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User: wkearney99

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  1. Re:Displacing the netbook? on Novell Bringing .Net Developers To Apple iPad · · Score: 0

    The iPad hasn't shipped. So claiming it's a "better" solution is fantasy, as best.

  2. Re:How much is Apple patented? on Apple Behind Intel's USB Competitor? · · Score: 0

    Good to see someone else making this point. Apple's attempts at bus interfaces have almost always ended in failure. Nubus, ADB, their 422 serial bus, firewire, etc. All failed to gain any significant traction in the larger market. Mostly due to Apple's own myopia and paranoia. Intel has nothing to lose, if it gains traction then Intel will sell the chips, if it fails they can just blame Apple. I'm betting the latter is more likely.

  3. Re:Not as originally advertised on Gene Roddenberry's Mac Plus Is Coming Up For Auction · · Score: 0

    If it was upgraded it would've required pretty much all new internals. The motherboard was different, as was the back case. The 128k had a single-sided floppy, the plus was a double-sided drive. The keyboards were different. The power supply board was different too. So basically an upgrade from a 128 to a plus would keep only the front bezel, the CRT and the metal chassis.

    Curiously, the inside of the cases had the signatures of various employees involved in making it happen. As the production run increased those signatures became less legible due to the mold wearing out.

  4. Re:I think that category is fading on Apple Store Reopens With Many New Products · · Score: 0

    HDMI is not just video. Yes, you can use a DVI to HDMI adapter, but you only get video. You're stuck having to run another set of cables for audio, potentially at a great loss of audio quality as analog audio won't pass any of the higher quality digital audio.

  5. and what about paying the programmers? on Linux In 2009 — Recession vs. GNU · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This entirely ignores the question of how the FOSS people are paying their expenses. Many are no doubt coding on the company's dime, often with only tacit (not official) approval. Wanna bet how many of them get canned in the coming year? Or how many suddenly don't have as much 'free' time to devote to such endeavors?

  6. Re:iMac & Grandmother experience on Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen? · · Score: 0

    You lost all credibility and fell squarely into fanboy territory with the 'seductive packaging' nonsense. Pathetic.

  7. Re:Little experience and unqualified on McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate · · Score: -1

    At least Palin's been elected to RUN SOMETHING. Not like Obama just running for the office and running away from any ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. Wake up people, Obama is a fiction and you're not gonna like the ending...

  8. Be smart enough not to vote for Obama on How Can Nerds Make a Difference In November? · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    He's got NO experience. Just writing fiction isn't enough to do the job.

  9. Silas is gone on The History of the Apple II as a Gaming Platform · · Score: 1
  10. Power saving is a good idea on New Seagate Drives Have Real Difficulties With Linux · · Score: 1

    Don't just disable the power saving features! If you've got an OS that can't handle dealing with power saving features then perhaps THAT should get fixed before disabling the drive.

  11. recovery efforts, fleabay to the rescue on Unusual Data Disaster Horror Stories · · Score: 2, Funny

    Had some data on an ancient Seagate SCSI drive that died. Had to get it back. Bought same model of drive off Ebay, after fighting with several other nitwits trying to bid on same models, yeesh. Pulled the drives apart and swapped the controller board first, no luck. Noticed a read/write head was GONE on one of the ELEVEN head arms. Pulled the head mechanism out of the fleabay drive. Had to use a plastic comb to keep the heads separated. Put the head assembly into the old drive and, voila, total access to the drive. The hardest part was trimming the damned comb so the heads were far enough apart to spread over the platter but not so far as to not fit between the platters. Ruined about 6 of them. Finally found one for children, only to hear the wife bitch about trashing it, seems it was a childhood heirloom-wannabee thing.

  12. Re:WarCraft vs StarCraft on The Ten Most Important Games · · Score: 1

    This has got the be the single most stupid thing I've ever read on slashdot.

    Oh, you MUST be new here...
  13. Unchangeable battery? Did they not learn? on Newton's Ghost Haunts Apple's iPhone · · Score: 1

    Beyond the silly handwriting recog issues, battery life was a significant issue for the Newton. If the iPhone doesn't have as good, if not better, battery life than competing phones in the class then it's doomed. Then again, since that time the public has become much more acquainted with the idea of having to keep their devices charging all the time. Who doesn't have a charger at work, at home, in the car, for travel and damn near everywhere else. Hell, hotels will even lend you a charger if you forgot yours (and will use your forgotten one for that purpose). This behaviour was nowhere near the case when it came to the Newton. It was a device truly well before it's time.

    But hey, that's not what killed the Newton; a device Jobs himself dissed because 'real computers have keyboards'. What killed the Newton was managlement. Fortunately Apple seems to have wised up on the 'dealership' nonsense and is pimping their gear from all manner of sales outlets. They killed the Newton by failing to SELL IT. All that blather about developing markets and what-not was bullshit. It's about MOVING UNITS and they just didn't have people focusing on doing that. Fuck, they couldn't even SELL the damned division off.

    The Newton was a fantastic concept and a brilliant implementation, but lacking effective management it was doomed to the fate it received.

    It's sad to see the iPhone have no programmability. No doubt the management droids at apple seem to think it'll be too expensive to actually maintain a developer network for it. After all, that worked just dandy for the iPod right? But then again if it does manage to gain traction and there's sufficient OEM interest perhaps that will change. (think customized phones for specific markets). But, then again, that would require effective OEM, channel and enterprise sales, concepts that continue to be utterly foreign to Apple.

    If anything the iPhone will be a market blip that at least succeeds in forcing the other phone vendors to "suck less".

  14. Re:Conclusion on Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream · · Score: 1

    Cheaper than coal, gas or oil is less important if you think about the complete lack of emissions from the panels once installed. Just much is it "worth" to spend extra for something that STOPS contributing to pollution?

  15. Re:Moon Dust on Closer to Deducing the Origin of the Moon · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Go dig a few holes around your town. See if that tells you what the entire Earth is made from. It won't. THINK before posting, idjit.

  16. Who's to say Apple hasn't considered this? on iTunes Music Store hits Billionth Download · · Score: 0

    Apple already knows what you've purchased and searched for.

    Who's to say Apple won't just offer you a choice to purchase a better bitrate or format? Seems like a perfectly fine to hit up the known customers with another fee.

    Better yet, pick from the list and have them burn you CDs or DVDs with the tracks on them. '

    And if they HAVEN'T thought of this already, pay up suckers.

  17. pda suck but not because an ipod's better on Why Have PDAs Failed In The iPod Era? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Several points to consider. Foremost being "jack of all trades, master of none." All too of the PDA devies attempt to do everything and miss the mark every time. They just fail to focus on getting core tasks done well. REALLY well.

    Comparison to single purpose device like an iPod is a little disingenuous. The iPod's a music app on an embedded device. It's best feature is the desktop sync. Too bad the Newton folks never listened to sense and made that actually work. Since it's so eff'ing slow to sync it handles recharging quite well. The user know it's take foreeeeeever to load all the tunes up so they leave the thing attached and go do something else. A PDA user, otoh, tends to need to keep using the device so syncing and charging really disrupts them. That and nobody's bothering to make a decent bluetooth cradle that could live on your bedroom dresser and do it's sync'ing automagically with the PC down the hall. Again, missing the mark on doing real world tasks WELL.

    But the deeper problem is look who you've got making the PDAs; programmers. These are people WITHOUT lives that would require this sort of device! It's like asking a deaf guy to make you a violin (no insult intended to the hearing impaired, of course, it's just an analogy). It might look right, feel right, weight exactly the same amount, hell, even crunch the same when you sit on it. But dollars to doughnuts bets it sure as hell won't sound right, thus missing the mark on it's intended purpose. Asking people without lives to make 'lifestyle devices' is similarly insane. And yet, that's what we're getting.

    And don't overlook the technological hurdles. Making a device like an iPod last for 8 hours or so is one thing. It doesn't have to keep a touchscreen fired up and since it's not really showing much detail on the screen it can shut off that backlight pretty quick. A PDA, on the other hand, is spending a lot more of it's watts on actually dealing with user interaction (poorly, of course...) But things have come a long way in the past decade and it's likely to continue to improve.

    The crappy devices we have today are just traction on the muddy road leading to tomorrow's 'less crappy' devices. But without them the industry won't get enough traction to move.

  18. Re:ROM decieving on HP iPAQ hx2750 Pocket PC Review · · Score: 0

    Uh well, if there's actually something useful already IN the ROM it's certainly nice to know about it.

    Given how much RAM these things have these days it's really rather pointless to whine about the ROM size anyway.

  19. Less profit for Apple on HP To Start Selling Its iPod · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    This is a good thing. This means Apple's selling the unit at a lower cost to HP. Buying one from HP means less profit to Apple. Seeing as how the iPod wasn't engineered by Apple and isn't made by Apple then one might as well not buy it from Apple. It'll be a cold day in hell before I'll ever buy something Apple-branded again, but a unit from HP might be worth considering.

  20. Re:Watching the XML kiddies reinvent the wheel on RDF For Desktop Metadata? · · Score: 0

    Without effective data the overarching search system will never be smart enough. Without effective searching tools it will never be easy to extract it.

    What's worse, bad tools and no data or NO tools because there's no data?

  21. Re:All this mess with sockets and chipsets is sill on AMD's Roadmap revealed · · Score: 1

    Doing the CPU interfacing up through a riser card isn't without it's hassles. Timing's critical. RF noise is a problem. Heat dissipation as well. Not to mention the added costs of socketing and various mounting issues. If anyhing that 'super I/O' card would be the thing on a riser. But then there'd be the hassles of interop.

    In the face of how cheap it is to add the support chips and connectors it's not worth the bother.

  22. Re:It's very simple. Time IS money. on Major New TiVo Service Offerings · · Score: 0

    And 99.5% of slashdot readers are not as savvy as actual experts.

  23. Re:TiVo viability? on Major New TiVo Service Offerings · · Score: 0

    TV on demand and endless price gouging. The latter means no matter what features they offer the cable companies will still be thieving bandits.

    Being able to do season passes and wishlists (searching on title, actor, director, etc) is not as trivial as you think. It's a VERY handy way to avoid a lot of tedious digging around in program guides.

    Not to mention, a DirecTivo at $99 and $5/month is ALWAYS going to be a lot less expensive and a LOT less hassle than putting up with a PC.

    If anything the reasons to use a purpose-built appliance are stronger than ever.

  24. Re:Simple solution, keep your distance on A Practical Approach To Shushing Your PC · · Score: 0

    The term "get off your lazy ass" comes to mind.

    I keep 8 machines in the next room, using a KVM switch fed into set of keyboard, mouse, USB and a very high quality VGA cable. Wrapped nicely in that split black plastic covering (ikea sells it cheap)

    It has been a joy to use. The complete elimination of noise has been a god-send. And all I had to do was put the boxes on the other side of the wall and run a cable through hole made for standard sized faceplate. It's nice and neat and stays together even when being vacuumed.

    Even if I have to drag my ass outta the chair to change a CD, it's certainly worth the trade off. But when those situations crop up I find it's better to copy the CDs up onto hard drives instead, as either ISOs or the files themselves.

    Either that or since I have multiple machines, to mount them on the other boxes and use file sharing to get to them. I used a USB drive for a while but frankly the waste of disc space made it not worth the hassle.

  25. Kensington's TurboRing on Apple Applies For Rotary Mouse Patent · · Score: 0

    This is quite similar to Kensington's TurboRing trackball. Apple's putting a ring on the top of the mouse. You can move the mouse XY as usual and turn the ring to scroll things. The Kensington TurboRing put a ring /around/ the trackball to do essentially the same thing. So this isn't a new or unique idea, save for it being on a mouse instead of around the trackball. The TurboRing, now discontinued, did this 5 years ago. Once again, Apple's bringing up the trailing edge of technology