In a related area, Schmidt said that while the two companies weren't going to offer full interoperability between their instant messaging networks anytime soon, users could expect a single tool that give you access to both Google Talk and AIM in ways similar to how Trillian treats multiple IM networks.
I really hoped all the interoperability talk meant more than a multiprotocal client. It would have been nice for google to put up a jabber server that would allow the jabber world to instant message AIM users say via @aim.com addresses (I hear Apple's iChat works like that). Oh well, thanks google for adding nothing to the instant messaging landscape that gaim/trillian/etc didn't add years ago.
I know this is completely offtopic and go ahead and mod it as such. The topic reminded me of a device I had been trying to find, thought maybe I would ask and see if anyone knows of this existing.
Is there such a thing that can pickup a open 802.11 network and rebroadcast it as a bluetooth lan connection. It would need to be small like no bigger than a ipod mini.
I am not looking for any suggestions for a work around (eg bluetooth dongles on a 802.11 enabled laptop). Just looking for something that can convert and rebroadcast and be very small.
This isn't really apples fault but older second hand macs are over priced. For whatever reason macs hold value much better than PCs do. For instance awhile back I got the idea stuck in my head I wanted a old ibook G3, you know the cute clam shell things. I probably would have just wiped it and installed linux but I like the case design. Plus I wanted something to carry around with me just for text processing. Anyways I spend a few days looking on ebay. Turns out to pick up a old ibook it costs 300-800 excluding shipping. I personally feel that is horribly overpriced. Looking around on ebay for a p3 500mhz (which is kinda close to a G3 according to the linux benchmarks) price barely hits 300$ and most of those laptops come with wifi.
Like I said originally though this isn't apples fault (well it could be, I am not a econ major) just the fact that people sell old macs for higher than old pcs.
Here is the thing that worries me, if you are a gba/ds fan you know that all these companies that own the rights to the old SNES/NES games are coming out of the woodwork to make ports for the gba and ds. I fear these same companies would be hesitant to release these older games again on the Revo because it might cut heavily into their sales of the cartidges. What does this mean for us as gamers? You know how on itunes you are paying 99c per song and so a 12 track cd costs about the same as a 12 track cd in a store... That way it doesnt really make buying cds look bad. It might mean we will have to pay whatever these companies are charging for their gba versions to download and play them on the Revo. So like around 30$ a pop. I hope this isn't the case. While I certainly love Final Fantasy 4 (recently ported to the gba). If I really wanted to play it on a console, I dont think I would fork over 34$ just to download it. It's hard to justify paying that cost when its...
A.) not portable
B.) Resting on flash memory.. (raise your hand if you have had a thumb drive die recently)
C.) I can get the original version for about that much on ebay.
D.) Well we all know the answer to D, but I am not going to say it but lets say it involves a Z.
So heres hoping for sane prices and good games. The download service should really be a HUGE feature for people to buy a revo, it shouldnt be just another cute feature... which is what it will be if they give us a lot of stick.
Oh yes and my revo wishlist...
1. Final Fantasy(4,5,6)
2. Super Mario World
3. Chrono Trigger
4. Megaman X1-X3
5. Kirby: Superstar
Here is a comment I put on the Newsgab story (Found it trying to find people talking about the google talk announcement)
I doubt the others will follow. Open networks compete on things like features reliability, but closed networks compete on things like the ability to talk to people you know. So, by MS keeping a closed im network if I want to talk to someone on it, I cant just add them to my list I have to start up a account and get a compatible client. (I am sure I am not telling you anything you didnt know, but it is important to realize open networks mean a better instant messenging experience because it changes the rules of competition)
The opening of the servers will probably not make much news, but really its a huge event. A open im network (with many users) is something that has been long coming and hopefully googles move to embrace it will allow for many more users to see the light.
So as I said, this is a huge move, heres hoping the news media doesn't downplay it. I see some commenters complaining about lack of features, well this move should make you happy then! Just jump to a server with alot of transports/services (*cough* ursine.ca *cough*) and you can still talk to all your gtalk buddies. Thats the greatness of open networks, servers competing on features NOT users.
I wish I lived in the "We all have large amounts of disposable cash, and can burn 2kUSD to get better quality tv so the games for my 300USD games system I just bought look better" universe. >_>
Not only do I pay for each track but I also donate my bandwidth? What advantage does this have over say itunes? According to the Peer Impact page the sharers get 10% of the purchase price for donating bandwidth. Please note that it devides this amounge ALL of the people it grabs the file from. So really you would be lucky if you get 1% of the price.
So my question is why use this over all the other pay services out there?
Or how about over what the industry really wants you to move from, the free networks?
While I think this is a step in the right direction, they still need more carrot and less stick if they want alot of people off these networks.
looking at the replies it would seem that I am the only one that is slow with a qwerty keyboard when I try to search and peck. I type rather fast when I have both my hands on a keyboard but for whatever reason that typing speed doesnt translate for me into actually knowing where the keys are.
Whats the point of keeping the keys in the same layout as a keyboard? You cant type with it, by its very nature its a search and peck typing, so why not place the keys in ABC order. I think a much more logical layout would be:
[ esc ][ FKEYS ]
[ tab ][ NUMBERS ]
[ ctl ][ LETTERS ]
[ alt ][ LETTERS ]
[ sft ][ LETTERS ]
[ *** ][ NONLETTERS ]
[ SPACE ][enter]
The *** key, would be whatever that penguin one did. The row of special keys on the left would be twice the size of a letter/number/non. Space would take up almost a whole row on its own, minus the space the enter key takes up, which would be the size of one of the special keys. All the other keys would be the same size. Double taping shift would turn on caps lock. I just think it would make more sense to reorder the keys to make finding specific ones easier.
There is no good reason to make the key layout match a standard keyboard.
No no no no. That machine runs gentoo. The pmmx is NOT my desktop machine, it is just some spare parts I had laying around decided to set it up as a local apache server. I went with gentoo because it was one of the few distros that could breathe some life into it. As for tweaking, that machine pretty much lives on its own, occassionaly I ssh into it and make sure everything is still ticking but other than that no tweaking. So yea...
I've considered ditching my linux desktop for a mac box. Though I am not important or anything so me moving platforms would be moot. I don't have as much time to tinker as I used to, and these days I really want something that just works. And thats really what the mac desktop promises isnt it? It just works. But now that they are switching platforms, the idea of making the switch now seems like a bad idea. I like to keep machines way longer than I should, I still have a pentium 1 mmx running gentoo.. I fear that if I get a ppc mac that 6 years down the road I wont be able to find working applications for it.
bleh oh well. I guess I will consider switching again after they make the move to intel.
>>Just look at the mod-war taking place in my original post for an example.
Wow, your down to a 2 now. While I disagreed with you, it was still a interesting post. People should reply instead of mod down on posts they disagree with.
>>I'm afraid that your post smacks heavily of a "me too!" syndrome that is pervasive in the "Free Software Movement". Don't act like the me-too attitude is limited to the FSM. In any group a certain percentage of the group (I would say the majority) has the me-too attitude. Very few people truely make a effort to forge new paths, because its so much easier to just say Hey, I agree. >>But I do take issue with him attempting to bully others into accepting his idea of how software should be handled. Really? Maybe you could give a example of him bullying in the article? I don't know about you but I do not view speaking my views in a public forum as "bullying".
Do you actually like the spatial model? If you prefer it over browser mode please explain why. Personally when I tried it out I kept ending up with all these windows I had to eventually close. Maybe I am doing something wrong? If spatial can really improve my user experience, then I would love to figure out a good use for it.
I am seriously tired of everyone comparing IBM's patent release to Sun's. IBM released 500 patents under every OSI licence aproved up to a certain date. Sun indirectly released the patents via releasing their code under the cddl. What exactly I can do with the patents is incredibly confusing, for instance if a piece of sun software does not impliement one of suns patents and I extend it to use that patent... even tho that patent is released under another file under the cddl from what I can tell I could still be hit up for infringement.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 2.1(b) above,
no patent license is granted: (1) for code that You delete from the Original Software, or (2) for infringements caused by: (i) the modification of the Original Software, or (ii) the combination of the Original Software with other software or devices.
Atleast thats how I interpret that part (sense the licence is file based). I am definatly not a lawyer just a programming trying to figure out what rights I actually have. But like I said there is a very large difference between IBM's direct release and Sun's circumstantial release. If someone who knows more about these types of things... PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG. I would love to be able to look at their patents without the fear of massive infringement. Other questions I have are about even if I write my code under the cddl does the patent grant only effect code released by sun?
Can anyone actualy find the article at WebSideStory? There is a link on the main site about firefox gaining share if you click Read More it takes you to a page with nothing about firefox.
Holy! This is perfect!!! Liferea fixes both of my issues with straw, better feed notification AND it sits in the system tray instead of my window list.:D Thanks for telling me about this wonderful app.
I am sure it will end up not having corner alerts just like every other feed reader in existance. On my windows boxes I used to use this app called SharpReader it was a okay app, but the one feature that it had that I love was corner popups. Every time a new article came in a little box came up telling you the feed title and article title. You could then decide if you wanted to read it, if you did you could click on the title and it would bring up the article. I now find my self in linux more than ever and I have to use straw. The only thing straw does is give me a little sys-tray icon it doesnt tell me the name at all so I have to bring it up click on the bolded feed and then make a judgement call. Thunderbird doesnt have this feature also, infact thunderbird is even worse it doesnt even give you a sys-tray icon! (bug: 261841). So, if akregator has corner popups I will love it forever... but if it doesnt I continue using straw:(
Arts and crafts applies in part. Alot of times people watch those shows to get ideas about what they can make. I could see that is being much closer in comparison than the fishing show. Watching to see which games get a high rating, or maybe cheats. Though its obviously a different group of people that a gaming show would appeal to than a bunch of people who want to do crafts. One thing to note is, some people I know who "watch" the arts and craft shows while they are doing arts and crafts. They just leave the tv on while making things. That practise would be harder to carry over with gaming due to the nature of console gaming(taking up the TV).
So, is it as cut and dry as the parent of your parent(of your parent? lol) made it out to be? No. But it also doesnt quite fit in the art/craft/fishing grouping (mostly because the people who would be attracted to those kind of shows are very different than the 12-34 male gamer(which is who they are targeting).)
I dont really think your examples really fit. The difference between say a fishing channel and a gaming channel is that the amount of setup to doing fishing is much greater. You have a hard day at work come home and you wish you were fishing, you cant really go fishing right now because its 11pm and you have to get up at 6am tomarrow, why not live in a fantasy a bit and watch the fishing channel. The difference is with gaming, the game is right there for you, there is no ramp up to the activity. The same person could come home and watch tv about gaming or move his finger to the right a bit and press the power button on his ps2.
Slashdot Mirror
What a neat device! Thanks for the link.
I know this is completely offtopic and go ahead and mod it as such. The topic reminded me of a device I had been trying to find, thought maybe I would ask and see if anyone knows of this existing.
Is there such a thing that can pickup a open 802.11 network and rebroadcast it as a bluetooth lan connection. It would need to be small like no bigger than a ipod mini.
I am not looking for any suggestions for a work around (eg bluetooth dongles on a 802.11 enabled laptop). Just looking for something that can convert and rebroadcast and be very small.
This isn't really apples fault but older second hand macs are over priced. For whatever reason macs hold value much better than PCs do. For instance awhile back I got the idea stuck in my head I wanted a old ibook G3, you know the cute clam shell things. I probably would have just wiped it and installed linux but I like the case design. Plus I wanted something to carry around with me just for text processing. Anyways I spend a few days looking on ebay. Turns out to pick up a old ibook it costs 300-800 excluding shipping. I personally feel that is horribly overpriced. Looking around on ebay for a p3 500mhz (which is kinda close to a G3 according to the linux benchmarks) price barely hits 300$ and most of those laptops come with wifi.
Like I said originally though this isn't apples fault (well it could be, I am not a econ major) just the fact that people sell old macs for higher than old pcs.
Here is the thing that worries me, if you are a gba/ds fan you know that all these companies that own the rights to the old SNES/NES games are coming out of the woodwork to make ports for the gba and ds. I fear these same companies would be hesitant to release these older games again on the Revo because it might cut heavily into their sales of the cartidges. What does this mean for us as gamers? You know how on itunes you are paying 99c per song and so a 12 track cd costs about the same as a 12 track cd in a store... That way it doesnt really make buying cds look bad. It might mean we will have to pay whatever these companies are charging for their gba versions to download and play them on the Revo. So like around 30$ a pop. I hope this isn't the case. While I certainly love Final Fantasy 4 (recently ported to the gba). If I really wanted to play it on a console, I dont think I would fork over 34$ just to download it. It's hard to justify paying that cost when its...
A.) not portable
B.) Resting on flash memory.. (raise your hand if you have had a thumb drive die recently)
C.) I can get the original version for about that much on ebay.
D.) Well we all know the answer to D, but I am not going to say it but lets say it involves a Z.
So heres hoping for sane prices and good games. The download service should really be a HUGE feature for people to buy a revo, it shouldnt be just another cute feature... which is what it will be if they give us a lot of stick.
Oh yes and my revo wishlist...
1. Final Fantasy(4,5,6)
2. Super Mario World
3. Chrono Trigger
4. Megaman X1-X3
5. Kirby: Superstar
Interesting topic, I predict much trolling on both sides.
Damn out of mod points. ;(
Oh come on, you know you wanted it :)
wav
mp3
ogg
(fun practice with audacity)
>>>I'm sure gamers will buy a new TV anyway.<<<
I wish I lived in the "We all have large amounts of disposable cash, and can burn 2kUSD to get better quality tv so the games for my 300USD games system I just bought look better" universe. >_>
Not only do I pay for each track but I also donate my bandwidth? What advantage does this have over say itunes? According to the Peer Impact page the sharers get 10% of the purchase price for donating bandwidth. Please note that it devides this amounge ALL of the people it grabs the file from. So really you would be lucky if you get 1% of the price.
So my question is why use this over all the other pay services out there?
Or how about over what the industry really wants you to move from, the free networks?
While I think this is a step in the right direction, they still need more carrot and less stick if they want alot of people off these networks.
looking at the replies it would seem that I am the only one that is slow with a qwerty keyboard when I try to search and peck. I type rather fast when I have both my hands on a keyboard but for whatever reason that typing speed doesnt translate for me into actually knowing where the keys are.
Whats the point of keeping the keys in the same layout as a keyboard? You cant type with it, by its very nature its a search and peck typing, so why not place the keys in ABC order. I think a much more logical layout would be:
[ esc ][ FKEYS ]
[ tab ][ NUMBERS ]
[ ctl ][ LETTERS ]
[ alt ][ LETTERS ]
[ sft ][ LETTERS ]
[ *** ][ NONLETTERS ]
[ SPACE ][enter]
The *** key, would be whatever that penguin one did. The row of special keys on the left would be twice the size of a letter/number/non. Space would take up almost a whole row on its own, minus the space the enter key takes up, which would be the size of one of the special keys. All the other keys would be the same size. Double taping shift would turn on caps lock. I just think it would make more sense to reorder the keys to make finding specific ones easier. There is no good reason to make the key layout match a standard keyboard.
No no no no. That machine runs gentoo. The pmmx is NOT my desktop machine, it is just some spare parts I had laying around decided to set it up as a local apache server. I went with gentoo because it was one of the few distros that could breathe some life into it. As for tweaking, that machine pretty much lives on its own, occassionaly I ssh into it and make sure everything is still ticking but other than that no tweaking. So yea...
I've considered ditching my linux desktop for a mac box. Though I am not important or anything so me moving platforms would be moot. I don't have as much time to tinker as I used to, and these days I really want something that just works. And thats really what the mac desktop promises isnt it? It just works. But now that they are switching platforms, the idea of making the switch now seems like a bad idea. I like to keep machines way longer than I should, I still have a pentium 1 mmx running gentoo.. I fear that if I get a ppc mac that 6 years down the road I wont be able to find working applications for it.
bleh oh well. I guess I will consider switching again after they make the move to intel.
described the online search engine's library project as a troubling financial threat to its membership
The horror.
>>Just look at the mod-war taking place in my original post for an example.
Wow, your down to a 2 now. While I disagreed with you, it was still a interesting post. People should reply instead of mod down on posts they disagree with.
>>I'm afraid that your post smacks heavily of a "me too!" syndrome that is pervasive in the "Free Software Movement".
Don't act like the me-too attitude is limited to the FSM. In any group a certain percentage of the group (I would say the majority) has the me-too attitude. Very few people truely make a effort to forge new paths, because its so much easier to just say Hey, I agree.
>>But I do take issue with him attempting to bully others into accepting his idea of how software should be handled.
Really? Maybe you could give a example of him bullying in the article? I don't know about you but I do not view speaking my views in a public forum as "bullying".
Do you actually like the spatial model? If you prefer it over browser mode please explain why.
Personally when I tried it out I kept ending up with all these windows I had to eventually close. Maybe I am doing something wrong? If spatial can really improve my user experience, then I would love to figure out a good use for it.
Can anyone actualy find the article at WebSideStory? There is a link on the main site about firefox gaining share if you click Read More it takes you to a page with nothing about firefox.
websidestory
Holy! This is perfect!!! Liferea fixes both of my issues with straw, better feed notification AND it sits in the system tray instead of my window list. :D Thanks for telling me about this wonderful app.
I am sure it will end up not having corner alerts just like every other feed reader in existance. On my windows boxes I used to use this app called SharpReader it was a okay app, but the one feature that it had that I love was corner popups. Every time a new article came in a little box came up telling you the feed title and article title. You could then decide if you wanted to read it, if you did you could click on the title and it would bring up the article. I now find my self in linux more than ever and I have to use straw. The only thing straw does is give me a little sys-tray icon it doesnt tell me the name at all so I have to bring it up click on the bolded feed and then make a judgement call. Thunderbird doesnt have this feature also, infact thunderbird is even worse it doesnt even give you a sys-tray icon! (bug: 261841). So, if akregator has corner popups I will love it forever... but if it doesnt I continue using straw :(
Arts and crafts applies in part. Alot of times people watch those shows to get ideas about what they can make. I could see that is being much closer in comparison than the fishing show. Watching to see which games get a high rating, or maybe cheats. Though its obviously a different group of people that a gaming show would appeal to than a bunch of people who want to do crafts. One thing to note is, some people I know who "watch" the arts and craft shows while they are doing arts and crafts. They just leave the tv on while making things. That practise would be harder to carry over with gaming due to the nature of console gaming(taking up the TV).
So, is it as cut and dry as the parent of your parent(of your parent? lol) made it out to be? No. But it also doesnt quite fit in the art/craft/fishing grouping (mostly because the people who would be attracted to those kind of shows are very different than the 12-34 male gamer(which is who they are targeting).)
I dont really think your examples really fit. The difference between say a fishing channel and a gaming channel is that the amount of setup to doing fishing is much greater. You have a hard day at work come home and you wish you were fishing, you cant really go fishing right now because its 11pm and you have to get up at 6am tomarrow, why not live in a fantasy a bit and watch the fishing channel. The difference is with gaming, the game is right there for you, there is no ramp up to the activity. The same person could come home and watch tv about gaming or move his finger to the right a bit and press the power button on his ps2.