, for the purpose of Turnitin, 1 also applies - *it is selling* access to it's database, that is commercial use. I'm also not sure that they would limit use to educational institutions.
... This could also play to 2.
Also, depending on the paper (is it creative writing for instance) there might possibly be an argument that there could be a potential market/value. Certainly there is a de facto value as Turnitin is getting money for access to the database, be it $0.0001
Wait, that works about as well as the idea that if something was on the radio or tv at some point, I have an implied license to copy it and share it over the internet to other people *and charge for it*. I mean, they gave it to me (via radio or tv) to view...
Run *that* by the **AA!
I'm sorry, handing someone a copy of a copyrighted work *does not* give them any sort of license to copy that work. I suppose if I was pendantic, I could put a full copyright notice at the beginning of any work, but it's not required in the US (I don't agree with this law, but hey, I *DO* agree that what is good for the goose is good for the gander).
You know, I have to ask why it's not ok to just go home after school, do your homework, study a bit, and then - I don't know - read a book, play a video game or whatever. A) Why would anyone assume that someone did drugs because they didn't have an after school job?
Do you assume that everyone who works for you and isn't in some club or has a second night job goes home and smokes pot?
However if it ever came out, I'm pretty sure that's grounds for termination. And I was asked for a Diploma once - as part of my job(though not to get it) at Best Buy of all places. I think these retail stores put you through more shit to get hired than anywhere else, it's so out of proportion to any other job I've ever applied for.
The one thing that I think is missing here, while everyone chases various boondggles regarding how many of the songs are the real deal (an issue to be sure, but not necessarily the biggest one), is how exactly they are tying the IP address to a person.
/did/ the RIAA get someone's name that didn't own a PC linked to an IP address?).
Has it been decided that you are legally responsible for everything that comes from your IP address? Because that seems like a problem to me - given how many machines get compromised in one way or another for botnets, stash nodes for large scale pirates, whatever. Are you responsible for a robbery if someone steals your car from your driveway and uses it as a getaway car? Cause this is getting to be like that - many people just don't understand how to protect themselves from being compromised - heck, major businesses with professional IT admins have been rooted in the past and their machines used for various things, including FTP dumps for pirated material.
I think it's pretty shaky to assume that because they found a file at one point at one IP address that they can say the owner of the IP address (well, the leasor or whatever, subscriber) is the one doing the filesharing. There's some legitimate debate as to whether just having files on your PC indicates you were the one who put them there, given all the porn downloaders for instance.
Finally, this seems a chilling effect on PC sales as this gets wider known, though not owning a PC apparently won't save you (HOW the heck
I really think there needs to be slightly higher standards for allowing a case to go forward if the RIAA has sued people who cannot by definition have an IP address as they don't have a PC. And this shows the weakness of the enire concept that an IP identifies a person.
Finally, this entire thing seems like Prohibition or the "War on Drugs" - neither has had much effect, and I doubt this will going forward either. The fact of the matter is that no matter how bad or wrong something is, if enough people think it's OK, society will slowly change - be it from those people moving to congregate as the puritins left England or through a change of culture like prohibition being ended. With studies showing 60 million people having illegially downloaded a song, and continuous users estimated at ~9 million in the US and growing, things will change. You can't throw that many people in jail.
I'm not sure it's quite that straightforward. If I recall correctly, I've heard it said many times that replacing an employee costs approximately 1.5 times their annual salary when you count in everything from recruiting through training, as well as downtime before you hire someone else, and productivity gap between a new worker and an experianced one.
Of course, this doesn't mean that if you turn up with cancer while working as a shelf stocker at Wal-Mart it doesn't make financial sense to replace you - of course it does, but if you have a broken leg, and it will cost $5,000 to "fix" you counting time not working productivity lost, vs say $23,000 to get a new employee up to speed as above - assuming ~ $15,000 a year salary.
I think the point of many people in this thread is it doesn't handle many if any of them well when compared with other software.
I guess I don't understand - does iTunes auto sort a raft of MP3's into directories for me? Does it fix broken ID3 tags, or fill them in if they aren't there?
Why do I want to load an MP3 ripper when I want to play music? I very rarely want to rip CDs, usually I want to play the MP3's.
Why do people want one program to do everything? Usually it ends up doing none of them well.
This is one of the downsides of the MS/OEM relationship which is just starting to break up (though not for the better - OEMs are new at this, and don't get it).
In Linux, when similar issues were getting annoying - this didn't work, or that required changing this software etc, someone made a different distro with good software. Then when it was hard to use, someone else designed a distro with simple software and n00b friendly - think Ubuntu.
What OEMs in the windows world don't get is that they need to be the Distro makers, and advertise that a little. BigFix isn't a value add, but preinstalled/configured FireFox or Opera as default browser might be. Similarily, an agreement to bundle as the default text editor Notepad+ or NotePad Lite or heck, Emacs might be a value add. Bundling Perfect disk as the defragmenter and Open Office 2.x as the office suite. That'd be more of a value add than MS Works!
Many of the programs listed above are FLOSS. Others indicate places where a strategic partnership might help an OEM differentiate on more than price and the case design.
They could offer a premium software bundle - Best Buy as the retailer does this with AV/AS at a nice markup, and sells a lot of these. Why do OEMs not want to do this? Heck, other retailers could offer a "Power Software Suite" of FLOSS installed for a decent labor install fee legally if I understand it correctly.