1. Break down and install it after hearing so many people go on about how great it is.
2. "Damn... there's a lot of options and settings to tweak here. Sweet!"
3. Start playing a song with it. "Holy Christ, that volume is up far too loud. I'd be willing to bet they can hear this down the street."
4. Five minutes later, no volume option has been found, and the program has been uninstalled.
I can completely understand the idea of making extra goodies seperate from the core program (as Firefox does)... but, in my opinion, a volume control is one of those things that should really be included in the default install.
Disclaimer: As mentioned, I only played with it for five minutes. Maybe a volume control is buried somewhere in one of the many config screens and I overlooked it. I also used an older version (whatever was current two months ago), so things may have changed.
Since I wasn't able to find a FireFox search-dropdown-box-thing plugin, I made one myself.
Download here (this file also includes two plugins for the sites I run... cheap exposure, but ignore if you like)
Instructions for use:
Search for anything using the normal desktop search. The URL for the results will be something along the lines of search?s=lsjkdlk2392j3lk2&q=YourQueryHere
Open googledesktop.src in your text editor of choice. Line 9, replace "XXX" with the random letter/number string from the above URL.
Move googledesktop.src and googledesktop.png to your c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins\ folder (no clue as to the path on other OS's... someone is sure to fill those in, no doubt). The plugins I made for my own sites are ready to go, no editing needed... but again, you can skip those if you like.
I'd be inclined to agree as well. Stats come from my own site, linked up above below my name. Note that my audience is far from being a tech-savvy crowd for the most part.
Browser / Total Uniques / Browser Percentage
Dec. 2004
MS Internet Explorer 5804579 80.7%
Firefox 682022 9.4%
Unknown 314979 4.3%
Opera 102336 1.4%
Netscape 101781 1.4%
Mozilla 100551 1.3%
Safari 74319 1%
Konqueror 4194 0%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1792 0%
Phoenix 1419 0%
Others 3177 0%
Jan. 2005
MS Internet Explorer 5461478 79.8%
Firefox 716106 10.4%
Unknown 269946 3.9%
Opera 108339 1.5%
Mozilla 101918 1.4%
Netscape 94016 1.3%
Safari 73714 1%
Konqueror 6146 0%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1769 0%
Lynx 1052 0%
Others 3040 0%
Feb. 2005
MS Internet Explorer 3527555 76.7%
Firefox 571325 12.4%
Unknown 231353 5%
Netscape 77205 1.6%
Opera 68264 1.4%
Mozilla 66347 1.4%
Safari 43025 0.9%
Konqueror 9937 0.2%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1357 0%
Camino 637 0%
Others 1941 0%
Oddly enough, my own movie review site doesn't seem to be linked up there (even when searching for far-from-mainstream junk), though I get ample hits from the normal google search. Go figure on that one.
I also believe that it might fuel DVD sales. I believe this because if it only costs say $1 per show then people might be a bit more adventerous and buy shows which they wouldn't just go buy the dvd of. And if they like these shows, they would like to get all the extra stuff that the dvd gives, and hence go out and buy the dvd.
Exactly. I've got basic cable (ie, no HBO)... as a result, I've missed out on some (supposedly) great shows. As an exmample, I've been meaning to check out The Soprano's, as everyone I've heard talking about it goes on about how it's one of the greatest shows ever, blah blah blah. For a buck a pop, I'd download a few episodes and then determine whether or not that $80 DVD set was worth purchasing.
<insert a similar stance on a number of other shows / DVD sets>
Indeed, Freeway wouldn't be such a good plan now, considering you can get a plan like you mentioned or a decades worth of phone card time for $10 at your local convenience store. However, back when Freeway started up (it went national in late '98 / early '99), it was quite the good deal for a poor high school kid such as myself.
There used to be one that used advertisements to support the service of free long distance... Freeway, I believe the name was (but don't quote me on that). I used it quite often as an alternative to buying numerous phone cards every week, and never had a problem with it.
Basically, it worked out like this: Dial a 1-800 number, put in your personal pin number, listen to a fifteen-second ad. You just earned two minutes. Push # to hear another ad (for another two minutes), or * to make your call. There was no limit to the amount of ads you could listen to, so you could (and I did) just keep pushing the button to rack up an hours worth of time before making the call. There were no ads played during the call, no interruptions, nada.
Of course, it really sucked when you built up a fair amount of time, only to dial a wrong number or find out that the person you're calling wasn't home.
Philips DVP642 (I get a buck or two if you purchase from the link. Click if you like, or Google for it.)
With shipping, I paid $60 for that new through amazon. It runs about $75 at Wal*Mart / Best Buy / Target / etc.
It plays just about any format you could imagine. Burn MPEG / AVI / DiVX / XVID files to a CD (as data, no VCD crap) and this player will play them. Put a ton of MP3's (no OGG support, sadly) on a CD (again, as data, not an audio CD), and this player will play them. Same thing with JPG images. Best of all, it plays all regions and has no problems with PAL DVD's.
There's similar players out there, but for the price, this one ranks up there near the top. Not to mention that it's easily attainable at just about any place with an electronics section.
What's some of the better (free) MUD's floating around these days? I used to play one back in the olden days, but of course, all the games I used to play are long gone (as are the link-up sites).
I have a copy of the demo*, if that's what you're looking for. It was released on some computer gaming magazine's monthly demo disc, so I'm not totally certain if it's a special demo for the disc, or if it's the same shareware that that program requires.
I'm in the exact same boat as you... if I were to step out my front door, walk to the end of the street (two minute walk, tops) and look down the next street, I'd see the cutoff line for where most of the broadband service stops.
As I was digging through some links to throw up on here, I noticed that Comcast is now available... seems to be a bit overpriced at $57.95 per month (plus setup fees, plus hardware, plus a one year contract), but at least it's something. However, all of the other services (even AOL) are still unavailable.
It's your service, so you can obviously do what you like with it. I was merely pointing out how bad of a decision it was to offer this, but you're well within your rights to do so.
On a side note, it would only cost me $10 per month to get one of those unlimited space accounts? And just to be certain that I'm clear here, as long as I don't exceed the 200 meg per month bandwidth limit on that plan, I'll have unlimited space to do with as I please for as long as I continue paying the $10 per month? Do you offer an X day money back guarantee if I feel that the service doesn't live up to the claims? If so, I think I may take you up on this offer.
Sending a ninety gig file through email was an extreme example, and I pointed that out in the same post. However, it was used to point out the flaw in the unlimited statement. What if said person wanted to receive a five meg video? I'd hope you'd have no problems with that, but what if they wanted to keep it on the server permanently? Later, they received another five meg file... and another, and another, and so on. I personally know a lot of non-techies who switched to gmail just so they could do this (though again, gmail clearly points out when you need to clean up your archives a bit).
FTP & IMAP are far beyond the average users, I'd agree with you there. However, transferring a huge video from a camcorder onto the computer and into an email became commonplace quite some time ago, and the hording of files on the server came into play around the same time that Hotmail and Yahoo raised their limits above a meg or two.
My whole point was that the "unlimited space" deal shouldn't be offered unless you're fully prepared to back it up. Offer a gig, ten gigs, or even a hundred gigs... offer unlimited, and you're going to have some people ending up less than enthused about your misleading claims. Will every user who signs up expect completely unlimited space and attempt to use it? Of course not... but it only takes one or two people who take your claim at face value to put you in a sticky situation.
I would be very surprised if gmail allowed you to receive a single 1GB file. The time it would take to spam/virus scan that file (I assume they do that) would be too resource intensive.
Unless it's changed recently, their limit is ten megs per email. With that in mind, I could tell Joe User to split the zip into X pieces, download each piece individually, and then have the complete file when all is said and done. Since gmail spells out exactly what their limits are, there's no potential for files being returned to sender or killing my inbox (or their hard drive).
There would be a problem as I don't have that much disk space, but that's easily alleviated. Unfortunately you would have to wait until I installed a new drive for you. (...) I guess my mistake is that I assume reasonable use
How can you guess what the average user is going to consider reasonable use? Grandma Jane may want to exchange videos of her grandkids with Grandma Jill like in them thar new-fangled AOL commercials. Jane checks out a few sites, and sees that the limits would seriously burden or prevent her intended use... but then, she stumbles across your site and sees "unlimited space". After the inevitable problems arise, would you be able to tell her that she's at fault due to her unreasonable assumptions about the service she would be getting after seeing "unlimited space" and sending you the cash to receive this?
It turns me off to the service due to the deceptive offer.
Example:
Me: "Hey Joe User, can you send me that file you mentioned earlier?"
Joe: "Sure, want me to send my_320kbs_cd_collection_and_divx_dvd_collection.zi p through AIM?"
Me: "Nah, just email it to me... bobuser@vfemail.net. I don't have room on my hard drive just yet, so I'll leave it on the server for a few weeks until I get that new drive I've been eyeing."
Would you have a problem with a ninety gig file (or ninety gigs worth of split files if you have a per-email size limit) coming in to my email account if I was a member? You shouldn't, because after all, you did offer unlimited space.
Of course, this is an extreme example. My point is, how do I (the customer) know what the true limit on this account is? I'd reckon that you'd get upset over this ninety gig file, but what about that ten meg my_cat_meows.mpg file? How about that seventy meg babys_first_steps.mpg file?
I would much rather see a solid number (one gig at gmail per your example) and know exactly what my limits are than merely guess with an "unlimited" claim. Unless you have some sort of magical unlimited-space hard drive / set of drives, there is a limit, no matter how high it may be.
Claiming to offer "unlimited space" (or unlimited bandwidth, or any of the other impossible offers) has always turned me off to trying out a new service.
I doubt this would make or break your success story, but maybe you should consider offering a more realistic deal.
I realize this sounds like a n00b question, but would that also apply to CD drives? I've yet to play with a DVD-R, and obviously, I don't pop my data CD's in my set-top DVD player... therefore, my knowledge regarding the differences (besides the obvious) between CD-R and DVD-R is pretty non-existent.
Of course, my lack of problems could be because I don't put those CD's through a lot of stress... they get by with just a insert / copy a few files over to the hd / eject whenever something is needed.
Slashdot Mirror
My personal experience with Foobar:
1. Break down and install it after hearing so many people go on about how great it is.
2. "Damn... there's a lot of options and settings to tweak here. Sweet!"
3. Start playing a song with it. "Holy Christ, that volume is up far too loud. I'd be willing to bet they can hear this down the street."
4. Five minutes later, no volume option has been found, and the program has been uninstalled.
I can completely understand the idea of making extra goodies seperate from the core program (as Firefox does)... but, in my opinion, a volume control is one of those things that should really be included in the default install.
Disclaimer: As mentioned, I only played with it for five minutes. Maybe a volume control is buried somewhere in one of the many config screens and I overlooked it. I also used an older version (whatever was current two months ago), so things may have changed.
Only on /. can a post detailing something as simple as making a purchase at a store be modded up to +3 informative.
C'mon people, hit up a store sometime. Newegg is great and all, but sheesh.
</joke, for the benefit of the mods>
Since I wasn't able to find a FireFox search-dropdown-box-thing plugin, I made one myself.
Download here (this file also includes two plugins for the sites I run... cheap exposure, but ignore if you like)
Instructions for use:
Search for anything using the normal desktop search. The URL for the results will be something along the lines of search?s=lsjkdlk2392j3lk2&q=YourQueryHere
Open googledesktop.src in your text editor of choice. Line 9, replace "XXX" with the random letter/number string from the above URL.
Move googledesktop.src and googledesktop.png to your c:\program files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins\ folder (no clue as to the path on other OS's... someone is sure to fill those in, no doubt). The plugins I made for my own sites are ready to go, no editing needed... but again, you can skip those if you like.
Restart FF.
0F = It's freezing cold outside. Good think you're sitting on your computer with the heater cranked up.
/..
50F = It's quite nice outside (though you may want to wear a light jacket), but you don't know such since you're sitting on the computer reading
100F = You could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Thankfully, you're inside on the computer with the A/C cranked up.
There, we now have a foolproof conversion chart.
Although slow, that mirror from up above does work.
I'd be inclined to agree as well. Stats come from my own site, linked up above below my name. Note that my audience is far from being a tech-savvy crowd for the most part.
Browser / Total Uniques / Browser Percentage
Dec. 2004
MS Internet Explorer 5804579 80.7%
Firefox 682022 9.4%
Unknown 314979 4.3%
Opera 102336 1.4%
Netscape 101781 1.4%
Mozilla 100551 1.3%
Safari 74319 1%
Konqueror 4194 0%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1792 0%
Phoenix 1419 0%
Others 3177 0%
Jan. 2005
MS Internet Explorer 5461478 79.8%
Firefox 716106 10.4%
Unknown 269946 3.9%
Opera 108339 1.5%
Mozilla 101918 1.4%
Netscape 94016 1.3%
Safari 73714 1%
Konqueror 6146 0%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1769 0%
Lynx 1052 0%
Others 3040 0%
Feb. 2005
MS Internet Explorer 3527555 76.7%
Firefox 571325 12.4%
Unknown 231353 5%
Netscape 77205 1.6%
Opera 68264 1.4%
Mozilla 66347 1.4%
Safari 43025 0.9%
Konqueror 9937 0.2%
Firebird (Old Firefox) 1357 0%
Camino 637 0%
Others 1941 0%
Oddly enough, my own movie review site doesn't seem to be linked up there (even when searching for far-from-mainstream junk), though I get ample hits from the normal google search. Go figure on that one.
I also believe that it might fuel DVD sales. I believe this because if it only costs say $1 per show then people might be a bit more adventerous and buy shows which they wouldn't just go buy the dvd of. And if they like these shows, they would like to get all the extra stuff that the dvd gives, and hence go out and buy the dvd.
Exactly. I've got basic cable (ie, no HBO)... as a result, I've missed out on some (supposedly) great shows. As an exmample, I've been meaning to check out The Soprano's, as everyone I've heard talking about it goes on about how it's one of the greatest shows ever, blah blah blah. For a buck a pop, I'd download a few episodes and then determine whether or not that $80 DVD set was worth purchasing.
<insert a similar stance on a number of other shows / DVD sets>
Indeed, Freeway wouldn't be such a good plan now, considering you can get a plan like you mentioned or a decades worth of phone card time for $10 at your local convenience store. However, back when Freeway started up (it went national in late '98 / early '99), it was quite the good deal for a poor high school kid such as myself.
There used to be one that used advertisements to support the service of free long distance... Freeway, I believe the name was (but don't quote me on that). I used it quite often as an alternative to buying numerous phone cards every week, and never had a problem with it.
Basically, it worked out like this: Dial a 1-800 number, put in your personal pin number, listen to a fifteen-second ad. You just earned two minutes. Push # to hear another ad (for another two minutes), or * to make your call. There was no limit to the amount of ads you could listen to, so you could (and I did) just keep pushing the button to rack up an hours worth of time before making the call. There were no ads played during the call, no interruptions, nada.
Of course, it really sucked when you built up a fair amount of time, only to dial a wrong number or find out that the person you're calling wasn't home.
Philips DVP642 (I get a buck or two if you purchase from the link. Click if you like, or Google for it.)
With shipping, I paid $60 for that new through amazon. It runs about $75 at Wal*Mart / Best Buy / Target / etc.
It plays just about any format you could imagine. Burn MPEG / AVI / DiVX / XVID files to a CD (as data, no VCD crap) and this player will play them. Put a ton of MP3's (no OGG support, sadly) on a CD (again, as data, not an audio CD), and this player will play them. Same thing with JPG images. Best of all, it plays all regions and has no problems with PAL DVD's.
There's similar players out there, but for the price, this one ranks up there near the top. Not to mention that it's easily attainable at just about any place with an electronics section.
What's some of the better (free) MUD's floating around these days? I used to play one back in the olden days, but of course, all the games I used to play are long gone (as are the link-up sites).
I have a copy of the demo*, if that's what you're looking for. It was released on some computer gaming magazine's monthly demo disc, so I'm not totally certain if it's a special demo for the disc, or if it's the same shareware that that program requires.
±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±
DESCENT 2
INTERACTIVE DEMO v1.0
Earthshaking 3-level
playable demo brought to
you by Parallax Software
& Interplay Productions!
±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±±
If you want to give it a shot and have some way of receiving a 4.13 meg file, let me know.
I'll bite.
<a href="http://www.yourlinkhere.com">Your text here</a>
I have the shirt. Church of Euthanasia does indeed kick some booty.
I'm in the exact same boat as you... if I were to step out my front door, walk to the end of the street (two minute walk, tops) and look down the next street, I'd see the cutoff line for where most of the broadband service stops.
As I was digging through some links to throw up on here, I noticed that Comcast is now available... seems to be a bit overpriced at $57.95 per month (plus setup fees, plus hardware, plus a one year contract), but at least it's something. However, all of the other services (even AOL) are still unavailable.
It's your service, so you can obviously do what you like with it. I was merely pointing out how bad of a decision it was to offer this, but you're well within your rights to do so.
On a side note, it would only cost me $10 per month to get one of those unlimited space accounts? And just to be certain that I'm clear here, as long as I don't exceed the 200 meg per month bandwidth limit on that plan, I'll have unlimited space to do with as I please for as long as I continue paying the $10 per month? Do you offer an X day money back guarantee if I feel that the service doesn't live up to the claims? If so, I think I may take you up on this offer.
Sending a ninety gig file through email was an extreme example, and I pointed that out in the same post. However, it was used to point out the flaw in the unlimited statement. What if said person wanted to receive a five meg video? I'd hope you'd have no problems with that, but what if they wanted to keep it on the server permanently? Later, they received another five meg file... and another, and another, and so on. I personally know a lot of non-techies who switched to gmail just so they could do this (though again, gmail clearly points out when you need to clean up your archives a bit).
FTP & IMAP are far beyond the average users, I'd agree with you there. However, transferring a huge video from a camcorder onto the computer and into an email became commonplace quite some time ago, and the hording of files on the server came into play around the same time that Hotmail and Yahoo raised their limits above a meg or two.
My whole point was that the "unlimited space" deal shouldn't be offered unless you're fully prepared to back it up. Offer a gig, ten gigs, or even a hundred gigs... offer unlimited, and you're going to have some people ending up less than enthused about your misleading claims. Will every user who signs up expect completely unlimited space and attempt to use it? Of course not... but it only takes one or two people who take your claim at face value to put you in a sticky situation.
I would be very surprised if gmail allowed you to receive a single 1GB file. The time it would take to spam/virus scan that file (I assume they do that) would be too resource intensive.
Unless it's changed recently, their limit is ten megs per email. With that in mind, I could tell Joe User to split the zip into X pieces, download each piece individually, and then have the complete file when all is said and done. Since gmail spells out exactly what their limits are, there's no potential for files being returned to sender or killing my inbox (or their hard drive).
There would be a problem as I don't have that much disk space, but that's easily alleviated. Unfortunately you would have to wait until I installed a new drive for you. (...) I guess my mistake is that I assume reasonable use
How can you guess what the average user is going to consider reasonable use? Grandma Jane may want to exchange videos of her grandkids with Grandma Jill like in them thar new-fangled AOL commercials. Jane checks out a few sites, and sees that the limits would seriously burden or prevent her intended use... but then, she stumbles across your site and sees "unlimited space". After the inevitable problems arise, would you be able to tell her that she's at fault due to her unreasonable assumptions about the service she would be getting after seeing "unlimited space" and sending you the cash to receive this?
It turns me off to the service due to the deceptive offer.
i p through AIM?"
Example:
Me: "Hey Joe User, can you send me that file you mentioned earlier?"
Joe: "Sure, want me to send my_320kbs_cd_collection_and_divx_dvd_collection.z
Me: "Nah, just email it to me... bobuser@vfemail.net. I don't have room on my hard drive just yet, so I'll leave it on the server for a few weeks until I get that new drive I've been eyeing."
Would you have a problem with a ninety gig file (or ninety gigs worth of split files if you have a per-email size limit) coming in to my email account if I was a member? You shouldn't, because after all, you did offer unlimited space.
Of course, this is an extreme example. My point is, how do I (the customer) know what the true limit on this account is? I'd reckon that you'd get upset over this ninety gig file, but what about that ten meg my_cat_meows.mpg file? How about that seventy meg babys_first_steps.mpg file?
I would much rather see a solid number (one gig at gmail per your example) and know exactly what my limits are than merely guess with an "unlimited" claim. Unless you have some sort of magical unlimited-space hard drive / set of drives, there is a limit, no matter how high it may be.
Claiming to offer "unlimited space" (or unlimited bandwidth, or any of the other impossible offers) has always turned me off to trying out a new service.
I doubt this would make or break your success story, but maybe you should consider offering a more realistic deal.
I realize this sounds like a n00b question, but would that also apply to CD drives? I've yet to play with a DVD-R, and obviously, I don't pop my data CD's in my set-top DVD player... therefore, my knowledge regarding the differences (besides the obvious) between CD-R and DVD-R is pretty non-existent.
Of course, my lack of problems could be because I don't put those CD's through a lot of stress... they get by with just a insert / copy a few files over to the hd / eject whenever something is needed.
Why is that? I've been doing it for ages (still have CD's burnt + labeled from '99) without a problem.
Note that I'm not debating your point, I'd genuinely never heard this before.
How cool wouldn't it be to be able to burn the label on your cd using the same laser you used to burn the cd in the first place?
That summary was spot on, wow.
Out of all my time on /., that comment ranks up as #1 on my laughter chart.
-8723 OT
Oh wait, I pointed out that I'll get modded down... now I'll wind up +5 Informative.