The MX Revolution is a piece of junk. I absolutely hate it. I have my desktop wired up to my HDTV and use the MX revolution along with the diNovo Edge keyboard. The keyboard, which is bluetooth, works amazingly well. No signal loss, no lag between typing and text appearing on the screen. Even the touchpad works reasonably well, however it has some difficulties determining double clicks but it's not my main mouse so who cares?
The Revolution, on the other hand, has been nothing but headaches. Mind you, it's not bluetooth. At first I thought I was too far from the PC. Now I sit about 8 feet away at most from the receiver. The mouse constantly stops moving, the system consistently registers single clicks as double clicks, and the driver install is all screwed up on my machine. The mouse has been such a huge waste of money.
I kind of have to agree. I think that while the scale of X3 was a bit larger and the economy made huge strides, it really took a hit in terms of combat versus X2. It was so much easier to capture a ship in X2 and I really kind of miss that. I'm a horrible pilot and I found X2 much more easier to manage in terms of flight controls.
That, and the ship design just wasn't as good in X2. I missed the ships from X3, and I really got pissed that they removed the ship's cockpits. Sure, someone hacked them back in, which is a testament to the game's mod-ability, but they really did de-humanize a game that wasn't very humanized to begin with.
But in terms of economy, the game was lightyears ahead of X2 if you had the patience. I don't think that the X series was ever designed for the hardcore combat pilot anyways - it was designed for those who want to conquer the galaxy in their big-ass capital ship.
I know for a fact I wouldn't feel comfortable having an expensive gizmo like that out in the open for extended periods of time, where some tea leaf could grab it.
Haven't ridden a New York City subway lately? Like in, say, the last 5 years? Earbuds everywhere. And quite a few video iPods, iPod Touches, and iPhones with movies too.
I use Firefox and I don't use the ad plugins. I think you make a major assumption there by assuming everyone switching to Firefox will use ad-blocking plugins. I don't want to be bothered with attempting to install some plugin that has to be upgraded over time and maintained etc. etc. I don't want web browsing to be work. I just ignore the ads.
Consultants rarely understand the corporate culture that they work with. That's why they don't stick around long - they're paid to come in, do a job, and be expendeble when layoffs come around or budgets are cut. I rarely trust the opinion of consultants until they can prove to me they understand the environment they're working in.
I really think fanboi-ism has really overtaken Slashdot.
I have run Gentoo on my laptop and desktop for many years and love it - I still have it on my laptop. But I built a new watercooled desktop for two reasons - I missed my PC games and I wanted to build a watercooled computer for the hell of it. Now it's a bit high end - Q6600 processor, 8gb ram (why not?) and two 8800GT's in SLI. I installed Vista Ultimate because I wanted to run DX10 games and I wanted to see what Aero looks like. I also have a pirated copy of XP Pro, along with several legitimate copies of XP Home lying around somewhere.
Can I comment on performance issues? No I can't because everything runs smoothly on my PC - which I hope it would seeing as I spent so much on hardware. Although the comment in the grandparent makes me a bit suspicious - I wonder what video hardware the guy has.
In terms of drivers, I'm running the 64 bit version of Vista. Drivers were not too hard to find - sound came with the mobo, Nvidia supports Vista, and Logitech has 32 bit vista drivers, but the app that ships with them sucks. Known issues with Eclipse (yes, Logitech broke Eclipse) and stupid issues with the wireless mouse not working when the app runs. That's more Logitech's fault than Microsoft's IMO.
The biggest and most annoying issue that I ran into was on install - Vista64 breaks with more than 2gb RAM installed until you apply the Microsoft patch. That took me a few days to sort out, but I finally did. Since then, no problems.
Is Vista better than Linux? Eh. Most of my issues with Linux stems more from ATI then from Linux itself. The ATI drivers for Xorg and XFree86 sucked ass for many years, and only recently did they start to improve in quality (thank you AMD). I run E17 on my desktop which is still pretty sweet but now I'm thinking of switching to KDE because it looks like they have some sweet effects going into their next build.
Anywho, this huge rant really was a response to the lack of drivers quote - maybe for servers there's no drivers, but drivers and system stability was the one thing I had very little problem with. My major beef was with installation, but Joe Schmoe isn't going to install his own Vista on a Dell PC, so that won't be a problem.
I'm not really a believer that physical format is going to give way to digital downloads in the next 10 years, but by the time this format comes to market, unless it's considered next-gen to Bluray, I think Bluray will be too entrenched. Look at how little impact Bluray and HD-DVD had for the first two years or so. So assume it takes three years to develop and get a product line, then another two years to have any kind of market impact, we'll be 5 years out and then people really will start to feel that hi-def digital downloads are not that far away.
And backwards compatability to DVD - What's the point? I'll be paying $30-$40 for a disc that will work in my DVD player? So why shouldn't I just buy the movie for 10 bucks at Walmart? We already know that the first release for this thing is going to be The 5th Element, so who's going to go for that when they already have it on DVD?
that is what everyone does not need is some schedule to pressure developers to release before a product is ready...
True, not to mention that most of the developers are doing it in their own spare time, the large exception being the Linux kernel and a handful of developers in organizations such as Mozilla, IBM, RedHat, and Novell. As a user who shies from the mainstream - I use E17, Pidgin, and Audacious just to name a few apps - and uses programs that are only supported by volunteers and those who work in their spare time I just don't see a release cycle helping these kind of applications. Will Ubuntu stop supporting these if they force this kind of release cycle?
One of my favorite things to do each week (I'm a total nerd) is run 'emerge world' and I feel like with a release cycle you're going to get caught into a constant cycle of upgrading to the latest and greatest version via reinstall ala Windows and OSX. Everytime Apple or Microsoft releases a new version, particularly Microsoft, I find myself reformatting and starting over. The beauty of Linux right now is that you don't have to do that frequently.
They did that with the original iMac too when replacing the RAM. You had to take the case, monitor, and all hte plastic layers out as well. It was a real PIA if I remember right.
Apple is selling exactly the same hardware for twice as much. The only difference is software.
The only technical difference is software, however there is something else you ignore, and it's a big one. Image. Those who can afford to or care to buy >$1000 (which I think is low for a decent PC, we really should talk >$1500) care more about Image nowadays - that's how Apple has gained so much market share.
Vista has gotten bad press but I bought it just so I could play DX10 games and I only had issues installing it - once it's up and running it looks and feels great and I haven't installed Linux like I planned. In fact I'm considering skipping Linux altogether on this PC. And those who are buying >$1000 PCs are not installing Vista themselves. So, it's really an image problem.
If Dell, whose newest laptop models finally look like they're from this century, or Sony or HP or whoever can finally manufacture laptops that look decent, they'll start to catch up again I think. The Apple commercials say it all - it's all image and cool and not who has the better web browser.
I'm not really a fan of the nunchuck. I find the button layout really annoying. The wiimote is way too small for my hands too. Also, the weird paradigm where you move the hand on the screen by moving the Wiimote just felt awkward to me. I guess I'm just used to the old fashioned controller. Hell, I've been using one since the original NES came out so that's what, 20 years?
Sounds like entrapment to me, like the mafRIAA is "making avaible" the same mp3s they are accusing people of downloading
My understanding is that they search for songs, not serve them...seeing as they usually sue people for serving and not downloading. So I don't think there's any grand kind of entrapment conspiracy going on. They're just doing what normal Limewire users do only capturing the IP address instead.
Of course, the lesson here is to either not serve or use an anonymous proxy (or several) if you've decided to serve.
Due respect to those who lay their lives down to service in the military, but it's not the military alone who guarantees us the right to free speech - it's also anyone in organizations such as the ACLU or People For the American Way who protect us from people like you who use false patriotism and fear as a shield to shout down free speech.
I think you hit it on the head - I'm not huge into scary movies or scary games and yet I managed to make it through the original Doom and Doom II. Why? Because they weren't scary all the time or even 10% of the time- they were more about walking into a room and shooting scary monsters and solving puzzles. I can only recall a few moments from the two games where I was actually frightened, usually involving Pinky sneaking up behind you when you were least expecting it.
That said, Doom III was the first game I played that made really effective use of surround sound - that door closing the minute you walk through it really freaked me out more than a few times.
As for the requirements - it brought me back to the days when you had to play Quake with a window the size of a postage stamp. I played the leaked demo and it really killed my old system and I knew I had to upgrade, so I did. For those that complain they were too high, go back to your Xbox and Playstations. That's what PC gaming is about, and always has been about.
First off, iMacs weren't even close to being sold in large enough numbers to have single handedly killed the floppy, which until very recently was still a standard on most PCs sold today. Email and the internet in widespread use - which happened in the late 90s and proceeded to grow over the next 10 years - enabled the sending of files of floppy size. And when floppys became too small for moving easily from computer to computer, USB flash drives stepped in a few years after that.
CDs were good for music files and that kind of thing, but there's no way you would burn a Word document to CD for taking your work home with you or whatever. It just wasn't (and still isn't) practical.
Oh, and I'm not going to get into a PC vs Mac flamewar. Yes, Apple was very forward thinking in removing the floppy which was on its last legs anyways. It definitely started the conversation. But you can't claim it was THE killer of the floppy, which this article suggests. Especially because it never even was on the radar of the business community, where floppies and data sharing were most prevalent.
They also released OS9 for the iMac, which sucked horribly on the iMac from my experience. They really didn't win back consumers until they released OSX on some decent hardware, at which time the iPod and iTunes were already out.
And it is worth noting that the iMac can also be attributed as the killer of the floppy disk.
Actually I think email and the internet can be attributed with that. And the usb flash drive really was the death knell I believe.
revealed the product that would save Apple, and become the best selling computer of all time: the iMac.
As someone pointed out in the comments of the article, I would say that iPod/iTunes actually saved Apple, not the iMac. Also pointed out, it was not the best selling computer of all time.
Other than that, I do remember them as being quite a novelty at the time.
The point your parent is trying to make is that the reason the 52-week was at $30 was that the market crashed last fall (inside the 52 week range) and is not going to recover any time soon. Combine that with the fact that Yahoo is a diminishing quantity on the web and you really aren't going to see $30 a share for a few years. It's currently holding steady around $23 maybe. It's definitely within shareholder interest to get it back above $30 so they could sell their piece and get out - which is exactly what happens when one company is acquired by another.
MediaFlo, the company doing this or AT&T, has been doing this for Verizon since March last year
True, however this is Slashdot and AT&T is the only provider with the iPhone, so obviously AT&T are the only ones allowed to innovate in the US.
Also, I have the LG Voyager from Verizon that is Mobile TV enabled - it's not worth the money. $15 a month for TV on the go? I don't even use the VCAST service to download videos on the go. Why would I want to watch TV? Plus it has this really stupid antenna that looks like you're watching one of those 80's portable televisions or watching a transistor radio. It's kind of dumb.
I did demo it in the Verizon store though. Pretty good reception.
I use an ATI driver in Linux now and while it's better than a year ago it's still not super reliable. I don't have nearly the acceleration that I would under Windows. Two years ago I couldn't run most DirectX applications without some kind of artifacting. Under Linux, switching consoles from X to a VT always hung when you tried to switch back. That bug persisted for 3 freakin years on both my laptop and my desktop (during which there were numerous driver releases and Xorg upgrades). They finally fixed it in December or January, but I still hold my breath when I have to switch.
So this year I voted the only way I know how - I'm building a new desktop with two 8800 GTs in SLI config. Of course, tonight I'm going home to assemble the system only to find out Nvidia's drivers are just as bad as ATIs. Figures.
Engaging with you is feeding a troll, but I will anyways. Apple already does this by forcing Quicktime on you when you install iTunes - along with Quicktime taking over all media file associations on your computer, which has already been mentioned previously in this thread. Safari has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with iTunes. Quicktime is tangentially related. Having to install either is really stupid in my opinion.
I have two problems with this move by Apple. One, you have to opt-out of the Safari install, not in. And two, Apple is updating the Safari installations package even if you opt-out of Safari. I think number one is the most heinous. It's used consistently by packages like Kazaa to install spyware on an unassuming user's computer.
This is a really dirty trick by Apple, IMO. They should stop it.
Ah yes, parallel port file transfer. I had a device that did that too - The I-Jam IJ-100. The thing was, it had no internal memory whatsoever. It was soley driven by the Secure Digital card slot. The link I point to refers to 32MB of memory - that was the size of the card that shipped. The reader/writer that connected to the PC was parallel only. USB really was just catching on when it was released and unless you had a built in card reader there really wasn't any other way to use it. I remember asking and getting a 64mb card for Christmas and converting all my songs down in quality to like 64 kbps which sounded tinny but manageable. I was in high school and had no money and a shitty computer, so I really didn't have a big song collection. I think I had like a 4gb drive or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Senator Stevens re-election bid is down the tubes.
The MX Revolution is a piece of junk. I absolutely hate it. I have my desktop wired up to my HDTV and use the MX revolution along with the diNovo Edge keyboard. The keyboard, which is bluetooth, works amazingly well. No signal loss, no lag between typing and text appearing on the screen. Even the touchpad works reasonably well, however it has some difficulties determining double clicks but it's not my main mouse so who cares?
The Revolution, on the other hand, has been nothing but headaches. Mind you, it's not bluetooth. At first I thought I was too far from the PC. Now I sit about 8 feet away at most from the receiver. The mouse constantly stops moving, the system consistently registers single clicks as double clicks, and the driver install is all screwed up on my machine. The mouse has been such a huge waste of money.
Why can't someone make a decent bluetooth mouse?
Looks like this guy isn't the only one with this theory.
I kind of have to agree. I think that while the scale of X3 was a bit larger and the economy made huge strides, it really took a hit in terms of combat versus X2. It was so much easier to capture a ship in X2 and I really kind of miss that. I'm a horrible pilot and I found X2 much more easier to manage in terms of flight controls.
That, and the ship design just wasn't as good in X2. I missed the ships from X3, and I really got pissed that they removed the ship's cockpits. Sure, someone hacked them back in, which is a testament to the game's mod-ability, but they really did de-humanize a game that wasn't very humanized to begin with.
But in terms of economy, the game was lightyears ahead of X2 if you had the patience. I don't think that the X series was ever designed for the hardcore combat pilot anyways - it was designed for those who want to conquer the galaxy in their big-ass capital ship.
I know for a fact I wouldn't feel comfortable having an expensive gizmo like that out in the open for extended periods of time, where some tea leaf could grab it.
Haven't ridden a New York City subway lately? Like in, say, the last 5 years? Earbuds everywhere. And quite a few video iPods, iPod Touches, and iPhones with movies too.
I use Firefox and I don't use the ad plugins. I think you make a major assumption there by assuming everyone switching to Firefox will use ad-blocking plugins. I don't want to be bothered with attempting to install some plugin that has to be upgraded over time and maintained etc. etc. I don't want web browsing to be work. I just ignore the ads.
Consultants rarely understand the corporate culture that they work with. That's why they don't stick around long - they're paid to come in, do a job, and be expendeble when layoffs come around or budgets are cut. I rarely trust the opinion of consultants until they can prove to me they understand the environment they're working in.
I really think fanboi-ism has really overtaken Slashdot.
I have run Gentoo on my laptop and desktop for many years and love it - I still have it on my laptop. But I built a new watercooled desktop for two reasons - I missed my PC games and I wanted to build a watercooled computer for the hell of it. Now it's a bit high end - Q6600 processor, 8gb ram (why not?) and two 8800GT's in SLI. I installed Vista Ultimate because I wanted to run DX10 games and I wanted to see what Aero looks like. I also have a pirated copy of XP Pro, along with several legitimate copies of XP Home lying around somewhere.
Can I comment on performance issues? No I can't because everything runs smoothly on my PC - which I hope it would seeing as I spent so much on hardware. Although the comment in the grandparent makes me a bit suspicious - I wonder what video hardware the guy has.
In terms of drivers, I'm running the 64 bit version of Vista. Drivers were not too hard to find - sound came with the mobo, Nvidia supports Vista, and Logitech has 32 bit vista drivers, but the app that ships with them sucks. Known issues with Eclipse (yes, Logitech broke Eclipse) and stupid issues with the wireless mouse not working when the app runs. That's more Logitech's fault than Microsoft's IMO.
The biggest and most annoying issue that I ran into was on install - Vista64 breaks with more than 2gb RAM installed until you apply the Microsoft patch. That took me a few days to sort out, but I finally did. Since then, no problems.
Is Vista better than Linux? Eh. Most of my issues with Linux stems more from ATI then from Linux itself. The ATI drivers for Xorg and XFree86 sucked ass for many years, and only recently did they start to improve in quality (thank you AMD). I run E17 on my desktop which is still pretty sweet but now I'm thinking of switching to KDE because it looks like they have some sweet effects going into their next build.
Anywho, this huge rant really was a response to the lack of drivers quote - maybe for servers there's no drivers, but drivers and system stability was the one thing I had very little problem with. My major beef was with installation, but Joe Schmoe isn't going to install his own Vista on a Dell PC, so that won't be a problem.
I'm not really a believer that physical format is going to give way to digital downloads in the next 10 years, but by the time this format comes to market, unless it's considered next-gen to Bluray, I think Bluray will be too entrenched. Look at how little impact Bluray and HD-DVD had for the first two years or so. So assume it takes three years to develop and get a product line, then another two years to have any kind of market impact, we'll be 5 years out and then people really will start to feel that hi-def digital downloads are not that far away.
And backwards compatability to DVD - What's the point? I'll be paying $30-$40 for a disc that will work in my DVD player? So why shouldn't I just buy the movie for 10 bucks at Walmart? We already know that the first release for this thing is going to be The 5th Element, so who's going to go for that when they already have it on DVD?
Just seems a bit pointless to me.
that is what everyone does not need is some schedule to pressure developers to release before a product is ready...
True, not to mention that most of the developers are doing it in their own spare time, the large exception being the Linux kernel and a handful of developers in organizations such as Mozilla, IBM, RedHat, and Novell. As a user who shies from the mainstream - I use E17, Pidgin, and Audacious just to name a few apps - and uses programs that are only supported by volunteers and those who work in their spare time I just don't see a release cycle helping these kind of applications. Will Ubuntu stop supporting these if they force this kind of release cycle?
One of my favorite things to do each week (I'm a total nerd) is run 'emerge world' and I feel like with a release cycle you're going to get caught into a constant cycle of upgrading to the latest and greatest version via reinstall ala Windows and OSX. Everytime Apple or Microsoft releases a new version, particularly Microsoft, I find myself reformatting and starting over. The beauty of Linux right now is that you don't have to do that frequently.
They did that with the original iMac too when replacing the RAM. You had to take the case, monitor, and all hte plastic layers out as well. It was a real PIA if I remember right.
Apple is selling exactly the same hardware for twice as much. The only difference is software.
The only technical difference is software, however there is something else you ignore, and it's a big one. Image. Those who can afford to or care to buy >$1000 (which I think is low for a decent PC, we really should talk >$1500) care more about Image nowadays - that's how Apple has gained so much market share.
Vista has gotten bad press but I bought it just so I could play DX10 games and I only had issues installing it - once it's up and running it looks and feels great and I haven't installed Linux like I planned. In fact I'm considering skipping Linux altogether on this PC. And those who are buying >$1000 PCs are not installing Vista themselves. So, it's really an image problem.
If Dell, whose newest laptop models finally look like they're from this century, or Sony or HP or whoever can finally manufacture laptops that look decent, they'll start to catch up again I think. The Apple commercials say it all - it's all image and cool and not who has the better web browser.
Ubuntu, Apple, and Barack Obama.
Honorable Mention: Ron Paul
Special Slashdot Addition: Nintendo
I'm not really a fan of the nunchuck. I find the button layout really annoying. The wiimote is way too small for my hands too. Also, the weird paradigm where you move the hand on the screen by moving the Wiimote just felt awkward to me. I guess I'm just used to the old fashioned controller. Hell, I've been using one since the original NES came out so that's what, 20 years?
Sounds like entrapment to me, like the mafRIAA is "making avaible" the same mp3s they are accusing people of downloading
My understanding is that they search for songs, not serve them...seeing as they usually sue people for serving and not downloading. So I don't think there's any grand kind of entrapment conspiracy going on. They're just doing what normal Limewire users do only capturing the IP address instead.
Of course, the lesson here is to either not serve or use an anonymous proxy (or several) if you've decided to serve.
Due respect to those who lay their lives down to service in the military, but it's not the military alone who guarantees us the right to free speech - it's also anyone in organizations such as the ACLU or People For the American Way who protect us from people like you who use false patriotism and fear as a shield to shout down free speech.
I think you hit it on the head - I'm not huge into scary movies or scary games and yet I managed to make it through the original Doom and Doom II. Why? Because they weren't scary all the time or even 10% of the time- they were more about walking into a room and shooting scary monsters and solving puzzles. I can only recall a few moments from the two games where I was actually frightened, usually involving Pinky sneaking up behind you when you were least expecting it.
That said, Doom III was the first game I played that made really effective use of surround sound - that door closing the minute you walk through it really freaked me out more than a few times.
As for the requirements - it brought me back to the days when you had to play Quake with a window the size of a postage stamp. I played the leaked demo and it really killed my old system and I knew I had to upgrade, so I did. For those that complain they were too high, go back to your Xbox and Playstations. That's what PC gaming is about, and always has been about.
First off, iMacs weren't even close to being sold in large enough numbers to have single handedly killed the floppy, which until very recently was still a standard on most PCs sold today. Email and the internet in widespread use - which happened in the late 90s and proceeded to grow over the next 10 years - enabled the sending of files of floppy size. And when floppys became too small for moving easily from computer to computer, USB flash drives stepped in a few years after that.
CDs were good for music files and that kind of thing, but there's no way you would burn a Word document to CD for taking your work home with you or whatever. It just wasn't (and still isn't) practical.
Oh, and I'm not going to get into a PC vs Mac flamewar. Yes, Apple was very forward thinking in removing the floppy which was on its last legs anyways. It definitely started the conversation. But you can't claim it was THE killer of the floppy, which this article suggests. Especially because it never even was on the radar of the business community, where floppies and data sharing were most prevalent.
They also released OS9 for the iMac, which sucked horribly on the iMac from my experience. They really didn't win back consumers until they released OSX on some decent hardware, at which time the iPod and iTunes were already out.
I take issue with a few points in the article...
And it is worth noting that the iMac can also be attributed as the killer of the floppy disk.
Actually I think email and the internet can be attributed with that. And the usb flash drive really was the death knell I believe.
revealed the product that would save Apple, and become the best selling computer of all time: the iMac.
As someone pointed out in the comments of the article, I would say that iPod/iTunes actually saved Apple, not the iMac. Also pointed out, it was not the best selling computer of all time.
Other than that, I do remember them as being quite a novelty at the time.
The point your parent is trying to make is that the reason the 52-week was at $30 was that the market crashed last fall (inside the 52 week range) and is not going to recover any time soon. Combine that with the fact that Yahoo is a diminishing quantity on the web and you really aren't going to see $30 a share for a few years. It's currently holding steady around $23 maybe. It's definitely within shareholder interest to get it back above $30 so they could sell their piece and get out - which is exactly what happens when one company is acquired by another.
MediaFlo, the company doing this or AT&T, has been doing this for Verizon since March last year
True, however this is Slashdot and AT&T is the only provider with the iPhone, so obviously AT&T are the only ones allowed to innovate in the US.
Also, I have the LG Voyager from Verizon that is Mobile TV enabled - it's not worth the money. $15 a month for TV on the go? I don't even use the VCAST service to download videos on the go. Why would I want to watch TV? Plus it has this really stupid antenna that looks like you're watching one of those 80's portable televisions or watching a transistor radio. It's kind of dumb.
I did demo it in the Verizon store though. Pretty good reception.
I use an ATI driver in Linux now and while it's better than a year ago it's still not super reliable. I don't have nearly the acceleration that I would under Windows. Two years ago I couldn't run most DirectX applications without some kind of artifacting. Under Linux, switching consoles from X to a VT always hung when you tried to switch back. That bug persisted for 3 freakin years on both my laptop and my desktop (during which there were numerous driver releases and Xorg upgrades). They finally fixed it in December or January, but I still hold my breath when I have to switch.
So this year I voted the only way I know how - I'm building a new desktop with two 8800 GTs in SLI config. Of course, tonight I'm going home to assemble the system only to find out Nvidia's drivers are just as bad as ATIs. Figures.
Engaging with you is feeding a troll, but I will anyways. Apple already does this by forcing Quicktime on you when you install iTunes - along with Quicktime taking over all media file associations on your computer, which has already been mentioned previously in this thread. Safari has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with iTunes. Quicktime is tangentially related. Having to install either is really stupid in my opinion.
I have two problems with this move by Apple. One, you have to opt-out of the Safari install, not in. And two, Apple is updating the Safari installations package even if you opt-out of Safari. I think number one is the most heinous. It's used consistently by packages like Kazaa to install spyware on an unassuming user's computer.
This is a really dirty trick by Apple, IMO. They should stop it.
Ah yes, parallel port file transfer. I had a device that did that too - The I-Jam IJ-100. The thing was, it had no internal memory whatsoever. It was soley driven by the Secure Digital card slot. The link I point to refers to 32MB of memory - that was the size of the card that shipped. The reader/writer that connected to the PC was parallel only. USB really was just catching on when it was released and unless you had a built in card reader there really wasn't any other way to use it. I remember asking and getting a 64mb card for Christmas and converting all my songs down in quality to like 64 kbps which sounded tinny but manageable. I was in high school and had no money and a shitty computer, so I really didn't have a big song collection. I think I had like a 4gb drive or something.