I suggest moving to light grey text on a black background for editing, whenever possible. Also, make sure the brightness of your monitor is adjusted properly for the light levels in the room. Finally, try upping the refresh rate of any CRTs you are using. Sometimes the flicker, while not really noticeable consciously, may still be causing your eyes to readjust.
Aside from those suggestions I don't have much advice. I've never tried special glasses, but I'm skeptical of them. Make sure to research them properly before trying them. Best of luck.
MS should have nothing to do with prepackaging. OEMs should pre-install whatever their customers want. Unfortunately MS does force OEMs to pre-install and pay for not just an OS, but an OS and whatever arbitrary apps they've decided to include. In some instances they have been caught forcing OEMs to not install particular apps. To have a free market, MS should behave ethically (which they have proved they won't do) or they should be broken into smaller companies to prevent this crap. Then they can pre-install anything they want.
frankly w/ all the free/oss software available on windows including AV, and anti-spyware there is no reason to endure the inconvenience of a linux desktop.
I have analogous feelings. I run linux, Windows, OpenBSD, and OS X all the time, and occasionally have to use each for some workstation-like function. Having all these options I find I gravitate to OS X for desktop activities. Linux and Windows are both OK, but neither has all the functionality I like. Running Windows, for example, just seems like a big step backwards.
The command line is useless and so much functionality is missing, so I end up installing cygwin, just to do simple regexp manipulation of text, and to run perl scripts. There is no CVS client for Windows that is reliable (I've tried them all, several times). Of course none of the cygwin stuff will interface with any of the Windows apps. And all of the apps lack functionality found in OS X. They all put the same features in different places with little standardization. What is wrong with picking one place for preferences on all apps? Worse, apps can't share functionality. A word processor might have a spell checker, but there is no way, aside from copy/paste to use that spellchecker in all the other applications. Installing and uninstalling applications is a huge pain in the butt. Everything has an installer that throws files all over the hard drive, and occasionally screws up some other application that was using the same.dll. This makes having multiple versions of the same software (like all the acrobat readers to test PDFs) risky at best. I'm rather partial to self-contained apps using the "folder is the app" mechanism. Drag them onto the hard drive to install. Trash them to uninstall. Copy them to copy. Jeez, this should be basic functionality. On Windows I can't even copy a program from one machine to another. I need an installer instead.
Then there is the manipulation of the desktop. I like virtual desktops, which just don't work on Windows. I'm also addicted to Expose. I never thought I'd use it until I started doing so, and now I find it so much easier for switching applications/windows. I habitually try to use it at least once every time I use Windows, only to be disappointed when nothing happens and I have to go back to "doing things the old way." The same can be said of spotlight. Near instantaneous searching of files and applications is really useful. "cmd-space-s-n-m-p-enter" will find me all my files with SNMP in them, even the photoshop files that are diagrams, the PDFs, and the InDesign files. Launching an application has never been faster either. For programs I rarely use, it is so much faster to just hit "cmd-space" and the first couple of letters of the name, than it is to navigate a start-menu like set-up.
You mention AV and anti-spyware, but those are just an inconvenience one has to put up with on Windows. They are not yet an issue on Linux or OS X. I guess what I'm saying is, I understand how you feel, but maybe you should try another alternative yet.
Just to clarify a few things for you... MS should not be bundling any applications with Windows that already have an existing market. All bundling should be done at the OEM level, and without any interference from MS. MS can, however, bundle any applications that do not have an existing market. OEMs can bundle anything they want to.
Personally, I feel the most ethical course is for MS to concentrate on building a good framework for applications on Windows. They should build a download and update framework for applications that anyone can register applications in. They should build a framework so that applications can run in virtual servers, or jails and give users the power to control what their applications do. They should build a framework that allows applications to tap into universal services, and provide those services to other applications. All of these things would greatly improve Windows, and are areas where Windows has fallen behind the competition. The problem is, MS doesn't care if Windows is inferior, because they have it locked into a monopoly and people have to buy it anyway. That is what makes computing, in general, suck so badly these days.
MS has a monopoly. That is legal, in and of itself. MS wants to make other products, including applications. That is fine. What is not fine is using the monopoly to promote the applications. It is illegal and it screws over customers in the long run. What really should happen is MS should be divided into several companies. They've already proven they won't obey the law and haven't reformed after being "punished." Divide MS into multiple companies and let them compete. Stockholders will get a stock split and be happy. Customers will get competition for their money and better products will result. The only people that won't be happy will be MS executives who will have less power. They are crooks anyway. Of course this is what the first judge to rule against them said, before a certain election and certain huge contributions were made, and suddenly that judge's rulings were thrown out since he was so biased, by saying MS had behaved very unethically in his court and in the market (after the trail had ended).
To get back to the topic. MS can bundle all sorts of useful utilities, legally. Any utilities for which there is not an existing market.
If I were VMware, Inc., I'd be porting the thing to OS X as fast as possible.
I have high hopes for this. Several days after the Apple/Intel announcement, workstation vmware for Intel OS X was the most requested feature on their forums. I think they'd make quite a few new sales.
Yes I know you don't believe in Evil. Thats why you used the word. Thats part of my point. But my point transends your particular post, and slashdot in general. Its really strange place to put that thought, but I felt it so I wrote it. Thats just the way I'm rolling right now. don't take any offence. Its not your fault its such a large problem, but you do contribute to it.
Ahh, but you seem to be failing to understand the perspective of others. If evil does not exist, then there is no harm in using the word allegorically or emblematically. And, of course, even if evil does exist, most would argue words can have multiple meanings and uses. You profess to have understood my meaning, thus the communication was effective. What then is the problem?
To argue that we should boycott every company that abides by the law neatly avoids the fact that the law is the problem, not the companies themselves.
First, I argued no such thing. Second, what law are you talking about? There is no law that says PVRs must implement DRM, at all. There is no law that says you have to make it less convenient to skip commercials. There is no law that says they have to use proprietary formats, or make files difficult to transfer or burn.
If Tivo was charged or sued for any of these things, I'd be right there, writing congressmen, pissed as hell. And no don't bother with the ReplayTV example. They did violate the law by providing file sharing, policing that file sharing, and being aware that copyright infringement was occurring. There is an easy solution to that, don't police and restrict file sharing. Let your users do what they want and be responsible for it. Sorry, but unless you can show me some law that I'm completely unaware of, this is just uninformed tripe.
Correct me if I am weong[sic], but ODF is only used by OOo and Suns Staroffice (which is the same thing, in a box, with phone support), so even though the format is open, which is undoubtably good, isnt it just locking into Sun because no one else reads / writes ODF?
OK, you're wrong. ODF is an open format, thus no lock-in. Anyone can and will implement it. Koffice and WordPerfect have both announced that upcoming versions of their products will support it. OpenOffice is open source, so any company can modify and sell support for it. Even MS can support the format easily, they just don't want to because the benefits it brings, like the ability to migrate easily to other formats, might not allow them to gouge customers as easily. The lock-in part of the.doc format is that no one except MS can read/write it perfectly (and not even MS between versions).
Moving to ODF is smart because it is not a lock-in. In five years when MA wants to evaluate new word processors, they can look at the features and prices of at least four different providers and choose the best fit, without worrying if they can read old files and without worrying about migration costs.
The evil! I understand what you mean, but honestly, Evil? Evil is what happens when one person kills another person. Evil is not giving someone software for free.
If it makes you feel any better, which it probably won't, I don't believe in evil. I was using the term emblematically.
invent the devil in the immage of someone we don't like (ie Bill Gates)and call everything he does "evil".
Who said anything about Bill Gates? I was writing about Microsoft.
Does it really make you feel better to look at a broken window?
Who called humans the "laughing beast?" Yes it does. Laughter is a great way to relieve stress and frustration.
Umm, a casual observer point of view is MS Office doesn't follow OpenDocument formatting so by saying the state will comply with ODF, they are giving MS the finger.
An intelligent casual observer point of view is that a customer requested a better product, and their current supplier (instead of giving it to them) tried to get them fired. Imagine if McDonalds was supplying food for school lunches and the school asked for healthy food that met certain dietary requirements. You could well get a situation like this, where instead of supplying better food McDonalds went to talk to politicians over the school's head. The difference, of course, is that McDonalds is not a monopoly and actually does sell some healthy food. MS just wants to make sure everyone is stuck with whatever they supply forever, regardless of quality, cost, or legality.
hanks for clearing that up. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would threaten to sue over something like that.
MS threatening to sue is news to me. It sounds like pure speculation. My pure speculation is that the icon was created by someone right after MS did one of the thousands of annoying/illegal/unethical things they regularly do to piss off the computer industry as a whole (you know like buy out and kill a cool technology, intentionally break a standard, or bundle yet another software package illegally) or after someone has just finished several hours of trying to deal with their buggy software. Generally, after hearing the 507th thing MS has done to slow down the progress of computing, sentiment against them is running high enough so that people with a clue are amused and gain some stress relief from a simple mockery of them. I know after a few hours of coding workarounds for IE's broken version of HTML I'm more than happy to see something mocking MS. It's not prejudice to judge someone after observing their behavior for years.
I predict a non-mocking logo for MS will replace the existing one about one year after MS stops pissing everyone off by being evil.
Similiarly, for all we know they could have had this reported to them on the 27th.
Thank you captain obvious!
Here's a helpful tip for the future. If someone challenges an assertion by claiming that there is not sufficient information to draw that conclusion, a response of "but it could be true so stop speculating" is worse than useless. Adding an ad hominem attack does nothing to bolster your argument. Please develop some critical thinking skills and develop a useful opinion, or just be quiet.
Not guaranteed any of Tivos features - They can remove them as they see fit (conversely, they can also add features, but who's going to complain about that?)
And who today guarantees any features?
Tivo is selling two things, hardware and a service. They have paired the two together, though and you can only do scheduling with both. This means you're stuck with the service even if the requirement for it is to change your hardware's abilities, or if it sucks. Other companies, just sell the hardware and let you pick the service you like best. They have no leverage to remove hardware features, since they don't provide a service they can cut off. This has the added advantage of letting the user pick the right service for them in terms of performance and cost. Right now I know my PVR will never lose the ability to skip ahead 30 seconds or edit out commercials. That is because there is no way for the company that sold me the box to alter the software on it without my approval. If my scheduling provider starts to suck, I'll switch to a different one. Do you see how this offers a lot more of a guarantee?
I think that's a bit unfair. We got news of this zero day exploit the 27th of December? It's still only about 10 days to produce a patch and test it.
Actually, the 27th is when the exploit went public. I have yet to see reliable data on when it first was discovered being exploited in the wild and when it was reported to MS. For all we know MS had this reported to them months ago.
While I agree the lifetime sub. to the service at $299 is a bit steep, the price for the S2, 80 hr unit with rebate is about $149.
$300+$150=$450. My personal solution is an old mac (free to me, couple hundred to someone else), Elgato 200 which was $190, and a 250gig drive I got on special for $100. I paid $290 and have about five times the storage capacity, and I can burn VCDs, and I can edit out commercials to fit 1/3 more content in the same space. Pair that with a DVD burner for more even more archiving ability and, well you get the picture. Better yet, I can upgrade mine easily with no hacks just by adding more disks. Given that I already had an old mac tower just serving a few web pages, I now have an old mac tower serving web pages, and as a PVR and multimedia server, pumping audio and video to my stereo, TV, and other computers. For people who don't have an old mac lying around, this cost analysis may be a little different, or course.
No, they are interested in keeping the market open to legal solutions to stay in business. Stuff like the download flag and worse are things they want to avoid, but since the FCC was going to require it they didn't exactly have much choice.
So they're raping us gently, because otherwise laws would be passed to fuck us even harder? And the fact that they have partnered with cable and satellite companies to provide most of their revenue with often crippled versions of their products has nothing to do with it. Get a clue. Tivo's customers are the cable and satellite customers who pay them to give you just enough features to not go elsewhere. The cable companies are not going to overturn the Sony Betamax decision and claiming they are is FUD. You're afraid people will pass laws to restrict your rights, so your solution is not to use most of your rights in the hopes that they won't bother. And you think giving more money to those you fear is going to help the situation. You don't know corporate America at all do you? If they can pass those laws they will, regardless of whether or not Tivo allows you to archive and export. Bending over for them will only distract them momentarily. It always amazes me how far people will go to defend their purchasing decisions and deny to themselves that they have been hoodwinked. Tivo sold you out. Deal with it.
TiVo has a delicate balancing act between keeping their customers happy and appeasing companies with deep pockets and powerful lobbyists in Washington.
You forget to mention that those companies are their biggest customers by far. Tivo sells more units through various cable and satellite companies than to individuals. It only makes sense that they care more about what cable companies want than what end users want. You can try to justify their actions as "for a greater good" and maybe even convince yourself that you did not make what turned out to be a questionable purchase, but the truth is that Tivo is doing what is right from a business perspective, and that is not what is best from an end user perspective. My PVR does not make any of the compromises Tivo does because they only sell to individuals and they need to keep them happy. Tivo does not have to worry about making individuals happy, just their customers, the big network providers.
DRM, hidden 30 second skip, and the broadcast flag implementation are not useful features for me, the end user. No thanks Tivo, I just don't trust you.
Hmm, I use another provider yet, and grab updated scheduling information about every two hours. That was the default for my setup, and I've had one or two instances where a sporting event would run long, but aside from that, no problems at all. Oh, and it is banner ad supported via their web interface.
Apple influences IT market as much as AMD or Intel do. Sometimes even more.
Agreed. Apple is in a market that puts them up against a monopoly. You're hear a lot more about new Nike shoes if there were only two companies making shoes, and Adidas had not yet implemented waterproofing, air cushions, and just this year finally started putting tread on some of their shoes. Of course you can always try those build your own sandals kits.
Tivo are fine, if you're willing to put up with the cost and limitations. MythTV are more functional, but require quite a bit of tweaking and are not as user friendly. Just keep in mind, there are other options. Windows Media Center, ReplayTV, Elgato, etc. are middle ground choices worth considering. My PVR took an hour to get up and running properly, but I haven't really touched it since. It is intuitive enough that my girlfriend figured it out in an hour, cheaper than the Tivo, and has a lot of functionality missing from the Tivo. It also has no DRM implemented.
In my opinion, Tivo was great, then they sold out. It is time to look to the newer players on the field and see what they will offer.
Hmmm, either way it is a lot more than free. Let me see, pay big money up front, or a monthly fee to be tied to a single scheduling provider, or pay nothing and go with a system that lets me use free scheduling services. Yup, it sure sounds like the parent who made a dumb choice.
FYI, commercial skip and 30 second skip ahead are not the same thing. On tries to detect commercials and auto skip them. The other skips ahead 30 seconds or whatever. Incidentally, Tivo hiding the 30 second skip as an easter egg was a major sign to me they they are more interested in what cable companies want than what end users want. Implementation of the broadcast flag and several other decisions since have convinced me to avoid their product and service.
* The subscription fee. See above. I always felt I got way more than my money's worth from TiVo; heck, were I to sell my box on eBay it'd still be worth a few hundred dollars due to the lifetime subscription.
I don't like subscriptions, but even more than that I don't like being locked into a single service provider. What if, in two years, the scheduling on the Tivo service is always wrong, or the prices raise outrageously. Having the choice to switch providers is a big plus for me. Right now I use a free, web based service with my PVR.
* A desire to export TiVo recordings to elsewhere. I never quite understood the fascination people had and have with decrypting TiVo's file system and exporting programs to elsewhere. If anything I wanted my TiVo to act as the portal through which I could view my video library.
I do use this feature a lot. I like to archive my favorite shows to DVD or VCD. Having standard file types makes it easy to edit out commercials. It also makes it possible to transfer shows to my laptop for trips (even without having to burn a DVD). Finally, I occasionally like to grab a video clip to use in a presentation or one of my own video projects. Tivo does not give me that option.
Different uses are important for different people. Maybe I'll build a MythTV box some day, if I find the time.
And what proprietary app? Haven't you figured out the https server running on each TiVo series 2 yet?
I'm with the grandparent. Elgato devices ship with software called "EyeTV" that is about as easy to use as a Tivo, but has a lot more functionality. I've used both systems and I went with the Elgato paired with an old mac when I had to choose for a number of reasons. I like to archive shows. EyeTV exports to dozens of formats, including presets for burning to DVD and to fit on iPod Videos. It also includes a simple editor, that even my girlfriend figured out in minutes, that makes it easy to edit out commercials and anything before or after the show. Adding more storage is as easy as adding drives (internal or external) to the mac and there is no DRM. I never have to worry that the provider will decide I can't keep a a show (unlike Tivos). I can just copy my files to my laptop for trips and use any player I feel like. I can edit out pieces of them to include in my own videos, or for presentations because it is all in open formats, like mpeg-4. The remote actually has the skip ahead button working by default (and skip ahead and back are configurable). Finally, With the Elgato solution I can pick my choice of scheduling providers. Instead of paying $14 a month, I just use a free, ad banner supported service and if I'm unhappy with them I can switch, because I'm not locked into on provider.
I like a number of features of the Tivo and having it all in one box is a great feature. The UI is nice, and using it is fairly easy. I don't, however, like all the proprietary lock-ins, lack of choices, and I just don't trust the company. They have made more and more choices that seem to benefit the cable providers more than the end users. That makes sense for them, as a business, since the cable companies are their biggest customers these days. It also means I can't trust them to do what is in my best interests as an individual customer. I chose an Elgato device and have not regretted it. Several of my friends who use Tivo have expressed their jealousy for the functionality they are missing.
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest moving to light grey text on a black background for editing, whenever possible. Also, make sure the brightness of your monitor is adjusted properly for the light levels in the room. Finally, try upping the refresh rate of any CRTs you are using. Sometimes the flicker, while not really noticeable consciously, may still be causing your eyes to readjust.
Aside from those suggestions I don't have much advice. I've never tried special glasses, but I'm skeptical of them. Make sure to research them properly before trying them. Best of luck.
MS should have nothing to do with prepackaging. OEMs should pre-install whatever their customers want. Unfortunately MS does force OEMs to pre-install and pay for not just an OS, but an OS and whatever arbitrary apps they've decided to include. In some instances they have been caught forcing OEMs to not install particular apps. To have a free market, MS should behave ethically (which they have proved they won't do) or they should be broken into smaller companies to prevent this crap. Then they can pre-install anything they want.
frankly w/ all the free/oss software available on windows including AV, and anti-spyware there is no reason to endure the inconvenience of a linux desktop.
I have analogous feelings. I run linux, Windows, OpenBSD, and OS X all the time, and occasionally have to use each for some workstation-like function. Having all these options I find I gravitate to OS X for desktop activities. Linux and Windows are both OK, but neither has all the functionality I like. Running Windows, for example, just seems like a big step backwards.
The command line is useless and so much functionality is missing, so I end up installing cygwin, just to do simple regexp manipulation of text, and to run perl scripts. There is no CVS client for Windows that is reliable (I've tried them all, several times). Of course none of the cygwin stuff will interface with any of the Windows apps. And all of the apps lack functionality found in OS X. They all put the same features in different places with little standardization. What is wrong with picking one place for preferences on all apps? Worse, apps can't share functionality. A word processor might have a spell checker, but there is no way, aside from copy/paste to use that spellchecker in all the other applications. Installing and uninstalling applications is a huge pain in the butt. Everything has an installer that throws files all over the hard drive, and occasionally screws up some other application that was using the same .dll. This makes having multiple versions of the same software (like all the acrobat readers to test PDFs) risky at best. I'm rather partial to self-contained apps using the "folder is the app" mechanism. Drag them onto the hard drive to install. Trash them to uninstall. Copy them to copy. Jeez, this should be basic functionality. On Windows I can't even copy a program from one machine to another. I need an installer instead.
Then there is the manipulation of the desktop. I like virtual desktops, which just don't work on Windows. I'm also addicted to Expose. I never thought I'd use it until I started doing so, and now I find it so much easier for switching applications/windows. I habitually try to use it at least once every time I use Windows, only to be disappointed when nothing happens and I have to go back to "doing things the old way." The same can be said of spotlight. Near instantaneous searching of files and applications is really useful. "cmd-space-s-n-m-p-enter" will find me all my files with SNMP in them, even the photoshop files that are diagrams, the PDFs, and the InDesign files. Launching an application has never been faster either. For programs I rarely use, it is so much faster to just hit "cmd-space" and the first couple of letters of the name, than it is to navigate a start-menu like set-up.
You mention AV and anti-spyware, but those are just an inconvenience one has to put up with on Windows. They are not yet an issue on Linux or OS X. I guess what I'm saying is, I understand how you feel, but maybe you should try another alternative yet.
Just to clarify a few things for you... MS should not be bundling any applications with Windows that already have an existing market. All bundling should be done at the OEM level, and without any interference from MS. MS can, however, bundle any applications that do not have an existing market. OEMs can bundle anything they want to.
Personally, I feel the most ethical course is for MS to concentrate on building a good framework for applications on Windows. They should build a download and update framework for applications that anyone can register applications in. They should build a framework so that applications can run in virtual servers, or jails and give users the power to control what their applications do. They should build a framework that allows applications to tap into universal services, and provide those services to other applications. All of these things would greatly improve Windows, and are areas where Windows has fallen behind the competition. The problem is, MS doesn't care if Windows is inferior, because they have it locked into a monopoly and people have to buy it anyway. That is what makes computing, in general, suck so badly these days.
MS has a monopoly. That is legal, in and of itself. MS wants to make other products, including applications. That is fine. What is not fine is using the monopoly to promote the applications. It is illegal and it screws over customers in the long run. What really should happen is MS should be divided into several companies. They've already proven they won't obey the law and haven't reformed after being "punished." Divide MS into multiple companies and let them compete. Stockholders will get a stock split and be happy. Customers will get competition for their money and better products will result. The only people that won't be happy will be MS executives who will have less power. They are crooks anyway. Of course this is what the first judge to rule against them said, before a certain election and certain huge contributions were made, and suddenly that judge's rulings were thrown out since he was so biased, by saying MS had behaved very unethically in his court and in the market (after the trail had ended).
To get back to the topic. MS can bundle all sorts of useful utilities, legally. Any utilities for which there is not an existing market.
If I were VMware, Inc., I'd be porting the thing to OS X as fast as possible.
I have high hopes for this. Several days after the Apple/Intel announcement, workstation vmware for Intel OS X was the most requested feature on their forums. I think they'd make quite a few new sales.
Yes I know you don't believe in Evil. Thats why you used the word. Thats part of my point. But my point transends your particular post, and slashdot in general. Its really strange place to put that thought, but I felt it so I wrote it. Thats just the way I'm rolling right now. don't take any offence. Its not your fault its such a large problem, but you do contribute to it.
Ahh, but you seem to be failing to understand the perspective of others. If evil does not exist, then there is no harm in using the word allegorically or emblematically. And, of course, even if evil does exist, most would argue words can have multiple meanings and uses. You profess to have understood my meaning, thus the communication was effective. What then is the problem?
To argue that we should boycott every company that abides by the law neatly avoids the fact that the law is the problem, not the companies themselves.
First, I argued no such thing. Second, what law are you talking about? There is no law that says PVRs must implement DRM, at all. There is no law that says you have to make it less convenient to skip commercials. There is no law that says they have to use proprietary formats, or make files difficult to transfer or burn.
If Tivo was charged or sued for any of these things, I'd be right there, writing congressmen, pissed as hell. And no don't bother with the ReplayTV example. They did violate the law by providing file sharing, policing that file sharing, and being aware that copyright infringement was occurring. There is an easy solution to that, don't police and restrict file sharing. Let your users do what they want and be responsible for it. Sorry, but unless you can show me some law that I'm completely unaware of, this is just uninformed tripe.
Correct me if I am weong[sic], but ODF is only used by OOo and Suns Staroffice (which is the same thing, in a box, with phone support), so even though the format is open, which is undoubtably good, isnt it just locking into Sun because no one else reads / writes ODF?
OK, you're wrong. ODF is an open format, thus no lock-in. Anyone can and will implement it. Koffice and WordPerfect have both announced that upcoming versions of their products will support it. OpenOffice is open source, so any company can modify and sell support for it. Even MS can support the format easily, they just don't want to because the benefits it brings, like the ability to migrate easily to other formats, might not allow them to gouge customers as easily. The lock-in part of the .doc format is that no one except MS can read/write it perfectly (and not even MS between versions).
Moving to ODF is smart because it is not a lock-in. In five years when MA wants to evaluate new word processors, they can look at the features and prices of at least four different providers and choose the best fit, without worrying if they can read old files and without worrying about migration costs.
The evil! I understand what you mean, but honestly, Evil? Evil is what happens when one person kills another person. Evil is not giving someone software for free.
If it makes you feel any better, which it probably won't, I don't believe in evil. I was using the term emblematically.
invent the devil in the immage of someone we don't like (ie Bill Gates)and call everything he does "evil".
Who said anything about Bill Gates? I was writing about Microsoft.
Does it really make you feel better to look at a broken window?
Who called humans the "laughing beast?" Yes it does. Laughter is a great way to relieve stress and frustration.
Has it gotten any better than back in the day? When I tried it out each module used up way too much memory.
Umm, a casual observer point of view is MS Office doesn't follow OpenDocument formatting so by saying the state will comply with ODF, they are giving MS the finger.
An intelligent casual observer point of view is that a customer requested a better product, and their current supplier (instead of giving it to them) tried to get them fired. Imagine if McDonalds was supplying food for school lunches and the school asked for healthy food that met certain dietary requirements. You could well get a situation like this, where instead of supplying better food McDonalds went to talk to politicians over the school's head. The difference, of course, is that McDonalds is not a monopoly and actually does sell some healthy food. MS just wants to make sure everyone is stuck with whatever they supply forever, regardless of quality, cost, or legality.
hanks for clearing that up. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would threaten to sue over something like that.
MS threatening to sue is news to me. It sounds like pure speculation. My pure speculation is that the icon was created by someone right after MS did one of the thousands of annoying/illegal/unethical things they regularly do to piss off the computer industry as a whole (you know like buy out and kill a cool technology, intentionally break a standard, or bundle yet another software package illegally) or after someone has just finished several hours of trying to deal with their buggy software. Generally, after hearing the 507th thing MS has done to slow down the progress of computing, sentiment against them is running high enough so that people with a clue are amused and gain some stress relief from a simple mockery of them. I know after a few hours of coding workarounds for IE's broken version of HTML I'm more than happy to see something mocking MS. It's not prejudice to judge someone after observing their behavior for years.
I predict a non-mocking logo for MS will replace the existing one about one year after MS stops pissing everyone off by being evil.
Similiarly, for all we know they could have had this reported to them on the 27th.
Thank you captain obvious!
Here's a helpful tip for the future. If someone challenges an assertion by claiming that there is not sufficient information to draw that conclusion, a response of "but it could be true so stop speculating" is worse than useless. Adding an ad hominem attack does nothing to bolster your argument. Please develop some critical thinking skills and develop a useful opinion, or just be quiet.
Not guaranteed any of Tivos features - They can remove them as they see fit (conversely, they can also add features, but who's going to complain about that?)
And who today guarantees any features?
Tivo is selling two things, hardware and a service. They have paired the two together, though and you can only do scheduling with both. This means you're stuck with the service even if the requirement for it is to change your hardware's abilities, or if it sucks. Other companies, just sell the hardware and let you pick the service you like best. They have no leverage to remove hardware features, since they don't provide a service they can cut off. This has the added advantage of letting the user pick the right service for them in terms of performance and cost. Right now I know my PVR will never lose the ability to skip ahead 30 seconds or edit out commercials. That is because there is no way for the company that sold me the box to alter the software on it without my approval. If my scheduling provider starts to suck, I'll switch to a different one. Do you see how this offers a lot more of a guarantee?
I think that's a bit unfair. We got news of this zero day exploit the 27th of December? It's still only about 10 days to produce a patch and test it.
Actually, the 27th is when the exploit went public. I have yet to see reliable data on when it first was discovered being exploited in the wild and when it was reported to MS. For all we know MS had this reported to them months ago.
While I agree the lifetime sub. to the service at $299 is a bit steep, the price for the S2, 80 hr unit with rebate is about $149.
$300+$150=$450. My personal solution is an old mac (free to me, couple hundred to someone else), Elgato 200 which was $190, and a 250gig drive I got on special for $100. I paid $290 and have about five times the storage capacity, and I can burn VCDs, and I can edit out commercials to fit 1/3 more content in the same space. Pair that with a DVD burner for more even more archiving ability and, well you get the picture. Better yet, I can upgrade mine easily with no hacks just by adding more disks. Given that I already had an old mac tower just serving a few web pages, I now have an old mac tower serving web pages, and as a PVR and multimedia server, pumping audio and video to my stereo, TV, and other computers. For people who don't have an old mac lying around, this cost analysis may be a little different, or course.
No, they are interested in keeping the market open to legal solutions to stay in business. Stuff like the download flag and worse are things they want to avoid, but since the FCC was going to require it they didn't exactly have much choice.
So they're raping us gently, because otherwise laws would be passed to fuck us even harder? And the fact that they have partnered with cable and satellite companies to provide most of their revenue with often crippled versions of their products has nothing to do with it. Get a clue. Tivo's customers are the cable and satellite customers who pay them to give you just enough features to not go elsewhere. The cable companies are not going to overturn the Sony Betamax decision and claiming they are is FUD. You're afraid people will pass laws to restrict your rights, so your solution is not to use most of your rights in the hopes that they won't bother. And you think giving more money to those you fear is going to help the situation. You don't know corporate America at all do you? If they can pass those laws they will, regardless of whether or not Tivo allows you to archive and export. Bending over for them will only distract them momentarily. It always amazes me how far people will go to defend their purchasing decisions and deny to themselves that they have been hoodwinked. Tivo sold you out. Deal with it.
TiVo has a delicate balancing act between keeping their customers happy and appeasing companies with deep pockets and powerful lobbyists in Washington.
You forget to mention that those companies are their biggest customers by far. Tivo sells more units through various cable and satellite companies than to individuals. It only makes sense that they care more about what cable companies want than what end users want. You can try to justify their actions as "for a greater good" and maybe even convince yourself that you did not make what turned out to be a questionable purchase, but the truth is that Tivo is doing what is right from a business perspective, and that is not what is best from an end user perspective. My PVR does not make any of the compromises Tivo does because they only sell to individuals and they need to keep them happy. Tivo does not have to worry about making individuals happy, just their customers, the big network providers.
DRM, hidden 30 second skip, and the broadcast flag implementation are not useful features for me, the end user. No thanks Tivo, I just don't trust you.
Hmm, I use another provider yet, and grab updated scheduling information about every two hours. That was the default for my setup, and I've had one or two instances where a sporting event would run long, but aside from that, no problems at all. Oh, and it is banner ad supported via their web interface.
Apple influences IT market as much as AMD or Intel do. Sometimes even more.
Agreed. Apple is in a market that puts them up against a monopoly. You're hear a lot more about new Nike shoes if there were only two companies making shoes, and Adidas had not yet implemented waterproofing, air cushions, and just this year finally started putting tread on some of their shoes. Of course you can always try those build your own sandals kits.
Tivo are fine, if you're willing to put up with the cost and limitations. MythTV are more functional, but require quite a bit of tweaking and are not as user friendly. Just keep in mind, there are other options. Windows Media Center, ReplayTV, Elgato, etc. are middle ground choices worth considering. My PVR took an hour to get up and running properly, but I haven't really touched it since. It is intuitive enough that my girlfriend figured it out in an hour, cheaper than the Tivo, and has a lot of functionality missing from the Tivo. It also has no DRM implemented.
In my opinion, Tivo was great, then they sold out. It is time to look to the newer players on the field and see what they will offer.
Hmmm, either way it is a lot more than free. Let me see, pay big money up front, or a monthly fee to be tied to a single scheduling provider, or pay nothing and go with a system that lets me use free scheduling services. Yup, it sure sounds like the parent who made a dumb choice.
FYI, commercial skip and 30 second skip ahead are not the same thing. On tries to detect commercials and auto skip them. The other skips ahead 30 seconds or whatever. Incidentally, Tivo hiding the 30 second skip as an easter egg was a major sign to me they they are more interested in what cable companies want than what end users want. Implementation of the broadcast flag and several other decisions since have convinced me to avoid their product and service.
* The subscription fee. See above. I always felt I got way more than my money's worth from TiVo; heck, were I to sell my box on eBay it'd still be worth a few hundred dollars due to the lifetime subscription.
I don't like subscriptions, but even more than that I don't like being locked into a single service provider. What if, in two years, the scheduling on the Tivo service is always wrong, or the prices raise outrageously. Having the choice to switch providers is a big plus for me. Right now I use a free, web based service with my PVR.
* A desire to export TiVo recordings to elsewhere. I never quite understood the fascination people had and have with decrypting TiVo's file system and exporting programs to elsewhere. If anything I wanted my TiVo to act as the portal through which I could view my video library.
I do use this feature a lot. I like to archive my favorite shows to DVD or VCD. Having standard file types makes it easy to edit out commercials. It also makes it possible to transfer shows to my laptop for trips (even without having to burn a DVD). Finally, I occasionally like to grab a video clip to use in a presentation or one of my own video projects. Tivo does not give me that option.
Different uses are important for different people. Maybe I'll build a MythTV box some day, if I find the time.
And what proprietary app? Haven't you figured out the https server running on each TiVo series 2 yet?
I'm with the grandparent. Elgato devices ship with software called "EyeTV" that is about as easy to use as a Tivo, but has a lot more functionality. I've used both systems and I went with the Elgato paired with an old mac when I had to choose for a number of reasons. I like to archive shows. EyeTV exports to dozens of formats, including presets for burning to DVD and to fit on iPod Videos. It also includes a simple editor, that even my girlfriend figured out in minutes, that makes it easy to edit out commercials and anything before or after the show. Adding more storage is as easy as adding drives (internal or external) to the mac and there is no DRM. I never have to worry that the provider will decide I can't keep a a show (unlike Tivos). I can just copy my files to my laptop for trips and use any player I feel like. I can edit out pieces of them to include in my own videos, or for presentations because it is all in open formats, like mpeg-4. The remote actually has the skip ahead button working by default (and skip ahead and back are configurable). Finally, With the Elgato solution I can pick my choice of scheduling providers. Instead of paying $14 a month, I just use a free, ad banner supported service and if I'm unhappy with them I can switch, because I'm not locked into on provider.
I like a number of features of the Tivo and having it all in one box is a great feature. The UI is nice, and using it is fairly easy. I don't, however, like all the proprietary lock-ins, lack of choices, and I just don't trust the company. They have made more and more choices that seem to benefit the cable providers more than the end users. That makes sense for them, as a business, since the cable companies are their biggest customers these days. It also means I can't trust them to do what is in my best interests as an individual customer. I chose an Elgato device and have not regretted it. Several of my friends who use Tivo have expressed their jealousy for the functionality they are missing.